Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, Media, Religion

Englishman Arrested After Posting Anti-Muslim Views On Twitter

Police have arrested a British man, Matthew Doyle, for “suspicion of inciting racial hatred on social media.” Doyle was arrested after posting tweets in the aftermath of the Brussels attacks. He described how he confronted a Muslim woman in south London and asked her to explain the Brussels attack. After she said, understandably, that she had nothing to do with the attacks, Doyle said she had given “a mealy mouthed response” and later used an anti-Muslim epithet.


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The actions of Doyle are clearly disturbing and juvenile. However, in the United States, such comments would be protected speech. England has seen the rise of calls for speech prosecutions, including this month. We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here).

The erosion of free speech in England is shocking in not just the scope of the anti-speech actions but the relative lack of opposition in the country. The crackdown on free speech in England shows how such actions can trigger insatiable desires to control or punish the speech of others. What is most striking is how Doyle’s tweets were immediately ridiculed and denounced. That is how free speech works. The solution to bad speech is more speech . . . not the criminalization of speech.

What do you think?

36 thoughts on “Englishman Arrested After Posting Anti-Muslim Views On Twitter”

  2. “Shocking…..is the….lack of opposition ” (to criminalizing such speech) ..AKA the “chilling effect”. Of course you can’t “oppose”…. that would be lending “support” and aiding and abetting are charges too!

  3. Roses are Red.
    Violets are Blue.
    Muslims are dead
    On Good Friday too.

  6. Seems the Brits have at least one commonality with Islam: they don’t believe in freedom of speech either.

    Shutting down protests against this death cult reveals a kind of ignorance exceeded only by Islam itself.

  9. Jonathan, I reblogged this article for you, I hope it helps get you some more traffic. I hope that you and all of your loved ones have a great Easter weekend, God’s blessings to you and yours brother.

    On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 12:19 AM, JONATHAN TURLEY wrote:

    > jonathanturley posted: “Police have arrested a British man, Matthew Doyle, > for “suspicion of inciting racial hatred on social media.” Doyle was > arrested after posting tweets in the aftermath of the Brussels attacks. He > described how he confronted a Muslim woman in south London” >

  11. You know that you can’t be posting things like that about Islamic believing people, heck you might get them to not liking you if you talk truthful things about them.

  12. Jill, please allow me to frame and mail to everyone here for prominent display on their fireplace mantle.
    Could not be better said!

  13. Is he being arrested for intimidating the woman? If it is illegal in the UK to intimidate people he should be arrested. His actions were ignorant and it does seem like he had an intent to frighten her.

    Does he go up to Christian men and ask them why they just allowed Obama to kill 130 civilians in Yemen? Has he approached priests and nuns to explain Tony Blair’s war crimes?

    Until I see Christian men and women standing up to their own Christian politicians for the murder of innocent civilians, many of whom are Muslim, I am going to say this is rank hypocrisy and it needs to be exaimed by all Christians. I would call the murder of Muslim and other innocent civilians on the “war on terror” radical Christian extremism. I see no reason why this should not be called out as strongly as radical Muslim extremism.

    However, approaching ordinary people on the street and making them justify actions of others for any reason is repulsive.

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