1984: The UK is Illegally Detaining Two Journalists, Seemingly Making Them Vanish

By Aaron Kesel

The UK government is responsible for the illegal arrest, sentencing, and detainment without trial of two journalists: Julian Assange, who recently had his Internet and communications cut off; and Tommy Robinson, all without any type of legal concession. Argue as you may about Robinson and his colorful past, including shortly being a member of BNP when he was in his twenties, but it’s what got him arrested this time that is the more shocking part of the story.

Robinson was arrested, charged and sentenced to prison for covering the existence of a Leeds Crown Court case of Islamic pedophile-grooming rape gangs. Further, the UK media has been issued D-notice takedown requests for articles on the grooming rape court case, as well as coverage of Robinson’s own arrest and sentencing, Infowars reported.

The judge in Tommy Robinson's case, Denise Marson, pulled a neat trick today.

She threw him in jail for 13 months, and banned anyone in the UK from talking about it.

A thread on how she did it. (h/t @nickmon1112)#FreeTommy #FreeTommyRobinson pic.twitter.com/an8elg3OlB

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 25, 2018

Robinson, real name Stephen Lennon, streamed an hour-long Facebook Live outside the court on Friday. It had been watched more than 250,000 times before he was abruptly arrested.

Lennon had filmed himself as he read out the defendants’ names and the charges they faced and confronted them as they arrived at court before sentencing by the jury.

According to the judge, Lennon (Robinson) could have caused the trial to be retried and cost taxpayers “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds,” despite the fact that the court case was highly publicized in the media and Robinson was just reporting publicly available facts, according to journalist Lauren Southern.

Robinson was arrested on suspicion of “breaching the peace” for the incident and was later charged with contempt of court laws for which he faces 13 months in prison.

Robinson was already on a suspended sentence for contempt of court for using a camera in Canterbury Crown Court last May when he had tried to film men, who were on trial for rape charges, while the hearing was still underway. If he is found guilty of breaching the terms of his prior sentence, the activist may be detained for up to three months, Sputnik reported.

For years the press has been trying to paint Tommy Robinson as a racist for criticizing the Islamic faith. However, in an interview with Brittany Pettibone before he was sent to prison, another story is told. That story is one where the police harass him for covering the existence of Islamic grooming rape gangs, which he has covered for nearly a decade, according to this interview.

Hilariously enough, many “right wing” racist websites note that Robinson defends Muslims a bit too much and even mentions “white supremacists” and is against both religion and racial division.

Robinson expressed he has a “God-given right” to freedom of speech and to criticize any religion he chooses, as does any other person.

The former English Defence League (EDL) leader also had an interview with RT where he explained he isn’t anti-Muslim, he is anti-Islam and stated he never once said: “all Muslims are bad.” Rather he believes that the ideology and Koran enable violence.

Since talking about Islam, I’ve faced Government persecution, police persecution, violent opposition and that’s all for expressing my free speech and criticism of an ideology. We have laws for that (hate speech) and those laws are not implemented across everyone equally.

The word ‘hate speech’ has taken over from racism. The word ‘racism’ was used to silence the public discourse so they can control the discourse. The media never pick up on this; in my first speech after Lee Rigby, I said if you spit at a Muslim woman, you’re a moron. If you set fire to a mosque, you’re a coward. I’ve said these things continuously. For the last nine years.

I’ve always made a difference between extremist Muslims and ordinary Muslims. I keep telling them they’re going to create monsters. When you stifle free speech, when you drive it underground… right now I’d say the people of Britain are furious, and they’re angry, and they’re scared.

All in all, the systematic death of free speech is occurring in the UK. In March a Scottish man, Mark Meechan, was convicted of a hate crime for teaching his pug to do a Sieg Heil salute as a joke and uploading the video to YouTube.

Then there is Julian Assange who threatens the UK government and other governments with ultimate transparency by allowing whistleblowers to reveal corruption and wrongdoing through his foundation WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained according to the UN for nearly 6 years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Now Ecuador has expanded that arbitrary detainment to solitary confinement by forbidding Assange from any human contact including visitations, phone calls and barring his Internet usage. All without Assange ever being convicted of a crime besides publishing documents exposing corruption and shedding light on the truth.

In March, Ecuador and its leader Lenín Moreno pulled the plug on Julian Assange’s Internet connection. Then, Ecuador further demanded Assange remove a specific tweet referencing a foreign political prisoner Carles Puigdemont. The irony here is that Ecuador accused Assange of “interfering in a state” for mentioning another political prisoner as Assange himself had more of his own rights taken away.

“In 1940 the elected president of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, was captured by the Gestapo, at the request of Spain, delivered to them and executed. Today, German police have arrested the elected president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, at the request of Spain, to be extradited,” Assange tweeted.

Last month, Activist Post reported that Ecuador clarified its position on Julian Assange’s asylum by drafting new rules limiting his communications, according to WikiLeaks.

Ecuador announces that @JulianAssange remains incommunicado and that his fate is being negotiated with the UK. Although after US pressure, Ecuador has banned visitors (inc. press) & phone, apparently as a PR strategy only a “social media” ban is mentioned. https://t.co/gnnFTjvxnU

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 10, 2018

When did freedom of expression of thoughts and ideas become an avenue for a “hate crime?” And in the case of Julian Assange, when did it become legal to arbitrarily detain someone without charges then put them into worse conditions than prisoners over politics? In both cases, this is all about freedom of information and free speech and can set a precedent.

Further, it shuts down the ability for healthy debate amongst individuals. It forces conformity and, in essence, allows the government to shape the narrative while eliminating free thought. Robinson is right:  anyone should be able to criticize any religion or faith of their choosing. WikiLeaks enables everyone to criticize corrupt government actions by providing much-needed oversight that strikes fear into the hearts of politicians and elitists that they are actually being watched by their underlings.

Whether you hate someone’s free speech or not it’s important and paramount to keep this fundamental right intact, as well as journalism. If intimidation and threats against some forms of speech are allowed to prevail, you won’t have your own free speech. Laws are not anomalous; they affect everyone, not just a select few. There are already laws against hate preaching, so there doesn’t need to be additional laws to clamp down on more human rights.

The worst part that everyone seems to miss is that both men have families and children who they can now no longer see because of these violent actions by the State.

We are all victims of the State’s oppression, after all; can’t we unify against the face of tyranny, or do we let it spread rampantly as Edmund Burke said would happen if we ignore the cries of others? Almost inevitably we are surely next if we allow these abhorrent human rights violations to continue without recourse.

If something happens to either Julian Assange or Tommy Robinson the UK government will have blood on its hands.

Sign the petition to free Julian Assange here and sign the petition to free Tommy Robinson here (which already has a massive 400,000+ signatures at the time of this report).

#FreeTommyRobinson
#FreeJulianAssange

Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Steemit, and BitChute. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.

Image Credit: Banksy