The Times of India
Moral police stymie B’lore SlutWalk, cops cite protests
TNN | Dec 5, 2011, 04.12AM IST
BANGALORE: Local activists' desire to keep pace with their global counterparts received a setback on Sunday: SlutWalk Bangalore was called off after police withdrew permission to the event in the wake of threats from unidentified right-wing groups, including a women's outfit, to disrupt it.
Late Saturday evening, a person, claiming to be speaking on behalf of the women's group, threatened the organizers that "whoever takes part in the SlutWalk would be beaten up with brooms". Around 7.30pm, police informed the organizers that the permission for the event had been withheld. This was confirmed in writing a couple of hours later, stating the permission has been "withdrawn for security reasons".
SlutWalk scuttled
On Sunday morning, about 15 activists, most of them organizers, turned up at Town Hall, the launch point of Gejje Hejje Bengaluru, at the appointed 10.30am as they were worried whether the cancellation message had reached everyone. The march was slated to end at Freedom Park. Nine of them were taken into preventive custody as the police said they would not let any assembly of more than five people in view of the permission for the event being withdrawn. Police said the permission was withdrawn for the event as it drew "protests from all quarters".
They also refused to divulge the identity of the groups that had threatened to disrupt the event. Confirming that a women's group had threatened to beat them with brooms, a spokesperson for the organizers said: "On Saturday around 11am, I got a call from a senior police official checking on the dress code we had in mind for the SlutWalk. Apparently, a few right wing groups had told the police they would create havoc if they did not withdraw permission given to the walk.
They had presumed that the participants would all be dressed skimpily and therefore the event would turn vulgar in their eyes." The organizers, however, declared that the event would, indeed, happen "some time soon".
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