Peter Tatchell: snubbed by students for free speech stance

Peter Tatchell: snubbed by students for free speech stance
Why free speech is important. "In the emails, sent to the organisers of a talk at Canterbury Christ Church University on Monday on the topic of “re-radicalising queers”, Cowling refuses an invitation to speak unless Tatchell, who has also been invited, does not attend. In the emails she cites Tatchell’s signing of an open letter in the Observer last year in support of free speech and against the growing trend of universities to “no-platform” people, such as Germaine Greer, for holding views with which they disagree. Cowling claims the letter supports the incitement of violence against transgender people. She also made an allegation against him of racism or of using racist language. Tatchell told the Observer that the incident was yet another example of “a witch-hunting, accusatory atmosphere” symptomatic of a decline in “open debate on some university campuses”. One of the founding members of direct action group OutRage!, which caused a storm in the 1990s by outing establishment figures it claimed were homophobic in public and homosexual in private, Tatchell is used to being in the establishment firing line. But the original radical queer is now finding himself having to think long and hard about free speech."