SILENCING THE JOURNALISTS

I have to return to the monstrous arrest of individuals who are exercising their rights of free speech to write about the genocide which the Israeli army is flaunting every day in Gaza which I wrote about here last month. The British mainstream newspapers are apparently so cowed by the threat of D notices that they lack the guts to offer even a paragraph about the series of incredible incidents which have been happening recently – with squads of police battering on the doors of innocent citizens. I know about this only because of the much-maligned Twitter and the social media generally. Craig Murray – who has immediate experience of such treatment - has an excellent explanatory post about this on the US Consortium News site which I receive on my Email.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer stepped up the pressure on 

opponents of Zionist genocide last Thursday with the arrest of 

journalist Sarah Wilkinson and the charging of activist Richard 

Barnard, both under the draconian Section 12 of the Terrorism 

Act which carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. The UK

MSM has of course ignored these, but is universally carrying 

outrage at the conviction of two Hong Kong journalists for 

sedition, which carries a maximum sentence of … two years.
But they tell us it is China and not the U.K. that is the authoritarian dictatorship. 

(I do view the Hong Kong convictions as also an unwarranted interference 

with free speech. I merely point out the incredible hypocrisy of the British 

Establishment and far worse laws here.)

Richard Barnard has been charged and will face trial, apparently related to public 

speeches supporting the Palestinian right to armed resistance.
Sarah Wilkinson was released on bail after about 14 hours. Like the recent arrest 

and bailing of Richard Medhurst, the arrest and bailing is a device to chill her 

reporting and activism.

The harassment of dissident journalists at ports, using the extensive powers of 

the Terrorism Act for questioning and confiscation of communications equipment, 

has become routine. I myself suffered detention, interrogation and confiscation of 

equipment for “terrorism” last October.
But the Sarah Wilkinson case is an escalation, in that this is a raid on a journalist 

whose home was invaded by 16 policemen at 7.30 a.m., while she was arrested and 

taken to the police station as her home was comprehensively turned over.
More details of the raid have come out which are scarcely believable. 

Armed counter-terrorism police wearing balaclavas were used against a peaceful, 

female journalist. She was manhandled and physically hurt. The ashes in her mother’s 

funerary urn were desecrated in a “search.” And Sarah’s bail conditions include 

that she may not use a computer or mobile telephone.

It is a fascist government that sends 16 police to bust a peaceful journalist at home 

at 7.30am. Like the stopping of Richard Medhurst’s plane on the tarmac by police 

vehicles and his being dragged from the plane (which had just landed and was en route 

to the gate anyway) this is an authoritarian theatre of intimidation, a Nazi stamping 

of the violence of the state.
Richard Barnard is a co-founder of the brilliant Palestine Action, which has done so 

much to disrupt the Israeli arms industry in the U.K. as it continues to send vital 

equipment to carry out the mass destruction of civilians in Gaza. Richard has been 

charged under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act over two speeches he made supporting

 the Palestinian resistance. I have of course said this before, but it bears repeating:

Palestine has the legitimate right of self-defence against the illegal occupation.

The occupying power Israel has no right of self-defence. That is the plain 
 
position in international law.Yet in the U.K., it is legal to offer full-throated support to Israel’s 

genocide and to wish that all Palestinians are exterminated. 

IDF participants in genocide happily move between Israel and the U.K. 

with no legal consequences. Yet it is illegal to support certain Palestinian 

organisations when engaged in legal acts of armed resistance.
The state’s actions against activists have been ramped up — as I predicted 

— since Starmer came to power.

Social Media Coverage

https://x.com/i/status/1830503898051715287 surgeon’s family who went to Gaza harrassed by the police

https://x.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1830729753709408299

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GWhPMsQWgAUAb3e?format=jpg&name=900x900

https://x.com/i/status/1830906047810183592

arrest of sarah wilkinson https://x.com/MaryKostakidis/status/1829121415163064534

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjwycG_9Ujo Crispin Flintoff video

UPDATE

https://x.com/i/status/1831849525331554617 Sarah Wilkinson update

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/september/executive-action government refusal to reconsider ban on freedom of expression