Around 60 people have taken part in the EDL’s silent walk through Luton today to honour murdered soldier Lee Rigby.
Flowers were laid at the war memorial outside Luton Town Hall, and EDL deputy leader Kevin Carroll read out a poem he had written about Drummer Rigby.
The event passed off peacefully.
It was one of a number of walks organised by the EDL in towns and cities across the country in the wake of the soldier’s death. A BNP march has also taken place in London.
There has been a rise in reports of anti-Muslim attacks since the killing of Drummer Rigby last week.
Yesterday, in a statement released through the Ministry of Defence, his family urged people to show respect, and said he would not have wanted people to “use his name as an excuse to carry out attacks against others”.
They added: ”We would not wish any other families to go through this harrowing experience and appeal to everyone to keep calm and show their respect in a peaceful manner.“
Yesterday crowds gathered outside the town hall to lay flowers in Drummer Rigby’s memory, in an event organised by the Luton Council of Faiths and Luton in Harmony.
Zafar Khan, chair of the Council of Faiths, told those gathered that the town would not allow extremists of any type to exploit the tragedy and “sow discord”.
“There is a collective revulsion and grief at what happened last Wednesday – the death of an innocent man at the hands of people who claim to represent Muslims and Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.
“Over the past week I have met many people from the Muslim community and they have all expressed genuine revulsion at the way their faith has been represented.
“In Luton we are all together and at times of diversity we have shown how close we are and how positively we engage. This is such a time and we want to declare here and affirm that we will not be divided.”