Today is #DinaAliDay.

This day in 2017, Dina vanished off the face of the earth

Who is she?
Every woman who ever tried to flee abuse; everyone who ever wanted freedom.
She SO nearly made it;
but powerful men conspired against her.

Then people just…forgot.

But I can’t.
1/8 Saudi Arabian #DinaAli was being abused by family members.
She couldn’t take it anymore. For months, she planned her escape. She would fly to Australia, seek asylum, & start a new, free life.
Aged 24, she gathered her courage, got away from her family, & made it as far Manila
2/

Tommy Robinson portrays himself as a family man, yet dragged his daughter to a London footie match yesterday on her birthday- KNOWING he wasn’t allowed in the city under bail conditions.

He needlessly involved her in his version of events, AGAIN, purely for sympathy/ grift
1/5 Other parenting lowlights: in 2016 Robinson sued Cambridge police for ‘harassment’ claiming he was having an innocent family day out with ‘muh kids’, in a pub but drinking water 🙄
He claimed he was asked to leave by cops due to his views on Islam; & his daughter was so scared
2/

Yesterday I spoke in #Telford AGAINST racism and FOR sexual abuse survivors.

Tommy Robinson says people who protest him don’t care about survivors, and have never experienced rape of child abuse.

I have experienced both. So why wasn’t I standing with him in #Telford?

A 🧵 Why did I make a 6 hour round trip to stand in the cold and have drunk fascists scream ‘paedo’ at me, as they tried to attack me & other counter-protestors?

It’s not pleasant to have that word thrown at you when you were abused from the ages of 4 to 12.
It brings it all back.

A couple of days ago, a self-styled ‘journalist’ on here accused me of ‘attacking’ Tommy Robinson

I’ve previously been accused of causing him ‘emotional distress’

He’s a delicate soul, so obviously I feel TERRIBLE, so let’s look at what occurred so it NEVER happens again 👍
1/

https://twitter.com/uaf/status/1698382570424062024

After numerous failures to cut through in recent years, including the embarrassing failure of his MEP campaign (thanks, Antifascists), legal woes due to libellling innocent schoolkids, etc, Tommy’s income- donations from the fanboys he calls ‘mugs’- dipped.
He needed a win.

2/

YOU DID IT!
6.6 million took the time to read my thread on secret tests on civilians, including Punjabi women in Coventry.

You opened eyes.

I contacted Coventry MPs including @TaiwoOwatemi

I’m DELIGHTED to say she will be raising this in parliament!
1/ bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

https://twitter.com/LouiseRawAuthor/status/1692904463852281893

Researchers at Warwick Uni are now URGENTLY seeking anyone who may’ve been unwittingly involved in 1969. Coventry women were brought chapatis every day, then taken to a ‘hospital’ (actually a nuclear research facility!) for tests

Please contact Taiwo.owatemi.mp@parliament.uk
2/

You can’t believe how kind the British are.

Every morning, a van pulls up outside your house in Coventry.
A friendly man brings you a freshly-baked flatbread to eat.
It’s just for you,not anyone else in your family.
Every afternoon he comes back to make sure you’ve eaten it.
1/ It’s to improve your health, because you went to your GP with migraines.

He said it could be anaemia, & these special chapatis will help you.

You’re grateful: you haven’t been here long, & really appreciate your new country looking after you.

Eventually another van comes. 2/

Roger Sylvester would have been 55 today.
It’s hard to believe because I never got to know him past 31. No one did.

Roger was a youth worker for Islington.
He spent the day with his cousin Ann on 11 January 1999, helping at her phone shop in Tottenham.
Then he walked home.
🧵1/ He told a friend he saw on the way that he had an odd feeling he was being followed.

Only later did we discover Met Police were running stop and search that day.

Later, a (white) neighbour called the police because Rog was supposedly banging on the door of his own flat. 2/

Still buzzing from the incredible day we had at #Matchfest23 on Saturday at @bowarts!

First speaker was the marvellous Rose Lewis from @Sistah_Space, a charity for African and Caribbean heritage women suffering domestic abuse.

Imagine going through that 1/

AND fighting to access services to help, only to find they don’t/ won’t understand your background

Being moved somewhere where everything’s new & strange, & you can’t even buy staple ingredients for your meals.

This extra stress & dislocation can drive women back to abuse
2/

The divine @Writerer❤️-socialist, feminist, writer, broadcaster, non-dull intellectual who wants the world to be a better place- what’s not to love?
I was gripped (see face!) by her scathing brilliance on the ‘lying liars’ in power.
Buy all her books
waterstones.com/book/we-are-at… What can you say about a double bill of Shami Chakrabarti and @MichaelRosenYes except we were all lucky to witness it?

Shami was chilling on the vile Tory legislation she’s been working so hard to mitigate (virtually impossible, but she keeps fighting for us)

How did #Matchfest22 go (&did the fash turn up as promised)?

Here’s a look at the amazing day we had at @BowArts on Saturday.

First to join me round the table (we don’t do stages- or PowerPoints): @carolinebressey & @SuffragetteKate, on women fighting racism through history Caroline discovered incredible new information about this woman, Catherine Impey, who set up an anti racist journal, with her mum & sister, *in 1888!* Same year the Matchwomen went on strike.

Catherine lived in Street, Somerset.

What a day!
25 years after I first looked at the wall of a match factory in Bow and thought, That should have a blue plaque..and their story should be told..
Today a beautiful
@EnglishHeritage plaque was unveiled.

I was honoured to speak about the women & my long obsession! Anita Dobson speaking, and getting ready to pull that cord..

‘She was irreplaceable’.

A sad, proud, moving day at St Bride’s Church on Fleet Street today, for the memorial service for #ShireenAbuAkleh The shock and pain of Shireen’s friends and colleagues, just 6 weeks on from her murder, is palpable.

Her niece Lina, by video link, called her‘my best friend’.
‘A part of me is broken’, she said-but because Shireen was brave & optimistic, she has to go on, and hope for justice

Are you sitting comfortably?

Because Tommy Robinson complaining about the ‘humourless’ left mass reporting ‘people they don’t like’ reminds me of a story about-
Tommy Robinson.
Mass reporting.
Me 😂 At the start of the pandemic in 2020, I thought it would be interesting to use by history slot in BBC radio to look at past ‘demics and how London has coped with them.

It was fascinating to research. Plagues, cholera: the things people did to survive, tragedy and bravery