White supremacist propaganda posted in several New Jersey towns

Cheryl Makin | Bridgewater Courier News

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Fliers proclaiming "Our Generation" "Our Future" and "Our Last Chance" and featuring a simple logo of a teal triangle with three lines that join the middle have been found in Bridgewater, Somerville, Morristown, and surrounding areas.

The logo is a symbol for the white nationalist group, Identity Evropa, which focuses on the preservation of "white American culture" and promoting white European identity.

The white supremacist group Identity Evropa has been spreading their messages in communities across Northern and Central Jersey over the last week, targeting the towns of Somerville, Bridgewater, Morristown, Bedminster, Basking Ridge, Bernardsville with anti-Semitic and racist fliers, said Melanie Robbins, director of Community Engagement, Anti Defamation League (ADL) New York / New Jersey.

The fliers promoting the group’s racist ideology have been found on telephone poles and different signage areas in the towns and on vehicles. While some areas saw sporadic fliers posted, in the Somerville Public Library and the Bridgewater Commons Mall, the dissemination was more pervasive — on a bulletin board and placed in books in the library and on cars in the mall parking lot.

“The reports have been over the past week and are a combination of two pieces,” Robbins said. “One of the tactics of Identity Evropa, the group behind these fliers is to socialize themselves where they claim to be and impact. Some of the information we saw through their social media account. And we have spoken with individuals who saw the fliers themselves and either personally removed them or a close friend saw the flier and then they reported to ADL.”

On Wednesday evening, representatives of the ADL and community groups will come together to respond to the recent white supremacy recruiting tactics in the state. The event will include local organizers from We the People, Indivisible and Not In Our Town, as well as other clergy, government officials and law enforcement. The event will be a call to leaders, communities and law enforcement to continue to respond to these tactics, and make it clear that these communities are “No Place for Hate.” Robbins said that speakers include herself, local organizers, faith leaders and local law enforcement.

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On Wednesday, the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NJ) also condemned the distribution of the fliers.

“The promotion of a racist and white supremacist group should not be tolerated in our communities,” said James Sues, executive director of CAIR-NJ. “These fliers are a symptom of the spread of white supremacist ideology nationwide that has occurred under the Trump administration. While we condemn the distribution of these fliers, we also stand with the local residents who took action to reject Identity Evropa’s presence in our state.”

CAIR said it has witnessed a spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims, immigrants and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.

The Washington-based civil rights organization has also repeatedly expressed concern about Islamophobic and white supremacist Trump administration policies and appointments.

This past April, CAIR-NJ condemned the racist vandalism of a campaign poster with a Nazi swastika in South Plainfield.

CAIR has also noted an increasing unity between white supremacy groups such as Identity Evropa and anti-Muslim organizations like ACT for America. Members of the group attended a series of rallies hosted by ACT for America, where an Identity Evropa banner called for an “End to Islamic Immigration.”

The Somerset County Democratic Committee also issued a statement Wednesday evening about the flyers found in the county.

" Although the flyer does not mention the President, it is his incendiary, divisive, racist statements that have given voice to these white supremacists," according to the statement. "His unwillingness to denounce the Charlottesville neo-Nazis has encouraged and normalized public displays of bigotry. We call upon our Republican elected officials to do more than pass toothless resolutions and to take steps to stop this behavior. Our First Amendment does not protect hate speech."

ADL has been monitoring these and similar tactics, and has tracked more than 15 cases of white supremacist propaganda on college campuses in New JerseyJ over the course of the 2017-18 academic year, Robbins said. Nationwide, fliering incidents increased more than 70 percent over the previous year.

While some of the Identity Eurpoa fliers claimed the group was “here,” the images on the fliers may have been doctored, Robbins said.

“I think it is definitely them attempting to exaggerate, but there is still very much a concern that we see this wave of fliering incidents across various communities and not just one town and that we continue to see these pop up in a number of locations,” Robbins said.

The ADL analysis of the fliering tactics is that the fliers are part of the group’s recruitment campaign.

“It is an opportunity to share their message — which has changed over the last year — to seem more innocuous,” Robbins said. “To not seem so ‘White Supremacy' as we typically think of white supremacists. To recruit potential new members by sharing messages like ‘It’s your generation’ and ‘The time is now,’ but knowing what they actually stand for you then have to dig deeper to really understand and see that this is a white supremacist organization. On the face of it, it looks kind of simple.”

Robbins said it is very positive that communities recognize what the fliers represent.

“On the one hand its really great that the community has recognized these symbols and made that effort to report to us and law enforcement,” she said. “The law enforcement community and AG (Attorney General) office have made it very clear that they will not tolerate this kind of hateful information being distributed so having those reports is very important.”

But, there are first amendment concerns, she added.

“They have the right to these opinions and the right to make these fliers,” Robbins said. “But, we don’t have to let them sit there.”

The ADL was founded in 1913 to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all. Today it is the world’s leading organization combating anti-Semitism, exposing hate groups, training law enforcement on hate crimes, developing anti-bias education programs for students, countering cyber-hate and relentlessly pursuing equal rights for all.

CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. For more information about CAIR go to www.cair.com/.

For more information about the ADL, go to https://www.adl.org/.

Editorial Intern Alexander Lewis contributed to this report