The UK attempt to criminalise dissent on Palestine

• The British state clearly wants to find a way to scare British citizens away from supporting the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation by all available means, including by armed struggle. This is their right under international law.

  

• It is notable that, with the exception of Sarah Wilkinson, there is at least one connection between all the recent arrestees among journalists: They had all been guests on Palestine Declassified. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

• David Miller

• Source: Al Mayadeen English

• 22 Sep 2024 13:55

The use by the British government of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act has been seen as a new escalation by the state against journalists. Under Section 12, a person commits an offence if they "invite" support for a "proscribed" organisation or "expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive" of such an organisation.

The arrests, in quick succession, of former British ambassador Craig Murray, Richard Medhurst and Sarah Wilkinson - all journalists - has sent shock waves through the movement. These came after two other celebrated cases when first Vanessa Beeley and then Kit Klarenberg were stopped by counter terror police while travelling.

But inquiries in relation to Schedule 12 were a new departure in relation to journalists.

Attacking journalists

Craig Murray was arrested under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act on 16 October 2023. Though no mention was made of Section 12, he was certainly interrogated about his views on Palestine and relevant associations with others. He was released after an hour.

Richard Medhurst was met at the door of the plane as it landed and removed from the flight by six armed police. He was held for almost 24 hours, in kafkaesque conditions, insulted and humiliated. He was not even told what he had allegedly said or written that might be an offence. This left him unsure about what exactly he might be charged with, an obvious intimidation tactic.

Sarah Wilkinson’s case was perhaps the worst of all ,including the smashing of her Mother's urn and scattering of the ashes inside, abusive use of too tight handcuffs, theft of her property and passport, and obvious attempts to intimidate and scare her. Perhaps the most outrageous acts were the conscious smashing of anything involving Christian symbolism and the racist interrogation questions she endured. Listen to her account:

"the Symbolism of the desecration, the fact that they seemed to attack everything that was I guess - I mean I'm not Christian myself - but you know I have Christmas decorations so everything they attacked seemed to be to do with anything, you know, like anything with the cross on it or the Christmas decorations, those are the things that actually took the worst battering."

News of the decision of the state to prosecute Richard Barnard was also released within hours of news of Wilkinson’s case. He had been arrested back in November in relation to the alleged offences. Now he was to be charged. This reveals much about the activities of the counter terrorism apparatus which appears to have tried to entrap him.

BBC Verify

The plot involved BBC Verify, a new BBC brand intended to do open source investigations and fact checking. It quickly became apparent that it had dubious links when the name of its star reporter Marianna Spring appeared in leaked emails between journalist and MI6 agent Paul Mason, and various interlocutors, including another MI6 agent and indeed Mason’s MI6 handler Andy Pryce.

Also mentioned in that correspondence was British intelligence cut-out Bellingcat. Bellingcat is in addition funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA’s pass through organisation, as Mintpress has shown. BBC Verify would later partner with Bellingcat on alleged misinformation on Gaza, indicating a possible deep immersion in intelligence related operations. BBC Verify took recordings of two speeches made by Richard Barnard immediately after the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October to the British government’s so called independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Richard Hall KC.

In Manchester on 8 October, Mr. Barnard reportedly said, "When we hear the resistance, the Al-Aqsa flood, we must turn that flood into a tsunami of the whole world."

Hall performs his job for the government from a room inside the premises of the Homeland Security Group of the Home Office. This is an official British intelligence agency. In the event, Hall gave just the response the BBC stenographers were looking for, "If you take what happened in the Be'eri kibbutz, where babies were massacred, that is unambiguously an act of terrorism," he said. "People need to know, if you glorify that, you risk committing a really serious terrorism offence."

The BBC stated that "the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ is the Hamas name for its attack on Israel." Of course this little bit of propaganda helped the narrative along a little. Al-Aqsa Flood was not just the "Hamas" term for the battle. It was also used by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Abou Ali Mustafa Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (and three other armed groups), who are formally affiliated with Fatah, Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, and the Palestinian National Resistance Brigades, the military wing of the Democratic Front For the Liberation of Palestine. Of these six armed groups, only Hamas and the PIJ are proscribed in the UK. So making a positive reference to Al-Aqsa Flood, is hardly a clear endorsement of Hamas.

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The BBC went on, "Mr Hall, who was appointed to his role in 2019, said: ‘When I hear people referring by name to a Hamas terrorist operation, which we know involved acts of terrorism, and invite people to do something similar, then I know that you're in the territory of encouraging terrorism.’" But of course Barnard did not refer by name to Hamas.

Hall said Britain's terrorism laws were not designed "to stop people making political speeches... but what they are designed to do is to stop mass murder, massacres, terrorist tactics." But of course no such tactics were being advocated by Barnard.

As Richard Barnard stated to the BBC’s provocateurs when asked if he regretted his language, his use of the term "Flood" was "just a metaphor" and he was calling for direct action against arms firms supplying "Israel". "What I regret" he went on " is the constant bombardment of Gaza that is going on now. It's constant. That's what upsets me. That's what keeps me up at night. But those weapons are made round the corner from us."

'Supporting terrorism'?

But of course, supporting "terrorism" in the abstract is not illegal under Section 12. It is support for specific proscribed organisations. In the case of Palestine and Lebanon, only four of the myriad of armed resistance factions (noted above) are proscribed.

• Hamas (proscription extended to the entirety of the movement, including non military personnel, in 2021);

• Palestinian Islamic Jihad, proscribed in March 2001.

• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. (Note this is a separate groups from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which is not proscribed.); and

• Hezbollah (in Lebanon). The Home Office states, "The UK government proscribed Hizballah’s External Security Organisation in 2001. In 2008, the proscription was extended to include the whole of Hizballah’s military apparatus, namely the Jihad Council and all the units reporting to it. The group in its entirety is assessed to be concerned in terrorism." (as of March 2019)

The fact that the Independent reviewer of terrorism, a leading KC, appears not to have a basic grip on the law and that he appears to have been persuaded into retailing false Israeli propaganda ought to be a sacking offence.

The British state clearly wants to find a way to scare British citizens away from supporting the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation by all available means, including by armed struggle. This is their right under international law. The UN General Assembly has affirmed and re-affirmed "the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle".

The Palestine Declassified connection

It is notable that, with the exception of Sarah Wilkinson, there is at least one connection between all the recent arrestees among journalists from Kit Klarenberg and Vanessa Beeley to Craig Murray, Richard Medhurst, and Palestine Action’s Richard Barnard.

They have all been guests on Palestine Declassified.

So, it was no surprise to learn that our Palestinian reporter, Latifa Abouchakra, had been referred to the UK counter terror programme Prevent. Her "publically available speeches" caused the police to believe she was "vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism".

I understand the relevant speech was on Imam Hussein in the context of the current genocide. Only a believer in the British government’s racist Prevent policy could possibly have interpreted the speech in that way, perhaps focusing on Latifa’s perfectly legitimate use of the word "radicalised":

"I find myself radicalised from constantly having to defend my existence… debating … why I am unable to even raise the flag of my country."

Criminalising dissent by abusing the law

The attack on Ms. Abouchakra is, of course, part of a much wider assault on ordinary protestors. Three young women were found guilty under the Terrorism Act for displaying a paraglider patch. A young man was found guilty of wearing a "Hamas headband" even though it merely had the Shahada on it - the Muslim proclamation of faith - not a Hamas headband at all.

• The Shahada on a green headband as worn by the young man found guilty of wearing what the Crown Prosecution wrongly said was a "Hamas headband".

• The spokesperson for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, wearing the correct headband of the military wing of Hamas.

The defendants were young, between 25 to 30. But recent official statistics show that police are increasingly targeting children for terrorism offences, 31 of 170 arrests were 17 and under in 2023. This is manifestly evidence of abuse. As government reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall admits: "for years the child category was always the smallest."

Fabricating religiously aggravated crime

But these arrests are the tip of the iceberg. Statistics produced by the police show Antisemitic hate crimes in London were "up 1,350%", between 1 October to 18 October.

The police adopted the infamous Zionist IHRA working definition of antisemitism in 2016, in which most of the examples of so-called "antisemitism" relate to Palestine. So inevitably, almost all of these offences will be fraudulently counted. The figures therefore confirm a massively expanded war by the British state on supporters of Palestine under the guise of countering alleged "antisemitism".

Sarah Wilkinson pondered whether her police tormentors in balaclavas betrayed a Mossad modus operandi. Whatever that means in her case, it is apparent that the British counter-terrorism police are now acting more or less directly in the Zionist interest.

The British Parliament has recently passed legislation to tackle foreign "interference". As the government puts it "these ‘interference’ activities are typically not conducted transparently and are outside the norms of diplomacy. Some states use covert and malign political interference activities to undermine our interests, such as using disinformation to manipulate our political debate or weaken the integrity of our democratic institutions."

Perhaps it is time that those who have interfered in the activities of the British police were investigated under the new National Security legislation for aiding a foreign power?