If you are at all familiar with the British political scene and in particular that part of it that is critical of the ideology of Islam, then you will know the name Hatun Tash. This lady is a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and not only has rejected the ideology of Islam, but bravely stands up in public to criticise this ideology.
Ms Tash has been a regular at London’s Speaker’s Corner, a place that is ground zero for freedom of speech in Britain and uses her free speech rights to criticise Islam. Because she does this she gets an enormous amount of hassle and indeed violence meted out to her from the more extreme members of the woefully misnamed ‘religion of peace’.
She’s been verbally abused, physically assaulted and in one incident she was stabbed by an assailant who is presumed to be a Muslim intent on silencing her. In one case was the target of attempted violence by a terrorist who has recently been up in court at the Old Bailey for their part in plotting a gun attack targetting Ms Tash her camera crew and any police or British soldiers who might be in the vicinity of Speaker’s Corner.
Ms Tash has been quite frankly persecuted, not just by the Islamic nutjobs who now dominate Speaker’s Corner but also by the Metropolitan Police who arrested her when she complained to them about how unsafe she felt in the environs of Speaker’s Corner. Ms Tash is an ethnic minority female, a member of the very same groups that various leftists and intersectionalists believe deserve extra protection from the vicissitudes of what they believe is a racist and sexist society.
But on the subject of Hatun Tash and her persecution the left and those who bang on incessantly about racism and sexism are remarkably silent about Ms Tash and the persecution she has been suffering from. The left will not touch the issue of how Ms Tash is being violently suppressed by violent Muslims who are denying her her right to speak freely at the one place in the UK where Britons are supposed to have free speech.
Spiked Magazine has written about the persecution of Ms Tash and how the intersectional Left has failed to speak up for her and protect her. The Spiked writer, Stephen Knight, has come to the conclusion, a conclusion that I agree with, that the Left and the Met Police treat this woman like dirt and ignore her plight, primarily because she criticises Islam.
If Tash had been speaking in the name of Black Lives Matter, you can be sure the attempts on her life would have instigated a national moral panic. Politicians would have released statements in condemnation. Demonstrations of solidarity would have formed on our streets. Endless media debates about racism would no doubt have followed.
So, why are those who see themselves as on the ‘right side of history’ utterly indifferent to Hatun Tash’s plight? Well, it turns out that Tash is a rather vocal critic of Islam – and this is the very reason she is being targeted by extremist thugs. She is an ex-Muslim who converted to Christianity and became a preacher. She has plenty to say about her former faith, though none of it is especially kind. When the first attempt on her life was made in 2021, Tash was wearing a t-shirt depicting a Charlie Hebdo caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.
Cases like Tash’s are a minefield for those high on identity politics. They give the whole ‘intersectional’ game away. Progressive activists are reluctant to defend this innocent, ethnic-minority woman from male violence and police mistreatment because it would mean siding with someone who has criticised Islam. Silence is by far the safer and easier option.
Spot on there Mr Knight. You are correct. If Ms Tash had been speaking about anything else other than Islam and her criticisms of it then she would have support from those Leftists, who are regularly gobbing off about threats to women and ethnic minorities.
Any sympathy for her was lost when it came to the silly Charlie Hebdo T-shirt/cartoon. There’s “Free Speech” and then there’s “Deliberately setting out to antagonise and get a reaction”
Maybe she wants to be a 21stC martyr for Christianity?
Personally, and writing as a Christian, I just find ALL street preachers embarrassing and annoying.
Free speech means tolerating stuff that you might find grossly offensive. I tolerate stuff that I find gross primarily because I want the right to be able to say stuff that other people might vehemently disagree with. Charlie Hebdo tee shirts should be tolerated as it is part of free speech, the ‘throwing dead cats into sanctuaries’ sort of free speech. If Ms Tash cannot wear a CH shirt then that also means I can’t wear a shirt that says ‘women don’t have penises’.
On the subject of annoying street preachers I’ve got a funny story. I was out drinking with a mate who had a decidedly sharp sense of humour. We kept getting accosted by a street preacher who wanted to vent about his belief that the end times are here and that the Biblical Beast from Revelation was at large. The preacher asked my mate ‘Are you not worried about the arrival of The Beast?’ He replied ‘Worried about the Beast? I am the f**ing Beast’ and then quoted the relevant bits of Christian scripture (Matthew 24:36-44 ) regarding ‘not trying to predict the return of Jesus.
Right, so free speech ends, not with incitement to violence (a limit we had before all the “hate-speech” nonsense) but when you antagonise someone.
So: who gets to decide what is “antagonistic”? Orthodox Muslims – those remarkably thin skinned types who like yelling “death to the Jews!” for example and who call for sword-Jihad against the Kaffir? (Just out of interest: would you regard that as antagonistic? Should they be beaten up or murdered too? – you seem to be implying that Tash “had it coming”.)
How about saying “a woman is an adult human female”? That certainly antagonises the Trans lobby and provokes a reaction.
How about “genetic males shouldn’t be sent to female prisons”? I reckon that would antagonise and get a reaction from the Trans lobby too.
So, your nostrum hands the limits of free speech to the most readily “antagonised” and “provoked” and silences discussion and critique of Islam, the Trans ideology and much else that this-or-that group consider “triggering”.
Somehow I don’t think that that is a good idea or a sensible formula for defining the limits of free speech.
Spot on there. I’m fully supportive of having ‘directly and credibly incite immediate violence’ as being the line that should not be crossed with speech but the idea that stuff should be censored because it is ‘offensive’ is utterly and completely wrong. Such a policy creates a who decides what’s offensive situation which is not good.
@F211
I, too, read that article and it is, as you say “spot on”.
“Silence is by far the safer and easier option.” This is, of course, true.
If you are an outspoken critic of Islamic ideology you face death-threats and can be murdered for it, as we see all the time (assuming we are not blinkered to Islam that is).
“… the Left and the Met Police treat this woman like dirt and ignore her plight, primarily because she criticises Islam.”
Well, of course. To Leftists she is a ‘racist Islamophobic bigot’ to say anything against the ‘religion of peace’ and, as Julian implies, deserves no sympathy as a result. And it is far easer to arrest her for a “breach of the peace” – which now means “we fear Muslim mob violence” than to protect her legal rights.
Such actions by the “Dhimmified Police” as some have termed them, only encourages orthodox Muslims in their belief that they are gaining the upper hand in our society (as the Islamic canon says they inevitably will) and further promotes the attitude that they can go “full Islam” on the rest of us.
In video footage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCQYheST8M8), when police officers ordered the Islamic group to leave Hyde Park, members of the group told police to “go away” and carried on intimidating Miss Tash. Which goes to show that orthodox Muslims have no respect for the law of the land (no surprise there of course, Sharia is Allah’s law and ‘above’ any man-made system in their view), but the contempt for the Police shows how thoroughly “dhimmified” they are in those Muslims’ eyes.
Over 20 years ago I was part of a group that were planning a family picnic in gentle protest about a planned “super mosque” in an area with (then) a minimal Muslim population. Our local Police banned it on “Public order” grounds. They didn’t expect us to riot, shout, scream, knife people etc., but they knew that busloads of Muslims were planning to travel over 150 miles to come and (violently) disrupt the picnic and the Police could not (or would not) guarantee our safety; so again a victory for the Muslim mob.
Let me add that the mosque plan was dropped, so perhaps justice was served in this case.
We have seen time and time again that the Police regularly capitulate to the Muslim mob (and the BLM mob – remember the “run piggy run” incident?), from tolerance of anti-Semitic marches such as Al-Quds day, versus the banning of “anti-Islam” marches and other protests, to “Korangate boy” and the “Batley teacher”.
Yep. All too often our police have turned into Muslim protection squads and that ‘s not something that helps either the general population nor those heterodox Muslims who are often targeted for abuse or worse by more orthodox Islamic followers.