Police seize entire printrun of British National Party newspaper

by Staff Brand Republic 12-Sep-05, 14:00

LONDON - The police have seized the entire printrun of the latest edition of the British National Party's newspaper The Voice of Freedom on grounds of incitement to racial hatred.

Kent Police seized the 60,000-run paper at Dover yesterday as it made its way into the country from Slovakia where it is printed, but the BNP went ahead and produced the edition on its website.

Under the strapline "Britain gets bombed but it's Islam that gets the sympathy" the paper ran the headline "What about showing some solidarity with the British people?".

Kent Police said they launched the raid because of fears over public order offences regarding the incitement of racial hatred. The force is liaising with the Crown Prosecution Service.

"They have been seized so we can see if any criminal offences have been committed," Kent Police said in a statement.

The far-right BNP accused the Labour government of being behind the attack and said it was an example of "New Labour's Zimbabwe Britain".

A spokesman for the BNP, Dr Phill Edwards, said the attack was "a serious attack by the state on freedom of speech".

The BNP has said that paper was on its way to its distribution centre in Leeds and following the seizure the party has published the paper on its website.

"What they are doing is trying to look for something wrong when they don't know there is anything wrong. We are saying it is an abuse of power -- we are supposed to be a free country," Edwards said.

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