On a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, Donald Trump insisted to his then chief of staff, John Kelly: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.”
Related: Nightmare Scenario review: Trump, Covid and a lasting national trauma
Continue reading...Party doxxes satirical editor, suggesting followers demand he ‘takes responsibility when he leaves his office’
Reporters without Borders (RSF) has criticised the far-right Spanish party Vox for suggesting that the head of an editorial group that publishes a satirical magazine that frequently lampoons the party be held to account for its content on the street outside his office.
On Tuesday, Vox’s official Twitter account published the person’s name and photograph, and accused the magazine, El Jueves, of “spreading hate against millions of Spaniards on a daily basis”.
Continue reading...Political rivals and human rights campaigners criticise use of inflammatory campaign material by Vox party
Human rights groups and politicians in Spain have spoken out after a court ruled that a controversial and false election poster for the far-right Vox party should not be withdrawn because it is legitimate political expression, and because the unaccompanied foreign minors it depicts in a relentlessly negative light are “an obvious social and political problem”.
The poster, which Vox used as part of its campaign in May’s bitterly contested Madrid regional election, was put up in a busy rail station in the capital and shows a hooded and masked dark-skinned youth alongside a white Spanish grandmother. It incorrectly suggests that refugee and migrant children in state care receive 10 times more in benefits each month than the average Spanish grandmother does in pension payments.
Continue reading...Christos Pappas was last of far-right group’s cadres to evade justice after dozens of operatives jailed last year
The far-right extremist long regarded as Golden Dawn’s chief ideologue has been placed behind bars after nine months on the run, starting a 13-year prison sentence handed down by a Greek court in October.
Flushed out of his lair – a flat where he had been hiding in Athens – Christos Pappas, the now-defunct group’s deputy leader, was driven in a whirl of sirens on Friday from police headquarters to the courts and then on to jail in central Greece.
Continue reading...Analysis: record low turnout makes it difficult to draw clear lessons but both Macron and Le Pen did badly
France’s regional elections produced a humiliating defeat for Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN), stinging failure for Emmanuel Macron and thumping wins for incumbents from the country’s traditional centre-right and centre-left parties.
A record low turnout of less than 35% makes it hard, however, to draw clear lessons for next year’s presidential elections, in which Macron and Le Pen remain clear frontrunners – although the race has certainly got a lot more interesting.
Continue reading...Initial evidence indicates body found in woods is that of Jurgen Conings
Belgian police have said a body has been found in the search for a fugitive far-right soldier who was the target of a huge manhunt.
Hundreds of security forces scoured a swath of north-east Belgium after the disappearance on 17 May of Jurgen Conings, who was on an anti-terrorism watchlist, had threatened a senior virologist involved in the country’s Covid-19 programme and had hoarded heavy weaponry.
Continue reading...Sunday’s poll could help far right step further towards political mainstream ahead of 2022 presidential elections
France is voting in the first round of regional elections that could see Marine Le Pen‘s far-right party make gains and step further into the political mainstream.
In Sunday’s election, new assemblies will be elected for mainland France’s 13 regions and 96 departments, with Le Pen‘s National Rally (RN) tipped to win at least one region for the first time in what would be a major coup.
Continue reading...Far-right conspiracies ran unchecked online in the Trump years. It’s all gone quiet since the Capitol riot, but author Mike Rothschild believes there’s a radicalised audience waiting for a new rallying point
On 7 January this year, a day after the mob stormed the Capitol in Washington DC, a curious exchange occurred in the netherworld of global conspiracy. Alex Jones, the rasp-voiced mouthpiece of fake news for the past decade, was in conversation with the most visible leader of the previous day’s shocking events: Jacob Chansley, the self-styled “Q Shaman” who featured on the world’s front pages, in buffalo horns, animal skins and face paint.
Jones, on his fake-news platform Infowars, with its million-plus viewers and sharers, had for years been the loudhailer of unhinged stories that included the belief that Hillary Clinton was the antichrist, that Michelle Obama was a man, that the Pentagon and George Soros had detonated a “homosexual bomb” that turned even frogs gay, that 9/11 had been a “false flag” operation and, most viciously, that the Sandy Hook school murders, in which 20 children and six teachers died, were staged by “crisis actors” to promote gun control. Jones had inevitably been among those who addressed the restive crowd at Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” march (having donated $50,000 for the staging of the rally) and calling for supporters to “get on a war footing” to defend the president. Two days later, however, when faced with the rhetoric of Chansley, whom he had invited on to his show to explain the insurrection, it seemed even he, America’s conspirator in chief, finally couldn’t take the lies any more.
Continue reading...Gil Arias Fernández says EU border agency, which is under investigation for illegal migrant pushbacks, cannot stop far-right infiltrating its ranks
The former deputy head of Europe’s border and coastguard agency has said the state of the beleaguered force “pains” him and that it is vulnerable to the “alarming” rise of populism across the continent.
In his first interview since leaving office, Gil Arias Fernández, former deputy director at Frontex and once tipped for the top post, said he was deeply worried about the agency’s damaged reputation, its decision to arm officers, and its inability to stop the far-right infiltrating its ranks, amid anti-migrant movements across Europe.
Continue reading...Medieval martial arts enthusiast and ultra-rightwinger Damien Tarel claims act was not premeditated
A medieval martial arts enthusiast who slapped the French president, Emmanuel Macron, across the face will appear before a judge in a fast-track trial on Thursday.
Damien Tarel had acknowledged striking Macron while the president was on a visit to a professional training college, but told investigators it was not premeditated, the prosecutor Alex Perrin said in a statement.
Continue reading...Plans blocked after a similar parade stoked tensions that contributed to last Gaza conflict
Israeli police have blocked a planned march by Jewish nationalists through Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem after a similar parade last month played a key role in building the tensions that led to the latest Gaza conflict.
In a statement, police said a permit for a different time or route might be considered.
Continue reading...Conservative win in Saxony-Anhalt seen as last big test ahead of national election in September
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) fought off a challenge from the far right in a state election on Sunday seen as the last big test for Germany’s political parties before a national vote in September that will end the chancellor’s 16 years atop German politics.
In exit polls the CDU, whose current leader, Armin Laschet, will vie for the top job in September, improved on its 2017 performance to gain 36% of the vote in the eastern state – a result the state premier, Reiner Haseloff, said symbolised “a clear demarcation against the far right”.
Continue reading...Israel’s longest-serving leader begins fight to remain in power as opposition parties rush to establish government
Benjamin Netanyahu has fought back against what he slammed as a “dangerous” coalition of opposition parties that were rushing to establish a government aimed at unseating the country’s longest-serving leader.
A day after the opposition head, Yair Lapid, announced that he and Naftali Bennett – his far-right partner and prime minister in waiting – could form a “government of change”, the race was on to get it voted on in parliament and sworn in.
Continue reading...Analysis: There have been multiple investigations under the Prevent counter-terrorism programme
The attractiveness of the armed forces for the far right is as old as British fascism’s earliest incarnations.
During the extreme right’s periodic postwar resurgences, groups such as Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement and later the National Front also coveted recruits from the military’s ranks.
Continue reading...Undercover agent who identified 1999 attacker says police are failing to keep pace with online spread of extreme ideology
An undercover informant who identified the man behind Britain’s deadliest far-right attack has warned that a similar atrocity is inevitable due to the spread of extreme ideology online.
The mole, codenamed “Arthur”, told his handler, who then informed the police, that David Copeland was behind a series of attacks that killed three and injured more than 100 over a bombing campaign lasting less than two weeks in 1999.
Continue reading...Luna Reyes targeted by far-right supporters after footage of gesture goes viral
The image captured the raw humanity of the moment: a Red Cross volunteer tenderly consoling a Senegalese man moments after he stepped foot in Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta.
Hours after the footage went viral, however, Luna Reyes set her social media accounts to private after she was targeted by a torrent of abuse from supporters of Spain’s far-right Vox party and others incensed by the unprecedented arrival of 8,000 migrants in Ceuta.
Continue reading...Analysis: Merrick Garland has made a clean break with Bill Barr, making domestic terrorism his ‘top priority’ winning won praise for his moves on civil and voting rights
The new attorney general, Merrick Garland, has signaled an ambitious agenda to fight domestic terrorism in America including white supremacists and hate crimes, while bolstering civil rights and voting rights, critical areas that got short shrift from the Trump administration, say ex-federal prosecutors and members of Congress.
The shift at the Department of Justice represents one of the most stark turnarounds under Joe Biden from the Trump era. Under the previous attorney general, Bill Barr, the justice department was often seen as at Trump’s beck and call, the former president accused of treating it as virtually his own legal service.
Continue reading...Enrique Tarrio received two paycheck protection program loans intended for small businesses, for ‘security systems services’
Government records show that Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the far-right Proud Boys group, received two federal government-backed paycheck protection program (PPP) loans worth a total of $15,500, the Guardian can reveal.
Tarrio, based in Miami, Florida, was approved for an initial loan of $7,750 on 30 March, and a succeeding loan for the same amount on 16 April. The loans were issued to Henry Tarrio, an anglicized form of his name which he has used on other occasions.
Continue reading...Police say the arrests of Sewell and another man in Melbourne followed an investigation into an alleged armed robbery
Australian neo-Nazi Tom Sewell has been charged by police in Victoria over an alleged armed robbery earlier this month.
On Friday, counter-terrorism police arrested two men – 28-year-old Sewell and another 22-year-old – and executed search warrants in Eildon Parade in the Melbourne suburb of Rowville.
Continue reading...Law enforcement discovers wide range of incendiary devices while NYPD document defines rightwing groups as extremists
Federal government documents obtained by the Guardian show a wide range of explosives, flamethrowers and incendiary devices found by law enforcement agencies outside political conventions, public buildings and protests during 2020 and 2021.
The extent of the weaponry – including timed devices deposited as part of a suspected pro-Trump bomb plot –reveals the perils and potential violence circulating through American politics in the grip of unrest linked to pandemic shutdowns, anti-racism protests and rightwing activism and insurrection that culminated in the attack on the Capitol in Washington.
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