US: Human rights in the UK deteriorated last year

US: Human rights in the UK deteriorated last year

The Trump administration has published a report that claims that human rights in the United Kingdom "worsened" in the United Kingdom last year. The annual report , part the global survey of the US State Department to human rights and for the calendar year 2024, criticizes "serious restrictions" of freedom of speech and threats of violence that are motivated by anti-Semitism.

human rights in the United Kingdom

While other reports in the series also reported a decline in human rights in countries such as France and Germany, the list of complaints in the United Kingdom is much more extensive. This underlines the perceived step backwards in the era of social media.

restrictions on freedom of speech

With regard to freedom of speaking in the United Kingdom, the US report found that "the government generally respected this right", but "specific areas of concern" exist, including restrictions on political speech, which is classified as "hateful" or "offensive".

reactions of the British government

A spokesman for the British government said that freedom of speech was "of crucial importance for democracy" and that one is "proud to promote freedom and at the same time to ensure the security of citizens". At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vice President JD Vance claimed that freedom of speech in Europe was "on the defensive" and cited Great Britain as a country in which the "basic freedoms" of the citizens were "visor".

violence and their consequences

The report emphasized the reaction of the young government of Prime Minister Keir Strander on the murder of three schoolgirls by Axel Rudakubana, the British son of Rwandian migrants, in the northern English city of Southport last year. The murders and misinformation about the identity of the perpetrator led to Anti-Medigration riots tried to set fire to a hotel that put asylum seekers on fire while people were in it.

official intervention

After the murders of Southport, "intervened intervented government officials repeatedly to dampen about the attacker's identity and motives," the report says. Although the report indicates a malicious intention on the part of the British government, the prosecutors applied to existing laws to punish statements that were considered "indecent or grossly offensive".

Legal consequences for freedom of speech

to stop the riots, Strander - a former director of the public prosecutor - promised that the participants would feel the “full hardness of the law”. Almost 2,000 people were arrested this summer and more than 1,000 people were charged. Although the unrest quickly decreased after the first outrage, many on the British right criticized the government's reaction as exaggerated and an attempt to silence conservative views.

law enforcement and censorship

"While many media observers described the enforcement of these laws according to the attacks by Southport as a particularly serious example of state censorship, the censorship of ordinary British was increasingly routine and often on political statements," said the report. The condemnation of Lee Joseph Dunn for eight weeks in prison for "posting a memes that suggested a connection between migrants and violent crimes". Dunn is guilty of sending messages that were classified as "generously offensive" and warned the prosecutors to increase the risk of "tightening the tensions in the community".

examples of political censorship

Dunn's case was not unique. In another prominent case, Lucy Connolly, a mother and former Nanny, was sentenced to 31 months in prison after calling and asking for the mass portation to set hotels that housed migrants. "If that makes me racist, it is so," she posted on X.

requirement for a rethink

While the United Kingdom claims to compensate for the protection of freedom of speech and the security of the citizens, Vance believes that the country has failed in this regard. At a meeting last week with the British Foreign Minister David Lammy, the Vice President expressed that he did not want other countries to "follow us on a very dark path that we have taken under the bid administration" by censoring conservative views. After Vance's speech in Munich and its recent interventions, many in the UK accused him of hypocrisy and referred to the detention of students by the Trump administration for pro-Palestinian statements and to legal steps against the broadcaster.