Sick BNP leaflet blames Muslims for heroin trade

| Thursday, 13 March 2008 Source: Searchlight

Sometimes the depths to which the BNP are willing to sink can surprise even veteran anti-fascists. In their latest assault on Muslim communities, the BNP have started claiming that there is an intrinsic link between “Islam” and the heroin trade.

In an interview on the BBC’s Newsnight, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, accused Muslim immigrants of being responsible for Britain’s hard drugs problems, to which presenter Kirsty Wark responded: "I think there’s a number of people that would dispute that”. Presumably she considered his statement too far beneath contempt to argue with him.

As part of their sick and distorted attempt to blame Muslims for the drugs trade, the BNP have issued leaflets in the North West, where Griffin is now the regional organiser, entitled: “The heroin trade, a crime against humanity – time for Muslims to apologise”.

Disgracefully the leaflets used the harrowing picture of Rachel Whitear, who died in 2000 of a heroin overdose. Her parents had released the image, which shows her corpse slumped with a syringe still in her hand, for use on posters forming part of a hard-hitting anti-drugs initiative.

But the BNP saw only an opportunity to make cheap political capital and boost hatred against the Muslim community. “I was truly horrified when I saw what they’d done with it,” said Pauline Holcroft, Rachel’s mother. “Even if one of the main political parties had asked us if they could use it in a campaign I think we would have to say no. For the BNP to use it without even seeking our permission is an insult to my daughter's memory.”

The Lancashire police hate crimes unit has confirmed that it is investigating the leaflets, which have been distributed in Preston, Pendle and Burnley, on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.

Simon Darby, the BNP’s press officer and deputy leader, refused to apologise, saying he stood by the comments in the leaflet and did not believe it was wrong to use the photograph.

Lee Barnes, the BNP’s deranged legal officer, agreed and went on the offensive, attacking and abusing Rachel’s parents as “pitiful” and adding venomously: "Rachel was a junkie who bought heroin that funds the bombs, the killers and jihadists around the world”.

In his outrageous and disgusting rant he continued: “she was not an angel, she was an accomplice to genocide, terrorism and a funder of the most vicious criminal gangs on the planet as she funded the terrorists and gangsters that cause such misery across the planet … The idea that she should be regarded as a victim is repulsive … The idea we should treat with reverence the image of their dead junkie daughter is repulsive.”

No, no, no, what is repulsive is Barnes’s utter lack of human compassion or understanding.

Barnes’s rancid and warped attack on Rachel Whitear, her parents and all those whose lives and communities are blighted by heroin, which includes ironically Barnes himself as his own step brother died of a heroin overdose, conceals the fact that several BNP members have convictions for possession of drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine.

Take for instance Sharif Gawad of Hawes Avenue, Bowling, Bradford, who was found guilty and fined £80 for possession of heroin by Bradford magistrates in December 2007. Cast your minds back to May 2006 and you might remember the furore about the same Sharif Gawad standing as the BNP candidate in Bradford’s Bowling and Barkerend ward. His candidacy caused uproar in the BNP at the time because of his less than Aryan credentials. The party was forced to insist that he was of Armenian descent and most certainly “Christian” not a Muslim.

The hypocrisy does not end there. In May 2005 Karl Hanson, the BNP’s general election candidate in Huddersfield, was fined £400 at Leeds Crown Court after pleading guilty to possessing heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply.

And one of the BNP’s first elected councillors, Robin Evans in Blackburn, left the party complaining that his branch was dominated by drug dealers and football hooligans.

This latest leaflet has revealed the BNP in its true colours. On 1 May voters will have the chance to show their contempt of the party, its smears and the criminality of its members by voting HOPE not hate.