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“I can’t believe that it had been a different group giving that talk — if it had been a feminist group and a bunch of men had arrived and intimidated and bullied the women who were trying to get in — I can’t believe the police would have stood by and let it go on for even five minutes,” she said in an interview Tuesday.

Bedassie said he was dismayed by the protest.

“My main concern is that it normalizes violence in response to people they don’t agree with,” Bedassie said.

Photo by Facebook / OTTwp

Bedassie booked the talk at the library because he said his group has had problems holding lectures on campus and even being recognized as a club by the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO).

“I impose a pretty strict code of ethics on my group. We’re not inflammatory right wing, left wing. We’re not troublemakers,” he said.

He chose Fiamengo as the group’s first speaker because “she’s the only professor I hear who calls herself a free speech advocate.”

Bedassie said he saw a group known as Ottawa Against Fascism had issued a “call to action” on its Facebook page to protest Fiamengo’s talk. His group paid to have additional security on hand at the library as a precaution.

“What we really want to do is open dialogue between people and honestly just try to protect speech. We’ve had problems with them (SFUO) trying to ban clubs, Jewish clubs, pro-life clubs … they’re trying to constrict the debate and limit who can talk about what.”

Fiamengo has been an outspoken critic of modern feminism and the #MeToo movement and accused universities of silencing debate on sensitive issues.