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Posted on 11/27/2007 4:36:32 AM PST by UKrepublican
Oxford students sit-in protest fails to silence Holocaust-denier David Irving and BNP leader Nick Griffin
As student protests go it was a rather tame affair.
At stake were two issues that had ignited the passions of some of our brightest undergraduates - the right to free speech versus the right to demonstrate.
But when the two camps clashed in the shadow of Oxford university's most hallowed halls last night, neither emerged as a clear winner.
BNP leader Nick Griffin and controversial historian David Irving were each allowed a voice during a much-heralded debate at the Oxford Union - and anti fascist campaigners successfully disrupted the proceedings by crashing into the meeting hall and staging a sit-in.
The breach delayed the speeches and split the meeting into two. But the speakers were each allowed to address separate audiences after the hall was cleared by police.
Perhaps the only losers were the police and security staff who were supposed to have thrown a so-called ring of steel around the event - and who somehow allowed more than 30 demonstrators to infiltrate a meeting which, at one stage, was being billed as a potential riot.
More than 300 protestors had gathered at the gates of the Union from early evening, night, chanting slogans waving banners.
But this was hardly the stuff of Sixties protest, and certainly not on a par with Paris student riots of yesteryear.
True, they played Woody Guthrie protest songs through loudspeakers outside, and called participants 'fascist scum' as they went into the building.
But the nearest the great young minds of Oxford came to a riot last night as the two men prepared to address the Union was to bang a few drums and invent rather lacklustre chant including: "Oxford Union, hear us say: Griffin, Irving, go away."
There was shouting and booing, of course, but nothing like Griffin and Irving are probably used to on occasions such as this.. And there were banners - lots of them - all urging people to kick out fascism or "go home".
One police officer joked that it was the politest protest he had ever been to. Griffin and Irving, it transpired, had been escorted in several hours earlier and were already inside when the first protestors came on to the scene.
Irving had arrived with a ball and chain as a prop for his "free speech" address. Biggest excitement outside, meanwhile, was a confrontation with a drunk, who stripped to the waist to reveal a cross of St George tattoo on his back and shouted abuse.
Then mounted police dispersed a group of rowdy youths shouting anti-fascist slogans as they marched through nearby streets.
It was while the commotion was going on that the 30 breached security. Some chained themselves to chairs in the hall.
Others simply sat down and sang. The disruption took more than an hour to clear, and meant that the two speakers - branded "brothers in bigotry" by one banner - delivered their addresses to audiences in separate rooms.
Rob Owen of the NUS National Executive was among the protestors who got in.
He said: "It was a spontaneous thing which just kind of happened.
"There were people sitting on top of the railings next to the gate and right up against the gate when for some reason it opened for about half a minute and around 30 people managed to force their way through.
"The security guards tried to grab us but there were too many and we managed to get into the debating chamber.
"Once we actually got inside there the union president was outraged but a significant portion of other people actually came up to us and said they respected what we were doing and were opposed to the BNP as well."
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Plenty of pics at the event - including galloway and co.
What interests me here is that while the speakers disgust me, what disgusts me more is that these protestors including galloway are the first to cry over their freedom of speech being restricted when the police move them back a few yards or demand they take down their posters etc.
It’s all right for them to compare our elected leaders to NAZIS - And YES they do do this, but will tye defend the free speech of some equally despicable individuals? Of course not, they VIOLENTYLY try to prevent it.
These leftist liberals are DANGEROUS - they are SCUM and no better than these nazis and racists they try and prevent from speaking.
And before the liberal morons cry about protests we might have made against the iranian nutjob -
the difference is, he is a criminal, a war criminal, an enemy of my country - a murderer and a terrorist - far from speaking he should have been arrested,put before a court and then when found guilty - EXECUTED.
So no comparison.
Nick Griffin doesn’t particularly disgust me, ever since he spoke out against Islamic rape (and nearly got put into prison for it).
They do disgust me. The Nazi Holocaust deniers and the Muzzies are on the same page. But what disgusts me even more is that Totalitarian scumbuckets like Galloway pretend to be “anti-facist”. I doubt there is a greater turd in all Britania than Galloway.
Nick Griffin is the leader of a pretty racist party.
I don’t like islamic extremism either - but his party is rife with racists and criminals.
He might not like islam - but he opposes fighting it, he thinks our leaders are ‘criminals’ for fighting the W.O.T.
I sometime in 2003 read somewhere a comment by a KKK/stormfront dopehead which pretty much sums up the thinking of those nutters. It was something along “I don’t want any of those Islamists marry my daughter, but I support what they have done on 9/11.”
They may be racist towards those “brown people”, but they share the anti-freedom, antisemitic goals of Islam.
Yep.
I put them all in pretty much the same category.
The left have done a wonderful job in making Nick Griffin a bogeyman the media and liberals love to hate, it's all hysteria generated deliberately to keep popular opinion on immigration and all other political woes silenced. The BNP as a whole probably fare no worse for criminals than most other political parties and as for racists, well if you take the dictionary definition then everyone is a racist to a certain extent it's just the amount of selective discrimination that varies from person to person.
I certainly do agree that David Irving is nasty deluded bit of work though.
You only have to look at the track record of the BNP - many many criminals, violenty offenders, members stocking up explosives etc etc.
I’ve never seen any proof that Nick Griffin is a racist to be fair though.
The BNP is a bunch of anti-semitic hard leftists. I’m not giving them a pass just because their leader ‘spoke out against Islamic rape’.
controversial historian David IrvingControversial, yes. Historian, no.
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