UK--BNP (far right party) to use Prophet cartoon in Campaign......

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From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com

5//The Independent, UK Published: 22 February 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article346942.ece



BNP TO USE PROPHET CARTOON IN CAMPAIGN

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor



The British National Party is seeking to exploit controversies involving Muslims in its campaign for local authority elections in May.

The extreme right-wing party, which hopes to field 1,000 candidates in England, will include in its campaign material one of the cartoons which sparked outrage among Muslims across the world, showing the Prophet Mohamed with a bomb in his turban.

One leaflet asks voters: "Are you concerned about the growth of Islam in Britain? Make Thursday 4 May Referendum Day." It adds: "We owe it to our children to defend our Christian culture."

Labour MPs condemned the BNP's attack on Muslims while also urging their party's leaders to take more seriously the threat from the BNP in its working-class heartlands.

Mainstream parties say the BNP's campaigning has become more sophisticated. The party is using telephone canvassing for the first time and playing down its hostility to blacks and Asians in order to focus on Muslims. Other campaign literature contrasts the jailing of the Muslim cleric Abu Hamza for inciting murder and racial hatred with the partial acquittal of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, who faces a retrial on unresolved racial hatred charges on 15 May.



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