Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) criticized America’s closest ally for arresting comedian Graham Linehan over social media posts about transgender people, unambiguously calling it “an offense to anyone who supports free speech.”
“I guess UK has not learned from the time prosecutors read passages of The Picture of Dorian Gray to convict Oscar Wilde,” the Silicon Valley Democrat said.
Linehan, who co-created the critically acclaimed British sitcoms Father Ted and The IT Crowd and has won five BAFTAs (the British equivalent of Emmys), reported that he was confronted by five armed officers at Heathrow Airport and arrested for three tweets.
A cautious London Metropolitan Police confirmed the arrest of a man in his 50s for inciting violence through posts on X.
“In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for these tweets,” Linehan asserted in an op-ed for The Spectator.
The arrest has ignited strong backlash from across the political spectrum in the United States.
Fox News reports on what critics are calling an act of calculated tyranny:
In one of the posts, Linehan wrote that “if a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act.” He then said those encountering such a scenario should make a scene, call police or even “punch” the offender.
He said officers questioned him about the post, and he explained it was a serious point expressed with humor.
Linehan said the only restriction on his bail was that he was banned from using X.
“I looked at the single bail condition: I am not to go on Twitter. That’s it. No threats, no speeches about the seriousness of my crimes – just a legal gag order designed to shut me up while I’m in the U.K., and a demand I face a further interview in October,” he wrote.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) highlighted the incident as part of a wider concern about freedom of speech in Europe.
Additionally, Nigel Farage, member of Parliament and Leader of Reform UK, will address the arrest during his testimony before Congress on European technology laws and censorship Wednesday morning.
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UK doesn’t have policemen any more. They have brown-shirts.