Beard Liberation Front
20th November
Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266
Beard Liberation Front launches inquiry into possible ‘Spycops’ police infiltration
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has launched an investigation as to whether it was infiltrated by political police known as the Special Demonstration Squad.
The SDS was formed in 1968 and disbanded in 2008:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Demonstration_Squad
The Beard Liberation Front was formed in 1995 but this would still have left a considerable period when the organisation could have been infiltrated by SDS operatives.
The BLF says that prior to the SpyCops Inquiry which has held opening virtual public sessions it would not have thought itself a likely target. While its name sometimes causes an assumption that it is a militant political organisation in fact, as the BLF has made clear from the start, it is actually a broadly based campaign group which aims to tackle prejudice against facial hair.
The campaigners say concerns have arisen because at the SpyCops Inquiry it has become clear that officers believed the SDS was actually called the ‘Hairies’ and that growing a beard was de rigueur for its members as they believed that facial hair was a key signifier of members of the radical groups they infiltrated.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, of course beards can be subversive and there is nothing more status quo than a clean shaven man in a suit but that would hardly merit police surveillance. We are carrying out a review of the period 1995-2008 to see if there is any evidence of undercover police activity in the BLF.
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