I am Seismic Shock

Levity aside regular readers will know that on Sunday I posted an item regarding police intimidation of blogger Seismic Shock at the behest of one Reverend Stephen Sizer, the vicar of a church in Virginia Water. Unsurprisingly Seismic Shock's treatment has been reported on dozens of blogs and has even made it on to the BBC website and has been discussed on the Index on Censorship site

I find the use of police to try and silence a blogger an utter disgrace. It is something that could happen to any of us if someone decides to take umbrage at the content of our blogs. For what it's worth I support this protest wholeheartedly

My thanks to Modernity who has reported extensively on this squalid affair and who created the above video

Vicar uses police to stifle blogger

I will be honest and state absolutely that I had not come across the Reverend Stephen Sizer before and I had never previously visited the blog Seismic Shock.

Before going into details I wish I had not come across the former while the latter has certainly been the victim of a malicious complaint which involved him receiving a visit from the police.

The following is taken from a post by Seismic Shock at Engage Online.

Seismic Shock had placed previously posted on a number of occasions about Sizer stating with very good evidence that Sizer “forwards emails from Holocaust deniers, shares platforms with Holocaust deniers, and flaunted his anti-Zionist theology before Iran’s apocalyptic Holocaust-denying regime? “ Here is Sizer on Iranian tv:

Both Sizer and also Lecturer Anthony McRoy, who had lectured at a theological conference in Iran (go to the Engage article for the link) took umbrage at the statements about their links tosome extremely unsavoury characters.

“At 10am on Sunday 29th November 2009, I received a visit from two policemen regarding my activities in running the Seismic Shock blog. A sergeant from the Horsforth Police related to me that he had received complaints via Surrey Police from Rev Sizer and from Dr Anthony McRoy – a lecturer at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology – who both objected to being associated with terrorists and Holocaust deniers.

The sergeant made clear that this was merely an informal chat, in which I agreed to delete my original blog (http://seismicshock.blogspot.com/) but maintain my current one (http://seismicshock.wordpress.com)....

.... With my research on Reverend Sizer’s associations with terrorists and Holocaust deniers making its way into a publication of the Society of Biblical Literature, I was quite content to hold my peace. However, now that Reverend Sizer is now misrepresenting what has happened in my case in order to intimidate others, now is the time to speak up.

A Christian blogger – “Vee” of LivingJourney, who is based in Australia – linked to my blog as a resource for Christians to learn about anti-Semitism in the Church, including “lots of info on Stephen Sizer and Sabeel”.

Rev Sizer left her this comment:

Dear Vee,

You must take a little more care who you brand as anti-semitic otherwise you too will be receiving a caution from the police as the young former student of Leeds did recently. One more reference to me and you will be reported.

Blessings
Stephen

Why is Reverend Sizer claiming that I received a police caution, when the police stressed I did not receive a caution? Is Sizer deliberately misrepresenting the same police force that he originally used to his advantage?

Who is Reverend Sizer reporting to, and why does Reverend Sizer genuinely feel he has the power to close down debate by threatening police action? Why call the cops rather than answer his critics?

Political and theological disagreements should never be accompanied with threats of litigation or police action, but instead with logic and open debate.”

I wholeheartedly agree with Seismic Shock’s last final statement. Personally I find it disgraceful that Sizer had chosen to intimidate a blogger in such a way, especially when the blogger has good evidence to substantiate his claims.

Here’s hoping that Sizer’s idiotic action and veiled anti-semitism come back to bite him hard

My thanks to Modernity and Snoopy for drawing my attention to this disgraceful affair