Vincent Bethell

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Vincent Bethell is an Skin Freedom Activist who founded The Freedom to be Yourself. He first protested naked (for the right to be naked in public) in 1998 and he founded TFTBY in 1999. On Jan 10th 2001 he made legal history by being the first defendant to be tried naked in a UK court of law; and the result of this court case was that the jury unanimously found him not guilty relating to various occasions of public nakedness, furthermore Russell Shaw Higgs was a defence witness in the above mentioned trial and Russell entered the court naked and gave his evidence whilst naked. Vincent has been imprisoned and released multiple times for public nudity. On a number of occasions Vincent has remained fully nude while incarcerated, often resulting in much longer jail time. There has been quite a bit of media coverage of his protests, which has resulted in the TFTBY campaign being front page news on two separate occasions, and the largest protest consisted of approximately 15 activists. Vincent has never called himself a naturist or nudist and he has never been involved with any naturist organisations because the issue of Skin Freedom is relevant to everyBODY. Steve Gough has hijacked The Freedom To Be Yourself campaign name, therefore if Vincent protests in the future is will be under the campagin name Stop Racist Human Skin Phobia. Vincent currently suffers from stress due to his periods of imprisonment thus he no longer protests naked.

1 Quotes by Vincent Bethell
2 Filmography
3 External links
4 See also

[edit] Quotes by Vincent Bethell

... you should not be persecuted or victimized for being born human, with a human body - NAKED!
My protests are human-rights oriented. It's not about sexual nudity or free love or taking drugs and jumping over fires in forests. If anything, it's spiritual. I just think you should have the right to walk down the street naked. I firmly believe that naked people should have equal rights with clothed people.
The visual appearance of the human body is our human identity and we should not be forced to fear or hide our identity.