Tommy Robinson gave a barnburner of a speech on Monday night in Calgary. As soon as he stepped out of the building, he was arrested by eight police officers, bundled into an SUV and taken to a holding cell.
I’ve never seen eight policemen and three police vehicles arrest someone for an immigration infraction before, have you? For nearly 10 years, all police ever did at Roxham Road was offered to help carry illegal immigrants’ luggage across the border! That’s two-tiered policing and two-tiered immigration policy.
We jumped into action and managed to get him out just after midnight. But the police put conditions on his release: he’s not allowed to leave southern Alberta. Which means the rest of his Canadian speaking tour is in jeopardy.
That’s no accident.
We retained a top immigration lawyer, and Tommy and I tried to negotiate with the police. I offered to personally guarantee Tommy’s good behaviour including providing a financial bond. It really seemed like the police wanted that to happen. But after they called their senior advisers in Ottawa, they rejected it.
It’s pretty clear: stopping Tommy from finishing his speaking tour is their real goal. Well, we have one last chance to fix this. We have hired a team of immigration lawyers who will now make an emergency application to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, the specialized court that handles immigration matters like this.
The lawyers are beavering away on it right now, and we hope to be in front of the court as soon as tomorrow. It’s a long shot; because Tommy is no longer in custody, the court might think it’s not worth an emergency hearing. And they simply might not care about the political nature of his conditions. We’ll see.
But hundreds of people have tickets to see Tommy; and more importantly, the principle of freedom of speech is at stake.
If you want to help us fight back, to remove the restriction in Tommy’s release conditions to allow him to give his speech on Sunday, please click here or visit www.SaveTommy.com.
Our legal team is working around the clock to prepare the case for tomorrow.
It’s not guaranteed that the court will even hear the case. But we’ve got to try. After all, as the Canadian anthem says, we’re the “True North strong and free!” I’ll keep you posted at SaveTommy.com.
