Rape in Australia: highest reported number of rapes by men of women per capita in the world?

Today, Van Badham has a really good piece in The Grauniad (Australian online edition) on ‘How not to raise a rapist’. Leaving to one side the important points she makes about the existence of a culture of violent woman-hating, I was struck by the claim that Straya has “the highest reported number of rapes by men of women per capita in the world”. I’d not encountered this statistic before, so I decided to take a closer look. Having done so, it appears that this claim is not in fact supported by the evidence cited.

To begin with, Badham’s article links to an article on LiveLeak: USA – Country With Most Amount of Rape Cases. This article is a republication of an article which originally appeared on The Global Post, Which country has the highest reported incidents of rape? [DATA], by Kyle Kim, dated March 18, 2013. Kim asks “…what do rape incidents look like globally? We’ve produced one partial answer via charts using the latest international data available on reported rapes by the United Nations”. Kim notes that “When looking at reported rape cases per capita, Australia, Botswana and Lesotho rank highest”. As evidence, Kyle provides a link to the website of the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime where the reader can download the relevant UN data. Unfortunately, this link — http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Assault.xls — does not provide the required statistics: what Kim links to is in fact an Excel sheet providing data on ‘Assault at the national level, number of police-recorded offences’, where ‘assault’ is defined as meaning ‘physical attack against the body of another person resulting in serious bodily injury; excluding indecent/sexual assault; threats and slapping/punching’ and ‘assault’ leading to death.

The relevant UN data is actually contained in another document produced by the same agency: ‘Total sexual violence at the national level, number of police-recorded offences’, where ‘sexual violence’ is defined as ‘rape and sexual assault; including sexual offences against children’ http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS_Sexual_violence.xls. According to these statistics, the reported rate of rape in Australia* for the year 2011 (the most recent year for which data is available) is actually 30.0 per 100,000, a figure which sits at the lower end of the global spectrum. (The same document also states ‘Please note that when using the figures, any cross-national comparisons should be conducted with caution because of the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in countries, or the different methods of offence counting and recording’.)

In summary, based on the references cited, it doesn’t appear to be the case that Straya has “the highest reported number of rapes by men of women per capita in the world”.

*The data may actually be referring to New Zealand in this case.

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Assault on prisoners in Sofia Central Prison, October 17 [Jock Palfreeman]

Jock Palfreeman is a young Australian currently serving a 20-year prison term in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2009, under highly dubious circumstances, he was convicted of murder. You can read more about his case in Belinda Hawkin’s book Every Parent’s Nightmare (Allen & Unwin, 2013) and at the Free Jock website. I received the following communication from Jock Palfreeman yesterday. It contains an account of an assault upon him and a group of other prisoners on October 17. I republish it below, at his request.

On the [Bulgarian Prisoners' Rehabilitation Association]’s blog I have up until now not written much if anything about myself in an attempt to keep the Association’s blog neutral and equal for all issues and prisoners in Bulgaria and specifically Sofia Central Prison. However, I have done this at the expense of not reporting the prison’s attacks against myself for my unionism and solidarity with other prisoners, in an attempt to reform the corrupt prison administration, however on Thursday 17th of October an incident occurred involving myself that must be published.

At 8.30am a guard was counting prisoners for roll call, he quickly entered a cell and demanded that all 11 occupants exit the cell into the cold corridor, but before 10 of them could react he quickly left the cell and locked the door (the speed in which he left and locked the door made it evident that the guard was looking provocation). I Jock Palfreeman was not asleep but the guard did not see me as I had just exited the toilet and I was standing behind him in the guard’s blind spot, the guard swore at the 10 prisoners and said “now you’re going to see what will happen to you”. However when the guard locked the cell door, I immediately banged on the door as it was getting close to when I had to go to my university studies at 9am. One of the guards shouted “you’re too late for roll call”, I replied “I’m not too late I have been up since 7am, you just didn’t see me as I just left the toilet, I was standing behind you”, the guard from the previous shift told me that he would open the door for me, but the guards started arguing with each other, one wanted to open the door, the other wouldn’t let him. The guards left the block at about 8.45am. I sat down and waited to be let out to go to the study room, but at about 8.50am 50 guards rushed into the cell, took all of us out of the cell, 11 people, all of whom had not been in bed since the argument with the guard at 8.45am. The guards took all of us into the corridor and started viciously beating all of us. They used their boots, batons and also punches with their fists, they also took us by the hair and rammed our heads against the wall, myself included. They lined us up against the wall and about 50 guards started beating everyone from behind. We were 3 Iranians, 6 Iraqis, 1 Sudanese and myself – Jock Palfreeman – citizen of Sofia Central Prison. The guards were comprised of two shifts, from the days of the 16th and the 17th. There were 2 commanding officers and 2 sub-commanding officers and the rest were normal prisoner guards.

During the attack I was shouting “this is a crime” and other prisoners were shouting “Why?”, because they did not speak Bulgarian, all they could say was “Why?”. After the attack had finished, I started to explain to the commanding officer that I didn’t have anything to do with any problem, the guard making the roll call had simply not seen me and that after I explained the situation to him he had refused to re-open the cell door again and that I had the right to go to the study room at 9am. As I was explaining this, the same guard from the roll call, burst through the other guards, grabbed my shoulder from behind and started hitting me in the stomach and upper body. After this individual guard had finished beating me the commanding officer started threatening us, he said “I don’t care about the human rights organisations, I don’t care about your embassies, this is Bulgaria and we will beat you when we want”, I started to argue with him and he shouted “Shut up or I’ll cut off your beard and shave your head”, this threat perplexed me as it seemed out of context for the violent environment the guards had just put us through. I was shocked into silence as the threat was just so random and although very illegal, somewhat comical.

We were put back in the cell and the guards left. At 9.05am a group of us went to the bars that divide the block’s corridor from the stairs that leave to the block’s exit. Several prisoners wanted to go to the gym as it was their allocated time at 9am, others wanted to go to the Bulgarian language lessons also set at 9am, and I wanted to go to the study room for my own studies. But the same guard from the morning roll call refused to open the corridor gate and instead ran away. I believe that he thought that everyone was coming to him in a big group so as to seek revenge for his previous attack against 17th cell. The guard was an old guard but new in Sofia Central Prison and so as is typical in Bulgarian institutions, none of his superiors properly instructed him to the fact that at 9am many prisoners have to leave the block to go to their respective activities (which aren’t many so should not have been hard to have known). So the guard upon seeing people gathering around the gate ran and called the commanding officer thinking that a group was assembling for revenge for the guards’ earlier attack. We could hear him on the phone downstairs telling the commanding officer that a large group of prisoners are at the gates and that he needed help.

About 5 minutes later (which is amazing reaction time considering it can take over 30 minutes for medical help) 30 guards came running up the stairs and they assembled outside the gate of 10th group. They told all the prisoners to go into their cells, which all the prisoners did, including myself. The guards then tried to open the gate but they soon found out they couldn’t. I looked out of my cell and saw that there was a pad lock on the inside of the gate that the guards couldn’t reach. They tried by force to open the gate by barging it, but the padlock wouldn’t break. I then realized that this was my only opportunity to call for external help. I took my prison phone card and went to the phone in the corridor about 2 metres from the gate where the guards were and I called a lawyer, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and the Australian consulate. The guards started banging on the metal gate with metal rods, shouting and they also turned on the block’s siren to try and drown out my conversation with the consul and the lawyer. I told them one by one “please come ASAP, the guards beat us at 8.45 and they’re coming again to beat us”. After I made my phone calls I returned to my cell at 9.11, we know the exact time due to the recorded phone calls.

What is also interesting is at this time the prison told all the lawyers to leave from the lawyer consultation room at the other end of the prison then the prison administration shut down the lawyer consultation room. The prison administration tried all they could to try and stop their crime from leaving the premises of the prison and the confines of the prison administration. It is also completely illegal to expel lawyers from the prison premises, even more so during working hours. The right for a prisoner to meet with his/her lawyer is nonnegotiable and this was another extreme violation of prisoners’ rights.

A prisoner from prisoner maintenance Budimir Kujovic came and cut the lock off the gate at about 9.15am and the guards ran into the empty corridor as if they were charging down for a rugby ball despite the total lack of aggression from the behalf of prisoners. They locked all the cell doors and entered 17th cell, my cell. They again started beating everyone with batons, punches, kicks and ramming heads against walls. After they stopped beating us I asked the sub-commander “why have you come back to this cell? Why are you angry with us specifically?” the sub-commander replied “you (collective ‘you’) have made us come back twice today”, I said “we didn’t make you come one time, people wanted to go to their work and the gym and that guard called you here”.

Despite the beatings I was completely calm as were the other 10 prisoners. They handcuffed us all and they said “ok now we will start the search for telephones”. 5 minutes into the search I was taken out of the block and put into a temporary holding cell on the other side of the prison. I asked the arresting officer “why have you restrained me in handcuffs?” he replied “we (the guards) have been sick of your group for over two months now”, meaning that the problem wasn’t with me individually but rather the guards were trying to make a collective punishment on the entire group.

A normal search of a cell would take about 45 minutes, however they searched the cell for about 3 hours and confiscated only an undocumented hotplate for cooking and furniture. No mobile phone was found and the guards went crazy that not a single mobile could be found, this is as they are all acutely aware of the problem of corruption within the prison administration and therefore presume that every prisoner has a mobile. The same guard who had provoked the two incidents then came to me in the temporary holding cell and tried to intimidate me to sign as a witness for the search in 17th cell that had been carried out without me, I flatly refused and explained that I would not be a witness for something that I didn’t in fact witness.

With nothing illegal found in the cell, the guards then tried threatening other prisoners to testify against me, but out of about 100 prisoners not a single one would lie, all of them stuck to the truth as they saw and heard it. I was kept in the temporary holding cell (which can be said to be less then comfortable) all day, but allowed visits from the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a lawyer and the Honorary Consul of Australia. At 4.30pm I was returned without explanation to 10th group, but needless to say all my personal belongings had been thrown around, destroyed or confiscated. The prison administration wanted to put me in isolation, but could not find legal grounds to do this especially as my lawyer was present. So they took the administrative decision to move me from my old cell to a different cell, in a petty attempt to increase my discomfort, however for those of you who know me personally, you know I love camping!

An ‘investigation’ was carried out and concluded by the prison administration but has yet to be revealed, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee have conducted their own investigation as well as the Ombudsman’s office of Bulgaria. The matter has been referred to the regional prosecutors office, but experience tells us not to expect anything when it comes to the Bulgarian state investigating itself. The instigating guard was not moved from the block and on Monday the 21st of October he started threatening prisoners to not testify against him; however on the 25th of October he was moved to another place within the prison to separate him from his victims.

This is another case of unacceptable violence against the human rights of prisoners in Bulgaria, the commanding officers should be sanctioned, failing this the Association asks for the resignation of the Director Peter Krestev, so that law might prevail within Bulgarian prisons!

Jock Palfreeman
Chairman
Bulgarian Prisoners’ Rehabilitation Association

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Nazis @ Swinburne University

Yeah yeah … Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in.

Very briefly, a couple of people have contacted me regarding the distribution of some White supremacist propaganda at Swinburne University in Hawthorn. Here’s a sample:



The posters appear to have been sourced from Stormfront; the world’s leading White supremacist website, established some years ago now by Don Black, a former Klansman and convicted terrorist. Just recently, his son Derek Black, another active proponent of White supremacy, has denounced his father’s ideology, declaring that white nationalism was really about “an entrenched desire to preserve white power at the expense of others”.

Presumably, a student at Swinburne has some ‘issues’ regarding their racial identity they would probably be better off talking to a counsellor at the campus than expending their energies trying to create an unwelcoming environment for the many thousands of other students who attend the Hawthorn campus. Note that, over the last few years, nazis of one sort or another have distributed their agitprop at LaTrobe, Melbourne and RMIT universities. Most recently, stickers have been spied outside Ascot Vale train station — the same stickers (including one proclaiming ‘Death to Refugees!’) which have seen five men in court in WA, charged with criminal damage. Ascot Vale was also the site of the vicious bashing of a Vietnamese student, Minh Duong, in December 2012, by a group of self-proclaimed nazis …

In any event, props to the students unwilling to tolerate this kinda visual pollution.

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Later haters

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Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Bill ~versus~ Sons of Anarchy

Update : Chilling: Queensland’s war on civil liberties, Robert Corr, overland, October 22, 2013. ‘Indeed, the Queensland laws have been drafted in scatter-gun fashion. None of the legislation is limited to bikie gangs. The Vicious Unlawful Association Disestablishment Act, for instance, includes references to ‘any other group of 3 or more persons by whatever name called, whether associated formally or informally and whether the group is legal or illegal’. The Queensland Law Society notes this could include sporting groups and book clubs; the onus will be on the accused, rather than the state, to prove that ‘the relevant association is an association whose members do not have as their purpose, or one of their purposes, engaging in, or conspiring to engage in, declared offences’.’

Ah, Queensland …

Late last week the illiberal LNP government passed three pieces of legislation (now Acts) intended to stop bikies in their bloody tracks: the Criminal Law (Criminal Gangs Disruption) Amendment Bill (PDF), the Tattoo Parlours Bill (PDF) and finally the frightfully Orwellian Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Bill (PDF). (See : New laws target criminal gangs.) Law-talking guy Greg Barns reckons the laws are unsporting and Queensland’s ‘war’ on bikie gangs goes too far (ABC, October 17, 2013); law-talking guy “Peter Shields plans to bring a High Court challenge against the “unconstitutional” laws as soon as possible”.

Meanwhile:

1

The QLD state government’s Criminal Law (Criminal Gangs Disruption) Amendment Act contains an official list of 26 OMCs declared criminal organisations. See if you can spot Them from the list below …

• Bandidos • Beatles • Black Uhlans • Bloodhound Gang • Bonnot Gang • Brotherhood of Mutants • Coffin Cheaters • Comancheros • Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International • Dead Ringer Rosies • Dolls of Hazzard • Finks • Fourth Reich • Fifth Reich • Gang-gangs • GANGgajang • Gang of Four • Gladiators • God Squad • Gypsy Jokers • Hatfields • Hells Angels • Highway 61 • Iron Horsemen • Jets • Kelly Gang • Kool & The Gang • Life and Death • Lone Wolf • McCoys • Mobshitters • Mongols • Monkees • Muslim Brotherhood Movement • Neighbours • Nomads • Notorious • Odins Warriors • Outcasts • Outlaws • Phoenix • Queen Bees • Rebels • Red Devils • Renegades • Rock Mobsters • Scandal’Us • Scorpions • Sharks • Toxic Avengers • Vibrating Bum-Faced Goats • Wiggles …

2

TWO police officers have been left red-faced after confusing a man’s Sons of Anarchy t-shirt with a real bikie gang’s patch in Queensland.

3

In the episode of SOA titled ‘Patch Over’ (Season 1, Episode 4), blonde surfer-looking d00d Jax reads from his father’s diary:

4

Emma Goldman was more dangerous than a thousand bikies …

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WTO, NATO, G20, Mark “Migs” Neiweem, Jonny Hammerlock & Co.

The US state and criminal justice system frequently adopts harshly punitive measures against political prisoners — as the recent case of Herman Wallace (and countless others) attests.

Today, Will Potter had an article, Prisoner Sent to Solitary for Having “Copious Amounts of Anarchist Publications”, published in Vice about The Curious Case of Mark “Migs” Neiweem, one of the NATO 5. (You can listen to an interview Dr Cam & I done with Will back in June here.) Migs is being punished for the crime of, well, basically, being an anarchist; the NATO 5 (now 3) are (were) a group of activists charged with making statements about doing stuff to disrupt the NATO meeting in Chicago in May 2012. ABC7, May 20, 2012:

As the I-Team reported on Friday, Neiweem is a self-professed anarchist who is a member of the Anarchist Black Cross and frequents their chat rooms. In 2010, he was charged with punching a Chicago police officers [sic] in the face, a case for which he is now on probation.

According to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, Neiweem is charged with attempted possession of explosives or incendiary devices.

“Neiweem made statements during the course of the NATO investigation indicating that he knew how to make a pipe bomb and requesting the materials to make a pipe bomb. No pipe bomb ever made he is being charged based on the statements that he made,” said a law enforcement source familiar with the case.

Even as President Obama, heads of state and foreign ministers arrived in Chicago, police and the U.S. Secret Service were concerned about the plans, plots and schemes that might still be hidden, said several counter-terror investigators who asked not to be quoted by name.

As well as bringing to mind other cases of anarchists being imprisoned for refusing to testify before grand juries in the US (example: Jerry Koch), Neiweem’s case also invokes Queensland, the G20 meeting scheduled for next year, and the cray cray bills the Queensland state government has just passed, including the fabulously titled ‘Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Bill’ [PDF].

Introduced on the basis that OMCs have become too big for their leather boots, the new laws grant government authorities enormous powers to criminalise just about any association it chooses to, with harsh penalties for those who find themselves declared to be vicious, lawless and in association with others of the same ilk. In response, a number of bikies have decided to formally quit their clubs (in a move not dissimilar to when, a century ago, Wobblies quit the IWW following its repression under the provisions of the Unlawful Associations Act of 1916). For further discussion see : Bikies quit clubs, hire lawyers, in wake of Qld’s tough new laws, ABC, October 18, 2013.

As for the NATO 5, as noted, authorities allege that the famous figures made statements regarding the manufacture of incendiary devices, aka ‘Molotov cocktails’. And I don’t know about you, but whenever I think ‘Molotov cocktails’ and summit protest I think ‘Molotov bong’, ‘Jonny Hammerlock’ and the WTO. That’s because back in 2002, at the time of the WTO summit in Sydney, The Daily Telegraph chose to manufacture a story involving a fellow who called himself Jonny Hammerlock. Mr Hammerlock proudly declared from the front pages that he would be in the front lines of the protest, doing something-or-other with his World Famous Patented Molotov Bong. (Note that Jonny, whom nobody I knew had previously encountered, disappeared once the newspaper had done its job.)

Finally, as for the G20 summit in Brisbane in November next year, my fingers are xed that Jonny, or somebody very much like him, might make a (re-)appearance. In fact, I imagine they’re already online right now …

See also : Protestors, media hype and the WTO, Kim Kaos, Online Opinion, December 17, 2002.


~ Ladies & Gentlemen … Mr Jonny Hammerlock ~

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Hate or Confusion? Facebook, Geller, Online Hate Prevention Institute …

On October 14 there was a small protest (about 15 people according to ABC-KGO) outside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U$A.

“The protest, according to organizer Michael Mendelson, was sparked by Facebook’s refusal to remove anti-Semitic hate pages aimed primarily at Jews, Jewish Americans and supporters of Israel.”

Mendelson is responsible for establishing a Facebook page called ‘Help Report Hate & Anti-Semitic Pages’.

The Sydney-based Online Hate Prevention Institute helped to publicise the event and gave it its support, and so too did US blogger Pamela Geller, whom protest organisers describe as one of its ‘sponsors’.

In June 2013, Geller and Robert Spencer were banned by the British Home Office from entering the UK, where the pair were to address an English Defence League rally, on the grounds that they were likely to ‘mak[e] statements which may “foster hatred” and lead to “inter-community violence” in the UK’. The EDL’s leader, Tommy Robinson aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, quit the group just last week, claiming that it had been hijacked by extremists, including neo-Nazis.

What a funny olde worlde.

See also : Brenner, BDS, ADL, APDM, APP… A storm in a chocolate mug? (August 30, 2011).

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Cheeky Brazilian anarchists promise to disrupt ‘absurd’ World Cup [The Times]

[*Teachers in Brazil have been on strike. In Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday last week 'Anarchist groups smashed banks and burnt a bus, while "Black Block" protesters threw firebombs at the police, who responded with teargas, rubber bullets and percussion grenades' (Grauniad). The teachers' union has reportedly declared support for the bloc.]

Anarchists promise to disrupt ‘absurd’ World Cup
James Hider in Sao Paulo
The Times
October 14, 2013

BRAZILIAN anarchists, who form part of the global anti-capitalist movement, have pledged to target next year’s World Cup.

The group says the event is an extravagant waste of money in a country where millions live in poverty.

In an interview with The Times, a member of the Black Bloc anarchist group [sic] said: “FIFA lies to us, it is all money laundering. The people get nothing out of it. They’ve spent millions on stadiums and have a law saying they don’t have to disclose how much they spend. FIFA will rule this country for the time of the World Cup.”

The 26-year-old heavily-tattooed black-clad anarchist, who asked not to be identified, said: “The World Cup is absurd. It will be a focus for us and we will fight it.”

Brazil is under intense scrutiny to show that it is able to contain mounting social unrest as it tries to organise two of the world’s most watched sporting events – a football World Cup next year and the Olympics, in Rio, in 2016. It is already far behind schedule in building the stadiums and infrastructure required for next year’s event.

Last week, Black Bloc, whose origins [kinda] lie in the European anarchist movement, shot to prominence in Rio and Sao Paulo when dozens of their number attacked banks, buses and shops after a demonstration by striking teachers descended into clashes with the police.

Wearing black clothing, crash helmets, gas masks and scarves round their faces, they set fire to banks, sprayed anti-World Cup grafitti on the walls of damaged buildings and handed out leaflets saying: “Relax people. It’s us, the Black Bloc. What you can’t do, we can. We don’t just attack, we defend people against police abuse and defend our right to protest.”

Political analysts believe that while many Brazilians deplore the violence, their disillusionment with the police and systemic corruption is fuelling support for the protesters and the anarchists who champion them.

The member of Black Bloc claimed that the principal role of the activists was to protect protesters calling for social change from police onslaughts.

“We are growing,” he said, his clothes adorned with the names of punk banks. “Before, it was a small punk group from the underground culture, but now people from other social groups are coming along. Upper-middle class kids are agreeing with us. Young people have more destructive energy and see it as a way to express themselves.” He said social media groups that helped them to organise themselves were infiltrated by police informers during the summer protests.

Black Bloc spontaneously present themselves at left-wing demonstrations, such as last week’s teachers’ strike, and confront the police. Armed with gas masks and plastic shields, they say they want to help legitimate protesters to be heard.

“Our goal is protection. We know the police are better equipped, with rubber bullets and teargas, which they often fire in large quantities,” he said. “But if we stand our ground, the people will stay and the protest will go on.”

The authorities’ response has been to flood the streets with police, gendarmes and even the army: when the Pope visited Rio in June after protesters disrupted the Confederations Cup, more than 10,000 security personnel lined the streets.

Rafael Alcadipani, a professor of organisation theory at the university of Sao Paulo who has studied Black Bloc, said that with a murder rate of 40,000 a year fewer than 10 per cent of which are solved Brazilians believe the police have other priorities than “people breaking windows with stones”.

“The more aggressive and violent the police are, the more they will fuel protests,” he said. “My guess is that they will try to stop a match of the World Cup, which will be big news. Brazilians are crazy about football but the majority of them can’t afford a ticket … it’s a tournament for the rich and people are upset about this.”

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Blood & Honour/Combat-18 re-emerge in Australia…?

…or, in recent months, a handful of boneheads in Perth and Melbourne have been slapping up stickers promoting B&H/C18 LOL. (See also : Volksfront Australia : Back With A Bang!, October 10, 2013.) Thus today I received a photo of some stickers stuck outside Ascot Vale train station (Ascot Vale is an inner northern suburb of Melbourne):

Blood & Honour / Combat 18 (Ascot Vale)

The orange sticker is the same sticker that appeared in Perth six months ago:

Perth Blood & Honour / Combat-18

The sticker provides a website, email address and mobile number. The website address is for the Blood & Honour website.

Currently, five men have been charged with criminal damage for distroing the stickers in Perth:

The last time B&H/C18 made it into the news in Australia was a few years ago when Perth bonehead Bradley Trappitt (below, far right) was convicted along with two other boneheads of being naughty boys and playing with guns in the vicinity of a mosque. Trappitt has since come under the wing of Sydney-based Welf Herfurth, the leader of a small group of fascist activists variously parading under the banner of the New Right/’national anarchism’. The last of this mob’s excitingly irregular public performances was at a November 2012 rally against an Israeli attack on Gaza. (Note that, in a related case, a former WA police officer named Robert Critchley was acquitted late last year of the charge that he had provided the boneheads with information regarding police investigations into bonehead activity in Perth.)

The B&H site which the stickers promote is an entity (B&H/C18) distinct from the B&H associated with a bonehead gang called the (Southern Cross) Hammerskins. In Australia (if not, say, in Russia), the Hammerskin-aligned B&H is a much more popular and well-established neo-Nazi organising tool, having operated successfully for 20 years in the country and holding regular gigs in Melbourne and a number of other cities including Adelaide, Sydney and most recently on the Gold Coast. The split between the two wings dates back to the years immediately following the death of the founder of B&H, Ian Stuart Donaldson, with the wing aligned to Combat-18 (where 1 = A, 8 = H and AH = Adolf Hitler) more openly committed to political violence against its opponents. (For more infos, see : Blood and Honour vs. Blood and Honour, April 12, 2009.)

On a slightly concerning note, in December last year Ascot Vale was the site of a particularly nasty assault upon a young Vietnamese student.

Minh Duong was walking home from his job in Ascot Vale in June when he was set upon by Shannon Hudson, 21 and Wayne O’Brien, 20, both of Ascot Vale.

Mr Duong was kicked and punched repeatedly before being stabbed and having a brick dropped on his head.

The boys responsible for the assault fancied themselves Little Hitlers, and are part of a small, very loose network of nazi yoof in the northern suburbs of Melbourne — tho’ the precise connections between the various elements that comprise the milieu are rarely, if ever, made public knowledge.

See also : A Brief History Of Neo-Nazi Music In Australia (December 2, 2010).

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wow. notes on the deeply racist bad feminist Lorde. like, wow.

blah blah blah — so a blogger in the us has argued, rather poorly, that lorde’s song ‘royals’ is “deeply racist”. i can find very few, if any, who agree with her, but whatever. she concludes her post on the following rather ungenerous note:– “let’s just hope [lorde's] feminism gets a lot less racist as she develops as an artist”.

yeah well, fingers xed eh.

anyway, the CONTROVERSIAL! article by verónica bayetti flores was posted on the feministing site on october 3 but it was scooped by another post by a philosophy teacher named robin james from north carolina, posted on september 18. the september post has received nowhere near the attention the october post done. both condemn lorde for being a racist: in flores’ words, ‘shitting on black folks and rappers’; in james’ case ‘articulating a specific kind of anti-black racism in a way that clearly illustrates the role of white femininity in multi-racial white supremacist patriarchy’ (the professor’s post contains some incredible riffing). why racist? mostly ’cause lorde made the mistake of referring to “gold teeth, Cristal and Maybachs” in her lyrics … and we all know what that means right? *nudge nudge, wink wink*

finally, no big deal, but i thought it was curious that the feministing post makes no ref to the previous, though both writers think the alleged racism in the song is wow

wowee zowee.

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