The only people who are in jail for political reasons in the UK are fossil fuel company protestors, who were jailed for planning a protest during a Zoom meeting. Others have been jailed for relatively minor but high profile actions, such as throwing paint at paintings (protected behind glass).
People have been jailed for racist rioting and planning racist riots, but not many people in the UK see that as a bad thing.
The climate change prisoners are getting a lot more support.
The US imprisons countless black people every year for the flimsiest reasons with questionable due process, in for-profit prisons, some of which have been caught operating with kickbacks for judges.
> People have been jailed for racist rioting and planning racist riots
This is a factually false. The recent UK riots were largely about protesting violence (stabbings, killings, rape (which increased by a factor of 4.3 over 13 years, closely correlated to migration) and unchecked immigration (which is unpopular and opposed by a large fraction of the population, from someone who lived there).
These are, factually, not issues of racism - they are humans rights (in the case of the violence) and extremely reasonable political positions (in the case of cutting down immigration), and it's intentionally and maliciously deceptive to claim that they're "racism".
Yes, it's likely that some number of people at the riots were there because they were racist. No, the majority of the protestors were not there for that reason, and claiming that that small fraction makes the riots "racist" (not that that's even a coherent statement to make in the first place) is a lie.
Additionally, it's also a lie to
claim that only people participating in or planning the riots were jailed - "A judge has warned that anybody present at a riot will be remanded in custody, even if they were only a “curious observer”"[1], which was actually implemented, with documented video evidence of people getting arrested for merely filming the protests and police, with no participation[2].
It's deeply evil to defend the UK government's behavior here.
> The idea that the US
This is the tu quoque fallacy, in addition to being irrelevant - the topic is the UK and EU on free speech, not the UK.
This whole comment is just a tangle of lies, fallacies, and emotional manipulation.
People have been jailed for racist rioting and planning racist riots, but not many people in the UK see that as a bad thing.
The climate change prisoners are getting a lot more support.
The US imprisons countless black people every year for the flimsiest reasons with questionable due process, in for-profit prisons, some of which have been caught operating with kickbacks for judges.
Also, Aaron Swartz.
And multiple arrests of journalists.
https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/journalists-arrested-in-...
The idea that the US is some kind of utopian beacon of free speech while the rest of the world is authoritarian and repressive is utter nonsense.