https://catholicherald.co.uk/terrif...ion-from-baying-mob-at-manchester-university/ ‘Terrified’ pro-life student group needs police protection from baying mob at Manchester University A student pro-life group who met at the University of Manchester required police intervention due to a hostile crowd of up to 250 people that surrounded the building where the meeting took place. The student pro-life group, Manchester Pro-Life Society, met for a talk on the evening of 1 March. The harassment began as soon as students tried to access the building hosting the event. Eggs were thrown at windows, while students who arrived to attend the event were subject to “a torrent of verbal abuse and threats”, reports Right to Life UK. The intimidation escalated to a point where the police arrived in order to enable the pro-life students to enter the building. As students left the event, they had to proceed through a tunnel of protesters held back by police as the air reverberated with chanting: “Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!” The pro-life students were spat at and threatened with physical abuse, including one female first-year student being told to “get raped”. Some members of the crowd then pursued the students while shouting and swearing at them. “If it wasn’t for the police and security, people would have definitely been physically hurt,” says Jacob, treasurer of Manchester Pro-Life Society. “It made me feel intimidated and threatened. I was genuinely afraid that we would get hurt physically.” A heavily pregnant 22-year-old woman had to be escorted home in a police van due to concerns for her safety. “I really thought our lives were in danger,” says Maisie, the expectant mother and an alumna of the university. She describes the scene as follows: “Leaving the building was the most terrifying part, we were surrounded and people were screaming in our faces. I knew that it would only take one person to push into me for me to fall and be crushed. It was traumatic, I was shaking the whole time and I’m still really shaken up. I really thought our lives were in danger. The crowd was extremely violent – spitting, throwing eggs, screaming and swearing. There were around 30 of us, and 300 of them. Most of them had their faces covered.” Rafa, a student at the university, describes how the police emphasised to the students at the meeting how serious the situation had become: “When we were leaving, the police told everyone we had to do this very quickly, [with a] very swift exit from the building,” Rafa says.”The police were using force to stop these people because they were being very violent. They were being very threatening, both physically and verbally.” Previously at the university, some female students had said they “feared for their safety” as a result of the establishment of the pro-life group, highlighting how it was founded by a group of young men, reports the Independent. “It’s blatant misogyny, control and subjugation of women hid behind a smoke screen disguised as a political opinion or stance point,” said one second-year linguistics student. “My heart dropped [when I saw the society] – it felt like I was at the beginning of a new Margaret Atwood novel. The society has made me feel weak and inferior to my male counterparts. I’ve had endless messages from girls who fear for their safety.” She added: “Don’t get me wrong I am all for having different political views, but I think women’s bodily autonomy is not up for debate.” Another female student said she believes the society would lead “to the eventual harassment of women” obtaining abortions at the university. “I understand that the [Student Union] has to treat all societies equally but in terms of the message it’s sending out to women, I think it’s continuing to perpetuate the stigmatisation of abortion and denying that it’s a part of healthcare and a legal right.” Screenshot from video footage posted on X by Tke Media @TkeMedia of police escorting pro-life students from the building.
The group protesting the pro-life event, Stop Manchester Prolife, has released a list of demands including mandating that pro-life medical students “not be placed in abortion clinics, maternity wards and sexual health clinics due to conflict of interest”, reports Right to Life UK. The charitable organisation focused on life issues, such as abortion, assisted suicide and embryo research, adds that since 2017, student representative bodies at Aberdeen University, Glasgow University, Nottingham University and Strathclyde University have all tried to prevent student pro-life groups from being affiliated with their respective university and benefiting from the same privileges available to any other student group. In each of these cases, the Student Union had to reverse its decision after the pro-life group involved threatened legal proceedings against the union. Students at Birmingham University also had significant difficulty becoming affiliated with the university but eventually won out against significant opposition. In 2019, in the first case of its kind, a midwifery student at Nottingham University was suspended and faced possible expulsion from her course after a lecturer raised concerns about her role in the university’s pro-life group. Only after beginning legal action was the university’s decision overturned. Towards the end of 2020, this case was formally closed after the university extended an apology to the student and offered compensation for her “unjust suspension”, reports Right to Life UK. It notes that almost a quarter of pro-life students have been “threatened, abused, alarmed or distressed” for being pro-life at university, according to a 2021 poll by the national student pro-life group, the Alliance of Pro-Life Students (APS). The poll noted that over 71 per cent of pro-life students report that they have faced situations in lectures or seminars where they felt they could not speak about their views. Among those surveyed, more than 23 per cent said they had been “threatened, abused, alarmed or distressed – by actions or words – by another student or academic” because of their membership of a pro-life society. A further 35 per cent of the participants reported that they had seen events cancelled due to the “de-platforming” of pro-life speakers, while 65 per cent of pro-life students had “witnessed another student being discriminated against or harassed for holding pro-life views”. A 2020 survey undertaken by Survation for legal advocacy group, ADF International, has found that 27 per cent of university students have “hidden” their opinions that they believe may be at odds with those of their university. “University, of all places, should be where everyone can learn, debate, challenge and discuss ideas that are important to us,” says Lorcán Price, legal counsel for ADF UK, a faith-based legal advocacy group. “The Higher Education (freedom of speech) Act 2022 was meant to secure this by ensuring universities took concrete steps to protect the rights of all students, including those with minority views who have been subjected to censorship. Yet, at Manchester University last night, we saw students’ safety under threat as they spat at, threatened with rape, and barricaded into a venue by a fanatical mob.” The Survation survey found that 44 per cent of students believe that their lecturers would treat them differently if they made their views known, and that 38 per cent believe that their future careers might be adversely affected if they openly expressed their true opinions. The survey, which received responses from 1,028 current university students and recent graduates across the country, showed that 40 per cent of students have witnessed an increase in the cancellation of events due to the views held by the speaker at their university. “The pro-abortion mob were their usual angry, screechy selves, utterly devoid of arguments,” the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), which campaigns in the UK to protect life from conception until natural death, stated on X, formerly known as Twitter, in response to the ugly scenes at Manchester University. “So incapable are they of using their words, that they resorted to violence, in the form of egging the room where the talk was being held, shouting at attendees as they left, and even following some of them home, necessitating a police escort.” Noting how the pro-life students “by contrast, were stoic, resilient, undeterred”, SPUC concluded: “Let the example of these students encourage us all – irrespective of age – to question what more we could be doing to be a voice for the voiceless at a time when they badly need our voices to be heard.” Manchester Pro-Life Society has emphasised that it is not an anti-abortion society rather a pro-life society, which thereby goes beyond abortion: the group highlights that it is concerned with other threats to life including assisted suicide, the death penalty, poverty and poor living standards, structural issues in critical infrastructure such as the NHS, and climate change. In footage of the unrest, one of the pro-choice students tries to calmly tell a group of protestors lined up against him that everyone has a right and freedom to express their own views. “No! Abortion is a right! Abortion is not an opinion!” a young man shouts back. “The Students Union has a duty of care to students to ensure their rights to free speech are protected,” Price says. “Debate is always welcome. Attempting to silence someone’s beliefs through threats of violence is unacceptable behaviour in British society.”
I think what is scary about all this is the real rage and violent anger shown to the pro lifers. There is no doubt their lives and safety were in very great danger. I think Professor Jordan Petersen warned that we have reached a stage were an idea kind of possesses us and drives us into a frenzy. A good example was the Nazis with the Jews. We become inflamed, driven, possessed.
I keep thinking of Benson’s book The Lord of the World. Angry mobs rampage through the streets screaming hate and eventually people die. I watched Gavin Ashenden last night and in his gentle voice he spoke of the demonic element in this. I am sure of it. I am glad I’m not a student today. In my day universities still had a respect for debate and free speech. Now it is spiritual warfare as the demons are out in the open.
I watched the most peculiar video earlier today . I watched Kristan Hawkins debate with a pro death student and get the better of her. Then the poor student began barking...like a dog. I suspect she was possessed.
I think here in Europe there is little doubt we are only a stop or two away from outright Persecution. It is ironic but maybe only the Muslims might help us.
For sure Padraig the behaviours exhibited by the deranged mob at Manchester University will soon be visited on Christians. Its coming. I am so relieved that no one was hurt and especially the pregnant woman. You have about as much chance of reasoning with a mob like this as with a pack of hyenas
That mob is like rabid dogs. Who will brave the toxic atmosphere to dare to show they are pro life.? I confess I would not. But thats the whole idea. Shout us down. Drown us out. That's what Hitler's brownshirts did to the opposition in Germany. Deja vu all over again as Yogi Berra would say. Gavin Ashenden is so clear eyed in his analysis.
When I was a child at school they used to tell us the stories of the Martyrs and loved the way the Church promised us that those who died for the Faith would go straight to heaven. It seemed such as an easy certain way to get to heaven! I envied them. Plus they got to wear a Crown! Whats not to like This was rue back in those days do. Christians actually longed for Martyrdom so so much that some of them actually turned themselves into the Roman authorities in order to get killed! This practice became so common that the Church Authorities had to step in and order folks to stop doing this. Amazing. Years ago I heard a young Dominican Father , a Professor of Patrology in Washington tell a story about Saint Ignatious of Antioch. In a litter to his people when the Roman soldiers were carrying his away to Rome to be eaten by the lions . The saint/Bishop wrote about his joy about being ground by the teeth of the lions into the bread of Christ. When the young Father read this letter to his parish in Washington one Sunday they burst out laughing. They could not imagine someone actually looking forward to being eaten by lions. This reminds us, as St Paul reminds us we get the grace we need when we need it. Not to early, not to late but when we need it. So when our own time comes we will get the graces we need. To die if necessary , to go to prison if needful, to endure slander calumny and insults if required and to fight and do battle if that is possible. One thing I never ever expected though when I was young was persecution to come from our own clergy. I have to say now I fully expect persecution when it comes to be aided and encouraged by the false Church. Who would ever have expected that?
I wonder if the time came and Catholic soldiers and policemen throughout the World were ordered to arrest us, their fellow Catholics, the Faithful Remnant, how many of them would just say, 'No'? How many Catholic Judges would set us free? How many Catholic Jailers would refuse to imprison us?
We are reliving in the Church itself the Passion of Christ. Jesus warned us that a time was coming when we would be thrown out of our synagogues (churches) by religious authorities who would be convinced they were doing the right thing. But like you, I never saw this coming quite like this. The Rock of the Church seemed so constant in spite of the upheavals. These last years ( since PF) have been a special kind of suffering i never anticipated.
Here I am a member of that younger generation, still in my 20s. When you see these students, you can say that they are an example of spoiled brats, i.e. the result of bad parenting that started in the 60s in the West, i.e. in the former communist countries there since the early 2000s when modern trends started to spread.... Children are placed on the level of little gods who are pleased with everything from an early age, parents do not instill respect and rules, but adapt the world to their children who must always be right, who become the center of relationships. The worst thing is distorted love, because the relationship is reduced to emotions instead of rules, because true love always comes from the rules that you incorporate to make the child a better person for yourself and society, instead of raising him selfishly who will only please his senses. He must learn the word respect before he learns what the word means. As Archbishop Sheen said one day those children who never learned to listen will want to command. And that's what we have today... These are grown-up people with selfish intentions, bitter and full of frustration and emotionally immature who have learned that everything has to be their way. They have never learned the word no...When you add modern ideological manipulation especially through the media, social networks and television that feeds their ego, both through outward appearance and the online world where one can get the horror of human society. God has built into man the ability to create, but through these manipulations, as I said on another topic, the media put people who have conservative beliefs, point the finger at them and say that they are fascists, Nazis, xenophobes, while again playing on feelings... It's practically the whole history. reduced to Nazism and fascism as the worst evil and then they say that today people of opposite beliefs are literally Hitler, which I have often heard. Then they tell those children today, students who are guided by feelings all their lives, which now turn into frustration without moral convictions because they are their own measure of good and evil, that it is good to "eliminate" modern Hitlers, racists, homophobes and that they are doing good... By the way, this is the same case that communism did at the beginning of the 20th century when it directed peasants and workers dissatisfied with poverty to the rich and the middle class who created their own wealth through their own work. The same manipulation, they are your fault, when we kill them there will be justice, there will be "social equality"... Then they killed them, so they became victims of that regime, and a new layer of powerful people who incited them rose. The same thing, only we no longer have social differences in the west and class differences, but they have to use race, gender, religion as social differences and the result of the vulnerable and those who "oppress"... That's it, spoiled children to whom no one has ever said no, who do not know the difference between good and evil and who, by their own standards, are incited into full rage for dissenters. The good they create is overloaded with manipulations to destroy, this is often seen by the protests of the BLM team and similar when they destroy, and they want some social justice. Otherwise, when you see that people want social justice and to change society, then you know that these people are in severe chaos and that they are actually running away from themselves. Every change starts from ourselves. As I said, they are creating a new communism, and communism as such comes from chaos. The world needs to burn, and these people full of anger and frustration without values and morals are ideal promoters. They are actually cowards who will serve a purpose, and they don't have the strength to resist when hard times come. That's why the real organizers of chaos hate "the Western man of firm moral standing, faith, men as family leaders who love their country" so much. They are afraid of them because these people have beliefs for which they are ready to die.
As another young person (sorta at least), I've been grateful to my parents that they didn't spoil me and would give me a good whack if I needed it. Most of my peers did not receive this.
I am going to start carrying a little vial of holy water with me and sprinkle it everywhere when I can. Or in a water bottle. Oops, darn it I spilled some again.
Blessed salt is sometimes easier to sprinkle around than holy water, if quick & clandestine is the mode of operation. A little in a pocket goes a long way ~
It is good to pray Psalm 91 three times before visiting certain hostile environments, or rather, it is always a good idea to do so.
