JD Vance rips into European leaders at Munich Security Conference, slams UK for criminalizing free speech

Ver JD Vance rips into European leaders at Munich Security Conference, slams UK for criminalizing free speech - Diario As en Dailymotion

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00:00I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social

00:07media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they've judged to be, quote,

00:13hateful content.

00:16Or to this very country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected

00:20of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of, quote, combating misogyny on the

00:26internet, a day of action.

00:29I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago the government convicted a Christian activist

00:34for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friend's murder.

00:39And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden's laws to supposedly protect free expression

00:47do not, in fact, grant, and I'm quoting, a free pass to do or say anything without risking

00:55offending the group that holds that belief.

00:59And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends the United Kingdom,

01:04where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious

01:08Britons in particular in the crosshairs.

01:12A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist

01:18and an army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic

01:26and silently praying for three minutes.

01:30Not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own.

01:36After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for,

01:41Adam replied simply it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had

01:47aborted years before.

01:49Now the officers were not moved.

01:51Adam was found guilty of breaking the government's new buffer zones law, which criminalizes silent

01:57prayer and other actions that could influence a person's decision within 200 meters of an

02:02abortion facility.

02:04He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.

02:09Now I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off crazy example of a badly written

02:14law being enacted against a single person, but no.

02:18Since last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing

02:22letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them

02:28that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.

02:34Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty

02:40of thought crime.

02:42In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.