Europe is often heralded as the birthplace of free speech. The principle of freedom of expression was based on the work of European Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire, John Locke, Montesquieu, and Baruch Spinoza—intellectual trailblazers who dared to challenge monarchs, scrutinise religious institutions, and defy government censorship. It was in the salons of Paris, the coffeehouses of London, and the academic halls of the Netherlands that the seeds of free speech were sown.

Yet the continent that once stood at the vanguard of this freedom now seems intent on curtailing it. Across Europe, speech crackdowns are intensifying under the pretext of combating hate, misinformation, and extremism—and these crackdowns are taking place under the watch of democratic governments. In 2023, Denmark, for example, passed a law criminalising the desecration of holy texts. In the UK, Essex Police visited Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson’s home in November 2024 to question her about a social media post from the previous year, investigating whether it constituted incitement to racial hatred online. Meanwhile, in Sweden, Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika was charged with “agitation against an ethnic group” for his widely publicised Quran burnings—a case that was not dropped until after Momika was shot dead during a TikTok livestream on 29 January 2025.

Nowhere is this shift towards censorship more pronounced than in Germany. The nation that gave the world Immanuel Kant—whose famous phrase sapere aude (“dare to know”) embodies the spirit of Aufklärung—now punishes dissent with draconian measures.