City Councillor in call to ban the EDL organisation – Birmingham Mail
City Leader Mike Whitby was called upon to lobby the Government to ban the English Defence League for inciting violence and racial hatred.
Birmingham City Council’s Tory chief was challenged by Labour councillor Waseem Zaffar following last weekend’s protests in Centenary Square.
Coun Zaffar (Lozells and East Handsworth) said: “There are a number of organisations which have been banned for inciting hatred and promoting terrorism. The EDL was applauded by those responsible for terrorist atrocities in Norway this year. Isn’t it about time the Government banned the EDL?”
Coun Whity (Harborne) replied that in a democratic country people had the right to protest, no matter how unpalatable their views, as long as they did it within the framework set by the law
The council’s tory leader refused to recognise that the EDL do not operate in the “frame work” of the Law, and have, on numerous occasions attempted to break the peace that usually exists in cities like Birmingham that are culturally rich in terms of diversity with community cohesion lying at the heart of our success. The Law, if CLLR Whitby had the intelligence to understand it, under the Human Rights Act of 1998 derived by the European convention on Human Rights gives people the right to freedom of expression and speech but not freedom to hate an action that the EDL constantly go about doing withoutt any real repercussions for their racist biggoted organisation as a whole. Just like we took a tough approach to organisations like Islam For UK now thankfully banned in the UK we should do like wise with the EDL to show clearly that we will not tolerate extremism, racism or discrimination of any form in our great country. CLLR Waseem Zaffar speaks for the majority in this city and country.