It’s been just two months since Billboard Chris’s court case in Australia wrapped up, after he sued Australia’s eSafety Commissioner for censoring a social media post of his online.

The case, in which HRLA acted for Billboard Chris, highlights the threats to free speech and an increasing trend towards government censorship and overreach. 

In Europe this week, Chris was arrested in Brussels for peacefully standing with his signs inviting conversations about gender identity.

ADF International’s Lois McLatchie Miller was with Chris and was also arrested. The two were standing peacefully and quietly, but were told they “shouldn’t be having these conversations”, according to Lois.

As Lois asked: “What about if we were talking about climate change or Gaza?” 

Chris’s arrest is one among a growing number of examples of two-tiered justice when it comes to policing free speech.

Another is Lucy Connolly, a British childminder and mother who was jailed for over two years for one single tweet.

In the aftermath of a stabbing rampage carried out by 17 year old Axel Rudakubana that left three girls aged 6, 7 and 9 dead, Lucy vented her frustration online, making a post that she deleted within hours.

There’s no doubt Lucy’s emotional online post was ill-considered, but there are serious questions about whether the treatment she received was a proportionate response or ideologically motivated. 

A number of commentators have pointed out that her 31-month prison sentence for an online post was harsher than those who commit more destructive crimes.

The Free Speech Union, who is helping Connoly, said in a statement: 

Lucy received a longer jail term than Philip Prescott, who joined a racially aggravated mob attack on a mosque and threw missiles at the police in a riot in Southport. Mohammed Islam Choudhrey, a man who pleaded guilty to paying for sex with a child prostitute in Telford, received a lighter sentence. And the same judge who jailed Lucy gave 20 months to Haris Ghaffar, who pleaded guilty to violent disorder during last summer’s riots.

The Free Press also noted that “in 2023, the year before Connolly’s tweet, the UK government’s National Crime Agency found that eight in 10 of those convicted of possessing child abuse pornography in Britain avoided prison”.

Lucy is a carer for her husband who is suffering from bone marrow failure, as well as her 12-year-old daughter. 

In another case, Julian Foulkes, a retired police officer, also received similar two-tier treatment when he was arrested and held in a cell for eight hours and interrogated on suspicion of sending a ‘malicious communication’.

In police bodycam footage of the arrest, police were seen rummaging through Foulkes’ belongings and books, expressing alarm at some of the “very Brexity things” on his shelf.

Foulkes was arrested by Kent Police for a post he says was misinterpreted by police as being antisemitic, which he says was instead aimed towards a pro-Palestine supporter.

His tweet was first noticed by the Metropolitan Police intelligence unit that deals with terrorism and extremism.

From Billboard Chris to Lucy Connolly and Julian Foulkes, the worrying trend of two-tier justice and government-backed censorship of particular viewpoints threatens fundamental freedoms for all.

While the trend in the UK and Europe seems to be going one way, a win for Chris in Australia will push back against the selective government censorship of certain viewpoints, and create a legal precedent that will help change law and culture, at least in this country.

Chris was interviewed by the European Conservative about his activism shortly before his arrest in Brussels.