The free speech landscape in the UK is growing increasingly darker.

The latest incident involves comedy writer Graham Linehan, who stepped off a plane from the USA at Heathrow Airport in London and was promptly arrested for tweets online.

The award-winning creator and writer of Father Ted and The IT Crowd wrote that five officers were waiting for him at the airport and immediately detained him and held him in a cell and questioned him over three specific tweets about transgender people.

The stress of the situation saw him hospitalised. Linehan was eventually released with one bail condition: that he no longer go on X.

Alongside author JK Rowling, who defended Linehan after the arrest, Linehan is one of the UK’s most prominent critics of transgender ideology. He is particularly concerned about women’s rights and the invasion of women’s spaces, and has had run-ins with authorities before over his views.

But this latest experience clearly took its toll, and shows the extreme anti-free speech stance taken by the UK’s government and law enforcement, especially when it comes to the issue of transgender people.

Writing on the incident in Spiked, Fraser Myers observes:

What happened to Graham Linehan here is no aberration. This is simply what the UK is now: a nation that locks up comedy writers. A nation where armed police are ready to pounce on the orders of the easily offended. We must never make the mistake of thinking any of this is normal.

Much like Billboard Chris’s case here in Australia, or Jasmine Sussex’s ongoing legal battle, Linehan’s arrest shows transgender ideology is a topic where free speech is no longer permitted.

Despite the reality of biological sex, those who speak about transgender issues are uniquely vulnerable to hate speech laws.

This is why free speech, genuine free speech, is such an important right.

Contentious ideas and policy agendas need to be able to be discussed and debated openly.

People should not be at risk of arrest for online posts about contested ideas.

That’s why HRLA continues to defend free speech here in Australia and supports similar efforts around the world.

^{Image source: The Australian. Graham Linehan arrest over transgender posts triggers UK freedom of speech row. Picture: Lucy North/PA via AP}