he Telegraph
Our Foreign Staff,The Telegraph 20 hours ago
A white nationalist who was featured in a Vice News documentary about the "Unite the Right" Charlottesville marchers at the weekend has posted a video in which he tearfully complains about his current plight.
Christopher Cantwell took part in the rally in support of Confederate hero Robert E Lee in Virginia on Saturday, which escalated to violence and ended in the death of a woman.
“I have been told there’s a warrant out for my arrest,” he said while crying on the video. “With everything that’s happening, I don’t think it’s very wise for me to go anywhere. There’s a state of emergency. The National Guard is here!”
“I want to be peaceful. I want to be law-abiding. That was the whole entire point of this,” Cantwell continues. “I’m watching CNN talk about this as a violent, white nationalist protest. We have done everything in our power to keep this peaceful!” he added.
He also said urged police to contact him if there was a warrant out for his arrest.
“I am armed, I do not want violence with you. I’m terrified, I’m afraid you’re going to kill me, I really am,” he said.
“If I gotta go to jail today, you know it won’t be the f------* first time… I honestly believe I have been law-abiding. I have been engaged in violence, I have, there’s no question about it and I’ve done nothing to hide that but it was in defence of myself and others and I would not have done it for any other reason,” he added.
Cantwell was banned from Facebook and Instagram on Wednesday, while a page connected to his podcast was removed.
Facebook
spokeswoman Ruchika Budhraja also said at least eight pages connected to
the white nationalist movement were taken down over what Budhraja said
were violations on the company's polices on hate speech and
organizations.
Cantwell, of Keene, New
Hampshire, was listed on rally flyers and labelled an extremist by the
Southern Poverty Law Centre. A former information technology worker who
moved to New Hampshire from New York in 2012, the
36-year-old Cantwell describes himself as a white nationalist and said
he voted for President Donald Trump. He has a podcast and blog that
promote his views.
Cantwell says Facebook shut down his account in an attempt to silence him for his views. He also said his PayPal account had been closed. The company wouldn't confirm that because it has a policy of not commenting on the status of accounts.
"I'm not surprised by almost any of this because the whole thing we are complaining about here is that we are trying to express our views, and everybody is going through extraordinary lengths to make sure we are not heard," Cantwell told AP in a phone interview from an undisclosed location.
"Frankly,
whatever you think of my views, that is very scary to me," he said.
"Facebook and Instagram is one thing but not being able to participate
in the financial system because of your political opinions is something
that, you know, people should worry about in America.
White supremacists and neo-Nazis: 'We need to have Donald Trump's back'
White
supremacists and neo-Nazi groups enthusiastically embraced President
Donald Trump on Wednesday, seeing an endorsement of their cause in his
insistence that left-wing groups were also to blame for the deadly
violence at a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
"This man is doing absolutely everything in his power to back us up and we need to have his back," Andrew Anglin wrote on the DailyStormer, a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic website that acts as a hub of the extreme right.
"It's going to be really, really hard to have any bad feelings towards Trump for a long, long time after this," he said.
"This man is doing absolutely everything in his power to back us up and we need to have his back," Andrew Anglin wrote on the DailyStormer, a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic website that acts as a hub of the extreme right.
"It's going to be really, really hard to have any bad feelings towards Trump for a long, long time after this," he said.
Richard
Spencer, the white nationalist organiser of the "Unite the Right"
rally, hailed Trump's statement as "fair and down to earth."
"Trump cares about the truth," said Spencer, who added he was "proud of" the president.
Trump stunned many Americans Tuesday after he strongly condemned leftist agitators as equally responsible for the deadly violence at Saturday's rally in Charlottesville.
Hundreds of so-called alt-right activists descended on the city armed with clubs and bats and brandishing Nazi flags and symbols, to protest plans to take down a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee.
"Trump cares about the truth," said Spencer, who added he was "proud of" the president.
Trump stunned many Americans Tuesday after he strongly condemned leftist agitators as equally responsible for the deadly violence at Saturday's rally in Charlottesville.
Hundreds of so-called alt-right activists descended on the city armed with clubs and bats and brandishing Nazi flags and symbols, to protest plans to take down a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee.
Donald Trump on Charlottesville: 'there is blame on both sides'
01:58
01:58
Violent
clashes erupted between white supremacists and anti-racism
counter-protesters, and a young woman was killed when a suspected Nazi
sympathiser rammed his car into a crowd of demonstrators.
Trump
has come under fire from other political leaders, including several
former presidents, for arguing that there was "blame on both sides" at
the rally organized by white supremacists.
While Trump added general condemnations of Nazis and racists, groups aligned with the alt-right movement applauded his willingness to tag the left with blame.
While Trump added general condemnations of Nazis and racists, groups aligned with the alt-right movement applauded his willingness to tag the left with blame.
White nationalist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke took to Twitter to express his appreciation.
"Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists," he wrote.
Jack Posobiec, an alt-right figure whose comments Trump has retweeted, wrote "We [are] primetime now" and "Goodnight, Alt Left" as the president spoke to reporters from the Trump Tower in New York.
"Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists," he wrote.
Jack Posobiec, an alt-right figure whose comments Trump has retweeted, wrote "We [are] primetime now" and "Goodnight, Alt Left" as the president spoke to reporters from the Trump Tower in New York.
Many
alt-right groups who took part in the rally have since been kicked off
social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, and had their webpages
shut down by hosts enforcing policies against hate speech and threats.
But some still managed to communicate.
But some still managed to communicate.
Trump 'used our talking points'
After being blocked by two mainstream hosting services, DailyStormer resurfaced temporarily Wednesday on a site using a ".ru" domain indicating a possible Russian host, before being shut down again.
Anglin applauded Trump's apparent sympathy for opponents of the removal of Lee's statue from a Charlottesville park.
Trump
"uses our talking points - that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
are next after the Confederate monuments and that they're trying to
destroy our history."
James Kirkpatrick, the head of VDARE, an organisation that seeks to restrict immigration to white Europeans, cheered Trump for focusing the blame for violence on the leftist "antifa" - short for anti-fascist - movement.
James Kirkpatrick, the head of VDARE, an organisation that seeks to restrict immigration to white Europeans, cheered Trump for focusing the blame for violence on the leftist "antifa" - short for anti-fascist - movement.
Comments
Post a Comment