Western governments are turning speech into a crime, and the case of an American author living in Berlin shows how far it has gone.

• CJ Hopkins, a playwright and longtime leftist, was prosecuted in Germany over tweets about his book on COVID-era authoritarianism.
• He was acquitted, then prosecuted again on appeal and convicted; last November police raided his apartment and he now faces a fresh indictment for writing and selling the book itself.
• Germany arrests people for insulting politicians, and over the past five years more than 60,000 people in the UK have been arrested over things they said online — more than in Russia, which has more people.
• During COVID, Germany passed emergency laws that let the government rule by decree and split society into the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, who were shut out of shops, restaurants and public buildings.
• The deeper argument: the crackdown is the system's answer to the populist revolt behind Brexit and Trump — a warning that rights can be pulled back whenever people step out of line.

Outlook: The pressure is unlikely to ease, with another trial ahead and speech prosecutions still climbing across Europe.