Dear @ECB_cricket my timeline has been targeted by Taliban bots for over 48 hours, including a death threat, because I’m saying the things they don’t want the world to see. That they don’t want YOU to see. Listen carefully.

The Taliban appear to have sent out an army of bots to reaffirm their propaganda and lies, which have now been exposed. They’ve been trying to convince you, and us all, that they want to ban cricket, with the Afghan Cricket Team seemingly complicit in this lie. In reality, the Taliban are using the Afghan cricket team to polish up their international reputation and gain support among the local male population. Afghan men want to play and watch cricket and when Taliban allow this THEY gain support along with the cricket team.

This Taliban PR machine desperately wants you to field an England team against the Afghan team, because if the Taliban make you do this, and are able to prevent the boycott, they are heroes to their people. They can declare they defeated the West, they delivered the cricket, and become heroic champions to the men of Afghanistan, who we have seen, in targeted tweets, are begging to be given their cricket.

The message to Afghan women is loud and it is callous. If England play against Afghanistan, you legitimise the Taliban and allow them to tell women, “Look, no one cares about what we do to you. England cares more about their cricket games than you. NO ONE is coming to help you'”.

When you turn a deaf ear to requests to boycott the England v Afghanistan cricket match, you stand with the men of the Taliban and every atrocity they commit against Afghan women. You and the Taliban are shoulder to shoulder at the point England play Afghanistan, and that shameful act will follow you around for decades to come.

That is the point when you turn your backs on Afghan women being dragged into sporting stadiums only to be stoned and flogged. When you deliver these men their cricket, you tell and show those women that the world doesn’t mind, or care, if they beat and stone women to death and that no one wants them to stop treating women like lesser humans.

You should be outraged, but instead you refuse to condemn the men destroying women’s lives. There is no distance you can establish between the Afghan men’s cricket team and the Taliban to make this a comfortable decision which you can morally defend. The team appear in adverts with the Taliban. The Taliban ARE Afghanistan, and the team ARE Afghanistan. You can’t split the two.

The team has in the past celebrated a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. If you refuse to boycott the England v Afghanistan fixture, you’re refusing to condemn the Taliban’s treatment of women; you’re telling them they can treat women as they wish, and the world won’t mind.

The regime-peddled lie is that the Afghan team “give hope” to Afghans globally. This has now been written into a manipulative petition. What “hope”? The only thing the Afghan Cricket team competing achieves is to increase the Taliban's popularity! What hope do you offer for the women banned from going to university or to work, who can’t speak to each other or read aloud in their own homes? Do you want to enhance the Taliban’s popularity and kill off any shred of spirit and hope the oppressed women hold, that ANYONE cares about them?

If you wave an England team onto the pitch against Afghanistan, you offer a rubber stamp to Taliban brutality. The world will see you do it.

Where is your compassion? Your humanity? Do you care more about the money you get from tv rights than you do about women living lives of torture at the hands of barbarians? We know you've prevented English players from playing before, when it was costing you money. So, we know you can do it if you want. We can only assume you refuse to take the English team out because it will cost you money.

You're selling your integrity and your soul. You either stand with women, or you stand with the Taliban.

Make the right choice or when those women are stoned to death it is YOU who will also have blood on your hands. No money will wash it clean.

(A number of screenshots follow which ought to shame you into withdrawing the English Cricket Team.) Here women of Afghanistan tell you the need support.

https://x.com/WDIAfghanistan/status/1877855219691749468

Last night we decided to do a very quiet and peaceful action. We ended up having tomato ketchup thrown all over us, drinks thrown at us, threatened by bar staff and the police called to arrest us. I wondered how such a quiet thing would go. Here is how… The idea was to see reactions in a normal bar on truthful statements about the reality of sex versus the nefarious gender. We weren’t saying anything. We weren’t giving our views out loud. We just wondered what people would do if they looked at a quiet truth written on boards.

Will the political leaders stop saying women-only “spaces”? The issue is service provision for female survivors of male violence, fair competitive sport, sex-segregated prison accommodation, changing rooms and toilets which are safe for females to be undressed in away from males. We don’t demand to walk around in a man-free bubble, though sometimes that would be nice, we don’t want a nice garden or cafe. We want fairness and safety. It’s not a “space” it’s safe and fair institutional provision for female people and in a legal format made clear as to sex. Stop making us sound like we are all demanding the fainting couch back. @Keir_Starmer @RishiSunak And for goodness sake @RishiSunak it’s a piece of legislation called Equality Act 2010. It is not the “equalities act” and women can’t believe you’re serious about it if you don’t know what it is you tiny-trousered plumb.

Dropped car at garage and walked back past the polling station to the grinning @TheGreenParty candidate @PeterGilbertUK outside. It began.

Me: What do you think of Alison Teal? She was kicked out of your party for reading an article I wrote.

Him: <trying to maintain inane… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Him: Look I campaigned with her on the tree issue. I looked up to her. She inspired me. She was a hero.
Me: She IS a hero.
Him: well there are other things.
Me: what things?
Him: well I think …er… on some things she’s on the wrong side.
Me: what things?
Him: the trans issue.

What struck me most about KJK’s face as she was shuffled out of that baying mob was not just the fear, but her sudden knowledge of what male violence is up close. Many of us come to the feminist cause because we have experienced male violence. So when KJK talks of her fear of falling to the floor and what would happen, it’s because many of us have been on that floor and we know what happens. That’s why we women, even those who have disagreed with her in the past, felt a surge of sympathy. No woman wants another woman to face that either from a mob

This is disgusting. Facilitated by @SheffLibraries - there was no protest organised and I attended with and took notes as a writer. I’m not gloating. I was right at the back so not sure how good his eyes are. But wow at the intent to intimidate. I am putting in a formal complaint to @SheffLibraries about how I was treated. I was quietly attending a talk open to the public. I am a Sheffield woman and you “guarded” and intimidated me for no reason. I posed no threat and all I did was take notes which the woman guarding

I’ll just add a few things to this thread from last night and my thoughts on the Sophie Labelle event in Sheffield. Snippets of my notes to follow.

https://twitter.com/jeanhatchet/status/1630309725202939905

I arrived to a fairly large protest. Two police were there and a number of door security. I asked the man on the door “what’s happening” his reply “I think they thought more was going to be going on than actually is”. Wasting police time? Should charge Labelle who

I might be Heading back to the car. Pretty scary as on my own. Will report back shortly

Is this thread on Sophie Labelle still accessible? Because @SheffLibraries should read it before tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/EssenceOfTweet/status/1364938947231584258

For those of you blocked here is the thread on Sophie Labelle. From a trans identified Twitter user who finishes with “Sophie Labelle cannot be trusted around children”. Is anyone in there @SheffLibraries ?

Nicola Sturgeon grilled hard about #AdamGraham by Douglas Ross in #FMQ just now. He pushed her “the prisoner is in a women’s prison right now!” But she prevaricated around “segregation”. She’s all over the place in her statements and panicking. Oooh he continued “the first minister is hiding behind the Scottish Prison service but they are a government agency accountable to SNP ministers. So all this really comes down to is what ministers decide”