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Jewish man arrested over arson at Paris Jewish centre French police confirmed that a man arrested in connection with what was first believed to be an anti-Semitic arson attack on a Jewish social centre a week ago was a Jewish man who had worked there. Police headquarters refused to identify the man taken into custody in connection with the August 22 attack, but police sources said investigators had been searching for a 50-year-old Jewish man who frequented the centre. The man was "more or less homeless" and "mentally unstable", the sources said. On August 22, unidentified vandals broke into the Jewish centre in eastern Paris, scrawled swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans including "The world would be pure if there were no more Jews" and set the ground-floor centre ablaze, gutting it. The incident led the French government to declare war on racism and prompted a snap visit to Paris by Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who urged tougher punishment in France for the perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts. Le Figaro newspaper reported today that investigators were no longer treating the fire as an anti-Semitic attack, but were looking for a mentally unstable Jewish man who had often visited the centre. Last month, a 23-year-old woman who claimed she had been the victim of a vicious anti-Semitic assault later admitted she had made up the entire incident, and was given a four-month suspended sentence for lying about it. AFP
Neo-Nazi link to campus anti-foreigner campaign
A nationalist group targeting university campuses with anti-foreigner propaganda is linked to the local branch of an American neo-Nazi organisation. The Patriotic Youth League's "Australian unis for Australian students" campaign at the University of Newcastle has coincided with racist incidents against African students and the posting of US neo-Nazi leaflets on campus. The group's founder, Stuart McBeth, 23, who has been running the Patriotic Youth League while working at a Salvation Army crisis centre in Newcastle, has denied responsibility for the white supremacist posters. He issued a statement saying only people with a "lack of mental capacity" could accuse the league of involvement with American racist organisations. However, the Herald has uncovered that the league shares a Newcastle postal address with the Australian branch of the US neo-Nazi organisation Volksfront - a group that denies the Holocaust, is buying land for an "Aryan" homeland in the US and warns of a coming "One World Zionist Police State". Mr McBeth yesterday said he did not know why the postal addresses were identical and denied any link to Volksfront - assertions contradicted by the league's Sydney representative, Andrew Wilson. Mr Wilson, from Epping, said Mr McBeth was behind Volksfront Australia, which is "in the early stages of development". "It's a cultural kind of movement, whereas the Patriotic Youth League is more political and youth-orientated," he said. Mr McBeth said there were about 50 members in the league, which began a campaign this year against foreign students. He said he believed overseas students should be restricted to "exchange programs" so they did not displace local students. Universities and the Federal Government say that because international students pay full fees they displace no one, and instead inject much-needed cash into the higher education system. League members appear to have recently posted messages on the Australian section of the Stormfront website (a "white nationalist community discussion forum") about plans to "visit Sydney University with our stickers and posters in the coming weeks". |
©-free 2004 Adelaide Institute
