A ladies’s rights campaigner who put up stickers and posters in Newport, Wales, has been arrested by police for ‘felony injury’ and ‘abusive writing’ after individuals allegedly complained that her posters carried an ‘anti-transgender message’.
Jennifer Swayne, 53, was arrested on Sunday afternoon and detained till the early hours of the morning, whereas law enforcement officials executed a search warrant on her property and confiscated ladies’s rights stickers and a guide containing a set of essential essays in regards to the concept and follow of transgendering kids.
Among the stickers and posters put up by Swayne carried feminist messages decrying violence towards ladies, however others which bore phrases corresponding to ‘no males in ladies’s prisons’ and ‘people by no means change intercourse’ had been reported as being offensive.
Gwent police launched an announcement earlier this week alleging they’d acquired complaints in regards to the ‘offensive messages’ over a interval of a number of months and that the posters contained ‘abusive writing more likely to trigger harassment, alarm or misery’.
Swayne in the meantime took to social media to argue that her messages weren’t anti-trans however pro-women and alleged that her ‘pondering was being investigated’ reasonably than her actions.
Truthful Cop, an organisation which campaigns towards the criminalisation of free speech, has since volunteered to help Swayne with any authorized proceedings that come up, The Occasions stories.
Jennifer Swayne, 53, was arrested on Sunday afternoon and detained till the early hours of the morning, whereas law enforcement officials executed a search warrant on her property and confiscated ladies’s rights stickers and a guide containing a set of essential essays in regards to the concept and follow of transgendering kids
Swayne in the meantime took to social media to argue that her messages weren’t anti-trans however pro-women. She later alleged that her ‘pondering was being investigated’ reasonably than her actions
Among the stickers and posters put up by Swayne carried feminist messages decrying violence towards ladies, however others which bore phrases corresponding to ‘no males in ladies’s prisons’ and ‘people by no means change intercourse’ had been reported as being offensive
Truthful Cop, an organisation which campaigns towards the criminalisation of free speech, has since volunteered to help Swayne with any authorized proceedings that come up
Among the stickers and posters made by Swayne had been emblazoned with phrases corresponding to ‘no little one is born within the mistaken physique, people by no means change intercourse’, ‘Girl = Grownup Human Feminine’ and ‘Are you cheerful in your 13-year-old daughter to bathe subsequent to an grownup man, sure or no?’.
Gwent police on Tuesday launched an announcement explaining the circumstances surrounding the arrest.
Superintendent Vicki Townsend mentioned: ‘We have acquired a number of stories in relation to posters containing offensive materials showing in Newport between October and January.
‘Officers on patrol in Newport noticed a girl spraying stickers to 2 lampposts.
‘A 53-year-old lady from Newport was arrested on suspicion of felony injury and displaying threatening or abusive writing more likely to trigger harassment, alarm or misery.
Police mentioned they acquired six complaints of ‘offensive messages’ posted by Swayne on Sunday and had been due to this fact compelled to research.
Swayne in the meantime took to Twitter to rail towards the police for the arrest and to refute claims that she had revealed ‘transphobic’ messages.
‘Yesterday Sunday twenty third/01/22 I used to be arrested for hate crime. Gwent police noticed me as an distinctive risk to the T neighborhood by posting stickers and posters that didn’t point out T as soon as. They had been feminist in content material and, I felt, pleasingly informative to ladies and anxious.’
Swayne, who suffers from bipolar dysfunction, went on to argue that the police’s determination to confiscate a guide regarding transgendering kids amounted to policing ideas over actions.
‘When my home was raided, it has come to my consideration {that a} BOOK was taken by the police. A guide edited by Heather Brunskell-Evans on GC kids. It was filled with my notes. MY THINKING IS BEING INVESTIGATED- not issues, not supplies, not actions my precise pondering.’
The guide, ‘Transgender Kids and Younger Individuals: Born in Your Personal Physique’, is a set of essays critiquing the speculation and follow of transgendering kids, edited by Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans.
A social theorist and long-time ladies’s rights advocate, Brunskell-Evans has been essential of the rise of gender identification politics, notably because it pertains to younger adults and kids.
Swayne tweeted: ‘When my home was raided, it has come to my consideration {that a} BOOK was taken by the police. A guide edited by Heather Brunskell-Evans on GC kids. It was filled with my notes. MY THINKING IS BEING INVESTIGATED- not issues, not supplies, not actions my precise pondering.’ The guide, ‘Transgender Kids and Younger Individuals: Born in Your Personal Physique’, is a set of essays critiquing the speculation and follow of transgendering kids, edited by Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans
Among the stickers allegedly posted by Jennifer Swayne
Some social media customers accused Swayne for being disingenuous about her social activism and mentioned she was rightly arrested for her actions.
One person wrote: ‘I really feel you are being dishonest in regards to the content material and the implications you had been making and insurance policies you might be doing activism round,’ whereas one other merely commented: ‘So, you had been arrested for vandalism.’
However many customers leapt to Swayne’s defence and mentioned the police had overstepped the mark.
‘Is there no actual crime happening in Gwent?,’ one person wrote. ‘How did they get a warrant to look your private home? What on earth did they inform the Justice of the Peace you’d performed? I am completely gobsmacked by this, and raging in your behalf.’
In the meantime, free speech organisation Truthful Cop accused Gwent police of ‘illegal interference’, and declared it might present Swayne with authorized support within the case.
Truthful Cop’s Harry Miller advised The Occasions that the posters that Swayne put up across the Welsh city had been a ‘political assertion’ that didn’t come close to the felony threshold.
The organisation’s Twitter account addressed a message to Gwent police yesterday, declaring ‘now we have our authorized staff in place. We will probably be establishing a donation platform within the subsequent few days. Within the meantime, now we have paid prices and will probably be bringing our A Crew. You picked on the mistaken individuals.’
Swayne was launched on conditional bail at 3:30am on Monday morning as investigations proceed.