Hatun Tash: Attacked and robbed by a Muslim mob at Speakers Corner. Police arrest her, not the mob.

Regular readers might remember that last year I reported on Christian evangelist preacher Hatun Tash who was attacked at Speakers Corner in London. Gashed in the face with a sharp instrument, and not the first time this brave woman, a convert from Islam who points out the flaws in Islam from a position of authority, has been attacked.  Her attacker was never apprehended. With the amount of witnesses at the site and the amount of video footage of the attacker as he wasn’t identified and arrested within the week it was quite obvious that the police had decided not to arrest him; probably for political reasons.

Last weekend Miss Tash was at Speaker’s Corner as she is most Sunday afternoons. Her most startling visual aid to her preaching to the Muslims is a copy of the Koran with holes in, to illustrate how the book does not hold water, ie is not a true and trustworthy document. This was one of the items taken from her in the robbery which preceded this most recent assault.

The Free Speech Union sets out what happened in their weekly briefing here.

The day before the 150^th anniversary, (of the founding of Speaker’s Corner) the Metropolitan Police decided to mark the occasion in their own inimitable way by arresting Hatun Tash, an ex-Muslim turned evangelical Christian (Christian Concern) and member of the FSU. Hatun regularly debates the Qur’an at Speakers’ Corner, usually at great personal risk. In May of last year, for instance, a mob surrounded her screaming for her blood. In July, another mob dragged her to the ground. Later that month, she was stabbed. In October, she was punched in the face.

Footage of the most recent incident shows Hatun being attacked, robbed and then surrounded by an angry group, before the police move in to arrest her and drag her away in an arm-lock while the crowd cheers gleefully. Having strip searched her and kept her in a cell overnight, they then released her without charge. As birthday presents go, it probably wasn’t quite what Speakers’ Corner was expecting from the Met.

According to Hatun, whom Toby ( FSU General Secretary Toby Young) bumped into at Speakers’ Corner after her release, one of the things the police said to her by way of explanation was that some of the people in the park thought that her t-shirt, which reproduced one of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, was offensive. “So what?” you might think. Being offensive isn’t against the law – at least, not yet.

In the wake of Hatun’s stabbing last year, the Mail reported that the Met was actively reviewing how to police Speakers’ Corner. If its new policy is to defuse tensions by forcibly denying citizens’ their right to freedom of expression simply because a mob finds what they have to say offensive, then free speech in the country of John Stuart Mill’s birth really is – as Toby put it on Mark Steyn’s show – “on life support”.

There is video of her arrest here.  As you can see from this still, 7 or more police officers manhandled one diminutive woman, while dozens of Muslim men surround them, cheering, howling and shouting Allah Akbar. I had the sound off as I took the screenshot; I didn’t need to hear it a third time.

As a friend of a friend (SteveSPCorner) said 

They follow the path of least resistance. Easy policing. It’s easier to drag a small woman than deal with a baying crowd. Then to cap it all they use strip search to humiliate her. She’s been arrested then released without charge the following day 5 times now.

This is a video of a Muslim man with the stolen visual aid.

A report from an hour ago says that things at Speaker’s Corner are quiet this week. Let us hope it remains so. It has been obvious for some years whose side the police are on. And it isn’t the public.

Update at 8pm. Today’s arrest was of a supporter of Miss Tash who had the temerity to ask the police when they intended to arrest her assailants from the incident last week.  He has since been released without charge.