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Trump Sends Free-Speech Squad To Interview UK Activists Arrested for ‘Silently Praying’

May 26, 2025 UKR Editor GOVERNMENT 0

Trump Sends Free-Speech Squad to Interview UK Activists Arrested for ‘Silently Praying’

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ER Editor: Some tweets —

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Trump Sends Free-Speech Squad to Interview UK Activists Arrested for ‘Silently Praying’

RICHARD ELDRED via DAILY SCEPTIC

The US President has sent a team of American diplomats to the UK to meet with pro-life campaigners amid concerns that Downing Street has been suffocating free speech. The Telegraph has the story:

A five-person team from the US State Department spent days in the country and interviewed campaigners to feed back to the White House.

They met with five activists who had been arrested for silently protesting outside abortion clinics across Britain.

Washington launched the fact-finding mission after becoming concerned about the erosion of free speech in the UK.

The visit is the latest sign of the Trump administration’s willingness to intervene in domestic British affairs.

The diplomats from the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) travelled to London in March in an effort to “affirm the importance of freedom of expression in the UK and across Europe”.

Led by Samuel Samson, a senior adviser in the State Department, they met with officials from the Foreign Office and challenged Ofcom on the Online Safety Act, which is thought to be a point of contention in the White House. …

The delegation also quietly met with a handful of anti-abortion campaigners at an event held at a “nondescript” office block, the Telegraph can reveal.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, Rose Docherty, Adam Smith-Connor, Livia Tossici-Bolt and Father Sean Gough, a Catholic priest, described to the visiting diplomats their experiences of being detained while silently praying.

Mrs Docherty, a 74 year-old grandmother, became the first person to be arrested and charged under a new law that creates buffer zones outside hospitals and clinics providing abortions in Scotland. She was arrested outside Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow in February.

“All I did was stand peacefully offering consensual conversation to anyone who wanted to take up my offer to talk. I didn’t break the law, I didn’t influence, I didn’t harass, I didn’t intimidate,” she said.

“And yet, I was arrested just for standing there, peacefully, within 200 metres of a hospital.

“This can’t be just. It’s heartening that others around the world, including the US Government, have realised this injustice and voiced their support.” …

During his meeting in the Oval Office in February, the Prime Minister claimed Britain “wouldn’t want to reach across US citizens” in questions over free speech.

“We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the UK, and it will last for a very, very long time… Certainly we wouldn’t want to reach across US citizens, and we don’t, and that’s absolutely right. But in relation to free speech in the UK, I’m very proud of our history there,” he said. …

Lord Young, the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, which helped fund Connolly’s appeal, said: “If Sir Keir Starmer gave any promises to protect free speech in the course of negotiating the UK-US trade agreement, he doesn’t appear to be keeping them.”

Worth reading in full.

Source

Featured image source, woman praying: https://thecatholicherald.com/woman-arrested-and-charged-for-silent-prayer-near-abortion-clinic/

Featured image source, men praying: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/31/silent-prayer-abortion-clinics-buffer-zone-criminal-offence/

Featured image source, man praying: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/oct/18/adam-smith-connor-convicted-in-uk-of-thought-crime/

 

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Published to UK Reloaded  from Europe Reloaded

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