Antifa stalking UC Berkeley’s conservative students, group says

Conservative students at the University of California, Berkeley, say they are being stalked, threatened and bullied by far-left leaning thugs, some armed with baseball bats.

UC Berkeley College Republicans (BCR) told Fox News they are being targeted by Antifa, most recently with Twitter "doxxing," a practice of publishing personal information online, and restroom graffiti that read “Kill All BCRs,” which UCPD spokesperson Sgt. Sabrina Reich said is currently under investigation.

BCR Vice President Naweed Tahmas said they are “routinely harassed and have been chased, punched, stalked and spat on,” which he views as a sign of desperation from the left.

“It has become socially acceptable in Berkeley to physically beat someone for being conservative,” Tahmas added.

Student Ashton Whitty told Fox News that Antifa thugs wore black masks and attacked her car with lead pipes at an off-campus speech rally in August.

“I was then informed Antifa had members on each block tracking me using their cellphones,” Whitty said.

The Antifa Twitter account has a history of aggressive, intimidating behavior toward conservatives on and off campus, BCR insiders say. They have also publicly named and shamed a number of Republican students.

“At this point there is no information or evidence suggesting the perpetrators are students or affiliated with the university,” said UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof.  “But we can guarantee that all leads will be followed so we can make every effort to impose consequences on those responsible.”

Mogulof said the university condemns “without reservation” the targeting of students.

“This university cannot and will not tolerate the harassment of its students, particularly when they are being targeted simply as a result of who they are or what they believe in,” he said.

Young America’s Foundation (YAF) spokesperson Spencer Brown told Fox News that YAF staff and BCR members were “followed by Antifa thugs" while they were hanging posters on campus.

YAF and Berkeley went back and forth in their efforts to have conservative speakers on campus, given the security concerns after violent protesters shut down Milo Yiannopoulis’ scheduled speech in February.

"In the months leading up to YAF’s campus lecture with Ben Shapiro [on Sept. 14], Berkeley’s administration chose to allow Antifa agitators to shut down several other conservative events [including planned YAF lectures with David Horowitz and Ann Coulter] without holding the thugs responsible for destroying property,” Brown said.

"The YAF spokesman is either confused, ill-informed or intentionally mangling the facts," Mogulof said. "Mr. Horowitz had an event scheduled on campus last spring, security arrangements had been made and everything was good to go."

Mogulof said Pieter Sittler, BCR vice president at the time of the event, stated that the Horowitz talk was canceled due to "low expected turnout" and not because of Antifa.

'The university's response has been pathetic at best.'

— Matt Ronnau

Mogulof added that only one event -- featuring Yiannopoulis -- has been shut down by Antifa since last February.

While the administration said they are doing all they can to protect and defend free speech, the Berkeley College Republicans targeted by Antifa don’t feel the same way.

“The university’s response has been pathetic at best,” said student Matt Ronnau, a BCR member.

“Time and time again the university has bent over backward to protect the feelings of supposed adults, while providing no actual physical safety to the conservative minority on campus," he added. "It is unfortunate that the city of such a great college has been overrun by a lawless, anti-American, domestic terrorist organization.”

“It is a sad day when exercising our constitutional right to free speech … means we have to face months of stalking, harassment and even violence,” said Troy Worden, a conservative student at UC Berkeley.

“I have to look behind my shoulder whenever I am on campus and especially when I am engaged in political activism,” Worden told Fox News.

“The No. 1 public university in the world and the so-called ‘birthplace of the free speech movement’ is anything but. It is the place where America’s conservative youth are daily under threat of violence, lacking the support of the university administration, police, or city. The Free Speech Movement is dead, and the left has killed it.”