The freedom of speech should never be infringed upon. As long as you are not inciting violence here in the United States you have free reign, and that’s how it should be everywhere. In Britain, former police officer Harry Miller was visited by the police at his job over tweets, and they were not violent or inciting. The confrontation was due to Miller’s stance that there are only two genders. Miller is a bit outspoken about his opinion, and he apparently ruffled some feathers to have the police called on him. But despite the U.K. being overly PC, it turns out they respect the freedom of speech, as Miller won his case against the police for harassing him over social media posts.
“Harry Miller was visited by Humberside Police at work in January last year after a complaint about his tweets. He was told he had not committed a crime, but it would be recorded as a non-crime “hate incident”. The court found the force’s actions were a “disproportionate interference” with his right to freedom of expression.
Officers visited Mr. Miller’s workplace and then spoke with him on the phone, and he was left with the impression “that he might be prosecuted if he continued to tweet”, according to a judge.
Speaking after the ruling, Mr. Miller, from Lincolnshire, said: “This is a watershed moment for liberty – the police were wrong to visit my workplace, wrong to ‘check my thinking’.”
His solicitor Paul Conrathe added: “It is a strong warning to local police forces not to interfere with people’s free speech rights on matters of significant controversy.”
Mr. Justice Julian Knowles said the effect of police turning up at Mr. Miller’s place of work “because of his political opinions must not be underestimated”. He added: “To do so would be to undervalue a cardinal democratic freedom. In this country, we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society.”
Responding to the ruling, Helen Belcher, who co-founded Trans Media Watch, said: “I think trans people will be worried it could become open season on us because the court didn’t really define what the threshold for acceptable speech was.”I think it will reinforce an opinion that courts don’t understand trans lives and aren’t there to protect trans people.”
Mr. Miller, 54, also launched a wider challenge against the lawfulness of College of Policing guidelines on hate crimes, which was rejected. Mr Justice Knowles ruled they “serve legitimate purposes and [are] not disproportionate”.
The guidelines define a hate incident as “any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender”.
“Harry Miller allegedly shared 31 “gender critical” remarks between November 2018 and January 2019. One such message included, “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me.” The outlet also reported that he made remarks about Caitlyn Jenner — formerly known as Olympian Bruce Jenner.”
The police would be busy over here if they were to react to every Twitter post that might be deemed offensive to someone. Luckily the judge in Miller’s case upheld the freedom of speech, as it seems many in the U.K. are more concerned about being Politically correct than moral.
UK is starting to sound like China and Russia…good luck to you people over there
There is a huge difference between us and the UK, Canada, Australia and every other country in the world: We have a Bill of Rights, US Constitution. We must defend it and be prepared to do so continually because it is under assault by leftist politicians and media.
This is disturbing to me and sounds like something that could become an issue in the US. Subtle inroads become the norm and soon to be “the right thing”. Former police officer being approached in this manner at work or anywhere, leads to the suspicion of former fellow officers who have an ax to grind. I feel that tranies are the ones who should be silenced.
I have no need to have anyone tell me what a great country the USA is. There is no place I would rather live.
Political Correctness will be the death of modern society if we don’t put it down now.
England is gone, it went to the nut cases and the mus-slimes. The Queen is a joke that lives off the backs of other hard working people. I hope we don’t have to bail them out again.
England, just how far can it fall before it does not exists any longer!
I wonder what they would have done had he implied mooselimbs were ruining his country. Brits want their guns back, but unfortunately, they turned them all in. Nice knowin’ ya!
So sad. My mother was English. Very glad she has been “gone” for quite some time. I KNOW it would
absolutely shatter her to see how disgusting her native land has devolved. Terrible “leadership” for the most part.