Help Protect Freedom of Speech by Donating to Karen Sunderland’s Fundraiser
Free Speech Union member Karen Sunderland is suing her former employer after falling victim to ‘offence archaeology’ and needs to raise funds to pay her legal costs. If she wins in the Employment Tribunal, her victory will have the effect of protecting the expression of non-woke views in the workplace, with employees able to cite their protected belief in conservatism and free speech if someone complains about them saying something ‘offensive’. You can donate to Karen’s fundraiser here.
In 2018, when Karen was a Conservative candidate in the local elections, iNews dug up some tweets she’d posted in 2017 and managed to get her suspended by the party. The tweets reflected her sincere belief that aspects of Islamic doctrine are illiberal and unfair to women.
Four years later, when Karen was embarking on a new career, someone tipped off her employer about this episode and she was fired. Karen believes her comments were protected political speech, and that her dismissal was unfair and discriminatory. Her claim makes two important legal arguments.
First, her dismissal was either directly or indirectly because of her belief in conservatism, a belief her legal team believes is protected by the Equality Act 2010. Establishing that conservatism is a protected belief would bring balance to the law: while there is case law protecting democratic socialism there are no equivalent protections for its right-wing counterpart. If she succeeds in winning this argument, the judgement would protect employees with conservative views which, while wholly lawful, are often distasteful to HR officers.
Second, Karen argues that she was dismissed because of her belief in freedom of speech. In short, free-thinkers attract controversy, and always have – and employers who put rigid speech codes in place are disproportionately affecting those who believe in free speech. A finding that freedom of speech is a protected belief would give legal protection to other employees who manifest that belief by speaking their minds and testing received wisdom.
Karen’s trial begins on March 28th. She is being represented by barrister Francis Hoar, acting on a direct access basis. Francis is one of England’s best barristers when it comes to freedom of speech cases and party-political matters: in 2021 he published In Protection of Freedom of Speech, with a Foreword by Lord Sumption.
You can donate to Karen’s fundraiser here.
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Donation made, more steam being emitted from my ears.
More significantly, the HR system has to be crushed. We need the return of old-fashioned personnel departments and to flush out the SJW gatekeepers at companies. That’s a cultural change in our society and will be hard work.
Good luck to you, Karen. It’s impossible to be free without the freedom to speak our minds.
Offence is taken – not given.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but WORDS?! They will never hurt me!
Donation made. Best of luck to Ms Sunderland and the FSU.
If people keep voting for the supposed mainstream parties, these problems are never going away.
Quite. Free speech is a central plank of the Heritage Party. Have a look at its manifesto and you may be pleasantly surprised.
Comment which may be helpful here: Whenever you feel like bringing up anything-Nazi in order to illustrate a point you’re trying to make, just don’t. This will greatly improve both the quality and the prospective positive effects of whatever statement you’re trying to make.
I see no mention of the subject here…
One of the incriminated tweets ended with Islam is the new Nazism. No matter how that was meant, a lot of people will understand it as being virtually identical to claiming that Muslims who believe in god are Nazis. That’s going to piss off a real lot of people very seriously and isn’t exactly an apt comparison.
There is no right to not feel pissed off.
Er … so what? Insulting people is generally not a sensible communication strategy in order to accomplish anything, especially not criticism of anything. For this particular case, it’s grossly tactless and is a nice display of unoriginal use of as inappropriate as hackneyed phrases.
The lady should consider herself relatively lucky. In the past, I’ve been convicted (in Germany) of an entirely made-up crime because some vengeful woman I had really annoyed with a (much more carefully worded) Nazi-reference referring to one of her stated opinions wanted me to be convicted of something.
A tiny snag here is that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, al Husseini, was a big fan of the wartime German Government and promised to exterminate all Jews in the Middle East.
That, by itself means little and I am certain that many Muslims would be appalled by this fact. (Although they seem almost never to be heard saying so.)
But Husseini is a revered figure amongst those Arabs who continually and violently attack Jewish Israelis, to the delight of the Grauniad, BBC, Socialists, etc.
Arabs and Jews have habitually been at each other’s throats in the middle-east for a few thousand years. And this should really be semites believing in god A vs semites believing in god B. Even that still isn’t accurate enough, because they’re actually believing in the same god (as far as I can tell), they just can’t agree with each other what the correct and proper procedures of worship are. But that’s still besides the point. Nazi-references are best avoided because they’re neither particuarly original nor particularly well-fitting to any other topic.
If many of us donate what we each consider to be a small amount which we can easily afford, it can add up to a lot.
Donated
A different case, but potentially relevant: https://www.gbnews.uk/news/office-banter-not-banned-as-finally-common-sense-prevails-in-legal-case-after-employee-of-20-years-sacked-over-jokes/443931
Donation made and good luck.
“The tweets reflected her sincere belief that aspects of Islamic doctrine are illiberal and unfair to women.”
This is not opinion but an critical observation.
Precisely.
Critical and accurate.
The Liberal Progressive sits in their little castle on top of the moral high ground. From there they decide what we should all be allowed to say, what words we can use, what foods we can eat, what fuels we should be using, whether we should drive or fly, and if you disagree with them they fly into a spitting fury and then comes the name calling, which is the main tool in their box. The free thinking people who might be inclined not to want to get rid of their gas central heating or their petrol car because they have come to the conclusion that “climate change” is a heap of eco socialist baloney are demonised as far right fanatics that hate the planet. If a free thinking person that doesn’t want their government controlling every aspect of their life sticks their head above the parapet to declare they might vote for conservatives, the blood starts to spurt from the eyes of the Liberal Progressive, because these Socialists don’t like you having a choice, because————————-You might not choose Socialism.
Donated.
With each new day it does feel more and more that a diminishing few are desparately trying to hold back unwelcome tides.
I’ve just checked and the funds stand at £6406 of an initial target of £5,000.
11.15 am Saturday 18th Feb.
Best wishes, Karen. I support you.
Apparently free speech means you can have any opinion you want just as long as it’s the same as the authorities?