[awakened53]

I probably agree with Richie 95% of the time but on this not so much. I know he can't stand Tommy Robinson and I can't say that I'm a fan either but on this issue I'm with him 100%. Do I think he handled the situation properly? No. Do I think he was stupid? Yes. But no way does what he did deserve a prison sentence. People have received far less for crimes of violence. I've watched some of the coverage about this from a spectrum of people and he was taken straight to court, not allowed his own solicitor, given a 13 month prison sentence and then the judge put reporting restrictions on the case. In my opinion all of that was persecution which is why I signed the petition on his behalf.

The police have ignored and indeed covered up this issue for decades. Have any senior police officers been sent to prison or lost their jobs over this? No. So why should someone be sent to prison for exposing it because that is what it boils down to. Where has been the outcry about this from most of the mainstream media? Nowhere. What have we heard from the MeToo movement? Nothing. Have we heard protests from the sanctimonious "I'm so caring" middle-class uber feminists? No. If the victims had been middle class and the perpetrators anything but Muslim they would have been screaming from the rooftops.

We  cannot have a justice system based on identity politics. The statue of justice on top of the law courts is blindfolded for a reason. All should be treated equally before the law. How perpetrators or victims are treated should not depend on their class, religion ethnicity or anything else but the nature of the crime. Would you want someone to get away with awful crimes because they shared the same religion or nationality as you? No of course you wouldn't and neither would the vast majority of decent progressive Muslims. They aren't the ones doing the covering up, it's the cowardly politicians and members of the establishment and they need to be called out on it.

Totally Agree. This isn't about what anybody thinks of Tommy Robinson, it is about freedom of speech. The recent cases of Count Dunkula, Alison Chabloz and now Tommy Robinson are clear examples of the way the justice system is going in this country.
The Government want to clamp down on anybody speaking out against them and these people are being made examples of to scare others off also.
When you see the pathetically small sentences that some child abusers are receiving it makes a mockery of what they have just done to Tommy Robinson. The fact that they put a media ban on it is even more sinister as they clearly do not want it common knowledge