Congratulations to the woman police officer who stood up to a group of Muslims demanding that a Christian preacher leave because it “is a Muslim area”. Oh, no, it isn’t. This is a Christian country, and there is no such thing as a Muslim area outside an actual mosque.
The officer pointed out that they were at liberty to preach their beliefs on the streets, too. She said we have free speech in this country. Well, we would if more police officers were like her, but unfortunately, the opposite is true.
There has been a long line of incidents involving street preachers being arrested just because someone has taken offence. Just last year, Shaun O’Sullivan was unanimously acquitted by a Crown Court jury after being accused of racial and religious harassment against Muslims after saying “pray for the Jews and pray for the Palestinians”. It is the sixteenth time the police have taken action against him, and the sixteenth time it has come to nought.
In 2022, Angus Cameron was arrested in Scotland after a complaint that he used homophobic language, but he was told that the charge he would face was breach of the peace.
It was dropped, and he won compensation. So did Oluwole Ilesanmi, who was arrested in North London, had his Bible confiscated and was then deposited in an area he did not know and without the means to get home.
These are but a few examples of what looks like a concerted attempt on the part of the police to criminalise Christian preaching, and a particularly egregious one is now very much in the news.
Pastor Dia Moodley was detained in Bristol last year for commenting on Islam and gender ideology. His bail conditions stipulated that he must not go into the centre of Bristol.
In a country where free speech matters less than the Koran, police bravery is meaningless - Ann Widdecombe
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Moodley has a long history of clashes with the police and, in 2021, was banned from commenting on any faith except Christianity.
The case has stirred interest in the White House as the Trump administration fears that Britain is losing its tradition of free speech. They are behind the times: we lost it long ago.
I am upset and offended if someone says that Christ was not the Son of God, but there are no circumstances on earth which would persuade me that it should be illegal to express that view in public and through a megaphone in any town square.
If I were to see Dawkins up a ladder haranguing the passers - by in the cause of atheism ( there is an image to conjure with !), then I would defend to the hilt his right to be there, even if I crossed the road and crossed myself in the process.
Anyone should be free to speak: from Holocaust deniers to Flat Earthers (the one is about as intelligent and sustainable as the other), from Fascists to Stalinists, from male supremacists to rampant women’s libbers just so long as they do not incite violence Proclaiming that the boat invaders should not be accommodated in hotels is one thing but incitement to burn down those hotels is quite another. Most of us can tell the difference, and it is time the police learned that, too.
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