London
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The Trump administration has issued a report claiming that the UK’s human rights have been “deteriorating” over the past year.
The annual report, part of the US State Department’s Global Survey on Human Rights, covers the 2024 calendar year and criticizes it for stating it as a “serious limit” on the threat of violence motivated by free speech and anti-Semitism.
Other reports in the series claimed that human rights have returned to countries like France and Germany, but the UK’s list of complaints is much longer, highlighting the backslides assumed in the age of social media.
Specifically, regarding the UK’s freedom of speech, the US report said “the government generally respected this right,” but “there was a particular area of concern, including restrictions on political speeches that were deemed “hate” or “offensive.”
A spokesman for the UK government said that freedom of speech is “essential to democracy” and that he “is proud to protect freedom while keeping our citizens safe.”
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in February, Vice President JD Vance, who is currently on vacation in the Cotswolds in the countryside of England – claimed that free speech across Europe was “retreating” and that citizens’ “basic freedoms” have chosen the UK as a country where citizens were caught up in “intersections.”
The report picked out the response of then-Prime Minister Kiel’s young government to the murder of three female students last year by Axel Ludakbana, the son of a Rwandan immigrant in the British town of Southport.
Misinformation about the murder and the identity of the perpetrators has sparked anti-immigrant riots across the country, urging people to set fire to hotels used to house asylum seekers while they are inside.
The Southport murder led government officials to “repeatly intervene in speeches about the attacker’s identity and motivation,” the report said.
The report implied negativity on the part of the UK government, but prosecutors applied existing laws such as the Public Order Act of 1986 and the Communications Act of 2003, punishing speeches deemed “vulgar or grossly offensive.”
To riot, former prosecutor superintendent Sturme has pledged that officials will face “the full power of the law.” About 2,000 people were arrested that summer and more than 1,000 people were charged.
The riots died quickly after the initial convulsion of rage, but many on British rights criticized the government’s response, designed to conservative views, as forceful.
“While many media observers considered the enforcement of “two layers” of these laws following the Southport attacks, they attacked particularly bad examples of government censorship, the censorship of ordinary British people has become increasingly routine and often targeted political speeches,” the report said.
Lee Joseph Dunn’s July sentence was quoted in the prison for eight weeks for “postling memes suggesting links between immigration and knife crime.” Dan pleaded guilty to sending a message that was “severely offensive,” and prosecutors said “escalating community tensions” would be at risk.
Dan’s case wasn’t uncommon. In another prominent case, mother and former nanny Lucy Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison after sought a massive deportation and urged the hotel to burn immigrants. “If that makes me racist,” she posted an X at the time.
The UK claims to balance speech protection with keeping citizens safe, while Vance claims that the UK is incorrect. At a meeting with British Foreign Minister David Lamy last week, the vice president told other countries that by censoring conservative views, he “don’t want to chase after us what I think is a very dark path under the Biden administration.”
Following Vance’s Munich speech and his recent intervention, many in the UK have denounced him for hypocrisy and cited the Trump administration’s detention of a student who took legal action against the broadcaster for what they viewed as hostile news reports.
