On Friday, an army veteran in England was arrested for “causing anxiety” after posting a meme showing pride flags in the shape of a swastika. According to reports, 51-year-old Darren Brady reposted a meme from Laurence Fox and soon after got a visit from the police.
Here’s the meme in question and shows a lgbtq+ flag being designed into a swastika.
Lawrence Fox streamed a live video of the arrest on his Twitter after Brady contacted him while it was happening. He provided commentary throughout the video.
“So a man is a perfectly peaceful war veteran, is being handcuffed for a Facebook post by [a] politically motivated police force. He’s being handcuffed. He’s not resisted, he’s not done anything. This is a man who served our country and you people are a disgrace. It’s great serving an ideology that you’re doing. This is an ordinary human being,” Fox said in the video.
“I think you’re tyrants. I think you should not be doing this. You’re infringing my human rights and my freedom of speech on Sections 8 and 10, said Brady.
“They don’t care. They just don’t care. They don’t care. They don’t care… This is how it began. This is the Gestapo, the checker, every political ever existed. All they’re doing is proving the point. That’s all they’re doing is they’re proving the point and they’re all going to be famous as a result of it,” Fox continued.
Darren Brady, the veteran, was then seen being led away by police because his post had caused “anxiety.”
“Why am I in cuffs?” Brady asked. “Tell us why you escalated it to this level because I don’t understand,” Brady asked bewilderedly.
“Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. That is why you have been arrested,” the police replied.
The footage went viral on social media and showed a former police officer named Harry Miller after he tried to prevent the man from being arrested.
He was interviewed by Daily Mail after ward and said, “Hampshire Police showed a blatant disregard of the law. They approached Mr Brady and acted as summary judge, jury and executioner – but didn’t know what offence he’d actually committed. They said he was being arrested for causing anxiety, which is utterly ridiculous!”
Laurence Fox put out a message on Twitter shortly afterwards about the incident.
‘Mr Brady is a British Army Veteran and they were trying to extort him for money by making him pay around £80 for educational course so he could downgrade from a crime to a non-crime, which would still show up in a basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. They thought they could get away with it. It was the world’s worst shakedown,” he continued.
It’s videos like this that should make us glad to be American where we have the right to freedom of speech. People in other country’s do not have that right – even in England. Do you think that this man should have been arrested for posting that sort of stuff?
