Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance sent shockwaves across Europe on February 14 when he used his speech at the Munich Security Conference, typically the venue for backslapping among Western allies, to claim that free speech is “in retreat” across the continent.The former Ohio senator argued that the biggest threat to Europe “is not Russia, it’s not China” but rather what he said was its retreat “from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States.”Vance’s address triggered an immediate rebuke from German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who described his remarks as “not acceptable.” However, it has 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 conservative columnist investigated by police over a post on X, formerly Twitter, said they were grateful for Vance’s intervention. But one prominent European legal scholar said the vice president “wraps lies, distortion and misinformation neatly into a single package.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at the 61st Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2025, in Munich, Germany.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at the 61st Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2025, in Munich, Germany.
Sean Gallup/GETTY
Vance’s AddressAccording to the BBC the 2025 Munich Security Conference was primarily expected to focus on the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and increasing European defense expenditure, yet Vance “used his time at the podium to talk about neither.”Instead, he delivered a blistering rebuke of the European political class, arguing that the primary threat to the continent comes “from within,” citing what he claimed were attacks on free speech and political leaders opening “the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.”In some of his most provocative comments, Vance said that “in Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat” adding “you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail.”He cited what he claimed were EU commissioners threatening to shut down social media to combat “hateful content,” German police raiding “citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online” and “Sweden, where, two weeks ago, the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Quran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder.”Turning to the U.K., Vance raised the case of Adam Smith-Connor, a former soldier who in October 2024 was convicted after praying silently within the “safe zone” around an abortion clinic and refusing requests to move on. Smith-Connor, who told the court he was praying for his unborn son who was aborted 22 years ago, was given a conditional discharge and instructed to pay £9,000 ($11,404) in costs.U.K. legislation, introduced in October 2022, made it a criminal offense to hold demonstrations or vigils in the immediate vicinity of abortion clinics.Speaking to Newsweek, Smith-Connor thanked Vance, saying: “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.”Smith-Connor said he is appealing the verdict with support from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, a Christian-based advocacy group.ADF International legal counsel Jeremiah Igunnubole told Newsweek that the abortion buffer zone laws are “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.”Police Visit Over A TweetOn November 11, 2024, Allison Pearson, a British conservative columnist who writes for The Daily Telegraph, was shocked to find two police officers at her door who said she was being investigated for allegedly breaching hate legislation on social media. Pearson was not told which post she was being investigated for, nor who had made the complaint, and was asked to attend a voluntary interview.It turned out the post in question was nearly a year old and had been made shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel of October 7, 2023. Pearson had tweeted, then swiftly deleted, a photo of several British police officers posing with two men holding a flag of Pakistani political party Tehreek-e-Insaf, which was founded by Imran Khan, a now-imprisoned former president.She wrote: “How dare they. Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”After realizing the group was not backing a radical Palestinian group, Pearson took down the post and thought little of it until the police came knocking on her door. In the end, police decided not to press charges, but Pearson wrote that the experience left her feeling “bruised and vulnerable” while billionaire Elon Musk branded the U.K. “a tyrannical police state.”In an interview with Newsweek, Pearson praised the vice president’s intervention, saying: “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 on Remembrance Sunday 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.”In 2019, the Free Speech Union was launched in the U.K. by journalist and author Toby Young, who in an interview with The Daily Express, claimed freedom of speech had been “under attack for some years now.”Speaking to Newsweek, Young welcomed Vance’s intervention, saying: “The vice president certainly does have a point. 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.”If the Trump-Vance administration is going to make standing up for free speech a condition of defending Western Europe from its enemies, I welcome that. The New World saved the Old World many times in the previous century and it looks as if it will have to do so again.”New Blasphemy Laws?On January 29, Salwan Momika, an anti-Islam campaigner known for burning the Quran, was shot dead during a TikTok live stream in Sodertalje, near Stockholm. Momika was born in Iraq to a Christian family but later became an atheist, according to The New York Times.Momika came to prominent in 2023 when he burned a Quran in Stockholm, sparking a furious response in the Islamic world with demonstrators storming the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad and Iraq expelling the Swedish ambassador.In response, Momika was charged with “agitation against an ethnic group” and his accomplice, another Iraqi refugee whom Vance referenced in his speech, was convicted of the offense just days after the killing.In the following weeks, two Quran burnings took place in the U.K., one in Manchester and the other outside the Turkish Embassy in London after which the perpetrator was assaulted by a man with a knife.The man who carried out the Manchester burning later pleaded guilty to racially or religiously aggravated harassment. The London suspect was charged with the same, with the presiding judge claiming he had “intent to cause against religious institution of Islam, harassment, alarm or distress.”A spokesperson for the National Secular Society, a U.K. group that campaigns on behalf of non-religious Britons, told Newsweek they were concerned that “blasphemy laws have been reintroduced by the back door.”We are especially concerned that the charge brought against the second was ‘intent to cause against religious institution of Islam, harassment, alarm or distress.’ If this is indeed the charge, it does sound very much like a de facto ‘blasphemy’ offense.”Europe vs. U.S.A number of legal scholars and human rights experts told Newsweek that there is a fundamental difference in how free speech is conceived in the U.S. and Europe, which tries to balance it with other rights and obligations.Professor Gráinne de Búrca, an Irish legal expert who teaches at the European Union 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 leads the U.S. to allow 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 the University of Notre Dame, made a similar point: “In European democracies, freedom of speech 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, including prayer, for all recognized religious groups, irrespective of their numerical weight, to the protection of legally sanctioned individual and collective rights, including the protection of the public from false advertising or the incitement to lawless action.”Addressing Newsweek, Garret Martin, a European politics expert who lectures at the American University in Washington, said there are legitimate questions about Europe’s attitude toward free speech.He said: “Certainly, there are differences when it comes to free speech between Europe and the United States, with it being more expansive in the U.S. and with hate speech being more criminalized in Europe.”Some of these differences stem, in part, from very distinct historical experiences, such as Germany’s approach to free speech. 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.”Charges Of HypocrisySeveral experts Newsweek spoke with argued that Vance is guilty of hypocrisy, either because he understated restrictions of free speech in the U.S. or because he ignored the MAGA movement’s friendly relationship with certain authoritarian states.Professor Tara Zahra, an expert in Eastern European history at the University of Chicago, said: “I would say that recently, many politicians claim to be defending ‘free speech’ while actually supporting policies and governments that repress those rights. The states in which freedom of expression is currently most limited in Europe are places like Orban’s Hungary and Putin’s Russia—not our historic allies, such as the United Kingdom or Germany.”Oxford University professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, who teaches internet governance and regulation, agreed. Speaking to Newsweek, he said: “I don’t think JD Vance has a point. In fact, I think he is just ignorant [deliberately or not] about free speech in general, and the fact that not the entire world shares his particular set of values.”Societies always place restrictions on free speech, including in the U.S. In fact, I recall Elon Musk, head of DOGE, suggested just days ago that journalists should receive ‘long prison sentences’ for reports he disagrees [with]. Lecturing other nations on freedom while advocating restrictions at home is, well, duplicitous.”Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, a Canadian human rights expert who used to lecture at Wilfried Laurier University, was particularly outspoken, 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. Vance’s views bring to mind the Nazis’ policies on the role of [Aryan] women: Kinder, Kuche, Kirche [children, church, kitchen].”
