English far-right activist Tommy Robinson was given a 13-month prison sentence on 25 May 2018, following a Facebook Live video he broadcast from outside a trial of several men accused of a range of child sexual abuse offenses.
The sentence prompted a wave of outrage and protests (mostly, but not entirely, among various factions of the far right) and claims that Robinson’s rights to free speech were being violated in the interests of political correctness; Robinson stated in the video that many of the defendants were Muslim.
On 28 May 2018, the “alternative medicine” and conspiracy theory site NaturalNews.com claimed that Robinson had been silenced without due process in order to “protect Muslim pedophiles” because “the UK government is run by criminal pedophiles who rely on Muslim pedo networks to provide a steady supply of nine and ten-year-old little girls and boys.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones described the episode as “historic” and his Infowars web site called the arrest of Robinson “the beginning of the end for free speech in Europe.”
These claims are based on a wild misunderstanding of a very basic principle in the legal system of England and Wales, and of other parts of the U.K. Far from being a “historic” violation of due process, Robinson was jailed because a court judged he had breached the terms of an existing suspended sentence for contempt of court by violating a set of reporting restrictions often placed on the news media and others in the United Kingdom in order to protect the due process rights of defendants and prevent the collapse of trials, something that could jeopardize the conviction of potentially guilty and dangerous individuals.
The “media blackout” on the child sexual abuse trial referred to by NaturalNews.com was not designed to “protect Muslim pedophiles,” but rather to protect the integrity of the child sexual abuse trial itself, prevent a costly re-trial, and avoid witnesses having to go through the trauma of testifying in court again.
Reporting restrictions such as those imposed in the child sexual abuse case in question are temporary, meaning that the news media can reveal previously-censored details after the trial has concluded. So Robinson was not jailed for engaging in journalism, or for merely reporting on alleged criminality. He was jailed for violating a court order, breaching the terms of an existing suspended sentence, and potentially risking the collapse of an ongoing trial.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tommy-robinson-arrest/