Bürgermeister de Blasio will damit eine klare Botschaft an den US-Präsidenten senden. Dieser hatte den Schriftzug im Vorfeld als “Symbol des Hasses” bezeichnet. Klare Ansage an US-Präsident Donald Trump: Die Stadt New York hat in Großbuchstaben das Anti-Rassismus-Motto Black Lives Matter (Das Leben von Schwarzen zählt) auf die Straße vor dem Trump-Tower in Manhattan gemalt. Bürgermeister Bill de Blasio griff am Donnerstag selbst zum Farbroller, als der Slogan in gelber Farbe auf die Fifth Avenue vor dem Hochhaus des Immobilientycoons geschrieben wurde. (…) Der Demokrat de Blasio sagte kürzlich, den Schriftzug vor den Trump-Tower zu malen sei nicht nur eine “wichtige Botschaft an die gesamte Nation”. Es sei auch eine Botschaft an Trump, der “nie Respekt für diese drei Wörter gezeigt hat”. Trump, der bis zu seinem Sieg bei der Präsidentschaftswahl 2016 im Trump Tower gewohnt hatte, schrieb am 1. Juli im Kurzbotschaftendienst Twitter, die Polizei solle nicht zulassen, dass “dieses Symbol des Hasses” auf die “großartigste Straße” von New York geschrieben werde.
Tobias R. tötete gezielt Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund – eine rassistische Tat. Aber war der Täter ein Rechtsextremist? Das BKA meint, das Weltbild von R. sei vor allem von Verschwörungstheorien geprägt. Seine Opfer wählte Tobias R. offensichtlich gezielt aus: Die acht Männer und eine Frau, die er am 19. Februar im hessischen Hanau erschoss, in Shisha-Bars und auf der Straße, hatten alle einen Migrationshintergrund. “Rassismus ist ein Gift, der Hass ist ein Gift”, hatte Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel nach der Tat gesagt. Dieses Gift sei “schuld an schon viel zu vielen Verbrechen”. In dem 24-seitigen Manifest, das der Attentäter kurz vor seiner Tat ins Internet gestellt hatte, schwadronierte Tobias R. von einer Geheimorganisation, die Gedanken von Menschen manipuliere und sich auch in sein Gehirn eingeklinkt habe. Er schrieb aber auch, gewisse “Volksgruppen, Rassen und Kulturen” seien “in jeglicher Hinsicht destruktiv” und müssten daher “komplett vernichtet” werden. Der Anschlag von Hanau war offensichtlich die Tat eines Mannes, der getrieben war von Verschwörungsideologien, von Verfolgungswahn – und von Rassismus. Ein arbeitsloser Bankkaufmann und begeisterter Sportschütze, der viel Zeit im Internet verbrachte und dort wohl allerlei wirre Thesen aufschnappte. Kein typischer Rechtsextremist? Das Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) arbeitet derzeit an einem Abschlussbericht zum Attentat und kommt dabei nach Recherchen von WDR, NDR und “Süddeutscher Zeitung” zu einem überraschenden Fazit, was den Täter und seine Motivation betrifft: Tobias R. habe zwar eine rassistische Tat verübt, aber sei kein Anhänger einer rechtsextremistischen Ideologie gewesen, so die Analyse des BKA. Er habe seine Opfer vielmehr ausgewählt, um größtmögliche Aufmerksamkeit für seinen Verschwörungsmythos von der Überwachung durch einen Geheimdienst zu erlangen.
Instagram said on Friday it would block content that promotes so-called conversion therapy, which aims to alter a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, as pressure to ban the practice grows. The social media giant announced earlier this year it would no longer allow adverts for conversion therapy services, which can range from counselling and “praying away the gay” to electric shocks and sexual violence. “We don’t allow attacks against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Tara Hopkins, Instagram’s public policy director for Europe, Middle East and Africa said in an emailed statement. “(We) are updating our policies to ban the promotion of conversion therapy services.” A spokesman for Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, said it would take time to update all policies and content flagged by users may not be removed immediately. The United Nations independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity called last month for a global ban on conversion therapy, describing it as “cruel, inhumane and degrading”. A growing number of countries – including the United States, Canada, Chile and Mexico – are reviewing their laws. Brazil, Ecuador and Malta have nationwide bans on conversion therapy, while Germany outlawed the treatment for minors in May.
The couple shared a brief kiss. Then one of the attackers told them, “Aren’t you guys ashamed to kiss here?” A gay couple was brutally beaten by men in a bar after they kissed. When they complained to the police, they were told that they shouldn’t have been kissing in public in the first place. (…) Nicolas said that they left the bar, but then four or five people followed them out to the street. It’s “impossible to remember exactly what happened, it was so fast,” he said. “We didn’t even have enough time to turn around before they started punching,” Eric said. “I had had two beers, so I was sober enough, but I was seeing red. Really.” “I fell, I got back up again, I got a punch in, I got punched some more, then I fell down again,” he continued. Hearing the noise, other people came out from the bar and the alleged assailants ran away. The couple went to the police station to report the attack, even though Eric said that he didn’t believe the police would actually help. And he was right at first. “One of the officers who talked to us said the same thing as the bar’s manager, that we shouldn’t be kissing in public,” Eric said. Other officers, though, told them to get a medical exam and then file a complaint.
The founder of the Aryan Strikeforce, a white nationalist organization, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined $1,000 in a drugs-for-guns scheme. The sentencing Tuesday in U.S. Middle District Court of Joshua Michael Steever, 40, of Manville, New Jersey, ends the prosecution of six strikeforce members that began three years ago. They were indicted as the result of an investigation initiated after the FBI received complaints about convicted felons attempting to obtain firearms in Potter County. The FBI infiltrated the strikeforce and with undercover employees arranged for four trips between Pennsylvania and Maryland in late 2016 and early 2017. Steever and the others thought they were selling drugs to obtain money to buy weapons for the organization that advocates violence as a necessary tool to achieve political goals. Instead of drugs, 16 pounds of imitation crystal methamphetamine were transported on each of the trips. Gun parts were included on one trip. Gift cards bought at Target with the proceeds from the “drug” sales were to be used to buy weapons. Steever had formed the strikeforce in 2013 after being forced out of another white nationalist group called the Aryan Terror Brigade, Judge Matthew Brann noted. He recruited members through the Internet and promoted the strikeforce’s views widely, the judge said. (…) Steever got the longest sentence of the six. Henry Lambert Baird of the Allentown area, the former president of the organization, received 14 years. The other defendants and their sentences were Justin Daniel Lough of Waynesboro, Virginia, 12 years; Jacob Mark Robards of Bethlehem, 10 years; Connor Drew Dikes of Silver Spring, Maryland., 4 years; and Steven D. Davis of Bumpass, Virginia, 30 months.
The founder of the Aryan Strikeforce, a white nationalist organization, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined $1,000 in a drugs-for-guns scheme. https://t.co/veAW0AmcKz
— Anti-Fascism & Far Right 🥤 (@FFRAFAction) July 10, 2020
Telegram booting far-right groups from their hub proves that platforms can, in fact, help curb terrorist recruitment in the internet age. In March 2019, amid the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre, the far right made a collective migration from an array of messenger platforms and discussion boards to the messaging app Telegram. On their new home—the same one ISIS adopted as its digital headquarters in 2015—neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups steadily grew their audiences by the thousands. The Russian-founded, UK-based Telegram connected different far-right communities, helping to bring far more organization to the movement as a whole. Despite repeated reporting about this trend, neo-Nazis on Telegram called for attacks on Jews, law enforcement, and minorities, and gave instructions how to do so, with no substantial counteraction. Far-right terrorist channels and groups—which they self-declare as “Terrorgram”—got to act like ISIS but saw none of the same consequences. But amid emerging stories of neo-Nazi National Guard and Army personnel networking and plotting attacks on Telegram, the company is now taking thorough action against some of the most prominent and violence-promoting entities on its platform. Among the first hit was Terrorwave Refined. The group maintains ties to organizations like Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary group, and Atomwaffen Division, a US-based neo-Nazi paramilitary group that is now largely defunct. Terrorwave was in many ways the central hub of the far right. It had all the invite links to other far-right Telegram channels and gave giant subscriber boosts to the channels it promoted. Its subscribers had doubled from 3,000 in December to nearly 6,000 by late June. At that time, Telegram deleted not just Terrorwave’s main channel but also the backups it had created for sporadic removals. The platform also booted others, including Misanthropic Division, the militant wing of the Azov Battalion, and RapeKrieg, a vile Satanist neo-Nazi group. (…) Given the timing of Telegram’s new purge campaign, the far right doesn’t have too many options. Its groups and commentators have already gotten the boot from major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as alternative ones like Discord and 4chan. Even free-speech-billed sites like Gab and Minds have ousted the most outwardly extremist examples among them. As for Parler, the free-speech platform boosted by high-profile Trump campaign officials and allies in recent weeks, neo-Nazi extremists are skeptical. “Parler is kikeshit,” as one wrote, suggesting that those from the far right would be “tagged, tracked, ID’d, and financially crushed.”
Neo-Nazi rockers with swastika tattoos and Insane Clown Posse-like makeup. Album art showing the gates of Auschwitz. Songs longing for a “pure f—ing genocide.” For years, Facebook has allowed bands centered on this content a home on their platform — but now the social media giant is racing to remove them. An investigation by Al Jazeera uncovered over 120 pages featuring neo-Nazi music groups — most of them heavy metal acts — and their labels; altogether, the pages collected over 800,000 likes. After Al Jazeera sent five examples to Facebook, the site removed three for being in breach of Facebook’s hate speech policy; the other two are under review. Al Jazeera claims that many other pages found in their audit were found to violate the policy. The bulk of the pages have been online for years, actively advertising upcoming concerts, music and merchandise. One group, M8l8th, a black metal band from the Ukraine, samples remarks from Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi anthem the “Horst Wessel-Lied” in their songs. The group was founded by Alexey Levkin, an organizer of Asgardsrei, a neo-Nazi musical festival in Kyiv. Pages for a number of headliners at that festival were also found on Facebook. While many bands eschewed sharing their more controversial content on the platform, Al Jazeera indicated that Volrisch, a Mexican band, used an album cover showing the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau as its Facebook cover photo. The artwork shows a track list with English song titles like “Jewish Plague” and “New Holocaust.” Other bands such as Leibstandarte (named for Hitler’s personal SS bodyguard), Kristalnacht and Einsatzgruppen (the Nazis’ mobile killing squad) also remained active on the site. So did Peste Noire, a French band that, only last year, unveiled an album showing their lead singer in a lifted Klan hood threatening another man — actually himself, in blackface — with a noose.
siehe auch: Exclusive: Facebook used extensively to spread neo-Nazi music. An Al Jazeera investigation identified some 120 pages belonging to bands with openly white supremacist and racist views. Facebook has removed several pages belonging to music groups espousing white supremacist ideology following an investigation by Al Jazeera into the prevalence of such bands on the social media platform. Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit identified more than 120 pages from mostly heavy metal groups and record labels with direct ties to white supremacy. The pages had gained a total of more than 800,000 likes and some have been online for more than 10 years. After sending five examples to Facebook, the platform initially removed three of the pages of such bands, adding that the two others were under review. Later, one other page was removed. The four removed pages of the SoldierSS of Evil, Whitelaw, Frakass and Frangar groups all violated Facebook’s policies, according to the social media giant. However, other pages identified by Al Jazeera are still online in breach of the company’s policies on hate speech. (…) One of the more popular pages belongs to M8l8th, a black metal music act from Ukraine, whose full name means Hitler’s Hammer. The two 8s refer to the letter H, the eighth letter in the alphabet. Both 88 and the double H are common shorthand in neo-Nazi circles for Heil Hitler. In its songs, M8l8th uses parts of a speech by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the Horst Wessel-Lied, the official anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945. Have a tip for Al Jazeera that should be investigated? Find out how to get in touch with us on our Tips page The band’s founder, a Russian national named Alexey Levkin, is closely linked to Ukraine’s far-right nationalist Azov Battalion, which is currently fighting in Ukraine’s continuing conflict against Russian-backed separatists. Levkin is also one of the organisers of Asgardsrei, a neo-Nazi music festival held annually in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Festivalgoers have been seen waving swastika flags and making Nazi salutes. Al Jazeera identified Facebook pages belonging to bands that have performed at Asgardsrei, including Goatmoon, a Finnish black metal band whose page has more than 12,000 likes.
