Olympic silver medallist Sharron Davies spoke out about the threat to free speech warning restricting free speech is a threat to democracy.
Speaking on X, Davies explained how people have lost their faith in “independent” mainstream media who seem to “have their own agendas”.
She continued: “Free Speech, debate, agreeing to disagree without violence is what keeps democracies safe. And democracy is the best of the worst solutions out there. It stops censorship & holds tyrannical governments to task.
“People have become intimidated to speak unless it’s in a virtue signally way.”
Morning all. I have voted different ways during my life. I have not voted Reform & I’m absolutely no TR fan. My point is only one of Free Speech which IS under attack every where we look right now. People have lost faith in “independent” main stream media, who all seem to have…
— Sharron Davies MBE (@sharrond62) October 28, 2024
The author of Unfair Play said that whatever way your politics lean it is important that we have the right to “peaceful demonstration” where laws apply to everyone “equally”.
“This is not happening presently in the UK,” she added.
Davies pointed to the example of the Rotherham child grooming cases where vulnerable girls were “abandoned for years” because of the “fear of institutions being called names.”
In August 2014, a report by former social worker Alexis Jay revealed an estimated 1,400 children had been sexually abused in Rotherham from 1997 to 2013, predominately by Pakistani-British men.
The report also said that council staff and others knew of the abuse and ignored it refusing to identifyperpetrators for fear of being branded racist.
Davies added: “People start to feel betrayed and society fractures if feelings are a huge stick to beat others with, because how do we measure feelings fairly or equally when some “feel offended” so much more than others?
“What ever we are doing right now is NOT working, it is not bringing society together. More of the same will only make it worse. We’re being pushed further to the polar extremes.”
Questions about the limits of free speech were also questioned recently after a women was jailed for 15 months for posting hateful comments online.
In August, a 53-year-old woman was jailed for 15 months after posting on Facebook that a mosque should be blown up “with the adults inside.”
Another 45-year-old man was sentenced to 20 months for encouraging his followers to torch a hotel that was housing asylum seekers.
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Amongst those criticising the move was the billionaire owner of X, Elon Musk, who claimed the UK was “turning into a police state”.
It came as the Government announced an emergency plan to tackle overcrowding in jails by releasing about 1,700 prisoners in September.
Eligible prisoners serving more than five years can now be automatically released after only serving 40 per cent of their fixed-term sentence, rather than the usual 50 per cent.
Davis concluded: “Free speech has to be protected. And I will continue to speak up for it. Cancel culture is a plague, being weaponised by those that can’t stand up to scrutiny.”