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Protest at new Ripper museum

“SUFFRAGETTES” and equal-pay fighters will picket the opening of London’s newest attraction today — a planned women’s history museum which turned out to be a Jack the Ripper-themed venue.

The all-women fancy-dress protest has been called after more than 2,500 people signed a petition against the new museum in Cable Street.

Organisers said the afternoon picket would highlight how women’s history has far more to tell us about than simply being the victims of murder and sexual violence.

Campaigner Jemima Broadbridge told the Star: “We are protesting this evening outside the Jack the Ripper Museum because local residents, London historians and women’s groups from across London are outraged that they have been misled about the original purpose of this museum.

“The protest is being supported by representatives from different groups including East London Suffragettes and the Green Party.

“We have encouraged them to join the demonstration dressed as historic figures from the East End who represent its true social history — for example Elizabeth Fry, Doctor Barnardo and the Pankhursts.

“We also feel that there is a real need for a proper, serious museum charting the social history of the contribution made by women from east London.

“We’re calling on Tower Hamlets Council and the Arts Council to help us fund and establish a museum somewhere in the East End, in the future.”

The project, headed by former Google diversity chief Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, was labelled “grotesque” and denigrating.

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