Yesterday when we posted about the participation of Pamela Geller (owner of “Atlas Shrugs”) in a German anti-Islam conference organized by a group with extensive ties to neo-Nazis, the latest word was that Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch had not yet confirmed his participation.

Today “Pro Köln” has announced that Spencer will be a speaker at the conference: Translated version of “Robert Spencer on 9 May in Cologne”.

Major Islam critic speaks at the anti-Islamisierungskongress on 9 May

The list of international guests who are on anti-Islamisierungskongress of 8 to 10 May participate does not stop. Now, with Robert Spencer, one of the world’s best known and most respected Islam critic for his coming to the 9th May agreed. The 47-year-old American is currently a director of his organization created “DjihadWatch” action, whose goals in a focused collection of extremist Islam and aspirations of an awareness about the backgrounds of militant jihad are.

At this high amplification of the pool of international guests expressed the chairman of the pro-motion, Markus Beisicht lawyer: “I am very pleased that Robert Spencer is such a designated Religious Studies and Islam critic his participation in our anti-Islamisierungskongress has pledged. This shows that we are on the international scene and arrived in the focus of world public. Globally, the challenge of Islam in our culture and the community of world religions is an issue that many people.

“…With our convention, we critique Islam is a sufficiently large forum. I very much hope that the warnings from Robert Spencer on 9 Mai also in Cologne and in Germany, will be heard.”

A photo of Beisicht (right) with Filip DeWinter of the Belgian neofascist party Vlaams Belang:

Spiegel Online has more information on Markus Beisicht, quoted above praising the participation of Robert Spencer: New Front for the German Far Right : Anti-Islamic Party Is Playing With Fear.

The methods of the anti-mosque movement have been studied by far-right groups in other countries, like Austria’s FPÖ (“Austrian Freedom Party”) and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interest”) party. In November, Markus Beisicht gave a special presentation on the Cologne movement to FPÖ members in Graz. “We will lead our fight across Europe,” he told them, “whether it’s in Graz, Cologne or Vienna.” He’s invited friends from the FPÖ, Vlaams Belang and France’s National Front to a big “Anti-Islam Congress” in Cologne next September.

Beisicht is a lawyer who once belonged to Germany’s far-right Republikaner (REP). Like a number of executive Pro NRW members, he’s cultivated links to the radical right for years. With members of the “German League for Home and Folk,” in the early ‘90s, he laid a 1,000-mark bounty on the location of an immigrant woman who had applied for asylum in Germany and then disappeared underground. Rouhs, his right-hand man, was a member of the NPD. And André Picker, a lawyer on the party’s executive board, once represented a neo-Nazi band called The White Wolves, who had trouble with the German government over lines like “Clear out the Jews and wake up Germany” (“Juda verrecke und Deutschland erwache”).

And still more information on the neo-Nazi connections of this group: Translated version of “The Thunder in Cologne”. (Improved translation by Øyvind Strømmen.)

With Pro-Köln there are a number of neo-nazis. The party tries to distance itself from this sort of groups publicly, and for instance asked themselves for politce intervention against around 50 skinheads from the NPD. A number of leaders of the Pro Köln does however come from the radical neo-Nazi organisation themselves (somewhat inaccurate, NPD is assuredly fascist, but hardly “radical neo-Nazi,” my note), next to others that come from the Republicans (a small fascist party, my note). These figures formed the movement Pro Köln together 10 years ago. The leader of Pro Köln, Manfred Roush, was the regional leader of the NPD Youth in the late 1980s.

Amongst the guests of honour at the demonstration of Pro Köln were Bart Debie of the Vlaams Belang, but also Reinhard Günzel, a supporter of the nazi Hermann Göring. Günzel is a former military man which once told his soliders that they should show the same discipline as ”the Spartans, the Romans or the Waffen-SS“. On the demonstration last Satuday, the former (police) agent Debie and the former military man Günzel showed their united opposition against ”the Islam“. The call of Pro Köln was clear: opposition against the expansion of a mosque, but also against Islam in general.

Pro Köln still has friendly ties with known neo-nazis. Alex Reitz is one of the most well-known neo-nazis in Germany. In 1999 he offered his help for the election campaign of Pro Köln. Below you will see a picture of Reitz together with the leader of Pro Köln, Manfred Rouhs. At the time it was also done work together with extreme right criminals such as Ulrich Klöries, who was convicted to 15 years in prison for murder. Klöries was a candidate for the list DLVH - a forerunner list for Pro Köln - in 1994 (you will find a picture of Rouhs together with Klöries) below. Another candidate of the DLVH (German League for Volk and Heimat) was Thomas Adolf which was responsible for a triple murder in 2003 and was convicted for this. Manfred Rouhs and Markus Beisichts were then already the leading figures of DLVH.

Really lovely friends you have there, Mr. Spencer.

UPDATE at 4/24/09 10:11:23 am:

Also scheduled to share the stage with Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller at the “Pro Koln” event: Petra Edelmannova.

The head of an ultra-right wing party which advocates a “final solution” for Roma in the Czech Republic is due to speak at the annual festival held by the British National party today. Petra Edelmannova, chair of the Czech National party, is booked to give a 25-minute speech at the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival in the village of Denby in Derbyshire.

The event faces strong opposition from local residents and anti-racism campaigners who are mounting a demonstration. The protest has been organised by a number of groups including Unite Against Facism (UAF), Love Music Hate Racism and Derby Racial Equality Council. The TUC and unions CWU and Unite are giving their support. UAF said it was expecting more than 500 people and coaches from around the country.

Edelmannova’s party recently announced it was working on a 150-page “study” called The Final Solution to the Gypsy Issue in the Czech Lands, which it said it would present as part of a 2010 general election campaign.

Although the title evokes the Nazi plan to eradicate Jews in wartime Germany, the party told Lidove Noviny, a national Czech newspaper, its aim is only to offer Roma voluntary relocation to land bought in India. The NS is a marginal party in the Czech Republic, gaining only 0.17% of votes in the 2006 parliamentary elections. Judy Mallaber, MP for Amber Valley, said she had deep concerns. “[The BNP’s] attempts to present a respectable image are still masking some deeply disturbing underlying views.”

Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP, said: “There is a Gypsy problem there. What’s wrong with people who talk frankly about their problems?”

UPDATE at 4/25/09 9:30:56 am:

Please see an important update to this post: Classic Misdirection from Spencer and Geller.

UPDATE at 4/27/09 8:34:34 am:

Since a number of websites, especially in Germany, are now repeating an absolutely false claim that I “forged” the photograph of Filip DeWinter and Markus Beisicht above and linking to this post as some sort of “proof,” I’m duplicating my post on the issue here:

Apparently, one of the photos I used to illustrate my post yesterday about the neo-facscist and outright neo-Nazi connections of the “pro Koln” conference in Germany was altered:

This photograph:

Which I discovered, ironically, at a pro-fascist website through Google Images: Translated version of Markus Beisicht (per NRW): “Islamization fight!”

Spencer and Geller have turned up another version of the photo (without saying where they got it):

Which one is the real photo and which is the altered one? It’s not obvious from examining the pictures, but clearly, one of them was altered.

But it’s a meaningless distinction. The point of posting the photograph was not to show Filip DeWinter of the Vlaams Belang and Markus Beisicht of Pro Koln in front of a demonstration — it was very obviously to show that they are associates.

The photograph Spencer and Geller have posted merely confirms that fact. And it’s very easy to find more photographs of DeWinter and Beisicht together — at the Pro Koln website itself.

Both of them are screaming about the “fauxtography,” to divert your attention from the fascist connections of these people — which, you may notice, they don’t dispute.

Pamela Geller has always been into these dishonest techniques, so there’s nothing more to say about her; but it’s sad, and utterly pathetic, to see Robert Spencer resorting to such sleaze.

(They both seem to think I would simply make the picture vanish and deny it was altered; actually, no, that’s not how I work. But it’s telling that they project their own techniques onto me.)