I live in the UK. This has not happened here

"UK police made over 12,000 arrests under laws criminalizing communications causing 'annoyance or anxiety,' with arrests rising 58% since 2019" [1]. Only 10% lead to a conviction. What then, is it, other than a government issuing arrests for speech?

[1]: https://evrimagaci.org/gpt/london-braces-for-free-speech-sho...

The vast bulk of those cases are about online harassment, usually against former spouses, public servants, etc. If you are aware of a case where an individual was arrested for just expressing their opinion you are welcome to provide the evidence. Until then this is just FUD. Censorship is bad, protecting the rest of the citizens from harassment is the kind of thing that is actually useful.

What were they arrested for saying?

Are you expecting me to comb through thousands of cases? Obviously they were arrested for saying legal things, if their arrest doesn't follow a conviction in 90% of cases.

If you're going to claim that people get arrested in the UK for criticising the government, it's reasonable to expect you have an example to hand.

I expect that when you say someone was arrested for speech and it's government overreach (as opposed to a legitimate arrest), you should show us the speech they were arrested for, to back up your claim that it's overreach.

Who is locked up for criticizing the government in Germany? You can be fined for insulting a government official, and I think it's a bad law and should be retracted, but a) insulting is not the same as criticizing and b) I've never heard of a single person locked up because of it - you'd basically need to deliberately refuse paying the fine for that

Yanis Varoufakis, I think? Except he was banned from Germany, not locked up. If he tries to enter, then he might be locked up. They used the intermediate step of calling him a terrorist.

188 Criminal Code Insult, defamation and slander directed against persons in political life[1]:

(1) If an insult (§ 185) is committed against a person involved in the political life of the people, either publicly, at a meeting or by disseminating content (§ 11 (3)), for reasons related to the position of the offended person in public life, and if the act is likely to significantly impede their public activities, the penalty shall be imprisonment for up to three years or a fine. The political life of the people extends to the local level.

(2) Under the same conditions, defamation (§ 186) shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to five years, and slander (§ 187) with imprisonment from six months to five years.

This law is commonly criticized by free speech activists in Germany, as well as liberal parties like Die Linke and FDP. It was updated to be even harsher by our last government. David Bendels received a sentence of 7 months for posting an edited insulting picture of Nancy Faeser, Germany's last minister for interior affairs. The case sparked an international outcry and got a lot of press coverage [2]. Note that ironically the doctored image showed Faeser holding a sign with the message "I hate freedom of speech".

[1]: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__188.html [2]: https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/germany-insult...