Ulster Nazi behind racist campaign
Sunday Life - 13th July 2003
Ulster Nazi behind racist campaign
By Ciaran McGuigan
THIS man is the mouthpiece for the right-wing extremists, whose literature is being blamed for a string of racist attacks, across Ulster.
Factory worker Gareth James Allen formed the extreme right-wing group, the White Nationalist Party, in Northern Ireland last year, and has overseen the distribution of thousands of leaflets, spreading his message of hate. But when challenged by Sunday Life, Allen claimed the WNP leaflets were not to blame for recent racist violence and intimidation, in Northern Ireland.
Targets for his campaign of hate have included plans to build a mosque in Bleary, Co Armagh, asylum seekers and mixed-race schools. His party's leaflets are being blamed for the upsurge in racist attacks in Belfast and mid-Ulster, in recent weeks. Already one Muslim family has been driven from their home, by baseball bat-wielding thugs.
Allen, 35, has been involved in shadowy far-right organisations, since joining the National Front, at 15. Now, he uses the internet to plot campaigns with a string of other nazi groups, including the November 9 Society, who come under the banner 'Aryan Unity'.
When Sunday Life tackled Allen on the upsurge of violent attacks, he tried to wash his hands of any responsibility. He said: "From my understanding, all these attacks stem from local disputes, they are just being blamed on the literature. "Local hoods will see a leaflet, and think they will be able to use it to cover their tracks. Our leaflets have proved highly effective in recruiting people to our cause, but if people decide to go around breaking other people's windows, and standing outside their property making threats, that can't really be brought to the door of the WNP. Violent attacks only fuel this anti-racist hysteria, and land people in jail."
Despite Allen's denial of any links between WNP hate mail and recent vicious attacks, cops are examining possible links. Chief Inspector Grimshaw, from the PSNI Community Involvement branch, told Sunday Life: "When there is an increase in terms of the number of incidents (attacks), we have to be prepared to respond in the most robust way. And we are very mindful of the fact that this literature is becoming more prevalent in Northern Ireland, and that is something we will have to watch very closely, in the coming days and weeks."
Sunday Life - 13th July 2003
Ulster's face of hate
We're not to blame says NAZI leader
By Ciaran McGuigan
SUNDAY LIFE today exposes the Ulster Nazi who peddles the filth behind a spate of racist attacks across the province.
Our in-depth investigation has identified career Nazi Gareth James Allen as the mouthpiece responsible for the distribution of sick racist hate leaflets.
Factory worker Allen, 35, last night denied he was to blame for inciting a string of attacks against blacks and Muslims. But one PSNI source told us: "We feel there is a direct link between this sort of racist filth and the attacks we have seen in recent days."
The influence of shadowy extreme right groups, such as the White Nationalist Party and the November 9 Society, has been on the increase in Ulster, in recent months. That has coincided with a number of racially motivated attacks, across the province.
In the latest attack last week, a Muslim family was forced to flee its Craigavon home, after a mob attacked their home with baseball bats.
One of the groups behind the racist literature being circulated is the N9S - aka the British Nazi Party. Their 'national director' is Kevin Quinn, an IT consultant from Bedfordshire. Quinn, 38, is the man who distributes the nazi hate literature, to his lieutenants in Ulster.
When Sunday Life challenged him about recent race attacks in Craigavon and south Belfast, he distanced himself from the thugs behind the attacks.
And he told Sunday Life he would shop the thugs to police. "The people who go out to commit those type of acts are unhinged. And whether they read our literature, or anyone else's literature, if they are that way inclined that's what they will do. We don't advocate any type of violence in our literature, or on our website."
Quinn added: "We in British Nazi Party have a rank structure, and we have got to act within the law, and we can't have people going off doing what they want, because we don't want our people in prison. All of our members sign a disclaimer, to say that they won't commit any illegal acts for the organisation, or independently in our name."
Quinn was arrested just over a week ago, when cops seized over 100,000 leaflets from his Bedford home. His computer and other materials were also taken from his home. Quinn told Sunday Life that police questioned him, and later released him without charge. His arrest came as English cops staged a crackdown on alleged race hate crimes, and just days after another pipe bomb attack - this time on the home of a black South African family, in south Belfast.
Added Quinn: "If anyone committed an act like that (pipe-bomb attack) and I had information, it would be handed straight over to the police. They (the police) know only too well that I have nothing to do with these other organisations and that I don't advocate violence at all. I believe they wanted to come and have a nose around at British Nazi Party stuff, and used this to gain access to my house."
Sunday Life - 13th July 2003
Hitler fans spread white power views
THE trickle of nazi literature coming into Ulster has turned to a flood, since the start of the year. Right-wing thugs who hero-worship Adolf Hitler have been distributing leaflets in mid-Ulster, north Antrim and throughout Belfast, to spread their message of hate.
The groups operate under a loose umbrella, and are strongest in loyalist areas of Portadown, Ballymena and south Belfast. Among them is the White Nationalist Party, first exposed by the Sunday Life in January.
They have built up around 100 members, mostly in the north Antrim area, and have concentrated on campaigning against plans to build a mosque in Bleary, outside Craigavon.
Their literature has been blamed for a number of racist attacks in the area, including an incident last week, when a mixed-race Muslim family was forced to flee its home. Thugs wielding baseball bats and iron bars smashed windows, in the family's Craigavon home.
Another of the groups currently circulating hate literature is the November 9 Society. Also known as the British Nazi Party, the group takes its name from the anniversary of Kristallnacht - the night in 1938 when nazi mobs went on the rampage throughout Germany, killing almost 100 Jews and destroying thousands of Jewish-owned businesses.
Kevin Quinn's face appears on N9S literature, hero-worshipping Adolf Hitler and warning about "extinction" of the white population. In relation to Ulster Quinn says: "The November 9 Society will never give up Ulster.
"Giving up Ulster would be like giving up Adolf Hitler, completely unthinkable."
Fascist Quinn claims that his literature does not incite hatred. But he insists asylum seekers should be thrown into the sea, if they refuse to leave Britain. "Asylum seekers would be asked to leave immediately; if they refused they would be marched to the coast, by the Army, and told to swim," he says.
Quinn also makes money from selling webspace to other hardline fascist groups. His own organisation asks for donations from its members, in the form of cheques, made out to Quinn personally. And the party's 'hotline' is a premium rate telephone line, which costs £1.50 a minute.
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