Journalist Medhurst ordered to surrender to Heathrow police 15 May

State persecution of journalists continues as Syrian-born writer and broadcaster kept in limbo for months under misused Terrorism Act now told to turn himself in

Richard Medhurst, the Syrian-born British journalist and son of Nobel Peace Prize winners who was arrested by police last August as part of the Starmer regime’s misuse of anti-terror laws to target anti-genocide journalists and activists and has been kept in limbo for eight months since as the police state continues to ‘make the process the punishment’, has now been told to surrender himself to Heathrow police on 15 May.

Medhurst commented on the regime’s ‘criminalization of journalism’ that he still does not know whether he will be charged with an offence under the Terrorism Act – carrying a potential fourteen-year sentence, or potentially two years for protecting the confidentiality of his journalistic sources by refusing to disclose his device passwords to police – or whether the investigation will be extended or dropped altogether.

He also expressed his hope that supporters will gather at the police station on the day in question:

Starmer’s war on pro-Palestinian journalism and protest has seen numerous people raided, harassed, threatened and, in some cases, arrested and charged in a campaign of intimidation that has been condemned by both the United Nations and human rights groups. One group of young people is being held in prison for at least fourteen months before trial, as the government seeks to punish and chill resistance even if juries eventually acquit.

Many of those harassed and arrested are Jewish, including Tony Greenstein – whose trial on a charge of supposedly supporting a proscribed Palestinian resistance group was set, last January, for a year away. Jersey-based peace activist Natalie Strecker’s trial on similar charges. She will appear in court for a plea and directions hearing on 12 May for a trial due to start 24 November and last ten days.

UK police and security services are also believed to be behind a raid on Richard Medhurst’s Austrian home by that country’s police, who also detained him and seized his electronics.

Keir Starmer’s ‘lawfare’ war, misusing the Terrorism Act as a weapon against honest reporting and free speech on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has killed more than two hundred thousand people so far and now involves mass bombing and a starvation blockade on around two million surviving Palestinians, has accompanied the UK military’s direct assistance to Israeli forces engaged in the slaughter and siege of innocent civilians.

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