Supporters of the PEGIDA UK leader Tommy Robinson have begun a crowdfunding initiative to assist with his legal fees as he fights imprisonment and what he calls ‘political policing’.
The Help Tommy Robinson website, which is run by “friends of Tommy Robinson”, says the activist “desperately needs financial support from us – money that can be used for a lawyer. Plus he has a wife and three children”.
“A better lawyer could mean the difference between life and death. The one he has now is paid by the state that has been 100 per cent against Tommy”, it adds.
Mr. Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, 32, faces a court case on April 14th of this year, relating to an accusation that he assaulted a Muslim man in prison, which he insists was was self defence.
Two days after launching the UK branch of the pan-European anti-Islamisation movement PEGIDA, on January 5th, Mr. Robinson was arrested and charged with the assault.
The crime was allegedly committed in prison in 2014, but documents seen by journalists at the time of the arrest confirmed police had dropped the case in October 2015.
“This is so blatant police and state collusion because of my political beliefs”, Mr. Robinson tweeted at the time. “How can you drop the case and then months later decide to come back and charge me @bedspolice it’s embarrassing how blatant this is”, he added.
“The fact this latest arrest comes days after [the PEGIDA UK launch] is no coincidence. I WILL BE IN BIRMINGHAM ON FEB 6TH”, he added on the social media site.
Mr. Robinson was only held for a short time following a public outcry, and has been present the PEGIDA UK walks on the 6th of February and last weekend. Both events have passed off peacefully, without incident.
Mr. Robinson has confessed to involvement in an altercation when detained for mortgage fraud in July last year. He has since claimed in his book that the fraud charges are spurious, and his arrest was politically motivated.
He claims he was deliberately put in danger in jail, where he was placed in a “wing full of Muslims”, and had to act in self-defence as there was a bounty on his head. He said a Muslim man was planning to attack him with boiling water.
According to his story, the man he attacked was a Somalia Muslim, who has claimed Mr. Robinson called him a “Paki.” The police then charged Mr. Robinson with racially aggravated assault.
“I have been bailed on a racially aggravated assault. Yes I did hit a Somalian in prison [because] he was [going to] do me with boiling water”, tweeted Robinson in August 2015 regarding the altercation.
Continuing: “I was put in a position where my life was in danger with Muslim murderers planning how they would get me. It went down on my terms not theirs.” Adding: “Because I again avoiding serious harm the police are pursuing a case against me in order to put me back in prison & ultimately be killed.”
An email seen by IB Times after his arrest in January confirmed Cambridgeshire Police, who investigated the allegations, had indeed originally decided to take no further action against Robinson back in October.
A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Police said it was against policy to confirm whether an individual was due to be charged, instead saying:
“A 33-year-old man from Wilstead was arrested on suspicion of common assault in August, and is due to return on bail to Luton Police Station on 12 January.”
It has also been claimed that “political policing” has been used to stop Mr. Robinson attending the Oxford Union debating society and a “Draw Mohammed” cartoon competition.
“Nelson Mandela had better conditions in prison than Tommy. In the end, Mandela had a prison garden. Tommy has been beaten unconscious in prison and had his teeth knocked out”, says the new fundraising page.
Continuing: “Why was he put among Islamic violent offenders for a non-violent offence [mortgage fraud] that usually has no prison sentence? He knows it’s because the authorities wanted him out of the way”.