In my capacity as General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, I went to Speakers’ Corner on June 27th to celebrate its 150th anniversary, only to discover that the Christian preacher Hatun Tash, a member of the Free Speech Union, had been arrested by the Metropolitan Police the day before. In a scandalous miscarriage of justice, she was arrested after being robbed – you read that correctly – and taken into police custody for 24 hours where, among other things, she was strip searched. She was later told by the police that the reason she’d been arrested was because she was wearing an ‘offensive’ t-shirt – it reproduced one of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
The Free Speech Union wrote to the then Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Stephen House, to complain about the arrest of our member, asking for an apology. (You can read that letter here.) We also wrote to Dame Cressida Dick, then the Commissioner of the Met, the year before about another occasion on which Ms. Tash had been arrested, seemingly for the crime of being ‘offensive’ to the Muslim young men who frequent Speakers’ Corner, again asking for an apology.
Well, yesterday, Hatun Tash finally got that apology. Thanks to the efforts of the Christian Legal Centre, who helped her bring a legal case against the Met, she has also been paid £10,000 in damages (which she has given to Christian Concern). The Times has more:
The Met police has paid £10,000 in damages and apologised to a Christian preacher who was wrongly arrested twice at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park.
Hatun Tash, an evangelist who regularly critiques and debates the Quran and Islam at the park, was arrested in 2020 and last year.
On both occasions, Tash told officers that she was being harassed and threatened by Islamic protesters. Instead of protecting her, she said, the police arrested her for breaching the peace and other public order offences.
One one occasion she was interviewed under caution and held in custody for 24 hours before being released and the police took no further action.
Tash brought a legal challenge against Scotland Yard, alleging wrongful arrest and unlawful imprisonment. Her lawyers said it was “abundantly clear” that the evangelist should not have been arrested.
“The police should have protected her free speech by bringing more officers to Speakers’ Corner to facilitate her rights,” her legal team said.
It has now emerged that the police have agreed to pay Tash damages and to cover her legal costs. A letter from Inspector Andy O’Donnell, from the Met’s professional standards directorate, apologises to her “for the distress that you have suffered”. He said he was “satisfied that on these occasions the level of service did fall below the requisite standard”.
After Tash’s experience, Toby Young, the political commentator and founder of the Free Speech Union, wrote to Cressida Dick, the Met commissioner at the time, asking her “to train your officers to avoid acting in a way that is incompatible with free speech rights”.
Worth reading in full.
This is a good result, but the question is whether the police are going to mend their ways and stop arresting people for the non-crime of being ’offensive’. I’m not going to hold my breath.
Stop Press: You can read the Christian Legal Centre’s press release about the victory here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Well done FSU!
Great news Toby and FSU. God bless you.
Obviously good news.
From a purely social perspective, not a legal one, I guess there’s a question to be asked about the nature and motive of being casually, but deliberately, offensive. The answer to this used to be (as recently as the early 90’s) that if you did something that was deliberately offensive you were likely to get a smack in the mouth at some point. That physical risk, which draws boundaries around most male interaction actually, is what used to be a deterrent (at least amongst males). Of course it’s right that everyone has freedom of speech, but the freedom to offend must come with risk (risk that is policed socially, not by the legal system).
Fair point, though I think the “smack in the mouth” is more relevant for people deliberately offending you personally rather than offending your beliefs. I don’t think a t-shirt making a general political point should ever merit a smack in the mouth. On the subject of smacks in the mouth, we have a problem with teenage boys (mainly boys, rarely girls, mainly teenagers, sometimes younger) who engage in antisocial behaviour often designed to provoke e.g. gobbing just in front of you. In other times and other cultures, that would have often been dealt with using some limited physical violence, but that’s a very risky option now. Not sure what the solution is.
Agree. I was just musing over why someone would deliberately offend and what can now be done socially about it – if anything should. There must be a way to make the political point without also making a personal one. I was just thinking aloud to be honest.
It’s an interesting question for sure.
The solution is a) make sure you don’t bite of more than you can chew. Dealing with two people at a time is risky, three and beyond pretty much hopeless. b) employ limited physical violence[*]. Often, threats of violence and a generally unwavering stance will be sufficient. People who pick unprovokedly on others are usually loudmouths seeking a soft target.
[*] eg, grab and shove out of the way.
Yes, that sounds like a reasonable approach.
‘Deliberately’ offensive = smack in mouth. What about not ‘deliberately’ being offensive = still, smack in mouth?
Is making a point, challenging, disputing, deliberately offensive?
In a civilised society, the onus is on the offended to behave within the law. And the onus is on those in Government and in positions of influence, and police, to reinforce that not undermine it.
Your argument is contrary to the notion of free speech, one shouldn’t exercise it in case of ‘smack in mouth’ therefore shut up. So in effect we are not free to speak. Self censorship for fear of reprisal is not free speech no more than is external censorship. It is the tactic of all tyranny.
No, my point is about what’s in keeping with a decent, civilised society. You want a society without compromise I believe? If you believe in compromise, then you believe there is some incentive to compromise. My point is – what is that incentive?
By the way, I’m glad you put so much faith in our law. It’s that law that kept you locked in your home for the best part of 2 years, and allowed government to coerce children into having poison injected into their arms. No, natural social governance is far more robust than a governance lorded upon us by elites.
And will the police officers up and down the chain of command responsible be disciplined?
Don’t be ridiculous!
Bravo!
The problem is that the Police automatically harass and arrest average people nowadays, knowing they generally haven’t the wherewithal to fight back. It’s easy pickings and it bumps them up the league tables for arrests (the league tables should be abolished.)
Good work by the FSU. I’m proud to be a member of the FSU.
So the Met Police more or less support the idea that you can be machine gunned to death in Paris for drawing a picture of an imaginary deity? That’s comforting.
Well said.
Excellent work, a real heroine. I was at a free speech protest at Speakers’ Corner in March 2018 against the jihadis who are trying to take it over. I did a Homer Simpson backwards hedge move when the football ‘lads’ faced off against the jihadis with me (until my escape) between them. Lots of people just wandering about and chatting up to that moment.
Congratulations and many thanks to all involved in this case. Well done.
Regarding Plod, about whom we now never here a good story, perhaps if the damages were deducted from the wages of all the officers involved we might see a smartening up of their competency levels. Just a thought.
And banged up for a day or two like their victims.
That seems eminently reasonable.
My hearty congratulations, well done.