Seeking Nordic Refuge, U.S. Neo-Nazi Finds Reception Chilly in Finland, Estonia
Three years ago, neo-Nazi Craig Cobb announced that he was moving to Estonia to help build a European white supremacist movement.
It didn’t quite go as planned. Cobb, who runs the white supremacist video-sharing website Podblanc, recently reported that he’s being kicked out of the country where he once hoped to form an International Office of White Diaspora. “My ‘crimes’ are, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs: Endangering public security, public order, public safety, moral standards, health, or some other relevant public interests,” he posted on Podblanc in an account laced with expletives and racial epithets.
It’s not the first country that’s given him the boot. On June 2, Cobb, 57, traveled to Helsinki, where he hoped to receive asylum from the Finnish government because of persecution based on religion (the racist World Church of the Creator), race (“indigenous White”), membership in white nationalist groups, and political opinion (“right wing secessionist-separatist and preservationist of our wonderful, extreme-technological-giving 8% White Precious Minority on the Teeming Dark Planet”).
Cobb, who has been associated with many of America’s leading extremist groups, was the first person to prominently post the home address in Chicago of U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lefkow, whose husband and mother were later murdered there by a killer unconnected to racist groups. He promotes violence on Podblanc, which he founded in April 2007. Keith Luke, a mentally disturbed young man in Brockton, Mass., who in January allegedly murdered two black immigrants and attempted to murder a third, told police he was inspired by white supremacist web sites such as Podblanc.
As he awaited a decision in Finland, Cobb tried (unsuccessfully) to be interviewed by the Finnish media, made plans to distribute flyers urging “young Finns to join my Creativity religion,” and complained that a Helsinki law firm refused to provide him with the legal assistance it normally gives asylum activists, according to Podblanc. He also lamented sharing space with Africans and Middle Easterners at a refugee facility and bemoaned the adulteration of the Nordic population. “It is quite distressing to see the number of negroids and other non-Whites here,” he wrote. “They and asiatics [sic] are on every block, yet the totals, at 3% of the population, are still the lowest of any Nordic country!”
Cobb’s exposure to the non-whites in Finland was short-lived, however, because he was soon deported to Estonia. “Finally out of Helsinki jails and detentions — 14 days worth — for having criticized Gawdz Chozenites and their Multi Cult supporters,” he wrote on Podblanc. “I may be jailed in Estonia due to the perma-ban from all Schengan states [European countries that signed the 1985 Schengan Agreement] … also rendered for reporting incisive news about Chozenites.”
Cobb’s luck was no better in Estonia, where his request for asylum was rejected and he landed in jail. His next hoped-for destination: Canada. He claimed to have dual citizenship that, under Estonian law, would allow him to be deported to Canada rather than the United States. He wants to go to Canada, he wrote, partly because he believes he can earn money more quickly there so he can move to South America and continue his efforts to help whites.
In his most recent entry on Podblanc, he urged supporters to launch a media campaign on his behalf. Among those who have taken up Cobb’s cause is Glenn Miller, who led the North Carolina-based White Patriot Party. Posting as “Rounder” on the Vanguard News Network, Miller writes that he has called the Canadian embassy in Estonia to lobby for Cobb.
Meanwhile, Cobb was keeping a sense of humor about his ordeal. “One funny guard named ‘Sven’ likes Podblanc and he always calls me ‘Hannibal Lecter,’” he wrote. “We both laugh our asses off at that. Sometimes he yells ‘white power’ when he opens the door. LOL.”
