A gf asked to go on a trip to England/Ireland and I told her I will go to Brazil or Colombia before I go to the UK. Im not going to risk getting in trouble because I made a post online or discussed immigration or trans people in the wrong way according to them.
> "Im not going to risk getting in trouble because I made a post online or discussed immigration or trans people in the wrong way according to them."
This is a mis-truth which has been spread by Joe Rogan and his ilk. Political speech is very much protected in UK law. You won't get in "trouble" if you make posts against immigration or trans people. J.K. Rowling and Ricky Gervais certainly haven't been locked up.
Yes, there have been cases, such as the infamous Cowley Hill School case where Hertfordshire police arrested a couple over their posts in a school WhatsApp group. However, such arrests are illegal and in that case the police had to apologise and pay compensation.
What will get you in trouble in the UK is threatening violence against people or posting hate speech that encourages others to do so. But this is also true in the USA and in most countries.
> Political speech is very much protected in UK law
With "protected political speech" being defined as which flavour of the established, incompetent elite you prefer this year.
People have been arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches. People have been arrested over protesting Charles' coronation. To say nothing of thousands of people arrested every year over tweets.
Political speech is basically criminalised in the UK at this point. This is not an establishment worth any of our respect.
> arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches.
Got a source on this one?
Supporting Palestine in the UK has never been illegal. Supporting the specific group "Palestine Action" has been as they were for a while a proscribed terrorist organisation due to what was (IMHO) some property crimes committed against defense contractors by some of their members. Totally wrong, and has now been struck down in the courts, but saying "you can't support palestine" is also wrong.
> Thousands of people arrested every year over tweets.
The source I saw on this one had clear examples of violent threats and calls to set buildings full of people on fire, so I'm not sure this is clear either.
They broke into an RAF base, and defaced/damaged UK military hardware (spraypaint on aircraft). This is a serious crime, but in no way does it meet any reasonable definition of terrorism. There are plenty of laws under which those responsible can be charged, it was a ridiculous overreach to use anti-terror laws.
More concerningly, prescribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation had a suppressive effect on lawful protest against the Israel-Gaza war, since any supporter of Palestine might be considered a member of Palestine Action and therefore, legally, a terrorist suspect.
The UK Police seem to have switched to a policy of knowingly arresting people erroneously and then releasing them and apologising afterwards.
(At least it is just arresting people and releasing them rather than shooting them and then apologising afterwards whilst also exonerating the officers involved.)
The article does link to an incident in Russia where a protester was dragged away for holding up a blank sign.
Not quite. They're debating whether to get rid of some jury trials, only for trials that have an "either-way" decision and carry a sentence of less than 3 years.
The changes would mean instead of 3% having juries it would be down to 2.25%.
This would also be reviewed once the existing backlog has been seen to. "This means that currently a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030."
> What will get you in trouble in the UK is threatening violence against people or posting hate speech that encourages others to do so. But this is also true in the USA and in most countries.
The line is quite thin and ambiguous though. If they want to get someone they will and find that various remarks “encourage violence”.
Almost any opinion that isn't nice can be argued to encourage violence.
> You won't get in "trouble" if you make posts against immigration or trans people.
Not to say anyone would actually get in trouble for just some opinion posts, but I don't know why you went with "against" here, I think "for" is the more likely one to make the current UK (or US) government upset.
I just went there as German and it actually went really smooth. They just asked me why I'm visiting and I said to visit a friend/tourism, took less than 2 minutes. So I think this is FUD
That's usually how it goes with the US as well but every now and then they decide to search someone's electronic devices.
Of course AFAIK this can happen pretty much everywhere at this point so your only hope is being a citizen of a country that doesn't allow it for locals (such as the US) and then not traveling. Or wipe your devices prior to traveling.
From "Retired cop jailed for 37 days over Charlie Kirk meme sues, saying his First Amendment rights were violated"[1]:
> A retired Tennessee law enforcement officer was held in jail for more than a month this fall after police arrested him over a Facebook post of a meme related to the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
In those countries, you'll probably have more to fear for your physical security from non-governmental threats than the other way around.
But given the increasingly dystopian state of many countries worldwide, you may also encounter difficulties related to administrative burden and systems with not enough human oversight and override for exceptional situations.
Okay, here goes. You can tell when someone is acting in bad faith when they talk about a law that has been in force and enforced since the 1960s is something new.
Laws can be in existence for decades before they are weaponized against people.
It's illegal to have most eBay/Amazon bulbs on your car because they are not DOT approved.
If someday they start impounding cars crossing state borders with light bars, fog lights, and LEDs of races they don't want in that state... Someone like you will say "you're just making stuff up, that law has been on effect since 1961."
