It takes a nation to protect the nation
Hatun Tash at Speakers Corner
Charlie Hebdo T-shirt-wearing woman is STABBED at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park in attack caught on video as police hunt man dressed all in black who fled the scene
- Woman suffered a stab wound and was seen with blood pouring down her face
- The man who carried out the attack quickly sprinted away from the scene
- Police have not said whether there was a motive for the attack but video footage shows the woman was wearing a blue Charlie Hebdo T-shirt
A woman wearing a Charlie Hebdo T-shirt has been stabbed at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park as police hunt for a man dressed in black who fled the scene.
The 39-year-old victim suffered a stab wound and was seen with blood pouring down the side of her face after the stabbing at the site where people gather for public speeches and debates on Sunday.
The man who carried out the attack quickly sprinted away as he was chased by members of the public as well as police.
Video footage shows a large group of people standing outside in torrential rain before the attacker lunged at the woman and stabbed her at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park
The woman, who was wearing a Charlie Hebdo T-shirt, was stabbed at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park
Video footage shows a large group of people standing outside in torrential rain before the attacker lunged at the woman and stabbed her before she cowered and walked shakily away as the man ran in the opposite direction.
The woman is later seen clutching her right hand close to her body and with what appears to be blood at her temple as she is helped into a police van by officers who were nearby.
The Met Police, who described it as 'a very distressing incident' for the victim, said officers attended Hyde Park at 3.34pm to reports of a woman being stabbed at Speakers' Corner.
The victim, who was wearing a blue-T-shirt with Charlie Hebdo written on it, was seen being treated as she sat inside the police van before being taken to hospital for further treatment of minor injuries.
The attacker, who was dressed in all black, had fled shortly after the attack and a crime scene has been put in place. Police said a knife was recovered nearby.
The Metropolitan police have not said whether there was a motive for the attack but video footage of the attack shows the woman was wearing a Charlie Hebdo T-shirt.
The victim suffered a stab wound and was seen with blood pouring down the side of her face on Sunday
The man who carried out the attack quickly sprinted away as he was chased by members of the public as well as police
Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine based in Paris, lost 12 employees in an al Qaida attack in 2015 by French-born extremists Said and Cherif Kouachi.
Their primary targets were staff at the satirical magazine which had published a series of cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad.
Detective Superintendent Alex Bingley, of the Central West Command Unit which covers policing in Westminster, said: 'This was clearly a very distressing incident for the woman involved and officers have spent time with her, whilst she was being treated for her injury, to get an account of what happened.
'We know that this assault was witnessed by a number of people, many of whom captured it on their phones.
'I would ask them, if they have not already done so, to contact police.
'We remain in the early stages of our investigation and are working hard to trace the person responsible.
'I would ask people not to speculate on the motive for the attack until we have established the full facts.'
The Met Police told MailOnline in a statement: 'Police were called by the London Ambulance Service at 15:34hrs on Sunday, 25 July to reports of an assault at Speakers' Corner, W1.
'Officers attended and found a woman suffering from a minor slash injury. She was treated by the LAS before being taken to a central London hospital.
'A knife was recovered nearby.
'Officers from Westminster are working alongside the Royal Parks OCU to investigate and identify the man responsible.
'There have been no arrests and enquiries continue.
'Anyone with information is asked to call police via 101 quoting reference Cad 4376/25Jul.'
Tags: Corner, Hatun, Speakers, Tash
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kinana on
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How Speakers’ Corner became a warzone
Christian preacher and ex-Muslim Hatun Tash talks to spiked about being stabbed at London’s ‘heart of free speech’.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/08/11/how-speakers-corner-became...
PADDY HANNAM
‘It seems to me… that the intention was to kill me or harm me badly.’ So says Hatun Tash, an ex-Muslim and Christian preacher who was stabbed at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park last month. An attack which, thankfully, she escaped from with relatively minor injuries.
We’re speaking in the week after the incident. She tells me what happened. She was ‘having a gentle conversation with a man who [had] converted to Islam’ when she was lunged at by a hooded attacker who slashed at her face and arm, leaving her covered in blood.
We still don’t know what provoked the attack. The assailant remains at large and police continue to investigate. ‘I wouldn’t say I’ve got enemies’, Tash tells me: she thinks she is an ‘okay person’. The attacker ‘didn’t tell me what I did wrong’, she says.
Tash, a regular at Speakers’ Corner, has been attacked there before. Last year she was punched in the face by a man because she was displaying Muhammad cartoons. That she is an ex-Muslim – an apostate – as well as a critic of Islam makes her even more of a target.
In recent times, Speakers’ Corner – known throughout the world as a place of free speech and debate – has become something of a battleground between Muslims, critics of Islam and rabble-rousers on both sides. ‘I’ve been at Speakers’ Corner since 2013’, Tash says. She preaches the gospel there. In the past few years, she explains, there have been ‘lots of tensions’.
SPIKED
She says she has been assaulted many times in the past. She has also got into trouble with the police. Two weeks before the attack, with the support of campaign group the Christian Legal Centre, she brought legal action against the Metropolitan Police alleging false arrest and imprisonment.
She says she was shaken by the knife attack last month, not just because of her safety but also because of the reaction — or lack thereof. She is ‘disappointed that in the 21st century, anyone can be attacked in the heart of freedom of speech and the media [don’t] give it that much attention’. She has a point. There were news reports about the attack, of course, but no widespread outrage.
‘I wouldn’t say I [have been] abandoned’ by the press, she says, ‘but I would say when it comes to certain groups, the media are very quick to keep silent’. The media, she says, are ‘choosing not to talk about it because there is a problem with Islam’. There is a belief, she goes on, that ‘if we don’t talk about it, everyone will be happy and people will forget’.
Tash isn’t just speaking about her own story here. She mentions the silence over grooming gangs and the Batley Grammar School scandal. She says that, where Islam is concerned, the media are ‘turning a blind eye because they don’t want to be [accused of] Islamophobia’.
RECOMMENDED
This idea – that Islam must not be criticised – lies behind numerous acts of violence and murder in Europe in recent years. We move on to talk about the Charlie Hebdo massacre, in which French cartoonists were murdered by Islamists for daring to depict Muhammad.
Tash was wearing a Charlie Hebdo t-shirt when she was attacked. When Charlie’s offices were attacked in 2015, she took the magazine’s cartoons to Speakers’ Corner. She did the same when a French teacher was beheaded on the outskirts of Paris last year for showing Charlie Hebdo cartoons to his students.
‘When Samuel Paty was killed, I took those pictures again’, she says. And she didn’t only take cartoons of Muhammad, but Charlie’s cartoons of Jesus and the Christian God, too. ‘I find them very offensive’, she says, but ‘that doesn’t give me the right… to go and chop someone’s head off’.
Whatever the motivations of the man who slashed at Hatun Tash, violent attacks on critics of Islam keep on happening. And they keep on being brushed under the carpet. The UK, Tash says, is known for giving ‘dignity and honour to human beings’. We need to make sure that remains the case.
Paddy Hannam is editorial assistant at spiked. Follow him on Twitter: @paddyhannam.
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andToby Young mentions Hatun Tash, who was arrested yesterday. The Corner and Free Speech are 'under attack.'"We should all take a breath today, despite all the assaults on #FreeSpeech, to celebrate the fact that Speakers' Corner has existed for 150 years."FSU General Secretary, Toby Young, gave a short speech in Hyde Park today to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Speakers’ Corner.
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Christian woman gets robbed by a follower of Islam and then is arrested.
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Hatun Tash, the evangelical Christian preacher and member of the Free Speech Union, was arrested at Speakers’ Corner last Sunday, the third time she’s been arrested in two years.A large number of officers were involved, and she was forcibly removed from the scene with her arms held behind her back, while men pursued her, cheering and shouting "Allahu Akbar". Hatun was then taken to Charing Cross police station, strip searched, interviewed, kept overnight in a cell and then released without charge.To cap it all, the day she was released – Monday, 27th June – was the 150th anniversary of Speakers’ Corner.We have written to the Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Stephen House, asking him to justify this appalling treatment and, if he cannot, to apologise to Hatun. We have also put the following questions to the Acting Commissioner:
Has any investigation been undertaken into the robbery that Ms Tash suffered in the minutes before she was arrested? Has any investigation been undertaken to identify the individual who attempted to assault her while she was being arrested?You can read that letter in full here: https://freespeechunion.org/letter-to-the-metropolitan.../The FSU has also written about the incident in its weekly news round-up, which you can access here: https://freespeechunion.org/weekly-news-round-up-69/ -
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BREAKING: The Metropolitan Police has apologised and admitted it ‘fell below standards’ following two wrongful arrests of a female Christian evangelist at Speakers’ Corner, London.
Supported by the Christian Legal Centre, Hatun Tash, a well-known Christian evangelist who regularly critiques and debates the Qur’an and Islam at Speakers’ Corner, has also received £10,000 in compensation and costs after challenging the arrests: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/met-says-sorry-for-arresting-chr...
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “This pay-out to Hatun is a rare admission by the police that they got it wrong.
“Hatun is well known at Speakers’ Corner’ yet it is she that has been repeatedly silenced or removed by the police because she challenges the religious ideology of Islam.
“Not satisfied with hounding her out of Speakers’ Corner an attempt has been made on her life for which there has still been no arrest.
“Hatun is a fearless and passionate woman who loves Jesus and who has love and compassion for people from all backgrounds who she debates with and wants to reach with the gospel, which has transformed her life.
“If Hatun is silenced by violence at Speakers’ Corner, we are all silenced.”
https://christianconcern.com/ccpressreleases/police-apologise-and-a...;
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Comment from the Free Speech Union:
Some breaking news: The Met Police has paid £10,000 in damages and apologised to evangelical Christian preacher and FSU member Hatun Tash who was wrongly arrested twice at Speakers' Corner.
A letter from Inspector Andy O’Donnell, from the Met’s professional standards directorate, apologises to her “for the distress that you have suffered”. He said he was “satisfied that on these occasions the level of service did fall below the requisite standard”.
This is such great news after several episodes of appalling treatment.
On the two previous occasions the Met has now apologised for, Tash told officers that she was being harassed and threatened by Islamic protesters. Instead of protecting her, however, the police arrested her for breaching the peace and other public order offences.
The FSU first wrote to the Met on Hatun's behalf in 2021 after she was slashed in the face with a knife at Speakers' Corner. We urged the then Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick CBE, to do more to protect Ms Tash's rights to life, freedom of religion and freedom of expression.
Ms Tash was also arrested at Speakers' Corner earlier this year after someone complained that her T-shirt - which depicted one of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed - was 'offensive'. On that occasion, Hatun was dragged away from the scene by the police, taken to Charing Cross police station, strip searched, interviewed, kept overnight in a cell and then released without charge.
We wrote to the Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Stephen House, asking him to justify this appalling treatment and, if he could not, to apologise to Hatun.
The FSU is delighted that Ms Tash has now received an apology.
The Times and The Sunday Times report is well worth a read in full:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/met-says-sorry-for-arresting-chr...
#woke #FreeSpeechMatters
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/19/terrorist-admits-plotti...
Terrorist admits plotting to shoot Christian preacher at Speaker’s Corner, court hears
Edward Little took a taxi from Brighton and planned to kill Hatun Tash, having arranged to buy a gun for £5,000
...
Following the hearing, Ms Tash, who is an evangelical Christian preacher, said: “l am glad the police were able to act and stop Mr Little before he harmed me, and people around me. This should concern everyone in the UK.
She added: “I should be able to practice my right to preach the gospel and critique Islam, or anything else that I disagree with, especially at Speakers’ Corner, the home of free speech.”
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