After Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, had posted on his Facebook page an image of an advert for a rape crisis centre that also advertises its services to BAME woman and sneered “I guess it's ok to rape white women then??!?!?!”, the centre in question had its helplines jammed up with calls from his followers, many of the messages left explicitly racist in tone.
There was so much inundation of their helplines that the centre was forced to take action. As the Mirror has reported, “A rape charity had to contact police after they were bombarded with abuse from supporters of Tommy Robinson … A leaflet distributed by the charity was posted by Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, on his Facebook page, which has more than a million followers”. There was more.
“It urges black, Asian and minority ethnic women who have suffered sexual violence to come forward if they need support … The leaflet also includes a contact mobile number where callers can speak to someone in Punjabi, Hindi or English … Alongside the photo of the leaflet, the post was captioned: ‘I guess it's ok to rape white women then??!?!?!’”
It got worse. “Rape Crisis said since the post was shared on Facebook yesterday, the centre has received a ‘significant volume of abusive phone calls, messages and emails, many of which are of an overtly racist nature’ … Rape Crisis has informed the police of the torrent of abuse they have received and slammed the post for ‘disrupting much-needed service provision for victims and survivors of sexual violence and abuse of all ethnicities and backgrounds’”. Lennon has once more caused more Police time to be wasted.
As to their work being allegedly discriminatory, the group told “These activities have disrupted much-needed service provision for victims and survivors of sexual violence and abuse of all ethnicities and backgrounds … Rape Crisis England & Wales supports Rape Crisis (Wycombe, Chiltern and South Bucks) and all its member Rape Crisis Centres in the provision of fully inclusive, accessible services, including specialist work with specific groups of under-served, minoritised or marginalised victims and survivors”.
Those who stand in opposition to “the Fash”, as this chapter of the far-right is often known, are unimpressed, and Mike Stuchbery is one of them, telling “A JustGiving page has been set up to help the Rape Crisis charity targeted by 'Tommy Robinson' and his followers. Let's turn this thuggish BS into something beneficial”.
He has also begun a petition to get Facebook to seriously consider banning Lennon from the platform: “Yesterday, 'Tommy Robinson' posted a flyer for a BAME rape crisis line and shut it down for hours. It's time @Facebook kicked the arrogant thug before he ruins more lives. Read, RT & Share if you're with me”. You can read his Byline Times piece HERE.
Stephen Lennon keeps on dispensing his brand of thuggery, apparently unchallenged by not just Facebook, but more significantly the law enforcement authorities. He could have found out about what Rape Crisis really did. But he couldn’t be bothered. As a result, a service for traumatised and vulnerable women was rendered unavailable.
It’s high time the Stephen Lennon wild west show was brought to an end. That is all.
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1 comment:
So I guess that will be "Sorry Sir but no" from Australian Immigration on Tommy's re-application for a Visa.
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