ANALYSIS

A British man was arrested for a tweet. What was his crime? He posted a meme on social media with a curse word criticizing Hamas and Islam. 

The arresting officer informed the man, a blogger named Pete North, "Basically, section 19 refers to spreading what we say like racial hatred. So you've posted something online that we believe is spreading racial hatred."

"Twitter, Facebook?" the blogger wondered aloud. 

"Well, I can't explain too much. It's just to give you the context beforehand," the officer said.

"What, you're taking me away now?"

"Yes, so you're under arrest..."

"In the middle of the night, over a tweet?"

"I am, unfortunately..."

WATCH: CBN's Raj Nair and Billy Hallowell break down the story

Billy Hallowell: "Well, the first thing I made of it is this real curiosity about what in the world is happening with free speech in the UK. This has been an ongoing issue when it comes to abortion and buffer zones and arrests for silent praying. And now you have this thing where somebody has posted something on X. And as far as we know, we have this man's story, right? We have this video based on what we know. And there could always be details we don't. It seems incredibly troubling that somebody would be detained by the police and arrested. And you can hear the shock in this guy's voice as he's being arrested for a meme that he shared on X."

"The other part outside of the shock about the free speech is that it seems like according to this man and according to even the video snippet that we've seen, that the police seem most concerned about the comment about Hamas, right? Like that seemed to be the thing that they flagged first. They even said, you know, well, firstly, let's start with the meme. You posted a meme that said, you know, #!@$ Hamas. And I'm thinking that it talks about Islam. It talks about other things. While none of that should be punishable by arrest, why is Hamas the first thing that the police seem to be focusing on?"

Raj Nair: "And, you know, as the young kids say these days, the UK really does seem, quote unquote, 'cooked.' This is bad. This is really bad. And if there's anyone in power in the UK, in Parliament and whatnot, watching this video, this is really, really Orwellian, dark, bad things. I mean, if you are arresting someone in England for posting a meme critical of anything, what? I mean, this is like the foundational bedrock of Western society is that you can vehemently disagree with someone, be offended, but you would defend their right to the death to say said things."

"And, you know, there's one of the really famous interviews of all time was when Jordan Peterson was on, some British network. And he says, and the lady said, 'Well, what about being offended?' And Jordan Peterson had this like brilliant quote about, 'Well, I'm risking being offended by being here, you know,' and, you know, produces this viral clip. And I think the idea is it's okay to be offended. It's okay. Listen, in the marketplace of ideas is where really brilliant ideas come out of because they've been scrutinized, because they've been dissected, because they've been made fun of, right? The king has no pants. Like that's the whole idea."

"If comedy, if memes can get you arrested, arrested in the United Kingdom, there is something deeply wrong going on in the UK. We've done a lot of stories about, you know, the social unrest in the UK. People, very prominent British folks using the words like civil war. You know, Keir Starmer, just the prime minister of the UK, we just heard about this a couple of days ago, is now going to have this mandatory digital ID to work in the UK, which really doesn't really curb the problem. It's just more control. Everyone sees through the veneer. The UK is off in a bad way, Billy. And we need to be praying for our ally across the pond."

Hallowell: "Yeah, well, and here's the thing. It's not just the UK. You know, we've talked about this. Obviously, we talked this week about what is happening in Nigeria. You have the persecution issue. And you have these lighter forms of persecution and free speech crackdowns like we're seeing in the UK."

"If you look in Finland, you've got Pavi Razanin, a member of Parliament, a member of Parliament who is up on charges at the Supreme Court of Finland right now over a tweet that she shared a few years ago, a Bible verse against homosexuality. She shared that Bible verse and that literally landed her with charges. She is on her third trial over sharing traditional Christian beliefs. She wasn't malicious. And even if she was, which she wasn't, she just shared the verse. Even if she was, there is free speech to say what you want to say or there should be."

"And so even in countries like Finland, where those rights, religious liberty, and free speech should exist, you're seeing an erosion. And so this is this to me, and this is what's so important for all of us, right? We live in America. Our First Amendment is so important. There's a reason it's the First Amendment. It protects us on speech. It protects us on religious liberty. And we have to be so diligent to protect that."

"The fact that we had a football coach go all the way to the Supreme Court about praying on the 50 yard line, that we've had numerous cases that are very reminiscent and problematic of what we're seeing happen here is proof to us that we need to make sure we are praying for this country and also fighting in the legal system when we need to to protect that First Amendment."

Nair: "Amen to that, Billy. Let's be praying for the UK because there is something really wrong going on over there."