‘Extremism’ lessons link suffragettes to the Nazis

SCHOOLCHILDREN are being t aught ‘ offensive and absurd’ lessons that show suffragettes alongside other ‘extremist activity’, including the Nazis, Islamic terrorists and the IRA.

Classes devised by teachers with the Government’s anti-terror Prevent programme feature the suffragettes in an online presentation called ‘Extremism Isn’t New’.

The first slide of the presentation features a picture of suffragette Emily Davison, who in June 1913 threw herself under the King’s horse and died in order to attract attention to the campaign to secure votes for women.

The next slides show the Nazis; the IRA’s Remembrance Day bombing of Enniskillen in 1987, the Twin Towers during the 9/11 attack in New York and Anders Breivik, the far-Right extremist who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011.

Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, said: ‘It is ridiculous to list the tactics of suffragettes next to Nazism and 9/11 as an example of extremism. Inviting comparisons between acts of terror or the systematic extermination of millions of people and women fighting for their basic human rights is offensive and absurd.’

Historian and suffragette author Diane Atkinson, a former t eacher, said: ‘ I am extremely unhappy by the inclusion of the suffragettes in this. Violence was done against them and to them so it is absolutely outrageous that they are being used as an example of extremism.’ The lesson pl ans, t aught t o hundreds of pupils i n Leicestershire, were designed by the Respect Programme, run by Leicester City Council, with support from the Prevent programme and teachers from six local secondary schools.

Will Baldet, Prevent co-ordinator for Leicester, said: ‘It is ridiculous to suggest this implies the suffragette struggle is comparable to Nazism. The idea is to explore the concept of extremism through history and highlight how the use of violence hinders any cause, no matter how noble.’