EDL Saved by Police in Slough: Ten years in the past in the present day round 2 hundred EDL supporters had come from across the nation to march to a rally within the centre of Slough on Saturday 1st February 2014, sparked by plans to transform a failed social membership on the outskirts of Slough for use as a mosque and Islamic centre.
Their protest was opposed by a a lot bigger counter-protests by black clad anti-fascist teams, the UAF and commerce unionists, a big group of native primarily Asian youths and different native residents. Police needed to clear a route for the EDL march with expenses by police horses and with riot police with raised batons, and in addition defend them from having to run for his or her lives from offended counter-protesters to permit their rally to proceed. A big police presence seperated them from a rally by the UAF and commerce unionists a brief distance away.
Langley Village Membership on Cheviot Street, Langley ceased buying and selling in 2013 and was purchased by Dawat-e-Islami who gained planning permission to transform it into an Islamic group and instructing centre and place of worship, Faizon-E-Madina.
Langley is on the jap outskirts of Slough simply north of the M4 and A4 and the small medieval village turned a significant manufacturing ventre, at first for constructing the Hawker Hurricane and different fighters throughout and after the conflict together with the Hawker Hunter. When Hawker Siddeley left in 1959 the whole website was taken over by the Ford Motor Firm who had been making elements for business autos there since 1949. The membership was part of the big estates that grew up right here within the Nineteen Sixties and 70s to accommodate the employees in these and different factories round Slough and at Heathrow.
Some native residents had objected to the change of use, specifically fearing it would generate giant volumes of visitors, though it’s a comparatively small constructing and the planning permission imposed a restrict of 300 folks at occasions there. The realm now has a reasonably excessive variety of Muslims dwelling inside strolling distance of the centre and the charity argued that the 35 parking locations on website have been ample, although the planning committee was not satisfied.
The opposition to the plans by the EDL weren’t largely about parking however Islamophobia. EDL leaflets talked about “the disturbing proliferation of poorly regulated mosques” and linked the protest with its actions to focus on the actions of “vile grooming gangs“; they alleged that residents dwelling round different mosques have been “pushed to anger, tears and despair” due to the mosques, and instructed that the centre will “antagonise, maybe even terrorise, native residents.”
In addition they claimed that Dawat-e-Islami “overtly supported the assassination of Pakistani politician Salmaan Taseer by Mumtaz Qadri, a member of the organisation who disagreed with Taseer’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy regulation.”
They raised different native points too, together with the establishing of a Muslim faith-based faculty below the Free Colleges programme which opened in September 2015 as Eden Woman’s College. Many others -including in all probability most of those that got here to protest in opposition to the EDl would agree with there opposition to this, some against all faith-based colleges and people who oppose the entire divisive method of ‘Free Colleges’, agreeing as I do with the trainer’s union NUT (now NEU) that “We consider it’s incorrect that state funding must be given to small teams of people to run colleges which can be unaccountable to their native communities.”
I don’t go to Slough usually, though I reside only some miles away – although it takes some time on the bus. I arrived a few hours earlier than the EDL rally was attributable to begin and was capable of {photograph} and discuss with the EDL about their protest for a while earlier than a number of of them objected to my presence.
The images on My London Dairy at EDL Saved by Police in Slough and my account there give a really full account of what occurred and I received’t repeat it right here. Slough is without doubt one of the UK’s most ethnically numerous cities and its industries have introduced folks to it from throughout the nation and all over the world for the reason that Nineteen Twenties. The inhabitants of the borough is now over 150,000 and the varied communities appear largely to reside along with few issues.
In line with Wikipedia, “the 2011 census confirmed that 41.2% of Slough’s inhabitants recognized as Christian, 23.3% as Muslim, 10.6% as Sikh, 6.2% as Hindu, 0.5% as Buddhist, 0.1% as Jewish, 0.3% as having different religions” and Slough has the best proportion of Sikh residents of any city within the nation and “the best share of Muslim and Hindu residents within the South East area.”
Rather more about what occurred together with many extra photos at EDL Saved by Police in Slough.
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Tags: Asian youths, batons, Berks, counter-protest, Dawat-e-Islami, EDL, ethnic range, Faizon-E-Madina, Ford, Hawker, Islamic group centre, Islamophobia, Langley, Langley Village Membership, native residents, march, mosque, Muslim faith-based schoo, parking locations, peter Marshall, poice canines, poice horses, police, protest, rally, riot police, Sikhs, Slough, UAF commerce unionists
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