WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU..

I am deeply concerned about what is happening to independent journalists in the UK – with squads of police meeting planes when they arrive in the country and subjecting them to degrading treatment for their opinions. I don’t pretend to understand the implications of the various anti-Terrorist Acts which have been passed in the UK since 2000 by both Labour and Conservative governments – but they are having a chilling effect on the freedom of expression that the Brits used to pride themselves for. Here’s the latest incident

Richard Medhurst was coming home through Heathrow airport, only to be arrested 

and have his equipment confiscated. He was questioned under his alleged support for 

a proscribed terrorist organisation, presumably Hamas, but he was told very little 

about why he was detained! He was kept in uncomfortable conditions for 24 hours 

and not allowed to notify friends or family of his arrest. He is now unsure if police 

are going to allow him to work, meaning he could be left without an income.
The police officers who arrested Medhurst know there is zero chance that he is a 

terrorist. He has made his opposition to violence and terrorism loud and clear, but 

whereas terrorism used to mean you were planning to kill people, it now means you 

have expressed opinions the state has not authorised.

Medhurst described what happened when the plane landed quite brilliantly and passionately 

on X/Twitter. The police and government have surely met their match in him.

Medhurst is unquestionably pro-Palestinian and has posted tweets which could 
be interpreted as supportive of Hamas. For example, he has stated that Hamas 
“has a legal right to resist an invading, occupying force.” These words are perfectly 
true, of course. Any people have a right to resist invading forces, so long as they 
do so within the confines of international law. While you could certainly argue 
that Hamas does not respect international law, neither does Israel, and Israel 
is the invading force, plus it has killed 33 times more civilians than Hamas (and 
that is probably a significant underestimate).
Medhurst has criticised Hamas for violating international law, for example, stating 
it was wrong for a Hamas guard to execute an Israeli hostage. Medhurst’s position 
seems to be that Palestinians have a right to resist invasion and occupation, so 
long as they respect international law, and when they fail to do so, that is wrong.

The prime minister of the UK, on the other hand, has argued Israel has a right 
to invade, occupy and starve Palestine, as long as it does so within the confines 
of international law (which is basically what Medhurst said about Hamas!) The 
problem is Israel cannot do those things within the confines of the law as the 
International Court of Justice has made clear. From a legal perspective Starmer’s 
position is more problematic than Medhurst’s. He is ignoring the ICJ’s ruling 
that arms sales and other support for Israel must stop immediately, yet he 
has not been arrested.
If Medhurst can be arrested for tweets that could be seen as supportive of Hamas, 
why are people not being arrested for supporting the IDF? Why are Zionists 
allowed to express support for clearly genocidal actions? We’ve seen the horrific 
mass rapes at the Sde Teiman concentration camp. If a Twitter user expresses 
their sympathies for the accused IDF soldiers, will they be arrested?

We live in a country where a teenage girl can lose her citizenship for being groomed 
online and flying to Syria to marry an ISIS member when she was a minor, but 
a British citizen can fly to Israel, participate in the destruction of 80% of 
the homes in Gaza, the killing of tens of thousands (perhaps 200,000) civilians,
 and even run a rape centre where prisoners are sodomised with electrified 
metal poles, and then they can return home and get on with their life as 
though nothing happened. 
      If you object to this, there is every chance you will be arrested for a hate 
crime! 
British citizens are allowed to participate in terrorism and genocide for the 
Israeli state, our politicians are allowed to supply the weapons that blow Palestinian 
children to pieces, but if someone criticises the Israeli state, they are the ones 
who are treated as terrorists!
It’s not just Richard Medhurst who has fallen foul of our censorship laws, 
it’s Vanessa Beeley, Craig Murray, Kit Klarenberg, and most noteworthy of 
all Julian Assange. When people are not arrested for wrong think, they are 
sacked, and it’s not just the journalists like Sangita Myska, it’s the academics 
like David Miller and Amira Abdelhamid.
But it’s not just high profile cases of people being silenced, ordinary people are 
being arrested for wrong think at an increasing rate. Yet the government wants 
to introduce more censorship laws that would, among other things, treat misogyny 
like terrorism and crack down on any ideology seen as radicalising young people. 
Given that we’ve heard accusations of TikTok turning young people into Hamas, 
you can see where this is going…...
I don’t think people appreciate the risk independent writers take by standing 
up for what’s right. We can have our livelihood threatened at any moment and 
be taken away from our families. I’m genuinely worried about going through 
an airport in case someone has objected to one of my articles. I’m left 
wondering if my door will be broken down for a tweet, even though I oppose 
violence and terrorism in the strongest possible terms. I’ve already made the 
decision that if the state ever tried to censor me, I would defy them, even if 
that meant going to jail, but it’s crazy I have to think like that in a so-called 
free society. 
The UK is becoming everything it accuses China of being.
 
UPDATE 
He’s still under investigation – “flight risk” intimating  they never close an 
investigation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JV-VdMxODM 

https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1djGXrzPBBvxZ interview with George Galloway
Further Update
Yet another journalist - Sarah Wilkinson - has been arrested by the pro-Genocide regime 
of the UK Government. She was subjected to horrific treatment as indicated in an untervieww she did
which is discussed in this post 
https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/shocking-revelations-about-sarah
Yet another update
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-police-charge-co-founder-palestine-action-under-terrorism-act

FURTHER UPDATE
Police admitted they had taken her passport and have now removed all bail conditions
https://x.com/i/status/1832753916481605780