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The Documentary Podcast

The Invisible Man of Britain’s Far Right

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.32.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2018

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Simon Cox investigates the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim organisation Knights Templar International – not to be confused with the medieval Knights Templar organisation. In a recent interview its front man Jim,Dowson described KTI as a "militant Christian organisation". KTI posts regular ads on social media to recruit new members and seek donations to fight what Dowson calls the "war between militant Islam and Christianity". In a recent interview he warned "we are going towards a war in the West. We want to make sure when people hit the streets, militias will form. The Templar way is to train men up in everything - we have training course in video journalism, military stuff". With the money raised KTI buys paramilitary equipment which is sent to places like Northern Kosovo where British troops are still stationed to keep the peace between the Muslim Kosovo Albanian community and Orthodox Christian Serbians. Last year Dowson was banned from Hungary for being a threat to national security. The British anti-racism NGO Hope not Hate warns “he (Dowson) and his organisation tread a very fine line between antagonising people’s fears, stirring up and stoking people’s fears. He is the ‘Mr Slippery’ of the far-right world in Europe”. Within the far right community Dowson is a familiar figure but more generally he has kept a fairly low profile and has been dubbed in media reports "the invisible man of Britain's far right". Concern about the activities of Dowson and Knights Templar International is growing across Europe as the organisation recruits more members to its cause and threatens the peace in some of the most volatile regions.

Producer: Anna Meisel

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm Simon Cox and for this week's assignment here on the BBC World Service I'm in

0:07.9

Serbia and Kosovo investigating a secretive militant Christian group and the man behind its growing network in Europe.

0:16.4

Hello, thank you very much for joining me. This will kick off any moment and then what it would do in the West say,

0:21.6

oh my goodness what's going on?

0:22.8

Look at this, the Muslims have cleared out the Christians.

0:25.0

And this will be the first time in hundreds of years that the Muslims have really swept in to

0:28.6

christen them.

0:30.0

This is Jim Dawson, a Christian anti-abortion campaigner originally from Scotland.

0:36.0

Now they're sweeping into Europe and remember in Western Europe we already have gigantic Muslim

0:41.2

population, 70 million.

0:43.3

This is the front line.

0:44.8

This is the last bastion.

0:46.7

He's a social media expert who's helped nationalist groups

0:50.6

gain millions of followers on Facebook. It led anti-racism campaigners to name him as

0:56.4

Britain's most influential far-right activist.

1:00.1

He and his organizations tread a very, very fine line between antagonizing people's fears,

1:07.2

stirring up and stoking people's fears.

1:10.2

He is the Mr Slippery of the far right world in Europe.

1:14.8

And it's in Europe where he's been developing a far right network

1:18.7

with Knights Templar International, although he denies any formal link.

1:23.0

This is one of the videos from KTR's website. It's a vision of Europe in 10 years time,

1:38.0

consumed by civil wars and cities like Malmo and Brussels facing daily terrorist attacks and the other cities occupied

...

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