Members of the Proud Boys have been convicted of trying to overthrow the US government today (Image: GETTY)
Members of the far right gang the Proud Boys have been convicted of stirring up rebellion against the US government today.
The anti-semitic and misogynistic hate group planned to occupy congressional buildings during the rally at the Capitol on January 6 last year.
The group called for violence and revolt against President Joe Biden taking office, calling for “war,” “revolution,” and firing squads.
Four men, including the group’s leader Enrique Tarrio, have been convicted on seditious conspiracy charges, as well as for obstructing the Electoral College vote.
What exactly is the Proud Boys group and what do they believe?
The anti-semitic and misogynistic hate group planned to occupy congressional buildings during Jan. 6 (Image: GETTY)
The Proud Boys is a far-right neo-fascist group founded by Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes (Image: GETTY)
Who are the Proud Boys?
The Proud Boys is a far-right neo-fascist group founded by Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes, and it is recognised as an extremist group by the FBI.
The group, founded in 2016 and now led by Tarrio, promotes political violence and bans women and trans men from joining.
The Proud Boys are anti-feminist, anti-semitic, and anti-immigration.
Members have played active and violent roles in various incidents of civil unrest since the group was founded.
This includes a case in December 2020 when the group attacked Ashbury United Methodist Church, the oldest historically black church in Washington, D.C.
The Proud Boys burned a Black Lives Matter sign put up by the church and made hand signals associated with white supremacy.
The group is often seen wearing or using the hateful slogan 6MWE, which means “6 million wasn’t enough”. This refers to the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
The Proud Boys are anti-feminist, anti-semitic, and anti-immigration (Image: GETTY)
What is the Proud Boys’ initiation?
The Proud Boys has a bizarre initiation process, which has four steps.
The first is to make the oath: “I’m a proud Western chauvinist, I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”
The second step is being punched while reciting pop culture trivia.
In stage the members must get a tattoo and swear not to masturbate.
The masturbation policy reads: “No heterosexual brother of the Fraternity shall masturbate more than one time in any calendar month”. It adds “All members shall abstain from pornography”
The fourth and last stage of the initiation is getting into a major fight in the name of the Proud Boys’ “cause”.
The group can be recognised by their Fred Perry polo shirts, MAGA hats, and their adoption of military armor.
Members of the group are banned from wearing cargo shorts.
Enrique Tarrio is a former poultry farm manager turned leader of the Proud Boys (Image: Getty)
Who is Enrique Tarrio?
Enrique Tarrio is a former poultry farm manager turned FBI informant, who was once the Florida state director of Latinos for Trump.
The 39-year-old from Miami joined the Proud Boys in 2017 after having encountered them at an event held by another far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.
Yiannopoulos gained notoriety for writing an article for Breitbart with the title: “Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism Or Cancer?”
Tarrio eventually succeeded founder Gavin McInnes as leader of the Proud Boys.
He has attended pro-Trump marches and the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville where a counter-protestor was mown down by a car and killed.
McInnes co-founded Vice magazine in 1994 (Image: GETTY)
Who is Gavin McInnes?
McInnes co-founded Vice magazine in 1994. Now, he is a far-right commentator who has been banned from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram for his hate speech.
YouTube deems his content as “glorifying [and] inciting violence against another person or group of people.”
He calls himself a “Western chauvinist” and said in 2003: “I love being white and I think it’s something to be very proud of. I don’t want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life.”
He is a vocal anti-feminist, and has claimed that “95 percent of women would be happier at home”.
He was quoted by the New York Times as saying: “‘No means no’ is puritanism. I think Steinem-era feminism did women a lot of injustices, but one of the worst ones was convincing all these indie norts that women don’t want to be dominated.” (sic)
