(The Lion) In another salvo against European authoritarian censorship, U.S. Vice President JD Vance called out new U.K. speech restrictions on pro-life prayers.
Vance’s remarks were made at the Munich Security Conference, a meeting he attended last year as a senator from Ohio.
In this year’s speech as vice president, Vance highlighted concerns about religious freedom in the U.K., focusing on the case of Adam Smith-Connor who was arrested under laws that prohibit even silent prayer within 200 meters (656 feet) of abortion clinics.
“A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes,” said Vance.
Under U.K. law, prayer within the so-called “safe zones” that might harass, “alarm or distress” is outlawed, according to the Associated Press (AP).
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The problem is determining what counts as “distress.”
“What one person’s idea of silent prayer is, can look very different to the person on the other side who is accessing” abortion, said Alice Murray, a co-founder of a pro-abortion campaign group, about having to walk past protesters engaging in silent prayer.
Murray, who admitted that no one approached her as she walked, called the experience of witnessing silent, pro-life prayer as “horrible and emotionally draining,” as she testified in favor of the law.
To reinforce his concern, Vance called out a letter sent by the Scottish government to residents whose homes are located within the “safe zones.”
“[T]he Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law,” said Vance. “Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime.”
Vance added, “In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”
The Scottish government denied that any such letter existed.
“The Vice President’s claim is incorrect,” a government spokesperson told Yahoo News. “Private prayer at home is not prohibited within Safe Access Zones and no letter has ever suggested it was.”
But a copy of the letter, shared by Alliance Defending Freedom U.K., shows that Vance’s claim is substantially correct.
The letter stated that anything that causes “harassment, alarm or distress” inside the safe zone “will be an offence” if done “intentionally or recklessly,” even in private homes.
Tweet This: The Scottish government sent letters to citizens with homes in "safe access zones" warning that private prayer could be breaking the law.
“In general, the offences apply in public places within the Safe Access Zones,” the letter continued. “However, activities in a private place (such as a house) within the area between the protected premises and the boundary of a Zone could be an offence if they can be seen or heard within the Zone and done intentionally or recklessly.”
The letter ended with a link to a form where people can report suspected violations of the U.K. free speech restrictions.
The AP called silent prayer a “gray area” when reporting on the new law.
The wire service said that the Crown Prosecution Service told them silent prayer near an abortion clinic “will not necessarily commit a criminal offense,” and police said they will assess each case individually.
That’s unlikely to satisfy proponents of free speech and religious liberty.
The U.K.’s left-wing Guardian newspaper issued a fact check of Vance’s comments that simply repeated the Scottish government’s denial without publishing a copy of the letter sent by the government to residents, a letter which has been available since October.
As European leaders sat stunned by his candor, Vance also included a litany of other European retreats from what he called “our shared values,” invoking the former Soviet Union’s actions against “dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections.”
“Were they the good guys?” Vance asked rhetorically about the Soviet Union censors. “Certainly not.”
He then criticized Europe for canceling Romania’s recent elections over concerns of Russian interference, censoring social media in Brussels, convicting a Swedish activist for burning a Quran in protest, and failing to prevent an Islamic terror attack during the Munich conference.
In that attack, a 24-year-old asylum-seeker from Afghanistan rammed dozens of pedestrians, injuring at least 36 people, according to multiple media accounts.
“It’s a terrible story, but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe, and unfortunately too many times in the United States as well,” said Vance. “An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-twenties, already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community.”
Vance warned that suppressing dissenting views in Europe could threaten democracy.
“To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice,” he said.
Editor's note: This article was published by The Lion and is reprinted with permission.
