Peter Tatchell has stood down as Green candidate for the next election due to brain injuries left by attacks by Robert Mugabe’s bodyguards and Russian neo-nazis.

The 57-year-old human rights activist said he was standing down as parliamentary candidate in Oxford East “with great regret and reluctance”.

“My brain injuries from the Mugabe and Moscow bashings mean that I would not be able to campaign effectively in the general election or do the duties required of an MP, if I was elected,” Tatchell said.

“It would not be right for me to seek election if I could not do the job of an MP to the high standards that I want and that Oxford East voters have a right to expect.”

Tatchell has made a mark as a human rights activist in campaigns stretching back more than 40 years, and was one of the more unusual candidates to be selected by the Greens.

He told the Guardian earlier this year: “I suspect I might be quite a troublesome MP, starting with the oath of allegiance.”

It would have been an uphill struggle for him to have been elected in Oxford East, where the Greens polled 4.3% at the last election, although they polled highest in East Oxford in this year’s Oxfordshire county council elections.

The Greens currently have no MPs, although they are hoping their leader, Caroline Lucas, an MEP and their candidate in Brighton Pavilion, will become their first at the next election.

Tatchell shot to public prominence in 1983 as the Labour candidate in the notorious Bermondsey byelection, where he was the subject of a bitter political and media campaign.

In March 2001, in Brussels, he received seven blows at the hands of Robert Mugabe’s bodyguards after attempting a citizen’s arrest of the Zimbabwean president over human rights abuses, leaving him with lasting injuries.

He was knocked unconscious and left with poor vision in his right eye. Other long-term effects included poor memory, concentration, balance and coordination.

These injuries were compounded in 2007, just a month after he was selected as a parliamentary candidate, when he suffered severe concussion following an attack by neo-nazis at a gay pride event in Moscow.

His physical problems deteriorated further after he was out campaigning for a Cornish parliament in south-west England when the bus he was sitting on swerved and he hit his head on a metal rail.

He told the Guardian earlier this year that his doctor had told him to “radically reduce my workload for a period of up to a year”. But, he said, “at the moment I am saying: ‘No, there is a general election.’”

Today Tatchell said: “If I was elected, I could manage the parliamentary duties or the constituency work. But my health is not strong enough for me to do both.

“The injuries don’t stop me from campaigning but I am slower, make more mistakes, get tired easily and take longer to do things. My memory, concentration, balance and coordination have been adversely affected. I can’t campaign at the pace I used to.”

He recalled: “Following the Moscow assault, I never rested and recuperated. I carried on campaigning, with a very heavy schedule of commitments in Oxford East. After several months, I was severely exhausted. This stress and exhaustion probably intensified the damage and thwarted my recovery.

“I have postponed making this announcement for several months, in the hope that I might get better and be able to carry on as the Green candidate. Unfortunately, my condition has not improved. If anything, it is worse.”

He said he had received medical advice to the effect that if he slowed down and reduced his workload his condition might improve “in a year or so”. But, he said, “I am unlikely to ever recover fully”.

He added: “I don’t regret a thing. Getting a thrashing and brain injuries was not what I had expected or wanted. But I was aware of the risks. Taking risks is sometimes necessary, in order to challenge injustice. My beatings had the positive effect of helping draw international attention to the violent, repressive nature of the Russian and Zimbabwean regimes. I’m glad of that.”

Oxford Green party will select a new candidate in January.

(Source)