On June 5 in Brussels, a duo were arrested for disturbing the peace. The pair, a man and a woman, were not assaulting anyone, nor were they threatening anyone. If anything, they were threatened, having been surrounded by an angry mob. What had they done to upset everyone?

It turns out they were holding signs. One declared that children could not consent to puberty blockers. The other said that no one was born in the wrong body. For this, the police – whom the pair themselves had called, feeling threatened by an angry leftist mob which had gathered – detained them, strip-searched them, and took their signs to be destroyed.

This may seem like an overzealous case of a single group of police officers (not that that would be excusable in the first place). But it’s not: It is a consistent pattern of European states, on a national and supranational level, to destroy any pretence to free speech.