The Communications Act Sec 127 is the main tool being used to undermine freedom of expression in the UK. In 2016, 3300 people were questioned using its powers. Around half of these cases were dropped before any prosecution. I obviously have not looked at all the cases but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say a large proportion of the arrests were for criticising Islam.

Can I ask what you have based that last sentence on, or is it just a guess? Given that the section relates to the following:

127Improper use of public electronic communications network

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
(b)causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

(2)A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,
(b)causes such a message to be sent; or
(c)persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.

I dont see anything there that would make me come up with the same assumption, especially when you consider that obscene phone calls and texts etc are included in the act. People have been prosecuted under this section for threatening to rape women who campaigned to have Jane Austen on a bank note for example. No doubt ex-partners have been convicted of harassment too, after all that is very common.

The Hitler dog conviction was bizarre if indeed it was a joke as claimed. One strange conviction doesnt make a bad law though does it? I think that Monroe Bergdorf's comments were hate speech and should have been dealt with as such.

I cant comment on the veracity of the Gilligan article you have used about tellMAMA - if you do some further reading, you'll see that there was much debate about how true it was (for example it has since been stated that the funding was only ever for one year). That said, any misreporting of stats by the organisation should be highlighted.

Kevin Crehan was a violent football thug who had in his own words 'a long history of convictions', and was a drug addict. The bacon incident also involved him and others racially abusing people, and the judge said that his sentence took into account his previous violent criminal history. Sadly a number of people, especially men, and especially drug addicts, die in prison. Kevin Crehan didn't 'turn up' dead, he died of a drug overdose.

As for the 'British Soldiers go to hell' protesters being protected, actually they were convicted of a section 5 public order offence and their subsequent appeal was dismissed.

Tommy Robinson is an attention seeking common criminal, he's in prison for a crime he admitted to and was filming people involved in a trial. He knew exactly what he was doing and how his inevitable arrest would end up with plenty of publicity and him being seen by some as a cause celebre...

I'm genuinely confused with the obsession with religion on this football forum. There was a terrorist incident in another country in which 3 people died and immediately a thread was started on it. At the same time, in this country a mother and her daughter were murdered by a man (probably an ex partner, that is the usual way of these things) and women are murdered by male partners twice a week in England, yet that specific form of violence gets no airtime on here. There are gang related stabbings in England on an almost daily basis - a man was stabbed to death outside my daughter's home last week. Again that issue is hardly ever mentioned on here. Yet the whole 'Muslim' thing is incessant. When someone saves a child's life, the thread about it immediately makes an assumption about the person's religion and then doubt is cast on the reality of the rescue.

Free speech is a fascinating subject, I get that, but the number of posts related to this single religion seems disproportionate for a football forum.