Counterjihad Timeline

A chronology of the Counterjihad movement.

2004

Gates of Vienna blog header, Screengrab Gates of Vienna

October

• 9 - Inaugural post on the Gates of Vienna blog by Baron Bodissey.

2005

June

• Stop Islamiseringen af Danmark founded according to Anders Gravers.

2006

January

• David Yerushalmi founds the Society of Americans for National Existence.

May

• 7 - Ted Ekeroth receives one of the 2006 Herzl Awards from the World Zionist Organisation.

September

910 Group logo, Screengrab from Gates of Vienna

• Center for Vigilant Freedom and the 910 Group founded.
• 4 - Gates of Vienna post said to have inspired the formation of the 910 Group
• 13 - Lee Kaplan article in FrontPageMag on the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement based on the activities of infiltrator Paul Renato, later revealed to be identical with Paul Ray.
• 26 - 910 Group founded on this date according to Ned May.
• 28 - Pajamas Media event at the National Press Club in Washington. Edward S. May is among those attending.

October

• 5 - Formation of the 910 Group on Yahoo reported by Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna

November

• 24 - US Conservatives Jack Wheeler and Steve Baldwin call for "The Creation of an Anti-Islamofascism Movement".
• 27 - Members of the 910 Group meet in Northern Virginia with conservatives Jack Wheeler and Steve Baldwin of the Council for National Policy to discuss plans for an "infrastructure to combat Islamofascism" modelled on cold war anti-communism.

December

• 11 - The US neoconservative group Middle East Forum appointed Paul Belien as director of Islamist Watch.
• 12 - The website of the Center for Vigilant Freedom (which now redirects to the rebranded International Civil Liberties Alliance) was registered on this date by Christine Brim.

2007

January

• 9 - Pamela Geller interviewed Paul Ray on BlogTalk Radio.

February

• 20 - Christian Action Network held a protest at the Charlotte County courthouse in Virginia against a road named after Sheikh Gilani of Muslims of America. Baron Bodissey and Christine Brim of the 910 Group attended.

March

Daniel Pipes receiving the Danish Free Press Society's award, 2007. Source: Algemeiner

• According to the Center for Vigilant Freedom, CVF chapters "began to meet locally and organize public education campaigns in several nations and U.S. states" by this month.
• 1 - The Center for Vigilant Freedom was set up as a non-stock incorporated company, Center for Vigilant Freedom Incorporated, on this date under Corporation ID number 0670082-7. The registration agent for the company was Christine Brim.

• 2 - Southside Messenger editorial responds to Christine Brim and the 910 Group over Christian Action Network campaign against Sheikh Gilani Lane in Virginia.

• 10 - Daniel Pipes received the Danish Free Press Society's 2007 Free Press Award.

• 31 - Christine Brim of the Center for Vigilant Freedom speaks at the United American Committee's second "Rally Against Islamofascism Day" at Ground Zero in New York.

April

Counterjihad Scandinavia 2007, Source: screengrab from Gates of Vienna

• 14 - UK and Scandinavia Counterjihad summit at the Workers' Museum in Copenhagen.

June

• 16 - Pro Köln demonstration against a mosque in Cologne supported by Austrian Freedom Party and Vlaams Belang.

July

• 8 - Aeneas Lavinium leaves a comment on Paul Ray's blog inviting him to join the Center for Vigilant Freedom/910 Group network.

September

• 11 - SIOE demonstration in Brussels.

October

Counterjihad Brussels 2007. screengrab from Gates of Vienna

• 18 - First Day of the Counterjihad Brussels Conference
• 19 - Second Day of the Counterjihad Brussels Conference

November

• 22 - Christine Brim of the Center for Vigilant Freedom writes of European far right parties: "If such parties specifically state pro-Israel positions, and take real actions opposing anti-semitism and disavowing previous positions - and reach out to Jewish constituents and encourage Jewish participation in party positions - these are real actions to observe, and to approve."
• 30 - Christopher Knowles and Dominique Devaux speak on behalf of the Center for Vigilant Freedom at a conference in Bologna.

2008

January

Filip Dewinter of the far right Vlaams Belang Flemish political party. Source. CCSA

• 9 - Phyllis Chesler interviews Paul Ray for Pajamas Media.
• 17 - Cities against Islamisation launched by Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang party at a conference in Antwerp.

March

• 13-14 Identity Crisis: Can European civilization survive? conference hosted in Rome by the European Freedom Alliance, the European University of Rome and the Lepanto Foundation. Moderators include Bruce Bawer; panelists include Bat Ye'or, Baroness Caroline Cox, Douglas Murray and Robert Spencer.

May

• 10 - Counterjihad Vienna Conference
  

  right Counterjihad Conference Vienna, 2008, screengrab from Gates of Vienna

June

• 15-16 - "How Free is the University" conference in California organised by American Freedom Alliance.

October

• 11 - Vigilant Freedom Britannia Meeting – ‘Making Britain Safe for Apostasy’ was due to take place in Central London with Aeneas Lavinium of the Center for Vigilant Freedom as the contact.

November

• 14 - Andrew Bostom interviewed by Alan Johnson for Democratiya.

December

• 14 - Arieh Eldad and Ariel Center for Policy Research host Geert Wilders at Facing Jihad conference in Jerusalem.

2009

January

• 1 - International Free Press Society founded.
  

  International Free Press Society logo, screengrab from IFPS.com

February

• Christian Action Network produced a documentary, Homegrown Jihad: the terrorist camps around the US, which purported to uncover a network of 30-plus terrorist training compounds. CBS News called it 'sensationalist'.
• 27 - the International Free Press Society sponsored an event for Geert Wilders at the National Press Club in Washington DC.
• 28- Wilders also holds an event at a Boston-area synagogue, sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition, an influential group whose board members include casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, and neoconservative writer David Frum, who attended Wilders’s above event in Washington.

March

• 10 - Muslim extremists demonstrate at the homecoming of the Royal Anglian Regiment in Luton.

April

• 13 - An illegal protest against Muslim 'hate preachers' takes place in Luton.
• 26 - The Florida Security Council Free Speech Summit takes place in South Florida. The event includes a question and answer session with Geert Wilders and a screening of his film Fitna.

May

Counterjihad Copenhagen 2009, Source: Liberties Alliance

• 16 - Opening day of Counterjihad Copenhagen 2009 conference.
• 17 - Second day of Counterjihad Copenhagen 2009 conference.
• 29-30 - Geert Wilders due to speak by video at the New English Review symposium on Understanding the Jihad in Israel, Europe and America, at the Loews Vanderbilt Plaza Hotel in Nashville. The event was cancelled by Loews managing director Thomas Negri 'for the health, safety and well-being of our guests and employees'.

July

• According to the Sunday Times, Ann Marchini organises a key meeting between English Defence League members and counterjihad activists around this time.
• 9-10 - Counterjihad groups International Civil Liberties Alliance and Mission Europa represented at OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Freedom of Religion or Belief in Vienna.

August

• Circa 17 - Martin Mawyer and Jason Campbell of the Christian Action Network interview three members of the English Defence League for a documentary..
• 19 - Robert Spencer arrives in Britain to take part in Mawyer's documentary.
• Circa 19 - Mawyer invited the EDL to a meeting a few days later at the George Pub in Crossharbour East London, where those present included Campbell, Spencer, Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, Adrian Morgan of Family Security Matters and Paul Weston. Spencer and Murray later said they had refused to have anything to do with the EDL, a claim which was backed by several of the others present.

September

<youtube size="small" align="right" caption="Alan Lake in Malmo with Sweden Democrats">oY7FL0LgIrA</youtube>

• 6 - Alan Lake spoke about counterjihad strategy at a seminar organised by Kent Ekeroth of the Sweden Democrats in Malmö.
• 12 - Guardian reports that Alan Lake is advising the English Defence League.
• 24 - Metropolitan Police Chief Constable Sir Paul Stephenson said the EDL and Stop the Islamisation of Europe were not extreme right-wing groups and could not be barred from protesting:

“the concern to me is how groups like that either willingly or unwillingly allow themselves to be exploited by very extreme rightwing groups like the National Front and the British Freedom Fighters”.

• 25 - Launch of Stop Islamization of America

October

• 3 - Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa hosted a rally in Berlin at which speakers included Robert Spencer, Renè Stadtkewitz, Michael Höhne-Pattberg, Willi Schwend and Achim Swietlik.
• 23 - Paul Ray posted pictures of himself with German neo-Nazi Nick Greger holding up t-shirts emblazoned with a UDA logo and a picture of loyalist Johnny Adair, a friend of Greger's.

November

• 14 - Scottish Defence League holds first demonstration in Glasgow.

December

• 13 - Stop Islamisation of Europe demonstration in Harrow, London. English Defence League youth organiser Joel Titus later cautioned for assaulting a photographer.

2010

Counterjihad Zurich 2010, screengrab from Gates of Vienna

February

• 19 - Freedom Defense Initiative sponsors "Jihad: The Political Third Rail" panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

April

• 17 - Rally for Geert Wilders in Berlin. Aeneas Lavinium speaks as part of a British delegation.

May

• 4 - American Freedom Defense Initiative incorporated.

June

• 6 - No Mosque at Ground Zero rally in New York sponsored by Stop the Islamization of America
• 12 - Counterjihad Zurich 2010 conference.
• 29 - English Defence League posts first press release from the "EDL Jewish Division."

2011

<youtube size="tiny" caption="‪Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff meets the EDL‬, Feb 2011" align="right">0xM_IeApWfM</youtube>

February

• 5 - Austrian counterjihad activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff addressed an English Defence League (EDL) demonstration in Luton, UK, and expressed support for EDL.

July

• 25 - English Defence League leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon convicted of 'using threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour'.

August

• 5 - Counterjihad blogger Peder Jensen announces he is abandoning his "Fjordman" pseudonym after being cited by extremist Anders Breivik, who killed dozens of people in Norway.
  

  Counterjihad London Conference 2011, screengrab Gates of Vienna

September

• 24-25 - Counterjihad London 2011 conference.

2012

Dispatch International front page, screengrab from Loonwatch

July

• 9 - Brussels Counterjihad Conference 2012 at the European Parliament - includes the launch of the so-called Brussels Process and issuing of the related Brussels Declaration. It was billed as an 'International conference for free speech & human rights' and sponsored by the International Civil Liberties Alliance.

• Dispatch International was launched at or shortly after the conference.

August

• 4 - Worldwide Counterjihad Alliance due to launch in Stockholm.

2013

June

March for Fuselier Lee Rigby, Source:Wikimedia

• 29 June - EDL leaders Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll were arrested in East London after they defied a police order confining an EDL Armed Forces Day demonstration to an area between Hyde Park Corner and Westminster in central London. The two men planned to pass East London Mosque on their walk from Hyde Park to Woolwich to lay flowers at the place where soldier Lee Rigby was killed.

September

• Counterjihad Warsaw 2013 - scheduled to coincide with another conference, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Human Dimension Implementation Meeting.[1]

October

• Tommy Robinson quit the EDL, announcing this at a press conference organised by the 'counter-extremist' think tank Quilliam Foundation who say that they 'facilitated' his departure. Robinson claimed in an interview with the Guardian that he was 'sorry' for creating fear among Muslims in the UK and an 'us and them' culture of violence.

2014

PEGIDA Dresden rally, 2014, Wikimedia

April

• 24 - Sharia Watch UK launched in the House of Lords, hosted by Baroness Cox. Founder Anne Marie Waters later announces she is running as a UKIP candidate.

September

• EDL protest in Rotherham, England over revelations of child sex exploitation in the town, with around 1000 attending. Protestors attack police.

October

• 20 - the first Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West ('PEGIDA') protest in Dresden, Germany, draws only a handful of people.

November

• 27 - Former EDL leader Tommy Robinson speaks at the Oxford Union.

December

• 22 - around 17,000 people attend PEGIDA's 10th demonstration in Dresden, alarming the mainstream.

2015

<youtube size="tiny" align="right" caption="Former BNP /EDL member Tommy Robinson at launch of PEGIDA Netherlands, October 2015">52icPvPWXKo</youtube>

January

• 9 - Fifty English Defence League supporters jailed for more than a combined 75 years, for violence at a protest in Birmingham, England in July 2013
• 12 - PEGIDA protest in Dresden attracts record 25,000 following Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

February

• 8 - Around 600 EDL protestors in Dudley, England marched against a planned construction of a mosque in the West Midlands. Thirty arrested, 25 later released.

• 10 - Defeat Jihad Summit 2015 conference in Washington, hosted by Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy to coincide with President Obama’s summit on violent extremism. US participants and speakers include 'a who’s who of far-right activists' and prominent Republican politicians such as Sen. Ted Cruz and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Other guests included Geert Wilders, Lars Hedegaard, head of the International Free Press Society, Newt Gingrich, Michael Mukasey and former leader UK Independence Party (UKIP) Malcolm Pearson, Lord of Rannoch.

• 28 - Pegida UK holds its first rally in Newcastle, but its 375-400 supporters are vastly outnumbered by 3000 counter-protestors organised by the Newcastle Unites group. Banners at the protest featured far-right insignia including that of the National Front party.

March

• 4 - An attempted rally by Pegida Scotland flops, with a handful of protestors again outflanked by over 200 anti-fascists

• 23 - prospective UK Conservative Party parliamentary candidate Afzal Amin steps down after former EDL leader Tommy Robinson reveals that Amin had been in talks with him to arrange a phony EDL protest march against a proposed mosque in Dudley.

May

• 3 - Two gunmen attack American Freedom Defense Initiative 'Draw Muhammad cartoons' event in Garland, Texas. Anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders had already left the building, although activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer were still inside. Both attackers were killed by security guards.
  

  Sharia Watch UK and Liberty GB poster advertising a planned exhibition of cartoons of Mohammed in London

July

• 1 - Sharia Watch UK founder and former UKIP candidate Anne Marie Waters announces that she will host an exhibition of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in London in September, with Dutch politician Geert Wilders as an invited guest.

• 1 - Baroness Caroline Cox, who originally hosted its launch in 2014 makes a statement on her 'position' regarding Sharia Watch: 'I now have no continuing connection or involvement with Sharia Watch'.

August

• Anne Marie Waters cancels the Mohammed cartoon drawing exhibition, citing security concerns including that 'people could be killed'.

September

• 8-9 ACT! for America National Conference and Legislative Briefing in Washington. Keynote speakers include Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brigitte Gabriel, Bill Whittle, Ryan Mauro, Deborah Weiss, Ann Corcoran, Captain Charles T. “Chuck” Nash USN (RET), Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney USAF (RET)

October

• 20 - Two years after he quit the English Defence League and 'apologised' for his anti-Muslim violence and rhetoric, Tommy Robinson speaks at rallies of PEGIDA protestors in the Netherlands and Germany to mark the first anniversary of PEGIDA, telling anti-Islam protesters that refugees are 'invading Europe'.

December

• Tommy Robinson announces he will take over as leader of Pegida UK, to be re-launched in the New Year.
• London sees a tripling of anti-Muslim attacks following Paris terror attacks
• US Republican candidate Donald Trump calls for a temporary ban on all immigration of Muslims into the USA following the San Bernardino shootings on 2 December. He cites a discredited public opinion poll by Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy as evidence for his policy call.
• New York Times reports that "kill Muslims" is the top Google search in California using the word "Muslims" after the San Bernadino shootings
• 29: German Green Party MP Volker Beck starts legal proceedings against Pegida and several of its supporters for 18 threats to his life, accusing Pegida of encouraging a ‘spiral of hate’.

2016

January

• 4: Launch of Pegida UK. Paul Weston (British Freedom Party and Liberty GB) is appointed as its new leader and Anne Marie Waters (UKIP and Sharia Watch) its chairperson. Ex-EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson is also closely involved.
• 6: Britain First leader Paul Golding found guilty of harassing a Muslim woman in Essex. He is fined £325 for harassment and £100 for wearing a political uniform, and is given a two-year restraining order.
• 18: Geert Wilders posts a comment on Facebook demanding that all male refugees from Islamic countries be locked up in order to protect Dutch women from Cologne-style assaults. A 1,000-strong anti-refugee protest is broken by police in Central Heesch, Netherlands, where a centre for 500 refugees was opened.
• 20: Joshua Bonehill-Paine, who was convicted for inciting racial hatred in 2015, is reported under investigation for sending racist letters from two prisons – Manchester and Wandsworth.
• 21: BBC News reveals 400 children aged ten and under have been referred to the Channel Project which aims to tackle radicalisation of young people; 1,424 young people aged between 11-15 have also been referred.
• 27: West Yorkshire Police write letter to Britain First members barring them from carrying their 'No More Mosques' banners at an upcoming Dewsbury protest, classifying it as a religiously aggravated public order offence and warning anyone doing so would be arrested. Britain First said it would ignore the restriction. The group claims it has widespread support, pointing to the 1.2 million likes on its Facebook page.
• David Cameron is criticised by MPs after describing the men, women and children who are destitute in Calais as a ‘bunch of migrants’ in an exchange with Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
• Research by the Holocaust Memorial Trust reveals a quarter of the British public have witnessed racial hate crime in the last year
• 28: The British Home Office responded to a 12,000-signature petition calling for Britain First to be banned with a statement but would not confirm if the group was under review.

February

• 7: Pegida UK held a 'silent march' in Birmingham.

March

• 1: Britain First’s ‘Christian intervention’, led by Deputy Leader Jayda Franken attracted no more than 10 supporters as it staged a picket outside the Whitechapel mosque in East London.

May

• 2: Figures released by West Yorkshire Police show that the number of racially motivated hate crimes it has recorded has increased by 63 per cent in a year, and the number of religiously motivated hate crimes by 192 per cent. According to a report by the force: “Around one half of all faith hate crimes recorded relate to offences where the targeted faith is Islam. Around 13 per cent of all faith hate crimes recorded related to anti-Semitic offenses.”
• 7: An anti-Islam rally organised by Jenna Louca from the Casual Infidels draws just 24 protesters in Burton, Staffordshire.
• 21: Britain First's Paul Golding arrested for breach of his bail after setting up a leafleting stand in Leicester city centre with 20 BF activists. Their protest was outnumbered five-fold by an anti-fascist counter-protest.
• Half of all people feared to be at risk of terrorist sympathies and referred to Channel may have mental health or psychological problems, a police study has found
• 24: Austrian police reveal the gunman who fired more than forty shots into a concert in Vorarlberg, killing three people and injuring eleven more before killing himself, was a member of the neo-Nazi Blood & Honour group.
• 28: Despite bold words about a two-day protest in Kent, fewer than 30 South East Alliance of National Front supporters marched in Dover on Saturday, while Sunday turned into a no-show.

June

• 5: "The Mail on Sunday" reports on numerous far-right activists from the National Front, BNP and EDL, active in Brexit campaigning across the UK, including Andrew Edge, a prominent member of the far-Right English Defence League, who was jailed after an EDL protest for 21 months in 2014.
• 20: Tommy Robinson, ex-EDL leader and leader of PEGIDA UK since 2016, under the name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, escaped a football banning order during Euro 2016, celebrates with 'F**k Isis' England flag in France. Police arrived at his home when he was already in France.
• 21: Vote Leave campaigners refuse to answer questions about a £600,000 donation to the Leave campaign from Gladys Bramall, the third-largest individual donor to the campaign and a former member of the BNP.
• 23: Far-right activist Joshua Bonehill-Paine, is charged with a racially or religiously aggravated offences of harassment (non-violent) between October 2014 and January 2015
• 29: Tell MAMA, an organisation which monitors anti-Muslim hate crime, publishes a new report which finds that in 2015, incidents of anti-Muslim abuse and attacks in public areas of the UK rose by 326 per cent, with women disproportionately targeted by mostly teenage perpetrators.

July

• 9: Not a single child has been brought to the UK from Europe since David Cameron promised two months ago that he would do more to help refugee children.
• 16: In response to the terrorist massacre at the Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice, President Hollande announces a three-month extension of the state of emergency and a strengthening of Operation Sentinelle in which 10,000 soldiers patrol French streets.
• 17: Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black man, dies in police custody in the northern Parisian suburb of Val-d’Oise. The police claim that Traoré ‘fell ill’ and died of a cardiac arrest, but his brother who witnessed his arrest and those close to him claim that police officers chased and then beat him up before taking him to the police station. His death sparks protests that continue through the night, with cars and bins set on fire and protesters calling the police ‘murderers’. Protests continue weeks afterwards as the autopsies results and several police statements spark more anger.
• 19: IPSO receives over 1,400 complaints after former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie made remarks in The Sun criticising Muslim newscaster, Fatima Manji for wearing a hijab while reporting the Nice attack.
• 20: Bedfordshire police launch a second bid at the High Court to prevent Britain First from entering Luton’s Bury Park and banning them from every mosque in England and Wales for three years. Britain First leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen will appear in court on August 15 to fight against the injunction application.