Free speech threatened as journalists treated like terrorists

The rising use of Britain’s anti-terrorism laws against pro-Palestinian voices should worry us all.

18 September 2024
2XPYJXK Belfast, UK. 08th Aug, 2024. 08/08/2024 Belfast. Richard Medhurst and filmmaker, Sean Murray discuss the trial of, and Release of Julian Assange and the repercussions for independent journalism. There was a Q&A session after the talk. Richard Medhurst is a independent journalist and political commentator born in Damascus, Syria. Credit: Bonzo/Alamy Live News

Richard Medhurst (right) is one of several pro-Palestinian journalists facing terror charges. (Photo: Bonzo / Alamy)

The co-founder of a pro-Palestine campaign group will appear at Westminster magistrates court today charged with terrorist offences.

Richard Barnard of Palestine Action is a leading critic of Israel’s bombing of Gaza, which is now estimated to have killed more than 40,000 people.

He is accused of “expressing an opinion that is supportive of a proscribed organisation contrary to section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000”.

The charge follows an investigation into a demonstration held in Manchester last October after Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel. He is also accused of encouraging or intending to encourage criminal damage. 

Although Palestine Action has repeatedly broken into Israeli weapons factories in the UK, the terrorism charge against Barnard appears to relate exclusively to speeches he has made.

Barnard was charged on the day counter terrorism police, some wearing balaclavas, raided the house of Sarah Wilkinson, a prominent pro-Palestinian journalist, seized her phone, passport, and electronic equipment.

That was on August 29, at 7.30 in the morning. According to her son Jack, the police said she was under arrest for “content that she has posted online.” She described later how they handcuffed her and “literally ransacked the house”.

An urn in her attic was upturned, scattering her mother’s ashes. “My mother’s urn was desecrated”, she told the Crispin Flintoff Show. She was deprived of her medicine and released, hours later, that evening.

Asked why she was arrested, she said: “To silence people reporting on genocide…because I was connected to people in Gaza. To instil fear”. The police asked for phone numbers of her contacts in Gaza, she said.

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‘Thought crimes’

Wilkinson, 61, has been an outspoken critic of Britain’s support for Israel. She regularly broadcast and posted news items and videos on the conflict in Gaza, and writes for MENA Uncensored.

Her bail conditions, since dropped, prevented her from reporting or commenting on the news, but she does not know what further action will be taken against her.

A few days earlier, on August 15, Richard Medhurst, an independent journalist who contributes to the Grayzone website, was arrested at Heathrow airport under the Terrorism Act 2000. He was questioned by police and held for some 15 hours.

The police were confused and appeared not to know what exactly he was arrested for, he said. He was asked about his religious belief, a question he described as weird since they had confiscated his crucifix.

He said he assumed that whoever was responsible for his arrest were upset by his reporting on Palestine.

Although he was released on unconditional bail, he has to go to a police station in three months. They might drop the charges or extend his bail. But he added: “I could be charged at any moment…it is hanging over your head”.

Whenever he opens his mouth, he said, he could be regarded as a terrorist, so he is under pressure to censor himself. The message was: “Just watch yourself; we can come after you with harder stuff”.

Audrey Cherryl Mogan, a barrister who has successfully defended Palestine Action members in court, told Declassified: “There have been several individuals charged with offences under the Terrorism Act, particularly sections 11 and 12, arising out of protests in support of Palestine.

“Many of these individuals have no previous convictions and have not been involved in criminality before. This follows the trajectory of increasingly more serious offences being levied at protestors over the last few years.

“Offences, particularly those alleging that people have encouraged support for proscribed organisations through the expression of opinions, where they have not actually referred to any proscribed organisation, are particularly worrying, as it ventures into the realm of thought crimes.”

Sinister development

Medhurst’s arrest is among a number of disturbing examples of how anti-terrorism laws are being increasingly used, seemingly with the backing of the new Labour government, to intimidate protesters against deadly Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

They are part of a sinister development that has serious implications for civil liberties and freedom of speech, yet it has been ignored by the mainstream media. It is as if you are not a member of the establishment media, you are a problem that “has to be dealt with”, said Medhurst.

He is a member of the National Union of Journalists and accredited to the UN. “The entire British press corps should be screaming”, he told Black Agenda Radio, but judging by the response of the mainstream media, it seemed as if journalists who are arrested are obviously seen to have deserved it.

Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 criminalises anyone who “invites support for a proscribed organisation” or “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive” of such a group. Those arrested under the section say the threshold is so low that individuals could be arrested with no intention of doing anything they are charged with.

In the cases cited here it can be assumed to be supporting Hamas, whose political wing was proscribed by the then home secretary, Priti Patel, in 2021 after years of campaigning by the lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel.

Police have previously made a number of controversial arrests under the Terrorism Act, detaining Palestine Action members in Bristol for a week without charge.

Like Barnard, they have targeted factories in the UK belonging to Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer.

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Growing trend

Such cases seem to have become more common under Keir Starmer, although they are not entirely unprecedented. 

In May 2023, Grayzone journalist Kit Klarenberg was arrested under the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act upon his return from Serbia and subjected to a lengthy interrogation at Luton airport.

A month earlier, 29-year-old Ernest Moret, a French publisher of Éditions la Fabrique, was arrested in London by counter terrorism officers. 

He was detained at St Pancras station in April on his way to the London book fair under schedule 7, a more well known part of the Terrorism Act.

British detectives asked whether he had taken part in anti-government demonstrations in France and if he backed French president, Emmanuel Macron.

Moret’s mobile phone and laptop were also confiscated for several weeks, before being returned to him after police decided to take no further action. 

The police also admitted downloading Moret’s sim card before returning his phone. 

A year later, he was awarded “substantial” damages by the Metropolitan police, as new figures reveal thousands of foreign nationals have been stopped at UK ports under anti-terror laws.

These include David Miranda, the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who wrote a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency. 

Miranda was held for almost nine hours at Heathrow airport in 2013 under schedule 7.

The law applies specifically to airports, ports and border areas, and allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals. 

Miranda was released after all his electronic equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles, were confiscated.

‘Undemocratic’

The response of the Starmer government to protestors suggests that it will uphold the increasingly draconian laws introduced by its predecessor. 

Earlier this year, the civil rights group, Liberty, won its case in the high court against former home secretary Suella Braverman’s anti-protest laws. 

Braverman had lowered the threshold at which police could impose conditions on protest from “serious disruption” to “more than minor” disruption.

That change had been rejected by Parliament. The Conservative government appealed a high court decision shortly before it announced the general election. 

The new home secretary, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, has backed the Conservative’s appeal. Liberty is now challenging her decision.

Akiko Hart, Liberty’s director, said, “This legislation is undemocratic, unconstitutional and unacceptable.” 

Hundreds of people, notably the climate protester, Greta Thunberg, have been arrested or convicted under this law since it was introduced.

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