Hate speech, not free speech

UNDER arrest: police tackle a protester in the town centre

Scroll down for Video

FAR-RIGHT demonstrators descended on Oldham town centre on Saturday in protest against child grooming cases with Oldham links.

Our readers took to social media after we broke the news — with the majority keen to distance themselves from the demonstrators.

Tony Larkin, councillor for Royton North, said: “Keep this scum out of Oldham, it’s bad enough with UKIP.”

Karen Berry: “It isn’t free speech — it’s hate speech, and we don’t want them here!”

Kel Jones: “I don’t want this in my town! I have children and don’t bring them up to behave in such a manner. This is just pathetic and they should go get a life and leave Oldham alone.”

Brian Shelmerdine: “I work in a care home and several of our residents came back from Oldham shook up and anxious about going out because of these idiots.”

Farukh Ahmed: “It’s not Muslims or non Muslims that are the problem — it’s extremists in any society.”

Halal Javstah: “Recently Gary Glitter has been found guilty of being a paedo — are you hypocrites going to march for that then?”

Some, however, supported the demonstration.

Lucy Dawn Lee Albison: “Everyone regardless of faith or ethnicity are allowed to speak freely.

“It’s a shame the same people calling these individuals “scum” didn’t speak out in the same aggressive tones when young girls had been groomed, when soldiers returned from Afghanistan/Iraq and were greeted with abuse.”

Jackie Garnett Allen: “These police would serve the public better by spending their time rooting out the groomers in our town instead of stopping people’s entitlement to free speech.”

See our original report on the protest.