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Aryan Nations has no plans to move to California

Times-Standard, USA
Nov. 2, 2005
Mike Morrow
www.times-standard.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Thursday November 3, 2005

Aryan Nations has no plans to move to county

The senior pastor of the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ Christian, better known as the Aryan Nations, says the group has no plans to relocate to Humboldt County.

In a telephone interview with the Times-Standard on Monday, Rev. Jonathan Williams said his group was focusing its recruitment efforts in the Southeast but would welcome sympathizers from any area, including Humboldt County.

”There are fraudulent organizations calling themselves the Aryan Nations, and they have misled people for more than a year now, ever since the death of Rev. Richard Butler,” Williams said from his office in Atlanta.

”I can tell you and the people of your community, we are not relocating.”

Butler, who died in September 2004, was the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian (Aryan Nations) in Hayden, Idaho.

A Monday article in the Times-Standard — citing Fortuna police sources — noted that the Aryan Nations and Aryan Brotherhood may be targeting Humboldt County. However, Williams said it was unlikely any group would relocate to this area.

Williams’ organization, headquartered in Lincoln, Ala., has affiliated groups in several other cities.

Another group, mentioned in Monday’s story, is located in South Carolina, but it does not have an affiliation with Williams’ organization.

Moving to disassociate himself from that group, Williams also said the “skinheads” identified in the article were not likely to be involved with any organization.

”The truth is, the Aryan Brotherhood does not have any person it could identify as its leader, it’s all focused inside the prison system,” he said. “Our organization does have an extensive prison ministry, but (the Aryan Brotherhood) is not affiliated with us. Like the Aryan Brotherhood, we are (in the prison system) to help our white brothers.”

However, Williams said it was not likely that the Aryan Brotherhood had any sort of organized program outside the prisons.

”We believe in the supremacy of white people; one of the other groups is now active in creating an alliance with Islamic groups — that’s a red flag, if you ask me. Something’s wrong with that picture,” Williams said.

”We are not recruiting (in Humboldt County), that is not a concentration point for our organization,” he said.

”We have individuals in Southern California, there’s not a large presence in the north. If we were going to move into your area, we would make it known we were establishing a church there. We would not set something up in the middle of the night.”