Starmer war on pro-Palestine speech moves to academia with detention of Prof Khoury-Machool

Christian Palestinian Cambridge professor held at airport under S7 Terrorism Act – suspicion of preparing terrorism – and detained up to 8hrs with young son

Keir Starmer’s long and intensifying war on pro-Palestine, anti-genocide speech through the misuse of the Terrorism Act began almost as soon as he got into Downing Street and has continued to escalate as Starmer seeks to protect Israel and hide its crimes by raiding, harassing, intimidating and criminalising those who speak out – including journalists – about Israel’s mass murder and extermination campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than two hundred thousand civilians, maimed far more and is now starving millions through a total blockade of food, water, medicines and fuel.

Now Starmer has extended his war from journalists and protesters to academia, with the detention of British-Palestinian – and Christian – Professor Makram Khoury-Machool. The professor was detained at Heathrow Airport on Good Friday with his 8yo son and was interrogated for at least four hours – some reports say eight – in front of his son, supposedly under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act, which the state uses to seize and force access to electronic devices. Khoury-Machool’s phone, laptop, and identity documents were seized.

Section 7 grants police and immigration officers the power to stop, question, search, and detain individuals entering or leaving the UK at ports, airports, or the border area – and, because they are detained rather than arrested, to refuse access to a lawyer and the right to remain silent and not answer questions. If arrested at a port, it is a criminal offence not to disclose device passwords, allowing the state to grossly invade the privacy of the victim.

S7 does not even require actual suspicion of any involvement in terrorism – it is worded to allow detention if police say they want to find out if the person is or has been involved in the “commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism”. This legislation, which was already being abused by the Tories, is now being wielded by the Starmer regime as an outright weapon against those who dare to dissent or protest – many of them Jewish.

Khoury-Machool, an expert in international relations and political communication, has spoken out against Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and against the Starmer regime’s persecution of UK journalists who report on it:

Starmer’s extension of the persecution to academics mirrors the tactics of the Trump regime in the US, which began pursuing peaceful protesters as soon as Trump took office then moved onto the academic sphere, harrying and deporting academics and demanding that universities change their curriculum and policies to suit Trump’s racist agenda.

Khoury-Machool’s devices were not returned to him and he has been put into legal limbo, told by so-called anti-terror police that they may contact him again or demand he attend for questioning at any time within the next seven days.

Under Keir Starmer, the UK is a police state persecuting peaceful opponents of murder to protect the genocidal, apartheid and white supremacist rogue-terror state of Israel. Solidarity with Professor Khoury-Machool and all those targeted by the unprincipled and lawless.

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