Britain discovers the consequences of suppressing speech

Thomas Lifson:
When Tommy Robinson was arrested for live-streaming a report outside the Leeds courthouse where members of an alleged Muslim grooming gang who allegedly forced young British girls into prostitution, and the court quickly imposed a gag order on U.K. media reporting it, outrage (and an overseas legal defense fund) quickly followed.  (See my writing about it here, here, and here.)
In the words of Washington Post writer Avi Selk:
The gag order backfired, turning English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson into a sort of free-speech martyr to conservatives such as Donald Trump Jr. and Roseanne Barr before the gag order was lifted Tuesday.
Selk's report, incidentally, drips with contempt toward Robinson, calling him "[o]ne of Britain's most notorious anti-Muslim campaigners" (emphasis added).
Robinson wants to halt Muslim immigration and focuses on the crime statistics and the violent jihad activity that have resulted from large scale Muslim immigration.
Selk presents the rationale for gagging reporting:
It's illegal in Britain to report the details of some trials before they conclude – a long-standing law designed to prevent the news from biasing juries and causing prosecutions to collapse, according to Leeds Live.
Oddly enough, even though the Washington Post's motto, "Democracy Dies in  Darkness," appears at the top of the web page featuring Selk's article, he nowhere discusses this concept with regard to the gag order.
Not everyone thinks arresting someone for speaking and then forbidding any media discussion of the arrest is consistent with a free society.  Zerohedge has collected some of the overseas support for Robinson and outrage at the gag order....
...
The UK is not willing to have a debate over whether their immigration policy is responsible for the criminal activity such as that by the Muslim "grooming" gang that took advantage of young British girls.  That is a mistake that will not solve the problems associated with assimilation of people with a jihad culture.   If they fear a debate, they must fear that they will lose politically if it takes place.  They should adopt something like the US 1st Amendment.

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