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00:00I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social
00:07media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they've judged to be, quote,
00:13hateful content.
00:16Or to this very country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected
00:20of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of, quote, combating misogyny on the
00:26internet, a day of action.
00:29I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago the government convicted a Christian activist
00:34for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friend's murder.
00:39And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden's laws to supposedly protect free expression
00:47do not, in fact, grant, and I'm quoting, a free pass to do or say anything without risking
00:55offending the group that holds that belief.
00:59And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends the United Kingdom,
01:04where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious
01:08Britons in particular in the crosshairs.
01:12A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist
01:18and an army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic
01:26and silently praying for three minutes.
01:30Not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own.
01:36After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for,
01:41Adam replied simply it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had
01:47aborted years before.
01:49Now the officers were not moved.
01:51Adam was found guilty of breaking the government's new buffer zones law, which criminalizes silent
01:57prayer and other actions that could influence a person's decision within 200 meters of an
02:02abortion facility.
02:04He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.
02:09Now I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off crazy example of a badly written
02:14law being enacted against a single person, but no.
02:18Since last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing
02:22letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them
02:28that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.
02:34Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty
02:40of thought crime.
02:42In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.