Tommy Robinson has been released from jail two months after being given a nine-month sentence for contempt of court.
The founder of the English Defence League had a beard and uncut hair as he spoke to supporters and the media outside Belmarsh prison in south-east London on Friday morning.
He denied he had been attacked in prison, and said he was kept in solitary confinement.
Robinson said: "I have walked into Belmarsh prison and walked back out without seeing another prisoner.
"They would have (killed me)."
He said he had been sent 14 sacks of mail from supporters while in prison.
Robinson was locked up in July for live-streaming on Facebook a video which featured defendants in a sexual exploitation trial and put the case at risk of collapse.
Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Warby found him in contempt in three respects.
They concluded that he was in contempt by breaching the reporting restriction imposed on the trial, by live-streaming the video from outside the public entrance to the court, and by "aggressively confronting and filming" some of the defendants.
