Dear Toby Young and the Free Speech Union,
With interest in later years the Danish Free Press Society (Trykkefrihedsselskabet af 2004) has been following the work of the Free Speech Union (FSU).
Freedom of expression is currently under massive pressure in Western Europe – with England also taking a disappointing road towards authoritarianism.
We recognize and support FSU´s efforts for free speech in England.
Most recently, we have been pleased to see the FSU’s active campaign on behalf of Lucy Connolly and your criticism of politically motivated and unequal instrumentalization of the judiciary in England.
However; you either defend free speech for all - regardless of social background, political views and whether you agree with them or not. Or you do not, really, defend free speech.
We are, therefore, surprised of the neglect of the FSU and its apparent disinterest in similar cases, where other English citizens have been convicted and imprisoned for far less inflammatory statements that, unlike Lucy Connolly’s tweet, were clearly within the bounds of freedom of expression and did not contain incitement to violence?
Why did the FSU not enter into a similar defense of Peter Lynch, sentenced to 2 years and 7 months in prison for simply standing with a placard and shouting his political views at the police? His subsequent tragic suicide in his prison cell is otherwise an expression of the ultimate powerlessness in the face of an increasingly authoritarian system.
We have also never understood, and to this day we fail to appreciate, the conspicuous unwillingness of the FSU to defend freedom of speech for Tommy Robinson?
The whole case, judgement and subsequent imprisonment of Tommy Robinson for 7 months of solitary confinement in Woodhill Prison for the crime of publishing a revealing documentary appears deeply political and unfair. Yet; nobody at the Free Speech Union talks about it.
While the Free Speech Union of England should thus on the one hand be commended for a brave political and legal defense for some Britons subjected to state persecution for exercising, what once was free speech in England, the same Free Speech Union should, on the other hand, be held in question for its strategic and rather cowardly unwillingness to defend the free speech of others.
The Danish Free Press Society finds it strange that we, a Danish free speech organization, have to stand up for Tommy Robinson – which we have done wholeheartedly and intend to continue to do - while the FSU never did anything?
Which prompts the question: is Free Speech Union a two-tier free speech organization? Is freedom of expression reserved for the middle class - not worth defending for representatives of the working class, who may articulate grievances differently, but suffer the most from negative social developments in England, that political elites clearly wish to ban from the realm of democratic, public debate and freedom of speech?
In connection with Lucy Connolly’s appeal, FSU’s Legal Officer Stephen O’Grady stated that she “wasn’t some lager-fuelled hooligan on the streets” and there is a “difference between howling racist abuse at somebody in the street” and “sending tweets, which were perhaps regrettable but wouldn’t have the same immediate effect”.
These statements indicate that FSU puts social status above freedom of expression and sends an unfortunate signal of two-tier freedom of expression.
Yours sincerely,
On behalf of The Free Press Society in Denmark
Aia Fog and Michael Pihl
President and Vice President
