Does Europe Have a Free Speech Problem?

U.S. Vice President JD Vance sent shockwaves across Europe in February when he used his speech at the Munich Security Conference to say that free speech is "in retreat" across the continent.

The event was expected to focus on the war between Russia and Ukraine and increasing European defense expenditure, according to the BBC.

Instead, the former Ohio senator argued that the biggest threat to Europe "is not Russia, it's not China" but rather its withdrawal "from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States."

His address triggered an immediate rebuke from German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who described his remarks as "not acceptable." It also sparked a wider debate about the state of free speech across Europe. Speaking to Newsweek, a British man arrested for silently praying near an abortion clinic, who was cited in Vance's speech, and a columnist investigated by police over a social media post, backed Vance's remarks.

But one prominent European legal scholar accused Vance of "lies, distortion and misinformation." Vance had argued that the primary threat to the continent comes "from within," citing what he called attacks on free speech and political leaders opening "the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants."

He said that "in Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat," and that "you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail."

Vance referred to EU commissioners threatening to shut down social media to combat "hateful content," German police raiding "citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments" and Sweden convicting "a Christian activist for participating in Quran burnings that resulted in his friend's murder."

He raised the case of Adam Smith-Connor, convicted in the U.K. in October 2024 after refusing requests to move from a "safe zone" around an abortion clinic. It is a criminal offense in the U.K. to hold demonstrations or vigils in the immediate vicinity of such clinics.

Smith-Connor told Newsweek: "I'm overwhelmingly thankful to Vice President Vance for raising my plight in front of world leaders. Nobody should be criminalized for their prayers, their mere thoughts. This case has exposed the U.K. authorities in front of the world as they allow 'thought police' to prosecute peaceful, innocent people for what's going on in their minds."

Christian-based advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom International is supporting Smith-Connor's appeal. Its legal counsel, Jeremiah Igunnubole, called abortion buffer-zone laws "the most extreme example of censorship across the West."

"Nobody can deny that two-tier policing is a problem here; nobody can deny that we are riding roughshod over freedom of speech and of thought. I thank VP Vance for issuing this wake-up call to our government. We must restore basic standards of human rights," he told Newsweek.

Police Visit Over a Tweet

In November 2024, British police told Allison Pearson, who writes for conservative newspaper The Daily Telegraph, that she was being investigated for allegedly breaching hate laws on social media. It involved a post to X, formerly Twitter, shortly after Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Pearson had shared a photo of British police officers posing with two men holding a flag of Pakistani political party Tehreek-e-Insaf, writing: "Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters." After realizing the group was not backing a militant Palestinian group, Pearson had swiftly deleted the post.

In the end, the police did not press charges, but Pearson told Newsweek: "I'm afraid JD Vance is absolutely right about the appalling censorship of so-called 'hate speech' in Europe. As more and more voters turn to parties that oppose open borders and mass immigration which are undermining Western values and endangering citizens, the police now pursue people for thought crimes.

"Two police officers visited my house...over a tweet about biased treatment of Jews which I had deleted a year earlier. I knew I had done nothing wrong, but it was upsetting and sinister to be treated as a criminal. Britain has a proud tradition of free speech—no longer."

Journalist and author Toby Young launched the Free Speech Union in the U.K. in 2019. He told Newsweek that Vance "does have a point," adding: "The default position of Europe's governing elites when faced with criticism is not to engage in open, honest debate about their policy agenda, but to do everything in their power to silence their critics, up to and including imprisoning them. It's the same intolerance of dissent that we saw in the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites."

New Blasphemy Laws?

In January, Iraq-born anti-Islam campaigner Salwan Momika was shot dead in Södertälje, near Stockholm. He came to prominence in 2023 when he burned a Quran in Stockholm, leading to demonstrators storming the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and Iraq expelling the Swedish ambassador.

Momika was on trial for "agitation against an ethnic group." His accomplice, Iraqi refugee Salwan Najem, whom Vance referenced, was convicted of the offense days after Momika's killing. Najem was fined and given a suspended sentence. At the time of going to press, no one had yet been charged over Momika's killing.

Two Quran burnings followed in the U.K. A man pleaded guilty to racially or religiously aggravated harassment in one case, while the presiding judge in the other said the suspect had "intent to cause against religious institution of Islam, harassment, alarm or distress." A spokesperson for the U.K.'s National Secular Society, which promotes separation of church and state, told Newsweek they were concerned "blasphemy laws have been reintroduced by the back door."

They said that if the judge's remarks in the second case were "indeed the charge, it does sound very much like a de facto 'blasphemy' offense."

Experts noted differences in the perception of free speech in the U.S. and Europe. Professor Gráinne de Búrca, an Irish legal expert who teaches at European University Institute, said: "JD Vance's Munich speech turns truth on its head. Instead it wraps lies, distortion and misinformation neatly into a single package. The European approach to free speech treats it not as an absolute right that overrides all other interests, but as a value and a right that is to be balanced against other important democratic rights and values.

"The U.S. purports to adopt a much more absolutist approach to free speech—setting it above all other values—which...allow[s] online platforms to spread lies and misinformation without legal constraints and regardless of whether they cause harm or distort democratic processes and values."

Maurizio Albahari, an associate professor of anthropology at Indiana's University of Notre Dame, echoed this, saying that free speech in Europe "is best understood not as a fundamental moral 'value,' as Vance puts it, but as a fundamental political principle."

"As such, free speech is routinely reconciled with other, equally fundamental political principles—from freedom of expression...for all recognized religious groups...to collective rights, including the protection of the public from false advertising or the incitement to lawless action."

Garret Martin, a European politics expert at the American University in Washington, told Newsweek there are legitimate questions about the European approach, with free speech "more expansive in the U.S." and hate speech "more criminalized in Europe."

"Some of these differences stem, in part, from very distinct historical experiences, such as Germany's.... And you could definitely and legitimately ask whether Europe has found the right balance between promoting freedom of expression and protecting the security of its citizens," he said.

Claims of Hypocrisy

Professor Tara Zahra, an expert in Eastern European history at the University of Chicago, argued that "many politicians claim to be defending 'free speech' while actually supporting policies and governments that repress those rights." She added that freedom of expression is most limited in states like Hungary and Russia and "not our historic allies, such as the United Kingdom or Germany."

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, professor of internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, believes Vance is "ignorant about free speech in general and the fact that not the entire world shares his particular set of values." He added: "Societies always place restrictions on free speech, including in the U.S. In fact, I recall Elon Musk, head of DOGE, suggested...that journalists should receive 'long prison sentences' for reports he disagrees [with]."

Canadian human rights expert Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann went further, saying: "Freedom of speech is never absolute. Even the U.S. restricts it by, for example, libel laws. Safe zones around abortion clinics were established to protect their users. Vance is opposed to abortions, which is why he chose this example."