Three items:
Europe's woke police state is chasing social conservatives down and arresting them for... speaking.
Last week, a young Dutch woman was arrested outside an abortion clinic in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Thirty-five weeks pregnant herself, she had offered leaflets to two people; one took a brochure, the other declined. The police arrived and, without evidence, arrested the woman on fictitious allegations of "disturbing the peace." It was the ninth recent arrest made for peacefully engaging in pro-life outreach outside an abortion facility, even though it is not against the law to do so.
It is the third arrest for the young woman--who chose to remain unidentified--and at times she has been held in jail for three to six hours. Two other Dutch women have been similarly arrested three times each. Dirkje de Ruiter, for example, was arrested last year outside a clinic in Utrecht before she had even passed out a single leaflet; the police informed her that, despite doing nothing illegal, her mere presence constituted "disorder."
De Ruiter had been previously arrested in Rotterdam; a couple turned away from the clinic as the officers were confronting her. "When I arrived at the police station, all my things had to be handed in, and I was put in a cell measuring 2 metres by 1.5 metres," she told me. "Some of my clothes had to come off, and I was given a blanket against the cold. In the cell I thanked God for the life that had been saved... I was not afraid." Again: De Ruiter had not broken any laws.
The arrests of citizens doing peaceful pro-life outreach in the Netherlands are part of a broader continental crackdown on social conservatives, usually Christian, for expressing their beliefs in public. In Brussels earlier this month, Lois McLatchie of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Chris Elston, the anti-trans ideology activist known to his social media followers as "Billboard Chris," were arrested, strip-searched, and detained for hours by police merely for holding signs reading "Children Are Never Born In The Wrong Body" and "Children Cannot Consent To Puberty Blockers." Their signs were destroyed. They were charged with no crime.
In the United Kingdom, pro-lifers have been arrested for the thought crime of silent prayer so frequently that the Trump administration took the extraordinary step in March of sending "a team of U.S. officials to the UK to investigate concerns over freedom of speech restrictions," according to GB News. Diplomats from the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, led by State Department adviser Samuel Samson, met with five British pro-lifers who had been arrested for silent prayer at clinics across the country.
One woman was arrested for being silent. The police feared that she might be "praying in her head," which would create a disturbance.
Meanwhile, the UK has delivered over white working class girls to be raped and groomed for a life of forced prostitution by Pakistani rape gangs.
No worry there about creating a disturbance -- unless you point these crimes out. Then you get arrested for a breach of the peace and hate speech.
The EU is all-in crushing "hate speech" in Europe -- and in America as well.
Happy International Day for Countering Hate Speech, to all who celebrate.
Wednesday, June 18th, apparently marked the third ever day against so-called hate speech, as well as the start of the Council of Europe's No Hate Speech Week.
The theme of this year's No Hate Speech Week is about as pithy and inspiring as you might imagine: "Enhance legal and non-legal measures against hate speech through a multi-stakeholder approach." In practice, this means brainstorming the ways in which the European Union can keep control of the narrative, especially on social media.
Council of Europe chief Alain Berset made this clear when he opened the festivities with a speech in Strasbourg yesterday. "Hate speech is not an isolated issue," he said, "but a part of a deeper challenge--to trust, to truth, to democracy itself." This might be true according to the topsy-turvy definitions of Eurocratic newspeak. But in reality, free speech is a fundamental part of any democracy. The right for people to say whatever they like, no matter how crude, offensive, or hateful, is crucial for a society to remain open and free.
Berset also declared: "Hate begins with words but does not end there. The Council of Europe has been clear: hate speech and hate crime are not separate problems--they exist on a continuum."
What they mean by "hate speech," of course, is the speech of anyone arguing that they do not want their countries to become outer suburbs of Islamabad.
The transnational elites thereby protect their deeply unpopular policies from challenge by the old methods known by all tyrants: they will simply criminalize any attempts to change the policy.
No Hate Speech week is just the latest strategy in the EU's censorship crackdown. The main culprit is the Digital Services Act (DSA), the draconian piece of legislation that polices 'harmful content' online. According to the DSA, even interviewing a former president of the United States could constitute hate speech. This was the conclusion last year of Thierry Breton, the then European Commissioner in charge of enforcing the DSA. In the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections, Breton warned that Musk livestreaming an interview with Donald Trump on X could violate EU law on spreading "harmful content."
The idea that merely giving air time to a presidential candidate might be so hateful as to break the law is beyond reason. But the EU has been waging a spiteful war against Musk, a self-professed free-speech absolutist. Since 2023, the European Commission has been investigating his social-media platform, due to Musk's commitment to allowing users to post virtually whatever they want. The EU alleged that X failed to comply with the DSA. Falling foul of the DSA could technically see X banned across Europe, but it is more likely that Musk will face a fine of somewhere around $1 billion.
You're never going to believe this, but Germany, of all countries, is embracing full Nazism.
Police in Germany have executed more than 170 operations targeting people they referred to as "digital arsonists".
Starting early on the morning of June 25, officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office raided the homes of people suspected of running "criminal posts" online.
The police move was not the first such in Germany, where it is flagged a "day of action", targeting alleged authors of "online hate and hate messages".
This was the 12th time that the police took such nationwide action against so-called politically motivated crime (PMK).
Two-thirds of those people whom officers hit had reportedly made right-wing radical statements. The police also went after alleged religious extremists and left-wing radicals.
The targeted speech was speech demanding an end to open borders. Some other speakers were also arrested so it wouldn't be so obvious the state was attempting to arrest its citizens until they complied.
But Germany also decided to arrest citizens for referring to the morons that make up its government as morons.
That's right, insulting a f*cking politician is now against the law in Germany.
The raids also included people who were suspected of violating a specific part of the German criminal code, namely those who allegedly insulted politicians.
German politicians have been increasingly using this law, leading to hefty fines against those found guilty of calling politicians "morons", for example, or mocking them with degrading images.
Greens politicians in particular have made efforts to seek redress against who insulted them.
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Starting from 6am, police officers searched the houses of suspects and confiscated computers, mobile phones and tablets.
"Digital arsonists must not be able to hide behind their cell phones or computers", North Rhine-Westphalian interior minister Herbert Reul, a Christian Democratic Union MP, told news agency dpa.
"Many people have forgotten the difference between hatred and opinion, but it's so simple: If you don't do it in the real world, it's not appropriate to do it digitally. It's time for more attitude, offline and online."
And that's the real goal: they want to make people afraid to voice their opinions on unlimited third world immigration in the real world polling stations.
Meanwhile: Trump announces a peace deal between Congo and Rwanda, ending 30 years of grueling warfare. The deal was brokered by Marco Rubio.