Any full-form title would’ve been much too long, so apologies to anyone who was expecting the start of an FWR paper-game of some kind there…
Anyway, the organiser of the protest at which the “decapitate T*RFs” sign was being wafted about at is also organising the counter-protest for Posie’s Let Women Speak event in Glasgow. (Speaking of said sign, I wonder if TERFery involving a protected belief would bump it to a hate crime? Sentencing guidelines at end document.])
The main counter-protest group are the Cabaret Against Hate Speech - & as per my first link, they’re now being backed by Furries Against Fascism.
As I’m sure everyone on FWR knows, Posie personally invites everyone to attend her events & selects the speakers. So if someone turns up & quotes Hitler on The Big Lie they’re her bestie; stunned silence is rapturous applause; & the Bystander Effect does not exist either. Thus it is vital to ensure nobody ever again hear anything women have to say. Whatever they’re talking about. It’s transphobic because reasons. (Astonishing they’d try “this means TERFs/GCs are all Nazis!” because their own logic then makes them paedophiles, zoophiles, murderers, & rapists several times over. I mean, of course said logic is never thus applied because it would be dreadfully transphobic.)
So the stated aim of the counter protest is to drown out the protest. The police now have powers to make protestors reduce their volume. The way it (in theory) functions is:
This power can only be used when the police reasonably believe that the noise from the protest may cause serious disruption to the activities of an organisation or cause a significant impact on people in the vicinity of the protest. “Impact” is defined as intimidation, harassment, alarm or distress with the police then having to consider whether the impact is significant.
Now surely it’s in the best interests of the police to use the powers with the counter-protestors (yes, I know it’s Police Scotland…)? Why? Because if they allow those gobshites to drown out women’s voices, they are unlawfully preventing the women from protesting & are demonstrating bias. Not allowing the counter-protest to bellow, bash drums & caterwaul continuously &/or too loudly &/or right by the Standing For Women group is not preventing them from protesting, nor is it demonstrating bias. And, obviously, the entire point of the counter-protest IS to “cause harassment, alarm & distress” - & to intimidate & silence the women.
Further, if Police Services facilitate this nonsense, Posie may opt not to notify them of events in future. She’s not legally obliged to do so & a shift to some personal-connection organising would rather spoil the fascism, sorry, fun, of the counter-protestors. Perhaps most obviously, Posie can kick up the volume of her PA System as loud as it goes & invest in as many speakers as possible.
So if the police don’t want women speaking at rock-concert volumes (& just now they probably really REALLY don’t want that) I’d think it’s in their best interests to address this situation. It’s particularly important they up their game on protecting the Let Women Speak protestors given the escalation in violence by counter protestors; including in [the nature of] their threats. I very much worry though, that despite all the revelations about VAWG & resultant resolutions it is going to take a serious act of violence for the police to get their act together on this. It’s been made very clear by TRAs that this counterprotest needs to be kept a significant distance from the Standing For Women one. The police have the power to allow women to speak & be heard - the question is whether or not they’ll chose to do so.
(Apologies if this is [a bit] incoherent: I promise there is a point in there, but I have had no sleep on top of the usual wobbly brain issues & it is NOT a winning combination.)