UFC middleweight contender Sean Strickland — who will be fighting for the championship belt this weekend in Sydney, Australia — called out the Australian government for a COVID-era arrest of a pregnant woman over a Facebook post during a press conference on Thursday.
“It must be talked about. You guys did throw a pregnant woman in jail over a Facebook post during COVID that must be talked about,” Strickland told reporters unprompted. Shame on you guys. How do you feel about that? Yeah, how do you feel about that?”
An Australian journalist who was asking a question was taken back by Strickland’s answer and appeared not to know what he was talking about. “Which woman was this?” asked the reporter. “You had it was all the news, man,” the American title challenger replied. “How do you not know that a pregnant woman has been charged with incitement after police raided her battle at home.”
The UFC contender was referencing the September 2020 arrest of Zoe Buhler, a pregnant woman who was handcuffed and led away from her own home after sharing a Facebook post in support of protests against the nation’s strict COVID-19 policies.
“Here’s the thing Australia, I would like you guys so much better if you had a freedom of speech, so if you get uh – if you could go ahead and make freedom of speech, like the greatest country in the world, we would get along better,” Strickland went on to say. “I mean how is that not standard with you guys? How do you not have a freedom of speech? You have a government could say if you say something we don’t like we will throw you in prison; like how the f**k do you rationalize that?”
“So again, I love Australia and I love the Australian people, but you guys have done some fu**ery, and so has America. But I think the moment Australia gets a freedom of speech, I’ll like it more,” Strickland, who has long been known as one of the UFC’s most eccentric personalities, continued. “But I think the moment Australia gets a freedom of speech, I’ll like it more.”
Both the national and local levels of the Australian government faced criticism during the COVID-19 pandemic due to draconian “zero COVID” policies that led to curfews, arrests of citizens for lack of social distancing or masking, and even “quarantine camps” for travelers and those potentially exposed to the virus.
The government also went on to implement strict vaccine policies that were tied to employment in many localities.
In Victoria, which is Australia’s second-most populous state, Premier Dan Andrews told workers that they “won’t work” if they refuse to get vaccinated. “Every single authorized worker, whether they be in Melbourne or in regional Victoria, will need to have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. That is, if they want to continue working,” Andrews said in October 2021. A reporter then asked the premier what would happen if workers opt not to get vaccinated, to which Andrews replied, “Well then they won’t be going to work. It’s very, very simple.”