Activist Jailed for Reporting on Pedophiles in UK, Gov’t Bans Media From Reporting It

 London, UK – Founder of the English Defense League, and staunch  British nationalist, Tommy Robinson was arrested by British authorities  on May 25 outside of a Leeds Crown Court. He was holding a Facebook live  stream where he was reporting on the trial of 29 defendants who were  facing charges in relation to child sex abuse and neglect. 

After the  arrest, a the judge issuing a blanket ban on any UK media from reporting  on the case. Robinson, who is a strong proponent of a strong nationalist British  identity, has spoken out publicly against Muslim immigration to the UK,  while critics maintain he is a bigot and racist. 

Regardless of his  views, however, he should be allowed to say them without fear of arrest.  But this was not the case. After roughly an hour of broadcasting, Robinson was arrested for  incitement and breach of peace. 

During his arrest Robinson denied the  charges against him, claiming that he did nothing wrong. Robinson  attempted to film defendants as they entered the courthouse and  discussed the case in a video that was viewed more than 250,000 times.  

Robinson was charged and sentenced to 13 months in prison for  contempt of court within five hours of his arrest. His sentence includes  10 months for contempt of court, in addition to three months for  breaching the terms of the previous suspended sentence. 

Additionally,  the judge put in place a court order preventing any reporting on  Robinson’s arrest and subsequent court proceedings. 

United Kingdom law specifies the crime of contempt of court as  including speeches and publications that allegedly risks the “course of  justice” in which the ongoing proceedings could be impeded or  prejudiced. Robinson was sentenced for committing contempt of court  in Canterbury last year. 

In that case last May, Judge Heather Norton sentenced Robinson to  three  months imprisonment but suspended the sentence for 18 months with  a stipulation that he would not commit further offenses. Norton said  the issue was not about free speech rights but about ensuring justice by  making sure a trial is fair and not being tainted by irresponsible and  false reporting. The College Media Network reported: 

Robinson originally broadcasted his work on Twitter but  was recently banned from the platform. Since he launched the English  Defense League, he has been arrested multiple times  during fights and demonstrations. In 2014, he was sent to jail for  mortgage fraud. Tommy Robinson’s producer Caolan Robertson said that Robison was just  reading information that was already made publicly available. Robertson  even said they were careful and spoke in a way to not risk being held  in contempt of court. Published videos show Robinson walking past the  accused rapists and goading them.

Over the weekend hundreds of people gathered at the gates of Downing  Street to protest the right-wing activists arrest and government  censorship of his case. 

The Guardian reported that supporters were seen  carrying placards reading “#FreeTommy” and shouting “shame on you.”  Supporters of Robinson in the US, such as controversial comedian Rosanne  Barr, labeled his prison sentence as a “death sentence.”   

A Change.org petition  demanding that Robinson be freed has received more than 500,000  signatures as of Wednesday, while the hashtag #FreeTommy began trending  on social media to raise awareness about the incident, largely due to  the overt censorship of British media organizations. 

Right-wing Dutch opposition leader Geert Wilders posted a video,  filmed outside the UK embassy in The Hague, in which he denoted  Robinson’s sentence as “an absolute disgrace,” and called out the  ever-increasing grip of government censorship by noting that freedom of  speech was being violated all over Europe. 

“The lights of freedom are going out,” he said. “The authorities are trying to silence us.”

While U.S. websites ignored the ban on reporting about the Robinson  case, with many conservative leaning outlets highlighting the ominous  nature of government censorship, Breitbart, which has a London branch,  complied with the order. You can see just how extensive the censorship  is in the screen shot below. 

UK news outlets, the Independent and Leeds Live went to court to  legally challenge the gag order which was subsequently rescinded by the  court on Tuesday. While the free speech of others may be grossly offensive to some, the  criminalization and government censorship of offensive speech or “hate  speech” only serves to embolden and galvanize support and increase  publicity, thus popularity for those being censored. 

Citizen journalism and social media allow for a wide array of  disparate ideas, thoughts, analysis and opinions to be propagated to the  masses, which is why we have seen governments across the world work  diligently to regulate social media. Essentially, those that have traditionally controlled the  informational gates of society have lost their monopoly on what  information society is allowed to see, hence seeing a vast censorship  regime beginning rolled out under the auspices of “keeping you safe.”  

This can clearly be seen as a tool to regain the ability to more  efficiently socially engineer society as the plutocratic oligarchy has  always done. 

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