Gestapo Tactics in the U.K.

I'm an Anglophile. We think of the United Kingdom as a country honoring free speech and political liberty. The peculiar case of free-speech advocate and Islam opponent Tommy Robinson makes it appear we are wrong in thinking so.

Author and poet Bruce Bawer writes about the case at the Gatestone Institute website, some excerpts:

On Friday, British free-speech activist and Islam critic Tommy Robinson was acting as a responsible citizen journalist -- reporting live on camera from outside a Leeds courtroom where several Muslims were being tried for child rape -- when he was set upon by several police officers. In the space of the next few hours, a judge tried, convicted, and sentenced him to 13 months in jail -- and also issued a gag order, demanding a total news blackout on the case in the British news media. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was immediately taken to Hull Prison.

The irony of this case is that the gag order, while silencing the British news media, has caused people around the world to take notice.

Other sources report Robinson was quiet and orderly prior to his arrest, and was overtly obeying the law. Assuming what has been reported is correct, if Robinson's conviction and the media gag order are allowed to stand, the May government will have much to answer for.

However, if Robinson was already on probation/parole for earlier unlawful acts, and violated those constraints by his actions in filming outside the courtroom, his swift imprisonment would make sense.

The gag order, preventing Brits from learning what happened, would then be the real outrage. It would behoove the British government to make public the grounds for his imprisonment, unless they don't dare.