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“Real Time” host Bill Maher urged Americans on Friday to support free speech without conditions to avoid becoming like the United Kingdom, which has greatly increased its enforcement of speech violations over the past few years.
While speaking about freedom-of-speech violations that he felt President Donald Trump committed in recent years, including a proposal to make flag burning punishable by prison time, Maher warned that the United States cannot follow in the footsteps of the U.K.
“This country can’t become that, but it also can’t become what the UK is now, a place where you get arrested for tweets, something that happens 12,000 times a year now in Britain,” he cautioned.
The 12,000 number comes from a stat via the Free Speech Union in Britain.
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The “Real Time” host cited the arrest of Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan in the U.K. earlier this month as evidence of Britain’s crackdown on free speech. Linehan was arrested at London Heathrow Airport last week over several social media posts criticizing transgender activists.
“Last week, the Irish sitcom writer Graham Linehan, who’s won an Emmy and five BAFTA awards, got off a plane at Heathrow and got arrested by five British police officers, not because he was selling drones to the Houthis, just because he’s a crank who spends way too much time online ranting about gender ideology,” he railed.
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Maher continued, noting that there are plenty of “non-crazy people, liberal people” who feel that the left has gone “a little mad” with transgender issues, including author J.K. Rowling and comedian Dave Chappelle.
“Some have expressed that opinion with literary sophistication, like J. K. Rowling. Some by getting big laughs, like Dave Chappelle. And some are downright ugly about it, like Lineham,” he said. “But ugly is the price of a freedom so great as speech.”
Continuing his point on standing up for free speech, even offensive speech, he brought up the arrest of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil over his pro-Palestinian activism on campus.
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Maher argued that while he found Khalil’s anti-Israel op-ed published in the school’s newspaper offensive, he would still “go to the mat for that person to be able to print it.”
Fox News’ Rachel Wolf contributed to this report.
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