Author Archives: Gerry Gable

Finnish man dies after assault by Nazis

A Finnish man, Jimi Joonas Karttunen, who was assaulted by neo-Nazis from the Finnish Resistance Movement (FRM) on Saturday 10 September has died of his injuries, the Finnish investigative journalism website Kaivuri reported on 17 September.

The news was broken by his father, Kauko-Vesa Karttunen, on Facebook and the identity of the man has since been confirmed by other sources, including an old school friend with whom Kaivuri spoke. The assault on Karttunen, 28, occurred during a demonstration by FRM in the centre of Helsinki. Karttunen was attacked from behind by members of FRM after expressing his opposition to the protest and hit his head as he fell on the ground.

Karttunen was taken to hospital after the attack with severe head trauma and remained in intensive care for several days. He was sent home on Thursday but began to suffer from intense headaches again on Friday and called the emergency services. When they arrived he had already lost consciousness and was proclaimed dead at 22.00.

FRM released a video of Karttunen lying on the ground next to a pool of blood, and in an accompanying text, said they had to “discipline” some people who challenged them, effectively confessing that members of the group were behind the assault. Several pictures connected to the article show known members of the organisation, indicating who was present. The anti-fascist network Varis has put names to some of them, including several who have a record of racist, homophobic and political violence. The police have been reluctant to make any statement but have confirmed that they are investigating.

One line of enquiry might encompass the promotion of far-right violence by Kai Murros, a Finnish radical nationalist writer and advocate of a peculiar synthesis of Maoism and racial nationalism, encompassing pogroms against Jews in a Nazi version of Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Murros, 47, the author of National Revolution And How to Do It in a Modern Society, openly incited violence when he spoke at a meeting of Jeremy Bedford-Turner’s London Forum on 15 October 2015.

“Make it absolutely clear that there are no laws, no agreements, no treaties … that you would not break in order to secure the future of the English people,” Murros told his audience.

“The change must be brought from the outside and it must be brought by force. For this historic task an entirely new type of shock troops should be created: the nationalist Khmer Noir commandos, raised from the ranks of the working class. Clad in black hoodies, covering their faces with black and white chequered scarves, the young fanatics of the movement will storm the universities, break into classrooms and tear the academics down from their podiums.

“The red academics will be forced to admit their crimes against the English people in mass rallies. They will publicly confess how they have always conspired against the English people, how they have always hated the English people, and how they have always fantasised about hurting the English people. After this the red academics will be forced to face the wrath of the masses.

“The parasite intellectuals will be forced at all times to carry signs declaring their evil schemes against the English people.

“… Nationalist cultural revolution requires that you ignite an inferno of rage in the English people.”

The presence of Murros in the UK clearly caused concern because a few days after the meeting Searchlight was approached by the Home Office, keen to find out what he had said. We were happy to oblige.

Kai Murros advocating violence at a London Forum meeting last October
Kai Murros advocating violence at a London Forum meeting last October

A transcript of his speech is available from “National Vanguard”, although Searchlight cannot guarantee its accuracy.

Turning the searchlight on the enemies of democracy

Welcome back to the Searchlight website. After we posted several reports that exposed the increasing violence of the British extreme right and their international links, we were bombarded with attacks. As we were planning a relaunch of Searchlight later in the year, we temporarily suspended the website, but of course carried on with our work of investigating the activities of the far right.

The first issue of the revised magazine has been posted to subscribers and supporters and placed in delegate packs for the Trade Union Congress in Brighton, something we have done in cooperation with the TUC for many years.

I wrote in the editorial for the new magazine that the recent period had been one of the busiest ever for far right activity. That period included the tragic murder of Jo Cox MP on 16 June. West Yorkshire Police quickly arrested Thomas Mair and stated that his links to far-right extremism were a priority line of enquiry. Mair was charged and Westminster Magistrates’ Court remanded him in custody, setting a provisional trial date of 14 November.

One of our photographers was the victim of a murderous assault in Dover on 30 January. He is lucky to be alive and is making a slow recovery. His attacker, Peter Atkinson, is now serving a seven year sentence for causing grievous bodily harm, in our view not nearly enough. A large number of key Nazi activists have been rounded up over the past few months. We identified to North Wales police two of the Nazis whom we saw on video footage attacking people in Dover, and they have now been imprisoned for two years. While those who knew the police were after them engaged in a lot of “heroic” posing in front of their comrades, in the event almost all of them pleaded guilty to get shorter sentences. The police pressure on the Nazis has however not brought about a halt to their paramilitary training here.

Nazi Peter Atkinson attempts to murder anti-fascist photographer Kelvin Williams in Dover on 30 January 2016
Nazi Peter Atkinson attempts to murder anti-fascist photographer Kelvin Williams in Dover on 30 January 2016

Searchlight welcomes the ban on Britain First activists entering mosques in England and Wales for the next three years. Bedfordshire Police obtained a High Court injunction in August, which also prohibited the extreme-right group’s leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen from entering Luton. The persistence of Searchlight and other anti-fascists who have long complained about the violent actions of Britain First, and accusations that the authorities were treating them with kid gloves, seem to have paid off.

During the Euro 2016 football championship this summer, the Russian Nazi Denis Nikitin was named as the leader of the Russian army of thugs who caused mayhem in Marseille. Nikitin trained Nazis in the UK in 2014 and spoke at a meeting of Jez Bedford Turner’s London Forum alongside Arkadiusz Rzepinski, leader of the Polish far right group, the NOP. Searchlight has been exposing the violent Polish Nazis living in the UK for several years. We have been helped enormously by anti-Nazis in Poland who are very well organised and monitor the NOP.

A few days after the murder of a Polish man in Harlow on 27 August, hundreds of local residents held a silent march through the streets of the town. What was not reported was the presence of a group of tough looking Polish men wearing dark glasses hanging around with a group who appeared to be English and were wearing hoodies with the words “Patriots Slough” emblazoned on the back.

Searchlight supports the initiative of the South East Region of the TUC (SERTUC) to build solidarity between British trade unionists and Polish and Portuguese workers. The fleeting visit to the UK by a senior member of the right-wing Polish Government at the beginning of September cannot provide much assurance when his Government is linked to one of the worst Nazi scenes in Europe.

Searchlight Research Associates

In June at a successful international conference in London held at the headquarters of the National Union of Teachers, we launched a new initiative: Searchlight Research Associates. Its purpose is to expand our intelligence and analysis work and continue working with our partners at the University of Northampton to produce publications and research documents on various aspects of the extreme right. Searchlight continues its international work on the committee of the Greek Solidarity Campaign and has for some months been part of the steering group organising the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street. We must salute the very hard work that has been conducted by our colleagues on the steering group, who have given hours of their time to overcome a mountain of red tape to get us to 9 October.

We hope to see our readers putting their support into action whenever and wherever a call is made to oppose far right street action. So far the anti-fascist movement has been sharp off the mark even at very short notice to confront the enemies of democracy.

Extreme right awareness workshop

Northampton workshop

Northampton University is putting on a one-day workshop led by Dr Paul Jackson, an academic expert in the dynamics of the British far and extreme right.

The workshop on Friday 16 September will draw on the latest academic research, material from the extreme right itself, and intelligence from Searchlight to offer the latest analysis of the current threats and issues posed by far and extreme right organisations.

Interactive

This interactive workshop will be of particular interest to those professionals whose work relates to the Prevent Agenda and hate crimes, such as police officers and practitioners working in education and local authorities.

The workshop will:

  • Present overviews of the most important and far and extreme right groups in the UK
  • Examine the small risk posed by some extreme right groups promoting violent extremism and terrorism
  • Explore the many, contrasting underlying ideologies of far and extreme right groups, from neo-Nazi to ‘Counter-Jihad’, and assess their appeal too.
  • Consider the impact of far and extreme right groups on the wide range of people they target, including Muslim and Jewish communities.
  • Survey the online presence of the extreme right, including its use of social media platforms, as well as less well known sites promoting extreme right views
  • Map some of the international linkups found within far and extreme right groups
  • Identify issues posed by militant anti-fascist responses to the extreme right, and highlight more constructive, non-militant forms of opposition to the extreme right
  • Discuss how issues posed by the extreme right relate to policies such as Prevent
    Cost: £60. Lunch and refreshments provided. Group discounts available.

The workshop will run from 9.00 to 16.30 at the Sunley Conference Centre, Park Campus, University of Northampton.

To book, please contact Karin Ferngren or use the online shop.
To find out more, contact Dr Paul Jackson.