It is common knowledge among nationalists that the organised left prefer epithets and ad hominem to rational argument. Trigger words such as racist, fascist, Imperialist, and lately sexist and homophobic, are directed at their political enemies with zeal. Once one of these labels can be successfully attached to a particular individual, group or organisation (like the BNP) said persons are beyond the pale, and anything they say is considered unworthy of belief.

The converse is that left wing organisations often give themselves grand sounding names like anti-fascist, “peace”, and civil rights. After all, who but a bigot could oppose an organisation that struggled against fascism, lobbied for peace, or campaigned for civil rights? One such campaigning organisation of fairly recent genesis is the grandly styled National Civil Rights Movement. As with most left wing organisations, not everything it campaigns for is reprehensible; contrary to popular opinion, not everybody on the “far right” condones mindless violence, racially motivated or otherwise, or wants to see Britain ethnically cleansed or turned into a police state. But a closer examination of some of the propaganda (and outright lies) published on the NCRM’s website should give everyone who genuinely supports civil rights and good race relations cause for concern.

Below, in no particular order, is a brief analysis of some of the campaigns which the NCRM endorses or has supported recently.

A worthy cause. The son of a Ghanaian diplomat, and one-time fairly successful musician, the 31 year old Menson was set on fire in a London street in January 1997. He died two weeks later. His death was originally classified as suicide in spite of his claim that he had been attacked. The left screamed racism; Michael Menson was indeed the victim of prejudice - by the police who didn’t believe him, and by his killers - but not because he was black, rather because he was suffering from schizophrenia.

After lobbying by the Menson family, the case was re-opened. The victim’s sister, the Daily Mail and the usual rag bag mob proclaimed that white racists were responsible, but when the killers were finally brought to book they turned out to be anything but.

Mario Pereira was gaoled for life for murder; Charalambous Constantinou received twelve years including ten years for manslaughter; and Husseyin Abdullah was gaoled for 21 months for perverting the course of justice. Prior to their trial, a fourth man, Ozgay Cevat, was gaoled for 14 years for manslaughter in Northern Cyprus to which he had fled.

An attractive 19 year old Oriental student, Elizabeth Chou disappeared in Ealing in April 1999. According to the NCRM:

“The family immediately reported her disappearance to the police, but they refused to investigate the matter for three days.
  The family believes that had they taken their concerns seriously in the beginning then Elizabeth would have been found.”

The implication is that if she had been white, the police would have “done something”.

This shows a wilful ignorance of police procedure. Elizabeth Chou was an adult, and unless there was meaningful evidence that she had been kidnapped or was otherwise at risk, no immediate action would have been taken; she would simply have been filed as a missing person in the first instance. Young girls, including younger than her, disappear all the time, though thankfully most of them reappear unharmed. If Elizabeth Chou is dead, as now seems likely, it is most probable that her killer was motivated by sexual depravity rather than by racism.

This is said to be “a list of 157 people who, in the last seven years since the murder of Stephen Lawrence, have lost their lives because of racism or xenophobic laws”.

This sounds a truly shocking statistic, but at least 58 of these deaths can be ruled out in one fell swoop. These are the 58 ethnic Chinese (54 men and 4 women) who were found dead in the back of a lorry while trying to enter Britain illegally. Contrary to the usual claim, these people were not “asylum seekers” but economic migrants; even the BBC conceded this when it reported on the tragedy in a news programme. In any case, it is not necessary for anyone genuinely fleeing persecution in China to travel all the way to Britain to claim asylum. Leaving this aside, every country must have an immigration policy, and it is hardly racist to limit entry into Britain or anywhere else. Anyone from Britain trying to claim asylum in the People’s Republic of China would be quickly shown the door.

Others included in this list are just as dubious, such as:

“Found hanged after being arrested by Gravesend police for carrying an offensive weapon, which he was carrying to protect himself after outbreak of racist violence in the area.”

In Britain it is a criminal offence for anyone to carry an offensive weapon without a lawful excuse. Whether or not this is a bad law, is the NCRM really implying that non-whites should be exempt, or that racism caused his death?

“Died in Chase Farm hospital, north London after a rare reaction to eight different drugs which had been prescribed.”

This may have been medical negligence, but racism, xenophobia?

“Shopkeeper beaten to death with a brick in Neath, south Wales.”

This was indeed a brutal and senseless murder of a sixty year old man, but the major factor here was not racism but alcohol. According to one press report, Grant Watkins, one of the victim’s assailants, was said to have drunk fifteen pints of lager and several shorts before the attack.

“A foreign national found hanging in Holloway prison after being given ten year sentence for bringing drugs into the UK. Before her death she informed prison officers that she was to take her own life.”

Racism? Can there be anyone who doesn’t know that smuggling drugs into Britain or anywhere else is a risky business? If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

There are many other deaths listed under this heading; unnecessary many or all of them may have been, but racism and xenophobia had little if anything to do with the vast majority.

This case has become a cause celébrè almost apar with that of Stephen Lawrence, but the evidence that Lakhvinder (Ricky) Reel was murdered is scant to say the least. According to the NCRM site:

“On the night of 14 October 1997 Lakhvinder ‘Ricky’ Reel and his three friends were racially abused and attacked in Kingston, west London. Fearing for their lives they fled.”

Later, the youth’s body turned up in the river, and the police concluded that he had fallen into the water while urinating. A logical and undoubtedly correct conclusion. The claim that the four were in fear of their lives must be taken with a large grain of salt. To begin with, they were (allegedly) abused by two youths; four against two is not good odds. No weapons were said to have been involved, and the four were out drinking.

Due to incessant pressure by campaigners, particularly by the deceased’s mother, Sukhdev Reel, an open verdict was returned at the inquest. It is true that the police may not have been as thorough as they could or should have been when investigating this death, but this is, sadly, rather typical for many such investigations. Again, there is no meaningful evidence of foul play, although campaigners, particularly Sukhdev Reel, continue to claim that her son was murdered.

The deaths of these two men has become known as the Telford Two, and another cause celébrè for the “anti-racist” left, but although the real reasons for their deaths remains a mystery, evidence of foul play is sadly wanting.

Harold “Errol” McGowan, a thirty-four year old black man from Telford, was found dead in July 1999; his nephew Jason, aged twenty, was found dead on New Year’s Day 2000. Both men had been hanged. The police were quick to pronounce both deaths suicides; in the case of Harold this was understandable, he had worked as a doorman (bouncer), the sort of man who is not easily persuaded to stick his own head in a noose. Exactly why he would commit suicide remains a mystery, but no one ever really knows what goes on in another man’s mind. It may have been that Jason’s death was an accident, that he was experimenting in the wake of his uncle’s death, we don’t know. To compound the mystery, a third (white) Telford man died in similar circumstances before Harold McGowan, and the two were connected.

In April 2000, the front page of the black newspaper the Voice proclaimed IT WAS MURDER, but Roger Ide, a Home Office specialist in knots and ligatures, scotched suggestions of foul play. On July 6, 2001, after sitting for five weeks and hearing sixty-two witnesses, an inquest jury returned a verdict of suicide on Harold McGowan. The claim by “anti-racists” now is that if Harold McGowan did commit suicide he was driven to it by racists.

In March 2000, 19 year old Asian Zahid Mubarek was murdered by a his cellmate in the notorious Feltham Young Offenders Institution. The killing appears to have been racially motivated, at least in part. The National Civil Rights Movement and other “anti-racist” organisations have expressed mock outrage that an Asian youth came to share a cell with a violent racist.

While this was indeed an appalling and senseless crime, “anti-racists” have strangely short memories. In October 1979, British Movement leader Michael McLaughlin was gaoled for “thought crime”. Later he complained that he was forced to share a cell with a deranged Rastafarian. This was not exceptional; there appears to have been an unofficial policy in the prison service to house convicted white racists with non-white cellmates. The left have never lost any sleep over the treatment of the likes of McLaughlin, now the very same people are whining about this outrage.

If many of the campaigns run or supported by the National Civil Rights Movement are frivolous, two of them are outrageous: the campaigns in support of cold-blooded murderers Satpal Ram and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

According to the NCRM:

“Mumia was shot by police officers and almost killed when he intervened to stop his brother being beaten by the police. The police officer was shot and died. Witnesses saw others run from the scene but Mumia was charged with the officer’s murder.
 During Mumia’s trial, crucial evidence, including a post-mortem report, ballistics evidence and eyewitness testimony, was suppressed”.

This is a tissue of lies. In December 1981, Abu-Jamal was driving a cab at 4am in his native Philadelphia when by chance he witnessed Officer Daniel Faulkner arresting his brother. Abu-Jamal ran over and shot Faulkner in the back. Faulkner managed to return fire, wounding Abu-Jamal in the chest; Abu-Jamal then emptied his gun into Faulkner blowing the top of his head away. There were several independent witnesses to the murder; the claim that other people were seen running from the scene is simply not true; there was confusion caused by people running after the incident.

Abu-Jamal was convicted on overwhelming evidence; at his trial he elected not to take the stand, even though he had no criminal record that might have been used against him under cross-examination. He was sentenced to death and has languished on Death Row ever since, a prolonged series of frivolous appeals leading to repeated stays of execution.

[In December 2001, his death sentence was quashed and a new sentencing hearing ordered.]

Satpal Ram

The case of Satpal Ram was covered in the January 2001 issue of Identity. According to the NCRM site, Ram was the victim of a racially motivated attack in an Asian restaurant. After he was attacked by Clarke Pearce with a broken glass he drew “a little Stanley knife” to defend himself. Ram and “Both” of his attackers were hurt in the ensuing fight.

“Satpal went and got treatment for his injuries.
  Clarke Pierce [sic] went to hospital but he was very abusive to the medical staff and he pulled out his drips, saying he did not want to be treated by a woman doctor. He discharged himself and went home, where he later died.”

This too is a tissue of lies. In the first place, only two people attended hospital: Clarke Pearce and Ram himself. Nowhere in the trial evidence was it suggested that two people had attacked Ram. In the second place, it is doubtful if the injuries sustained by Pearce could have been caused by a Stanley knife. In any case, Ram used a flick knife on his victim, an illegal weapon, in an unprovoked attack, and gloated over him as he lay mortally wounded on the floor, then fled the scene of the crime. A small cut on Ram’s face - which may have been self-inflicted - required three stitches. He gave a false name at a local hospital where a doctor was initially unable to treat him because he (not Clarke) was so drunk and abusive. Clarke Pearce, who was taken to another hospital by ambulance, did not refuse medical treatment, he was in no condition to; he died on the operating table and was pronounced dead at 4.23am. The post-mortem report reveals that he was the victim of a frenzied knife attack.

The current writer wrote to the National Civil Rights Movement at the beginning of July correcting the lies and distortions being peddled about the Ram case. At the end of August, these lies had still not been corrected.

Some high powered legal names have leant their support to this perfidious organisation, among them the QC Michael Mansfield, who is listed as its President, and the lawyer Imran Khan, whose mischief-making in the Stephen Lawrence affair is well documented. The NCRM’s vice presidents include Satpal Ram himself, and Ram’s current lawyer, Gareth Peirce, whose name is misspelt on the site. All these lawyers have reputations as champions of civil rights; if Mansfield, Khan and Peirce are indeed committed to civil rights for all, then their judgment is certainly questionable in this instance. Arun Kundnani of the so-called Institute for Race Relations runs the NCRM’s media and information department.

Membership of the National Civil Rights Movement is currently being peddled for 10 pounds per annum for individuals, 150 pounds for national organisations, 200 pounds for private companies and a staggering 250 pounds for legal firms and chambers.

Every penny of this money will be used to wilfully mislead the public, and to destroy your rights on the pretext of promoting “tolerance” and combatting the mythical disease of racism.

Something else everybody should bear in mind, whether BNP members, “nationalists” or not. If the National Civil Rights Movement and similar organisations had their way they would ban the BNP and all racist propaganda - including this article - and every other individual and organisation which exposed their outrageous lies.

Alexander Baron

[This article was first published on the British National Party’s website in September 2001.]

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