Britain’s Free Speech Union (FSU) has been struck by a “militant pro-trans” direct action group, with a list of donors stolen and published.
Radical pro-transgender group ‘Bash Back’ are alleged to have hacked the website of Lord Young of Acton’s Free Speech Union, the British liberties campaign group, allowing them to gain access to a list of donors. The list was published this week, states The Daily Telegraph, before the FSU was granted an emergency injunction at the high court to see it taken down, with the threat of contempt of court and jail backing up the order.
Lord Young pointed to the group’s violent past, and its calls upon its members to engage in “direct action” despite it professing to be “nonviolent”. Young said, it was reported: “Bash Back is a dangerous anti-democratic organisation that boasts about breaking the law and encourages its supporters to steal hammers to carry out ‘direct action’, including against Members of Parliament. The Health Secretary has already been targeted in a very unpleasant attack.”
He added: “Neither we nor our members will be cowed by these tactics”, and criticised the police for having taken no action so far.
The FSU said Bash Back “openly boasts about breaking the law” and that it was launching a fundraiser to cover the cost of suing the group for damages.
While the FSU campaigns on broad freedom of speech and thought issues, Bash Back alleged in their statement that it is actually simply a front to attack Transgenderism. They say, in general, of their chosen enemies: “all of our targets have blood on their hands”.
In the past the Bash Back group claimed responsibility for vandalising the offices of a government minister, smashing windows and spraying “child killer” on the walls, a reference to the claims of pro-Transgenderism activists that not caving to their demands causes suicide. Months earlier, the group smashed windows at a conference centre hosting a three-day meeting of a feminist NGO, “billed as one of the largest grassroots feminist gatherings in Europe.”
More broadly, feminist groups have been reporting transgender violence for years.
The FSU had already clocked the Trans extremists as a potential threat last year. The Daily Mail said it had uncovered the group instructing its members to form “cells” to launch attacks against politicians, the Free Speech Union, and more feminist groups. The report noted the FSU had commissioned private security advice over the revelation.
One of the FSU’s most high-profile cases in recent months has been that of Irish comedian Graham Linehan, who was repeatedly reported to the police by transgender activists for jokes. Despite not being a British citizen and the jokes having been posted online while he was in the United States, Linehan was nevertheless detained by police as he passed through a British airport for interrogation.
The controversy surrounding this overreach was significant enough that the incident has forced a change in how police handles what are euphemistically called ‘non crime hate speech’ reports, with forces saying they will stop investigating them to focus on real crime in future.