Kellie-Jay Keen vows to return to NZ ‘to win this war’

Kellie-Jay Keen, who was forced to flee NZ last weekend after being attacked at a protest, has labelled PM Chris Hipkins a ‘gutless coward’ | WATCH

British activist Kellie-Jay Keen aka Posie Parker is drowned out by trans-rights supporters at Albert Park where she was holding a rally. Picture: Twitter

Anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen has attacked New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins as a “gutless coward,” as she swears to return to the country and “win this war.”

Ms Keen, also known as Posie Parker, was forced to flee NZ last weekend after she was doused with tomato juice and had eggs thrown at her during a rally in Auckland on Saturday. She was escorted from the event by police before she had a chance to speak and was taken to the airport, where she tweeted that NZ was “the worst country for women I have visited in a long time,” before flying out. She also cancelled a planned event in Wellington as part of her “Let Women Speak” tour of Australasia, planned for the following day.

In a broadcast posted to Twitter this morning, Ms Keen swore: “I will come back.”

“We’re gonna win this war, women, and then I will come back,” she added. The self declared “pro-woman” activist said she would “come back at the invitation of the Prime Minister, who wants to make an all-out apology to everyone. And I don’t say that like; ‘I’ll come back when he apologises’ - I mean I will.

In a broadcast posted to Twitter this morning, Ms Keen swore: “I will come back to NZ”. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

“He will apologise, and if it’s not him, it will be the next prime minister because he’s not gonna last. He’s a gutless coward.”

Mr Hipkins condemned the violence at the Auckland rally, where protesters far out-numbered Ms Keen’s supporters, but said most of those present exercised their right to free speech respectfully. “I don’t believe people should throw things at a protest, whether what they’re throwing is a soup or a brick,” he told reporters. “Ultimately, the right to free speech does not extend to the right to physical violence, and so I would condemn that.”

However, he added “I think (exercising the right to free speech” is something we should celebrate.”

The Prime Minister also defended the Green Party co-leader who told an interviewer from a far right website shortly after the attack on Ms Keen that “white CIS men” were the cause of violence in the world.

Asked about Ms Keen being “violently assaulted” by the tomato juice thrower, Marama Davidson - who was present at the rally and shortly before being approached by the website Counterspin had been hit by a motorcycle - responded: “I know what causes violence in this world and it’s white cis men.”

Ms Davidson later explained that she had been confused after being hit by the motorbike and had not meant to bring ethnicity into her comment. However she stood by her comment that “cis men” were the cause of more violence than transgender people.

Mr Hipkins said he accepted her clarification and would not ask for her resignation. “It’s a horrific experience to have gone through being hit by a motorcycle in what was already probably quite an emotionally charged situation,” he told reporters.

In her hour long Twitter broadcast, Ms Keen said that she had not feel safe from the moment she arrived at Auckland airport, adding that she felt more protected by police in Australia than in NZ.

Describing her arrival at Albert Park, where the rally was to be held, she said: “There’s so many people. It’s not welcoming. The sound was a mob .. an aggressive, male mob.”

Immediately after the attack in Auckland, Ms Keen had claimed she feared for her life. However she struck a more defiant note in her broadcast, saying being doused in tomato juice had only strengthened her resolve to speak up for women.

“I was in this mob and this bloke threw tomato juice at me. I think I was supposed to feel humiliated and not want to go on ... but in that moment I genuinely thought ‘f*** you,’ that’s not going to stop me speaking. That’s supposed to make me feel like I look awful and stupid. But people haven’t come here to see if my hair is curled or my makeup is on well. In that moment I thought ‘I’m going to show the world what this is.’ So I carried on filming. I wanted nobody to deny the aggressive misogyny of trans activism.”

She says it was when the protesters broke through the barriers into the rotunda where she was about to speak that she felt she was in danger. “They are frenzied, they are an organism of hate,” she says. “It’s like pack animals, it’s insane.”

“I thought ‘this is what it’s like to die. I just thought ‘I’m going to be crushed to death.’ “Ms Keen said on the way back to the UK she transited in Dubai, where she “felt safer as a woman than in NZ”.

She thanks the police who helped her leave the area and took her to the airport, saying: “I want to just say again thank you to the two officers that got me away, to the four officers that kept me safe, to the two more officers who transferred me to the airport, and for the three officers that kept me safe at the airport until my flight took off.”

Eli Rubashkyn, the transgender activist who threw tomato juice over Ms Keen, has left the country for New York, according to her posts on Twitter. Ms Rubashkyn has been summoned to appear at the Auckland District Court on a charge of common assault.