A quick update on two stories I have covered here before.
RUSSIAN TERRORISM
First, following the attempted murder by nerve agent of the Skripals and the murder of Nikolai Guskov, British police have warned other Russians in exile in the UK to take extra care.
UK police have begun to contact a number of Russian exiles to discuss their safety as they investigate the murder of businessman Nikolai Glushkov.
The 68-year-old's body was discovered at his south-London home on 12 March. A post-mortem examination has found he died from "compression to the neck".
The UK granted Mr Glushkov political asylum in 2010 after he fled Moscow.
The BBC has been told police and the security services have reassessed their view that other exiles are at low risk.
The police have also issued a photo of Skripal’s (9 year old) BMW car to try to establish a detailed timeline of their movements. They are appealing for any witnesses who may have seen it travelling between Skripal’s home, the cemetary where his wife is buried and central Salisbury.
Russia has now retaliated for UK actions by expelling the same number (23) of diplomats. They have also withdrawn permission for a consulate in St Petersburg and banned the British Council. That will affect many ordinary Russians who use the British Council’s facilities to learn English or attend cultural events sponsored by them.
BRITAIN FIRST
The second part is better news. You may recall the diplomatic incident with the UK last November when Trump re-tweeted a post from the neo-Nazi “Britain First”. Facebook has now removed their page and those for its leaders.
Facebook has banned Britain First from its platform, saying the far-right group has “repeatedly posted content designed to incite animosity and hatred against minority groups”.
Britain First’s Facebook page, which had more than 2m likes, and the pages of the two leaders, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, have been banned from the social network.
That will make little immediate difference to Golding and Fransen. They don’t have computer access in jail.
The group’s leader, Paul Golding, was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison, while deputy, Jayda Fransen, was sentenced to 36 weeks on Wednesday. They had each been found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment at Folkestone magistrate’s court earlier the same day.
“These defendants were not merely exercising their right to free speech but were instead aiming religiously aggravated abuse at innocent members of the public,” the prosecutor told the court.
They were both arrested in May last year as part of an investigation into the distribution of leaflets and online videos posted during a trial at Canterbury crown court in the same month.
In case you are wondering why Fransen got twice the jail time of Golding.
Fransen was convicted on another count related to a visit to a house she wrongly believed to be the address of a defendant in the Canterbury trial, Sershah Muslimyar. Golding was cleared of uploading a video of that incident.
Fransen was convicted on a third count over an incident at the home of Tamin Rahmani, during which she shouted racist abuse through the front door while his pregnant partner was inside.