Not just a tweet, but an anti-Hamas tweet. In the U.K., freedom of speech is fast becoming a thing of the past. From the Telegraph:
Pete North, 47, was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence on Thursday night over a meme that he posted on X.
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The image, which Mr North posted on X in August, depicted a Palestine flag with the text: “F— Palestine. F— Hamas. F— Islam. Want to protest? F— off to Muslim country and protest.”
Those are sentiments with which a great many Brits agree.
At 9.30pm on Thursday, two officers from North Yorkshire Police knocked on his door to arrest him – but he claimed they refused to tell him which post he was being arrested for.
Footage of the arrest shows one officer telling him: “We got a report, I’d say about a month ago. In essence, you posted something on the internet that they didn’t appreciate.”
So, posting something that someone doesn’t appreciate is now a crime in Britain? I suppose it all depends.
“I’ll explain a few steps. In terms of that, basically our hate crime team have reviewed and there are offences there we need to explore. Unfortunately, the time is 21.31, you are under arrest for what’s referred to as Section 19 of the Public Order Act.”
Section 19 refers to the publication or distribution of “written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting” and “stir[s] up racial hatred”.
The arrestee explained that Islam is not a race, but it didn’t do any good.
The former Ukip activist said he was released without charge at 1.30am and arrived home in a taxi at 3am.
So a court will never rule on the arrest; the objective is harassment and intimidation. As for the content of the meme, the arresting officers were in the dark:
He recalled: “The officer in the interview said, ‘Well, firstly, let’s start with the meme. You posted a meme that said f— Hamas’.
“I said, ‘yeah, I did post a meme that said f— Hamas, because Hamas are a proscribed terrorist organisation internationally, including in Britain. Just so we’re on the same page, you do know who Hamas are?’ And he just looked gormlessly and shook his head.
“‘And so you don’t know anything about Oct 7?’ And I briefly explained to him what happened at the Nova music festival. He was totally oblivious. If you’re going to arrest people for memes, you probably need to pay more attention to current affairs.”
It isn’t clear to me how Hamas has managed to enlist the British constabulary on its behalf, but that seems to be what has happened.
