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Calling all occupants of planet free speech: Toby Young of the Free Speech Union, bravehearts on Spiked Online, all those combatants keeping us safe from “cancel culture” including our Prime Minister. Have you been abducted by aliens?

You have long proclaimed that free speech is the lifeblood of democracy, universities and the media. That lifeblood is being drained. Where are you when we need you?

In the US, college students and academic staff are being arrested, with some alleging beatings, or suspended by academic institutions. And across Europe citizens are being arrested during protests, denied jobs and prizes. In the UK the silencing operation is more secretive and more pervasive.

Millions of us believed we were living in liberal, open democracies. Gaza has exposed how unfree the West is and the lies we tell ourselves. Hamas committed appalling acts of violence against ordinary civilians on 7 October. We are allowed to say or write that, as often as we wish. But to point out that the Palestinian people have been oppressed and humiliated by successive Israeli governments for decades, or to accuse that country of apartheid and ethnic supremacy, or to describe Israel’s merciless collective punishment as “genocide” – a UN description – or to be sceptical of some Israeli claims is impermissible, a punishable offence.

These “offences” are not in the statute book, yet over the past six months, Westerners who empathise with Palestinians, or dare to question Israel’s stated reasons for its actions or the complicity of Western governments, are being targeted in ways we associate with dictatorships.

When China rounds up and beats up........

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