Women have reported feeling silenced as the authorities urged people not to gather to commemorate Sarah Everard, whose body was found on Friday after she disappeared while walking home last week.
Organisers of the London vigil for Everard, whose death has sparked renewed outcry about a lack of safety for women on UK streets, said that they had been forced to cancel the event after a “lack of constructive engagement from the Metropolitan police”.
Kat Cary, one of the organisers of a planned in-person vigil outside the Holyrood parliament in Edinburgh, said that women were “being treated like children” and their collective grief dismissed as “frivolous and unnecessary”.
Cary and fellow organiser Chloe Whyte switched their in-person plans to online after warnings from the Scottish government and Police Scotland not to breach coronavirus regulations by gathering in public.
Whyte said: “Being involved with the organising of the vigil at the Scottish parliament was a positive outlet to the rage and hopelessness I felt after Sarah Everard’s murder. While I am pleased at the level of support that we received from Police Scotland, it was apparent after listening to the BBC Drivetime interview with our lead organiser, Chloe Whyte, that the in-person vigil could not go on as planned.
“It was infuriating enough to hear the logistics and safety of the event questioned – Black Lives Matter organisers faced similar criticism last summer – but it was soul-destroying for the premise and purpose to be downplayed, and to be treated like children who were acting irrationally. Last night after we took that tough decision to cancel the event, this is what I texted to a female mentor of mine: ‘The press have made it seem like our grieving is frivolous and unnecessary. Women continue to be treated like this everywhere. There’s not a place on earth where this isn’t a reality.’”
Sisters Uncut, a campaign group working to combat violence against women, has announced that it will continue to attend the original site of the London vigil in Clapham Common on Saturday evening.
“We will not be silenced, we will not ask for permission or be told what to do by a violent man or violent institutions,” said one member of Sisters Uncut, who wished to remain anonymous.
“Safety is being used as a reason to shut down the protest, but every three days a woman is killed [by a man]”,” she said. “We have a human right to protest, and that’s what we will do.”
Emily, a 26-year-old woman living in south London, close to where Everard went missing, said she felt the opportunity for women to grieve together had been taken away.
“This week has been so crushing and I’ve got to the point where I have to do something active, more than posting and donating. I need to be around other women who are as desperately sad and exhausted and scared as I am,” she said.
“[The Met] not having more flexibility, or trying harder to make it work, is taking the opportunity away from women who need to grieve.
“I am obviously disappointed in the Met’s decision. I’ve seen anti-mask protests, people protesting statues and pro-Brexit demonstrations over the last few months in central London, and in this case, so much work was done to work with the police to make this safe but now, there will be no stewards, no legal observers, no Covid marshalls … how is that the best outcome?”
Emily said, as she would wear a mask and remain distanced from other attendees, she didn’t think the coronavirus risks were higher than when she went out for her daily exercise.
“It’s no different to what I’d be doing normally,” she said. “But sometimes things are worth the risks, because it feels like something I need to be doing.”
This article was updated on 14 March 2021 to correct the name of vigil organiser Kat Cary.
