Roosh V cancels UK events amid anger over rape comments
A "new masculine pick-up artist" who called for the legalisation of rape has been forced to cancel a series of events in the UK after claiming he could no longer guarantee the safety of those who wanted to attend.
A "new masculine pick-up artist" who called for the legalisation of rape has been forced to cancel a series of events in the UK after claiming he could no longer guarantee the safety of those who wanted to attend.
Daryush Valizadeh, who calls himself Roosh V, had announced events for heterosexual men only'' across the UK on Saturday.
The 36-year-old American has published 15 books on how to pick up women'' and posts tips on his website on how tobang'' women.
On his Return of Kings blog, he said: I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on February 6, especially since most of the meetups cannot be made private in time.
While I can't stop men who want to continue meeting in private groups, there will be no official Return of Kings meetups.
The listing page has been scrubbed of all locations. I apologise to all the supporters who are let down by my decision.''
Protesters had called for the meetings to be banned and a petition lobbying the police and Home Office to ban the UK events has more than 55,000 signatures.
The backlash has been particularly strong in Scotland with another petition calling for Roosh V from "being allowed to promote his hateful violent views in our cities" receiving over 57,000 signatures.
The self-styled "pick-up" artist took to Twitter yesterday to hit out at Glaswegians who he said had sent him more threats "than anywhere else combined". He also questioned if the city was "some kind of convict resettlement zone".
But some campaigners who planned a counter-protest in George Square on Saturday are questioning whether the events are really cancelled and say they plan to still hold their event.
Vonny Moyes, who organised the "Scotland stands for equality" event on Saturday posted on the Facebook event: "News of cancelled meet ups should be taken with caution – smacks of being a red herring.
"Either way, we should still go out there on Saturday. Through shouting back, we've started a Scotland-wide conversation on gender, equality, sexual violence and rape culture. This alone is worth celebrating!"
Katie Pruszynski, who started the petition on Change.org, said: He encourages men to ignore when a woman says 'no', he believes rape inside private property should be legal and he routinely refers to women as 'the enemy'.
He believes sexual gratification is a man's right, wilfully disregarding the issue of consent.''
She added in her post online: We will not accept this form of terror against women. Pro-rape advocates directly threaten our safety and normalise the abuse of women and girls.''
In one of his posts, Mr Valizadeh said rape should be legalised if done on private property''.
Less women will be raped because they won't voluntarily drug themselves with booze and follow a strange man into a bedroom, and less men will be unfairly jailed for what was anything but a maniacal alley rape,'' he wrote.
The events had been planned for Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds and Shrewsbury.
A Home Office minister was being summoned to the House of Commons at 10.30am to answer questions from MPs on the cancelled event after shadow women and equalities minister Kate Green asked an urgent question.