From London to Wexford, the free speech fight spreads across the Anglosphere
In five days, Kirk Loco was tried in Bray, Tommy Robinson in London and Hugh Fagan in Wexford, the last for sitting in a town square with cardboard signs.
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Article by Rebel News staff.
Tonight on The Ezra Levant Show: Rebel News is fighting for freedom of speech across the Anglosphere, and this week that fight ran through three courtrooms in five days.
On Friday, Kirk Loco stood trial in Bray, just outside Dublin, over a true tweet warning his neighbourhood about a man harassing teenage girls on a bus. On Monday, Tommy Robinson was prosecuted in London. On Tuesday, at the new courthouse in Wexford, in the southeast corner of Ireland, the state put Hugh Fagan on trial for sitting in the town square with cardboard signs.
Ezra was in Wexford for the hearing, having left London early to report on Fagan's case and help crowdfund his defence through IrishFreeSpeech.com. Fagan cannot afford a quality legal team.
The cases share a pattern of tone policing and content policing in place of crime policing. In the United Kingdom, The Times of London has reported that an average of 30 people a day are arrested over social media posts.
Fagan's case shows how far that reach now extends. He writes messages in capital letters on cardboard signs roughly 11 by 17 inches, sets out seven of them in the square and sits there, usually with headphones on, letting the signs do the talking.
The signs carry no profanity, no threats and no obscenity. They express strong political opinions, but nothing outside the mainstream. When passers-by approach, Fagan talks with them politely and tries to persuade them. He says most people support him, an impression borne out by watching him for a while in the square. Some people come to pick a fight and holler at him. There are no fisticuffs, and he generally keeps calm.
The Gardaí did not see it that way. Police arrested Fagan and brought charges. When the summons arrived, it did not say which sign was considered offensive or which words were the problem, leaving a defendant to prepare for trial without knowing exactly what he was accused of saying.
The public interest in the case is hard to find. Fagan holds no office and commands no platform. He is not the leader of a political party or the editor of a newspaper with a ready forum at his fingertips. His signs are his way of arguing with the world and wrestling with ideas. He does not knock on anyone's door, and anyone who would rather not engage with him can simply walk past.
Related: Ireland arrested the man who tweeted about the bus groper, then put the teenage witness under fire
Police nonetheless treated Fagan as a greater priority than anything else they could be doing with their time and resources, even as Ireland contends with a crime wave that is visible on the ground. In the Bray case, the migrant confessed to sitting next to the girls, talking to them, with his pants half down. Yet police and the prosecutor referred in court to him as the victim and to "vulnerable people," language that applied to the man on the bus rather than to the teenage girls he harassed. Authorities appear to favour control of the message and a controlled opposition.
Details on Fagan's case and the other prosecutions are available at IrishFreeSpeech.com, where supporters can chip in a few euros, pounds or dollars toward his legal defence.
COMMENTS
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Bruce Atchison commented 2026-10-27 20:59:35 -0400 FlagNo, Raheel, it’s the green red alliance. Islamists will destroy the useful-idiot leftists once they gain power. And Islam is a radical religion and political system. It was a warrior religion from the start. It can’t be reformed. War is imbedded in the Quran and the Hadiths. Islam tolerates no other belief systems. They must be destroyed or subjugated. All notions of accomodation are taqia.
