EDL March in Barking: On Saturday 14 January 2012 round 200 EDL supporters gathered exterior the ‘The Barking Canine’ Wetherspoons and marched from Barking Station to a rally exterior the city corridor, calling for an finish to Islamic affect in England. Their protest was opposed by a smaller group of Unite Towards Fascism supporters.
This pub had remained open whereas one other close by pub had closed, refusing to serve them. There was a big police presence watching them in addition to journalists and photographers coming to file the EDL’s first march of 2012, organised by the Essex and Dagenham Divisions of the English Defence League.
Many of the marchers had been eager to be photographed and posed for photographers, together with one man who later pulled down his trousers to point out the tattoos on his rear, whereas others joked and performed as much as the cameras.
The march organisers had been clear to emphasize that this was to be a completely peaceable protest, they usually made some makes an attempt to curb the actions of their supporters, with stewards and others rapidly stopping a small group who started an offensive chant about Allah. However there have been loads of different chants many people discover offensive.
Amongst these collaborating had been some who I recognised from earlier protests by racist organisations such because the Nationwide Entrance or BNP. Though the EDL claimed to not be racist it was exhausting to effective their claims within the slightest credible.
Police stored the marchers other than a smaller group of counter-protesters, primarily from the native space, organised at brief discover by UAF (Unite Towards Fascism) who had solely change into conscious of the EDL march two days earlier. They describe the EDL as “an organisation of racist and fascist thugs, who significantly goal Muslims” and described the march by way of Barking as “as a part of its makes an attempt to fire up racism and division within the space.“
The EDL marched to a pen exterior Barking City Corridor with one other pen for the counter-protest a long way away, although the 2 teams had been inside shouting distance – and stored that up for a lot of the subsequent hour and a half, with the UAF waving placards and the EDL making V indicators and different gestures in the direction of them.
A big crowd of maybe 100 police ensured that the 2 teams had been stored aside. Police led away a few EDL supporters who made their approach near the UAF pen.
EDL chief Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) was current however it was introduced that he was not sufficiently recovered from the assault by “islamofascist thugs” to talk on the rally. The attackers had been truly extensively regarded as Luton City soccer hooligans with whom he’s related. He talked with police for some minutes after which apparently requested them to escort him to his automotive.
On the finish of the rally police escorted the remaining EDL supporters again to Barking station. Experiences mentioned {that a} group of them went on to Whitechapel the place they needed to be escorted out of the realm by police for their very own security.
Extra concerning the occasion and plenty of extra photos on My London Diary at EDL March in Barking.
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Tags: 2012, Barking, Barking City Corridor, BNP, counter-protest, EDL march, English Defence League, Essex and Dagenham Divisions, fascist thugs, Islamophobia, London, march, Nationwide Entrance, offensive chants, peter Marshall, police, protest, racism, St George masks, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, tattoos, Tommy Robinson, UAF, Unite Towards Fascism
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