Are the UK police using hate crime and terrorist laws to curb free speech?

 

"Bruised But Vindicated" - Allison Pearson

Like the East German Stasi, UK police forces have been arresting people and raiding their homes and confiscating personal property, for tweets they have made or comments they have made on social media. Journalists and political activists have been frequently arrested because of comments they have made in relation to the conflict in Gaza. They've been charged under terrorist legislation for their remarks or accused of hate speech or hate crime.

Although this has been going on for quite some time, these arrests rarely get into the mainstream national press. Under successive governments, British society seems to have become increasingly more authoritarian and censorious with the police now arresting "thought criminals" for "thought crime". What's next? Room 101?

The Daily Torygraph, is now up in arms because one of their columnists, Allison Pearson, was visited by Essex Police and interviewed for allegedly "stirring racial hatred in a tweet a year ago." The police got a lot of flak over this incident from the press and from politicians and the case has now been dropped by Essex Police. They were accused of interfering with free speech and the right of a journalist to express an opinion. They were also accused of acting like political police and of creeping totalitarianism. Although Pearson's tweet had been factually incorrect on a number of points - she got the wrong police force and the wrong flag - she said that she felt "bruised but vindicated" and added: "Together we will fight these insanities one by one and put the onus onto the authorities to justify their absurd actions."

Some people have suggested that the police are using terrorist legislation and hate crime and hate speech to intimidate people and to silence people who are critical of Israel's actions in Gaza and the Palestinian territories. As with the case of Allison Pearson, the police often say that they're acting on a complaint which they have to investigate.

It seems to me that when you start to police people's views and opinions, you're going to get yourself in hot water and will get accused of trying to curb free speech and free expression which is supposed to be a cornerstone of any liberal democracy and intellectual freedom.  Free expression is also protected under Article 10 the Human Rights Act. These measures are also a cranks charter which can become weaponised by every disgruntled crank or organisation who have an axe to grind against any individual because they don't like what they say. To cause offence shouldn't be an offence. As George Orwell famously said, "If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear."

When the Scottish government introduced its hate crime bill, 'The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021', the Scottish police said they'd been inundated with complaints, many of which, were anonymous and of a frivolous and vexatious nature. Critics warned the Scottish government that this was likely to happen. The Scottish police said they hadn't got the time or resources to investigate many of these complaints which often related to complaints about transgenderism.