Yet another journalist targeted by UK state and arrested without access to lawyer on return to UK
British journalist Richard Medhurst was arrested on the arrival of his flight Heathrow airport under Schedule 12 of the Terrorism Act banning “support of a proscribed organisation” – and was held for almost twenty-four hours without access to lawyers or even being able to let his family know where he was.
Medhurst, who was born in Damascus to British parents – winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their humanitarian work as UN peacekeepers – is a supporter of Palestine who analyses Middle East politics and the genocide in Gaza on his YouTube channel, was not told what comment or comments were supposedly at issue. He was informed of various legal rights yet then denied them, including his right to legal representation, and was forced to surrender his electronics. In a video on his channel, Medhurst said he considered his arrest to be an attempt to intimidate him as a journalist:
Medhurst appears to be the first British journalist arrested under Section 12, but he is not the first to suffer legalised harassment by the state on his return to a UK airport in an evident attempt to silence inconvenient inconvenient journalism. In May, investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg was arrested at Luton airport under Section 3 of the same legislation and held in the same way, including the seizure of electronic devices.
Klarenberg’s work has caused a series of embarrassments for the British security state, exposing communications among intelligence agents and cut-outs, ‘academics’, so-called ‘disinformation experts’ and supposedly ‘left’ journalists – including, most notably, emails in which the now openly pro-war hack Paul Mason outlined and charted which left outlets, including the Grayzone site for which Klarenberg writes, should be discredited and put out of business.
Klarenberg has also exposed UK plans to destroy the Crimea-Russia Kerch Bridge, the CIA’s recruitment of two 9/11 hijackers, abuse of the Official Secrets Act by Tory MPs. Mason’s bizarre non-denial of the emails included attempts to smear Klarenberg as a Putin asset. Social media platforms appear to have collaborated with state attempts to reduce the circulation of revelations about Mason.
Keir Starmer, the unpopular ‘Zionist without qualification’ who is now red-Tory PM, colluded with the Tories on a series of laws designed to move the UK closer to an outright police-state – including helping to defeat a Commons vote to protect journalists from state persecution. Israel has murdered almost 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children. Starmer at one point defended Israel’s right to deprive Palestinians of food, water and fuel, then later denied ever saying it.
Since he deceived his way into the Labour party leadership, Skwawkbox has warned that Starmer would increase repression of protest and dissent if he got into power. He became PM courtesy of the fascist Reform ‘party’, which gifted Labour a large number of seats. Of the ninety-eight seats in which Reform came second in July’s general election, Labour won eighty-nine, a number higher than its eventual parliamentary majority despite receiving far fewer votes than Corbyn’s Labour in 2017 and the supposedly-disastrous 2019 general election.
Skwawkbox condemns state intimidation of journalists and journalism.
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Yes this is very worrying indeed. I too was arrested under the same Clause 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 just before Xmas last year and have been on bail ‘pending investigation’ ever since. I’m told that it will take till December 21 before the CPS can make a decision on whether I am charged, for also supporting a proscribed organisation.
We should be clear this is a new offence, inserted into the Act by Priti Patel in 2021.
The new Section 12(1A) states that:
A person commits an offence if the person
a. expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation &
b. In doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation; •
It criminalises an opinion or belief. It is clearly contrary to Article 10 of the ECHR but I’m sure our Court of Appeal judges will find a way of allowing this police state clause to stand.
So, does an ordinary non-journalist/non-activist citizen who supports the aims of a proscribed organisation contravene section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000?
If so, our legislators are trying to disable freedom of thought, criminalise difference of opinion and debilitate our democracy.
Yes Tony this is very worrying and very dangerous.
This would seem to be the case, qwerboi.
Whilst Reginald D Hunter’s gig in Manchester has apparently been cancelled, it is only the tip of the iceberg:
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/08/22/farage-and-musk-dont-care-about-free-speech-and-israel-really-terrorist-state/
“In the space of just one week there has been a massive, almost Orwellian crackdown on free speech, with a number of arrests made. Not in North Korea or China but in the USA and UK.
Barely days after former UN weapons inspector and social media tsar Scott Ritter had his house raided by FBI officers looking for evidence that he was actually working for America’s enemies we witnessed the arrest and detention of a young British journalist called Richard Medhurst who, when arriving at Heathrow airport from overseas, was escorted off a plane and held on terrorism charges.
And then remarkably, Elon Musk, a billionaire who owns X and claims to be a champion of free speech shuts down the account of Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef – which is followed by rumours on social media that the next polemic commentator to get the chop will be the YouTube talk show hosted by Judge Andrew Napolitano.
What’s going on? What do these individuals all have in common? Clearly their uncompromised stance against Israel is the issue here and we have to assume that either the Zionist State has cracked the whip and wants this baptism of criticism and scorn to stop or the initiative comes exclusively from the deep state itself in the U.S., with London ever grateful to play the role of diminutive pooch in the handbag. But the crackdown is unprecedented and really bears witness to a fear many in the west have had for some time, which is that most of these countries are parodies of democracy.”
And these are only examples of those who have some level of a public profile.
We must all condemn state intimidation of journalists and journalism and support honest reporting of the facts.
Solidarity with all who face intimidation by the repressive State.
FYI – Here is a (partial?) list of proscribed organisations https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations–2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version
Apart from a single white supremacist organisation and a racist neo-Nazi group that was established in 2013, everything else I see is Islamic (I don’t know or accept what ‘Islamist’ is claimed to mean).
It’s true, Moslems are the C21 people who need a ‘Final Solution’, but, we shouldn’t worry, the CIA, MI6 and Mossad have been working on it for years…
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A peruse of the search engine for this story shows zero results from anywhere in the Corporate Media. Nothing on the BBC site. Zilch on Sky News.
To actually be aware of this story – which should really be headlined “Genocide aiding Terrorist State arrests journalist under Terrorist Act” – you actually have to actively go to sites such as Middle Eastern Eye, World Socialist Web Site, Electronic Intifada etc.
The vast majority of the populace are most certainly unaware of this event and if it is ever reported it will most certainly be one-sided propaganda.
Sputnik……
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240820/independent-journalist-arrested-under-terrorism-act-in-uk-1119835150.html
…has this:
“I was placed in solitary confinement, in a cold cell that smelled like urine. There was barely any light and the bed, if you can even call it a bed, was simply a small concrete ledge with a paper-thin mattress. The cell had no windows, no heating, no toilet paper. I was recorded 24/7 with audio and video, even when going to the toilet. I had to eat food with a piece of cardboard you’re supposed to fold in two in order to scoop up the meal,”
Returning to the search engine results for a compare and contrast exercise, there are some interesting and revealing other recent stories……..see below…….
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…..First up is this story from the Telegraph in April this year…..
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/judge-blocks-police-ban-on-hamas-is-terrorist-banner-man/
…..in which “A judge has told the Metropolitan Police it cannot stop an Iranian dissident who displays a sign branding Hamas as terrorists from attending pro-Palestinian protests…”
Contrast this with the story in the link below…….
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…..from a few weeks later in The Morning Star of early May…..
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/biased-met-police-arrest-palestine-protesters-holding-image-clear-blue-sky
….in which pro-Palestinian/anti-Genocide protestors:
“were arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding up a banner with a dove in a “clear, blue sky.”
The four activists were detained outside University College London at around 6.30pm on Saturday after rallying in solidarity with students calling for an end to Israeli-linked investments.
During police interviews, officers said the banner, depicting a dove carrying a key flying through a breach in Israel’s apartheid wall, allegedly supported the proscribed Hamas militant group because it “depicted a clear blue sky with no clouds, and on October 7 there was clear blue sky with no clouds.”
A ludicrous and desperate stretching of definitions on a par with the old Rowen Atkinson Not the Nine O’clock News sketch in which, as police commander, he chastises a zealous Constable for a series of ridiculous charges against someone for not being Caucasian. A case of life imitating art.