Peaceful 'pillow protesters' take on EDL
by - 11th April 2016
AN English Defence League march through a town linked with extremism was met with pillows, tea and cake at the weekend.
More than 80 members of the far-right group gathered in High Wycombe to protest against Muslim extremists from the area.
But although left-wing groups did clash with the EDL, local people also set up a camp in the town centre which they dubbed their pillow protest.
The event was the brainchild of 18-year-old student Laura Vale who urged people to bring pillows, blankets and snacks to Church Square.
She said: ‘Just chilling out, eating some cake and drinking some tea is a nice way to go about it because it doesn’t give the EDL what they want which is anger and it just means we actually represent the community for what it is.
‘The idea came about when I was sat on the tube one day and I thought “I love multiculturalism so much, this is great”.
‘So I came up with a plan to have a sit-down protest with pillows, everyone talking and being in the community together and bringing attention away from the EDL to what High Wycombe really is which is a multicultural community that is diverse and works together.’
Around 80 members of the EDL marched through the town before dispersing in the mid-afternoon.
Four arrests were made and the town centre was closed for hours as a large contingent of police worked to separate the EDL from United Against Fascism counter protestors.
Extremism
Several cases of radicalisation and extremism have a High Wycombe connection:
Last year 27-year-old Omar Hussein, dubbed the supermarket jihadi left his job as a security guard in a Morrisons to travel to Syria to fight for IS.
Thomas Evans, a 19-year-old convert went to Somalia to become a suicide bomber and Shabazz Suleman, an 18-year-old who attended RGS Grammar School, also went to Syria.
One of the four men arrested last November for a suspected terrorist plot around Remembrance Sunday was 19-year-old Yousaf Syed from High Wycombe and last month an unnamed 17-year-old from the town was arrested and released on bail on suspicion of terrorism-related offences.
In 2006 eight men from the surrounding area were arrested for planning to bomb transatlantic flights.
English Defence League
Truck Driver and EDL member Paul Banks, said the reason for the march was fears over people returning from Syria to commit terrorists acts in the UK.
‘We’re demonstrating against returnee terrorists and a Muslim who is being prosecuted for fundraising for terror in High Wycombe,’ the 67-year-old said.
‘There is no such thing as militant Islam, Islam is Islam, ISIS is Islam, fundraising for ISIS is Islam.’
He added that many members of the EDL felt like minorities in their home towns.
‘You’ll find a lot of these guys here are from areas where they feel they have been ethnically cleansed, from Rotherham, Rochdale, Bury, Blackburn, where in swathes of the town they are now the ethnic minority.’
Pillow protest organiser Laura accepted High Wycombe’s links with extremism but said it did not represent the community.
‘It happens. It is a thing, but it’s a minority thing and that is what the EDL are not recognising.
‘People are isolated in their communities and then if extremist thoughts get put into them they feel bolstered by that.
‘It’s an identity crisis.’
Relations
Former mayor of High Wycombe and chairman of the Council for Christian Muslim relations Chauhdry Shafique said that events since 9/11 and the 2003 Iraq war had been difficult for the community.
‘I think those sorts of things have created an atmosphere of challenge and tension and occasional feelings of Islamophobia where it’s a question in people’s minds whether Islam and Muslims have loyalty to this country, where do they stand on their identity?’
But, he said, relations between Christians and Muslims were strong. ‘In High Wycombe, we’d really like to think that we’ve taken the opportunity in taking a situation of adversity to get ourselves together.’
Hugh Ellis, minister of All-Saints church agreed that community relations were improving and said that the fact that so many plots had been foiled in the town was proof that the Muslim community shared the same hopes and fears as their neighbours.
‘Our view is, and this will be the view of the local prevent officers and police, the fact that they have all been foiled beforehand shows how supportive the Muslim community are.’
All Saints has held multiple multi-faith services and prayer vigils and the minister said the bonds between the communities were deepening.
‘In my experience, there are extraordinarily positive relations between the Christians and the Muslims to the degree that one or two are beginning to say I call myself a Sunni-Christian.’
‘They’re not saying they’re multi-religion, they’re saying I feel so much at home.’
‘They feel somehow linked, there’s such a bond with Christian people and they have so much in common they want to identify with it.’
‘I know Muslims who say that All Saints is my church.’