An Antifa mob stormed a lecture hall at the King’s College in London Monday night, forcing an Ayn Rand Institute event to be evacuated.
Video taken at the event shows individuals in masks and bandanas, brandishing an antifa flag, storming the lecture hall as a fire alarm goes off. Students started yelling and at one point a man punches an antifa disrupter in the face.
The interrupted discussion was between Dr. Yaron Brook, chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute, and YouTube personality Sargon of Akkad. According to the Ayn Rand Institute, the event was to be a “discussion about Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism” and the conversation was to “be followed by a question and answer period.”
Violent protests also erupted outside the event hall, which led the college to bar all non-student ticket holders from attending the event. The Ayn Rand Institute estimates the hosting student group, King’s Libertarian Society, was forced to turn away roughly 200 external ticket holders.
“I was told that due to a ‘risk assessment’ that it was only open to students. So I just huffed and went home! I’m not surprised it’s just an underhand tactic to effectively censor ideas they dislike. Which is fine I just wish they were more honest about it,” one individual who was turned away told Red Alert Politics, who commented anonymously.
John Switzer Haagensen, another non-student ticket holder, told Red Alert Politics, “it was somewhat chaotic at the campus. We were all their [sic] hopeful to get in but the university wouldn’t botch claiming security concerns … we were outside in the hallway prevented from entering, the antifascists aggressors arrived with smoke bombs.”
“I strongly feel the university caved into the antifa protesters. They need to protect free speech and not prevent people from joining peacefully. They changed criteria just 2.5 hours prior to the event despite it having been scheduled for months. I am very disappointed in an institution a top university in the world acting cowardly like this,” Switzer Haagensen continued.
The rioting was not spontaneous. A Facebook event to protest Brook’s talk was organized by the KCL Socialist Students, Intersectional Feminist Society, Kashmir Solidarity Movement, KCL LGBT+, KCL Action Palestine Society, KCL Justice For Cleaners, and the Demilitarise King’s campaign.
“Come out, be loud, interrupt fascist spaces and organizations, don’t let their discourse be normalised [sic]!” the Facebook event for the protest advertised.
King’s Libertarian Society, led by student Danny Al-Khafaji, issued a statement calling the evening “an act of violence, clearly intended to silence Yaron and Sargon’s planned debate, via a series of jackbooted totalitarian tactics that unfortunately proved successful …” The statement continues, “Windows have been smashed, and gas bombs were lit on campus. A number of KCL security guards are on their way to hospital after being assaulted …”
Hours before the event Brook posted to Facebook: “It seems I can’t please anyone: the alt-right call me a Leftist commie (or obectivleftist, if your an alt-right ‘objectivist’), and the Left calls me a racist fascist. I guess this is the fate of a real individualist.)”
The King’s College of London did not return a request for comment in time for publication.
