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The Italian journalist Giulio Meotti provides disturbing examples of the infringement of the freedom of speech in the UK: “Orwell’s 1984 is now! Don’t dare to criticize Islam in the UK,” by Giulio Meotti, Israel National News, May 14, 2025:
In London, Niyak Ghorbani, an Iranian dissident, has been marching alongside the Jewish community for months with his “Hamas is terrorist” sign protesting pro-Hamas marches. Ghorbani was forcibly removed by the Metropolitan Police for holding the sign and arrested many times.
Do you find it normal that an Iranian exile would be arrested for protesting against terrorists? The organizers of the same marches from which Ghorbani is being chased by the police have ties to Hamas, have met with Hamas officials, or have publicly praised its terrorist atrocities. One group, the Muslim Association of Britain, was founded by Muhammad Kathem Sawalha, a former Hamas leader who now lives in London.
In this case, everything is “legal”: because the authorities are no longer liberals (the original definition), but submissive positivists.
Think of it: Niyak Ghorbani is an Iranian dissident living in London who is no doubt a target of Iranian secret agents determined to eliminate him (as they are determined to kill any Iranian exiles who prove too effective in their verbal attacks on the Islamic Republic), yet he shows up in public in a sign of solidarity with Jews, joining in their marches and holding up a sign saying “Hamas is terrorist.” That is also the official position of the UK government, that has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. Yet Ghorbani was arrested merely for carrying a sign that expressed what is supposed to be the view of the British government. Why? On what grounds?
Christian preacher Hatun Tash was preparing to give a speech on the Koran at Speakers Corner in London when she was dragged away by police officers, as a crowd surrounded her and shouted “Allahu Akbar”. The police then paid £10,000 in damages to Tash.
Speakers Corner at Hyde Park is celebrated as the place where individuals are famously free to arrive, stand on a figurative (or literal) soapbox, and speak to groups of listeners about all sorts of issues, expressing the most unpopular views under the watchful eyes of the police, who are there to ensure that speakers are not shouted down or roughed up. There are dozens of speakers, for example, on any given day, conducting da’wa, in an attempt to win more converts to Islam. Hatun Tash is a former Muslim, now a Christian preacher, and hence anathema to Muslims. When she arrived to give a speech on the Qur’an — one that was critical of many passages — a large crowd of angry Muslims surrounded her, intent on keeping her from speaking, and possibly hoping to do her physical harm. They shouted the Islamic war cry of Allahu akbar (“Our god is greater than your god”). And the police, instead of protecting Hatun Tash, whisked her away, preventing her from continuing her talk. This is the “heckler’s veto,” and the whole point of Speakers Corner at Hyde Park is to prevent audience members from shouting down or threatening unpopular speakers, by having the police protect those speakers. But not this time. It was the Muslim hecklers who won and stayed put; it was Hatun Tash who was hauled away, prevented from speaking her piece. Is this now to be the policy at Speakers Corner? If enough members of the audience violently threaten a speaker critical of Islam, will the police now remove the speaker instead of rounding up those who are threatening that speaker? Speakers Corner, which has been in operation for more than 160 years, might as well shut down; it will no longer be a place where free speech — if it is critical of Islam — will be permitted.
In February, 50-year-old Turkish citizen Hamit Coskun was charged with causing “anguish” to the Islamic faith after burning a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. If Coskun is convicted, it would mark another step in Europe’s continued capitulation to the jihadists’ veto, where fear of a violent backlash dictates the limits of free speech.
When a retired police officer, a Telegraph journalist, an Iranian exile, a disabled activist and a Turkish Christian are arrested, interrogated and taken away by the police for expressing their views, it means that democracies are being overwhelmed by the newbarbarians already inside the city walls.
Meotti gives five examples of how critics of Islam are being silenced in the UK. But the most outrageous of all attempts to prevent the British public from hearing critical remarks about Islam is well known to readers of Jihad Watch. That is the ban on Robert Spencer from entering the UK, in force since 2013, since if he were allowed in, he would surely deliver some home truths about Islam that the four million Muslims in Great Britain don’t want heard.
