Infidels charged with attack on anti fascists
Black and White | 23.01.2013 17:31 | Anti-racism
Six members of the North West Infidels are due to appear in court on charges of attacking on an anti fascist group in July last year.
left: Liam Pinkham, Shane Calvert aka Diddyman, unnamed and Peter Hawley
Greater Manchester Police issued the following statement.
Shane Calvert of Shetland Close, Blackburn, Peter Hawley, of Ailsa Road, Blackburn, Lancashire, Liam Pinkham, of Victoria Road, Wallasey, Merseyside, Nathan Smith, of Kingsway, Huyton, Liverpool, and Michael Kearns, of Dovecot Avenue, Liverpool, and a 17-year-old boy from Liverpool, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have all been charged with violent disorder.
All are due before Liverpool Magistrates Court on 7 February.
The charges follow a pre-planned operation by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit on 2 October 2012.
The arrests were part of an ongoing investigation into a disturbance in Liverpool city centre on Friday 6 July 2012.
Three members of an anti-fascist group received minor injuries after being kicked and punched by a group of around 10 men from an extreme far-right group who then ran away from the scene.
http://edlnews.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=994&catid=16&Itemid=240
Shane Calvert of Shetland Close, Blackburn, Peter Hawley, of Ailsa Road, Blackburn, Lancashire, Liam Pinkham, of Victoria Road, Wallasey, Merseyside, Nathan Smith, of Kingsway, Huyton, Liverpool, and Michael Kearns, of Dovecot Avenue, Liverpool, and a 17-year-old boy from Liverpool, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have all been charged with violent disorder.
All are due before Liverpool Magistrates Court on 7 February.
The charges follow a pre-planned operation by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit on 2 October 2012.
The arrests were part of an ongoing investigation into a disturbance in Liverpool city centre on Friday 6 July 2012.
Three members of an anti-fascist group received minor injuries after being kicked and punched by a group of around 10 men from an extreme far-right group who then ran away from the scene.
http://edlnews.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=994&catid=16&Itemid=240
Black and White
Comments
Hide the following 10 comments
Erm!
23.01.2013 17:37
If you don't include any background then IMC readers aren't going to know what this story is all about.
anonymous
!
23.01.2013 17:43
You need to put in the text what the DEL is and who these men are. Without that, we can't do an awful lot.
Attila Hadith.
extra info
23.01.2013 17:48
Posted by Liverpool Antifascists on October 2, 2012
"Five members of the North West Infidels have today been arrested by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit. This follows an attack on a young musician and his family ahead of a Liverpool Antifascists benefit gig in July.
Four men aged 21, 24, 30 and 52, and a 17-year-old boy, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit violent disorder. The arrests took place in Liverpool, Southport and Blackburn – meaning that one of those arrested is almost certainly Infidels second-in-command Shane “Diddyman” Calvert.
This is not the first time that the Infidels have come to the attention of Counter Terrorism officers. In April, a number of raids across the north west and north east led to arrests.
Though we hold no sympathy whatsoever for the Infidels, it should be noted that the police are not the route to countering the threat of fascism on the streets. The police have said that “as part of the NWCTU’s remit, we investigate domestic extremism, which is an unlawful action that can be part of a protest or campaign.” It is not hard to see how this could easily translate from arresting fascists for assault (or even for comments on Facebook, as seen previously) to harassing or arresting working class groups taking various forms of direct action against austerity.
These arrests come in response to the Infidels engaging in low-level violence and harassment. But the police and the state are not anti-fascist. The Infidels and fascism generally can only be effectively countered by a class-based, militant anti-fascist movement willing to confront them directly and defend the space within which the workers’ movement organises."
btw the "Infidels" are neo-nazi scum
Hope they are having a terrible time about this
23.01.2013 19:07
But reading liverpoolaf's account of the original incident I cannot summon up the tiniest drop of sympathy for these North West Imbeciles people. Quote from
"...they decided to stop and ‘pick people off’ as they approached the venue. They spotted a band member with his girlfriend and his father. Despite the band member, his girlfriend, and his father, having no affiliation to Liverpool Antifascists, they were viciously assaulted..."
In other words, some kid who was probably thinking more about the excitement of doing a gig on a summer night in the city centre than the ins and outs and ethics of antifascism had his life turned upside down by some vicious bullies too cowardly to join the military or take up a sport like many other males for whom aggression is a problem.
Such people really are scumbags and I am starting to see why people spout that No Pasaran stuff now.
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Pinkham
23.01.2013 19:41
fuck nazi scum
Macho anti-fascism?
23.01.2013 20:45
Just thought I'd clear that up :)
Clarky
More on this story........
23.01.2013 21:24
&
Class analysis
23.01.2013 21:55
You're right however it is not hard to see how NWCTU’s remit against "unlawful action that can be part of a protest or campaign” could translate to "arresting working class groups taking direct action against austerity"... the police however nearly killed Alfie Meadows, and Alfie Meadows is not working class.
With all due respect, if we're going to win this battle we need analysis that factually makes sense
Anti-Phil
Working-class solidarity
23.01.2013 22:19
I also believe that, as for instance the BNP considered a policy of abolishing income tax (to shift the burden of taxation onto increased VAT, onto staple commodity transactions and so onto ordinary working-class consumers, to the benefit of the top tax-band paying rich), and as strike-breakers, Fascists are enemies of the working-class
Given all that, maybe, just maybe, we should frame our arguments in language that ISN'T designed to alienate the aspirational, property-owning, middle-class Asian shopkeepers whose businesses the Golden Dawn are asking Nazis to target right now?!
Isaac Newton
The law is not always an ass
24.01.2013 04:23
@Clarky - I thought that was a good summation of just what a broad church of varied and imperfect people antifascism must be while there are real fascists like NWI and Golden Dawn about. A mate of mine with extremely low tolerance for these wankers is actually ex Armed Forces and hangs a Union Jack on his door and some of the charmers I've seen posting on Indymedia over the years would be the first to assume he is somehow 'fascist'.
Fuck the NWI, fuck Golden Dawn, you've got ordinary people not just political obsessives pissed off at you with this shit. Unlike in other nations, fascism has a distinct history of fail in the UK.
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