Peter Tatchell

Peter Tatchell

Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25 January 1952) is an Australian-born British political campaigner best known for his work with LGBT social movements.

Tatchell was selected as Labour Party Parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey in 1981, and was then denounced by party leader Michael Foot for supporting extra-parliamentary action against the Thatcher government. The Labour Party subsequently allowed his selection to stand in the Bermondsey by-election in February 1983. In the 1990s he became an LGBT campaigner through the direct action group OutRage!, which he co-founded. He has worked on various campaigns, such as Stop Murder Music against music lyrics inciting violence against LGBT people, and writes and broadcasts on human rights and social justice issues. In 2006, New Statesman readers voted him sixth on their list of "Heroes of our time". He attracted international attention when he attempted a citizen's arrest of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 1999 and again in 2001.

In April 2007 he joined the Green Party of England and Wales as prospective parliamentary candidate in the constituency of Oxford East, but in December 2009 announced he was standing down due to brain damage he says was sustained from injuries by President Mugabe's bodyguards when trying to arrest him for the second time, and by neo-Nazis in Moscow while campaigning for gay rights, as well as from a bus accident. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian's opinion section, "Comment is Free".

Since 2009, he has been an Ambassador for the penal reform group, Make Justice Work.

In 2011, he was appointed the Director (unsalaried) of the human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

He contributes to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2.