| For the anonymous Rantburger who complained about the sources we use on the subject of Moslem colonist misbehaviour, this kind of thing is why. Lots of links at the link. |
[GatestoneInstitute] In recent years, alas, Britannia has deviated from its commitment to liberty. Foreign critics of Islam, such as the American scholar Robert Spencer, and for a time, even the Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders have been barred from the country. Now, at least one prominent native critic of Islam, Tommy Robinson,
| ...the former head of the English Defense League, his real name apparently is Stephen Lennon... |
has been repeatedly harassed by the police, railroaded by the courts, and left unprotected by prison officials who have allowed Moslem inmates to beat him senseless. Clearly, British authorities view Robinson as a troublemaker and would like nothing more than to see him give up his fight, leave the country (as Ayaan Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands), or get killed by a jihadist (as happened to the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh).
On Friday, as reported here yesterday, the saga of Tommy Robinson entered a new chapter. British coppers pulled him off a street in Leeds, where, in his role as a citizen journalist, he was livestreaming a Facebook video from outside a courthouse. Inside that building, several defendants were on trial for allegedly being part of a so-called "grooming gang" -- a group of men, almost all Moslem, who systematically rape non-Moslem children, in some cases hundreds of them, over a period of years or decades. Some ten thousand Facebook viewers around the world witnessed Robinson's arrest live.
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The police promptly dragged Robinson in front of a judge, where, without having access to his own lawyer, he was summarily tried and sentenced to 13 months behind bars. He was then transported to Hull Prison.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch shot Ike through the elbow. Take that, Ike! he yelled......
the judge who sentenced him also ordered the British media not to report on his case. Newspapers that had already posted reports of his arrest quickly took them down. Even ordinary citizens who had written about the arrest on social media removed their posts, for fear of sharing Robinson's fate. All this happened on the same day.
A kangaroo court, then a gag order. In the United Kingdom, where rapists enjoy the right to a full and fair trial, the right to the legal representation of their choice, the right to have sufficient time to prepare their cases, and the right to go home on bail between sessions of their trial. No such rights were offered, however, to Tommy Robinson.
The swiftness with which injustice was meted out to Robinson is stunning. No, more than that: it is terrifying. On various occasions over the years, I have been subjected in person to an immediate threat of Islamic violence: I have had a knife pulled on me by a young gang member, and been encircled by a crowd of belligerent men in djellabas outside a radical mosque. But that was not frightening. This is frightening -- this utter violation of fundamental British freedoms.
From one perspective, to be sure, Robinson's lightning-fast arrest, trial, and imprisonment should not have come as a surprise. "There has been a campaign to 'get Tommy' -- or what looks remarkably like it -- for some time," a source in the UK, whom I will call "L", told me late early Saturday morning.
The apparent justification for Robinson's arrest is that he was on a suspended sentence. In May of last year, he was taken into custody while reporting from outside a courthouse in Kent, where another group of Moslem defendants was being tried, also on "grooming" charges. That arrest was also unjustified. At least, however, Robinson was given a suspended sentence. This time, presumably, it was determined that the mere act of reporting yet again from outside another courthouse amounted to a violation of the terms of his suspended sentence.
The official cynicism here is obvious. L made a vital point: that often, when one of these "grooming gang" trials is being held, the extended families and friends of the defendants stand outside the courthouse and "heckle and intimidate" the rape victims as well as their families and supporters. "I've had reports of children as young as five throwing stones at victims' families," L said.
"This intimidation by extended community groups also involves going around to houses and harassing people." She has even heard of witnesses for the prosecution who have needed police protection to use a rest room inside a courthouse. Needless to say, this heckling and harassment is rarely reported on and never punished.
One potentially positive aspect of this ugly turn of events is that it turned heads that should have been turned long ago. L noted that many of her Twitter contacts "were tweeting that they didn't necessarily support Tommy in general but were appalled that someone reporting these [grooming] crimes was tossed in the clink
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
." Some of her acquaintances, she said, "are stunned and in despair." On Saturday, thousands of Robinson's supporters rallied in Westminster. But will such public protests make any difference? One British ex-policeman reacted to Robinson's incarceration with a video urging his fellow countrymen not just to march or rally but to join Ann Marie Waters' party For Britannia and do for freedom of speech in Britannia what UKIP did to get British out of the EU.
L had more interesting information to offer. While Robinson is being punished for drawing attention to Moslem rape gangs, the Sikh Awareness Society, which has also reported on these "grooming" trials, is left alone. "They are a godsend," said L, "because they pull no punches yet don't seem to get the intimidation that people like Tommy get." L also mentioned a holy man who was arrested recently, only to be let go by police after "a large group of supporters demanded his release." At least one police officer acknowledged that the imam had been freed because otherwise "they would have been facing riots all around the country." 
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