Lawyers served British activist Tommy Robinson with a contempt of court notice on Twitter after he failed to respond to emails. The Attorney General’s office, on behalf of Solicitor General Sarah Sackman, filed the contempt notice at a UK High Court claiming that Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – breached a prior court order barring him from repeating allegations about a Syrian refugee who successfully sued him for libel after he published a video accusing Jamal Hijazi of assaulting a pupil at a Yorkshire school.
The Solicitor General accuses Robinson of knowingly breaching the order by re-publishing the allegations in a film he produced called “Silenced.” Robinson showed the film at a rally in London’s Trafalgar Square in July and was subsequently arrested at the Channel Tunnel – that links the UK and France – as he attempted to leave the country. Police subsequently released the activist on unconditional bail, and he again departed the UK. A judge has issued an arrest warrant for Robinson but said this will only take effect if the activist indicates that he will not attend an October hearing voluntarily.
Jamal Hijazi sued Robinson for libel after a video showing him pushed to the ground and threatened at school went viral and prompted an outpouring of public sympathy. Tommy Robinson, however, insisted, that Hijazi was the villain in the case and that he “violently attacks English girls” at school.
Robinson rose to prominence in 2009 when he founded the English Defense League, a street protest movement that highlighted and protested against so-called “grooming gangs” in Britain. The notorious gangs, comprised primarily of Muslims, are known to target vulnerable young white girls and force them into prostitution. Many of the girls are in the care of local authorities and come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and government investigations indicate that authorities, including police, took little action to prevent the crimes because revealing the identity of the perpetrators would inflame racial tensions.
In 2014, a government-commissioned investigation found that at least 1,400 girls in just one Yorkshire town had fallen victim to grooming gangs. The investigation’s findings shocked the UK and prompted a flood of protests and a rise in anti-Islam sentiment.
