From Iceland — Protest Planned For "Pick-Up Artist" Meeting

Protest Planned For “Pick-Up Artist” Meeting

Published February 2, 2016

Andie Sophia Fontaine
Photo by
Beata May/Wikimedia Commons

A protest is being planned on the spot where a notorious “pick-up artist” intends to hold a public meeting. The organisers call on protestors to use “lightness and humour” to mock attendees.

Vísir reports that Roosh Vorek – whose real name is Daryush Valizadeh – plans to hold an outdoor meeting at the statue of Leifur Eiríksson in front of Hallgrímskirkja this Saturday at 20:00.

Roosh, who has made a career out of instructing men how to manipulate women into sex, has visited Iceland before. Reporting after his visit, he described his encounters with two women that even he admits “would have been rape” in the US, “since she legally couldn’t give her consent”. Roosh is apparently unaware that this is how Icelandic law defines rape as well.

Protestors are not planning on letting this Saturday’s meeting proceed without a reaction.

“As I see it, all kinds of creeps could spread across the country if people stand back and do nothing,” one of the protest organisers, Brynhildur Yrsa Guðmundsdóttir, told reporters. “If you don’t like something, it accomplishes nothing to do nothing.”

However, she emphasised that these protests will be free of violence.

“We want to see non-violent protests – more lightness and humour,” she said. “We have gone so far as to show up at this spot because, as optimistic as we are, we predict that a large group of people [greeting the attendees] will act as a deterent.”

Police have been alerted of the protest and plan to keep watch of the event as it unfolds.

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