Dan's Journal of Skepticism

Following on from last weeks blog post the media are now starting to reveal the full extent of abuse targeting Peter Tiernan. The man whom myself and many others already stated is not Reasonable Hank. However the anti-vaccination movement has never been one for caring about facts. Last weeks information was sourced directly from the anti-vaxxers Facebook groups. Now the main stream media is getting Peter Tiernan’s side of the story.

After the revelation that they are targeting the wrong person it might be expected that the harassment might tail off.

 

However the offenders continue to incite threats and intimidation to be directed at Tiernan and show no remorse for their actions.

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The ABC even reveals that they are targeting his children. I already mentioned last week that they were posting photographs of his children. Now it’s revealed that they are trying to contact them.

The activists, who run the Anti-Vaccination Australia Facebook page and the Septic Skeptics website, believe they have unmasked Reasonable Hank whose real name is reported to be Peter Tierney.

However, the activists have mistakenly targeted Peter Tiernan.

Mr Tiernan said the case of mistaken identity began two weeks ago when his wife received a message on Facebook from someone saying “I’d like to talk to you about your husband”.

The person also tried to contact Mr Tiernan, his 14-year-old daughter, some of his friends, and other family members on Facebook. –ABC News

A few anti-vaxxers have taken to extortion and blackmail to try and silence Reasonable Hanks whistle blowing activities.

Mr Tiernan said it was the first time he had heard of the blogger, so he began searching for him on Facebook.

He became alarmed when he saw threats against Reasonable Hank being posted online.

“They were sending messages to him using my profile picture from Facebook and saying ‘We know who you are’,” Mr Tiernan said.

“They told him if he didn’t take his blog down they would expose me and my family.”

Mr Tiernan said his daughter’s school had also been named on social media, and photos of him with his family had been taken from his Facebook page and shared by the anti-vaccination campaigners. –ABC News

One of the main perpetrators Belgin Colak openly brags about her involvement in the stalking campaign.

She also claims to have a “big fat book of his whole family” suggesting that she has probably spent the past several weeks going through the profiles of her victims family members. This wouldn’t be the first time that anti-vaxxers have targeted, friends, family and employers of their victims if the victim doesn’t give them what they want.

These people are really so deranged that they are going to provide evidence of how they stalked, menaced and harassed an innocent member of the public. I hope the law will come down hard on them for this one.

So anti-vaccination campaigners are on the attack again in full force. This time they are attacking a physiotherapist in NSW by the name of Peter Tiernan. Going so far as to track down his employer and family members.

It would appear that Breana Elizabeth, Belgin Colak and Brett Smith from the Facebook group Anti-vaccine Australia have been stalking him for several months on the assumption that he is the man behind Reasonable Hank.

We give great pleasure in announcing that after several weeks of investigations we have found and located ‘Reasonable Hank’. We urge all of our members who have had any defamation or any personal information collected and posted publicly by him to go and take screenshots NOW as he is aware and they are covering their tracks and the page “things anti-vaxxer say” has already been removed. -Anti-vaccination Australia, 3rd November 2016

The Facebook thread then continues with photographs or Peter and his family members, including his children being distributed among the group. Several commenters have even expressed a desire to visit him at work. With at least one individual seeking his home address.

There is normally only one reason that anti-vaccination campaigners seek out their targets address and it’s not the send a Christmas card.

While anti-vaxxers are not shy about committing criminal acts of stalking and harassment against anyone who promotes the benefits of vaccinations. Or anybody who loses a child to vaccine preventable disease. This is the first time that I’m aware of them going after someone who literally has no connection to the fight against vaccine preventable diseases.

Those of us who have had to deal with anti-vaccination thugs for the past few years have become accustomed to hiding certain information about ourselves. However in this case the victim had no reason to ever expect that he would suddenly become the target of such a hostile mob. As a result much of his personal information was readily available on his social media profiles which the anti-vaxxers then raided.

So what has Peter Tiernan done to incur the wrath of the anti-vaccination movement?

Nothing, literally nothing.

All this is because his name just happens to look a little to similar to their desired target.

So no, Hank, in a crafty bit of wordsmanship altered his name from Peter Tiernan to Peter Tierney. Nice one Shank. nudge nudge wink wink. -Brett Smith, 2nd November 2016

I can categorically state that the man being targeted here is not Hank, nor does he have any connection with SAVN. However the anti-vaccination movement is not known for intellect only its vileness and this type of behavior is far too common.

A special shout out to the great detective work of Breana Elizabeth and Belgin Colak who have worked tirelessly over the last few months with me tracking this slime ball’s every move. It’s time for us all to focus on the real enemy here, Bad Pharma, and unite a movement that will need cohesion and unity to defeat the multi billion dollar Pharma machine and their toxic media and political buddies. -Brett Smith, 2nd November 2016

Stalking, menacing and harassing is currently illegal within all states of Australia. So is inciting violence towards another person. It is my hope that the perpetrators of this latest harassment campaign will be dealt with under the law. They are certainly not shy about admitting to their actions.