It Is Officially Illegal To Criticize Israel In The UK

Section 12 of the UK terrorism act is being weaponized to crack down on anti-Zionist journalists.

It’s Official: Being an anti-zionist journalist in the UK is now illegal. The UK government, for the fourth time, has used section 12 of the “terrorism act” to crack down on a journalist criticizing Israel. For context, section 12 of the UK Terrorism act-which was passed in 2006- makes it a criminal offense to “express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed (terrorist) organization”.

For a while, the UK government used the act to crack down on journalists who did reporting that was inconvenient for the official establishment narrative in London. The slippery slope to full authoritarianism began with Britain regularly detaining journalists who reported in a way that was critical of British/Western foreign policy. Some notable examples are:

• In 2013 they used section 12 to detain the late Brazilian politician David Miranda for his work on the Snowden leaks.

• In 2021 they used section 12 to detain Vanessa Beeley - a British journalist who reports on the ground in Syria- for six hours at Heathrow airport.

• Last year Belgrade-based journalist Kit Klarenberg-who reports for the Grayzone, often using leaked documents exposing the UK security state- was detained at the Luton airport when he returned to Britain.

• Former UK ambassador Craig Murray-who is a vocal supporter of both Palestine and Wikileaks- was detained and investigated for terrorism charges under section 12 last year.

As disturbing and authoritarian as these instances were, they were only a small taste of what was yet to come. Since Israel began their genocide in Gaza backed by the UK ,they have used section 12 of the terrorism act to- not just detain- but arrest and charge any journalist critical of Israel.

Because groups such as Hizballah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas are officially proscribed as “terrorist organizations” by the UK government for things like “aiming to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine” and being “committed to armed resistance to the state of Israel”, they are likely labeling journalists who oppose the Israeli genocide in Gaza and current invasion of Lebanon as supporters of these groups and charging them as supporters of “Prosribed Organizations” for daring to oppose Israel’s barbarism in these countries.

The act was first used on independent journalist Richard Medhurst who was detained and charged at London’s Heathrow Airport for “expressing support for a proscribed terrorist organization”. Medhurst has been unable to discuss the details of his charges as it is an ongoing case, but he has made it clear that it was over his opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and support for Palestine. When journalist Max Blumenthal asked Medhurst about the details of his charges, he said “anything you say that makes Israel look bad they can just interpret that as you trying to make Hamas look good.” Medhurst was clearly signaling that they used his reporting about the genocide in Gaza to paint him as a supporter of a “proscribed organizations” in the Middle East and charge him on that basis.

The British crackdown on anti-genocide journalists did not stop at Medhurst. After his arrest and charges, the UK government again used “section 12” of the terrorism act to charge Pro-Palestinian journalists. Soon after Medhurst's arrest, they charged activist Richard Barnard from the “Palestine Action” group for “expressing an opinion that is supportive of a proscribed organization”. The UK feds also raided the house of pro-Palestine journalist Sarah Wilkinson and took her phone, passport, and electronics, and arrested her for “content that she has posted online.” As the independent investigative outlet Declassified UK said, “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”.

Today. a fourth journalist has been raided by the British feds for opposing the genocide in Gaza, Asa Winstanley, a reporter for the Electronic Intifada. According to the site’s editor, Ali Abunimah, Winstanley's home was raided by the “Counter Terrorism Command” of the Metropolitan Police Service” who “seized several electronic devices” from him and he is now being investigated under section 12 for “social media posts” which they claim may be an “encouragement of terrorism”.

Winstanley is another reporter who has focused his reporting on Israel's crimes in Gaza and Lebanon and debunked the propaganda used to sell them. On the anniversary of the October 7th attacks, he published an article debunking the atrocity propaganda used by the UK and other Western governments to justify continuing the Gaza genocide. This is likely what triggered the UK government to weaponize the terrorism act against him.

Human Rights Watch has said that section 12 of the UK terrorist act makes “the definition of the encouragement of terrorism offense overly broad, raising serious concerns about undue infringement on free speech.” But this was clearly the intention of the section, the UK government is using it to implement fascist narrative control.

Backing Israel's genocide in Gaza has been one of the hardest things for the Western foreign policy establishment to sell to the public.

As Euro-Med Monitor discovered nine out of every 10 people killed by Israel in Gaza is a civilian. When projected indirect deaths are included, Israel’s genocide has killed over 100,000 people and the Israeli government has made blatantly genocidal statements towards Palestinians. Even mainstream podcast hosts in Israel say openly genocidal statements such as when the hosts of the “Two Nice Jewish Boys” podcast fantasized about pushing a button that would “Erase Every Single Living Being in Gaza”. In Lebanon, Israel's pager attack was so brutal that even former CIA director Leon Panetta said it was a form of terrorism.

The propaganda used to justify the genocide is some of the most blatantly obvious falsehoods put forward by the establishment. The 40-beheaded babies and mass rape hoaxes fell apart quickly and even mainstream Israeli media and Australian state media have admitted that Israel issues the “Hannibal Directive” on October 7th killing many of their own people.

But one does not even have to know these facts to know that what Israel is doing in Gaza -backed by Western powers- is wrong. Anyone who even remotely follows international affairs has seen daily videos of some of the most horrific atrocities committed in history. The recent images of civilians being burned alive after Israel bombed a refugee camp are just some of the countless videos and photos documenting Israel's war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza.

Instead of accepting that the zionist narrative can no longer be sustained and accepted by the public, the UK government has instead opted to criminalize factual reporting on Israel's war crimes and label any journalist who dares challenge the genocide as a terrorist. This means that the UK is no longer a democracy or a free and open society at all. If jailing anyone who opposes genocide on terrorism charges isn’t full-on autocracy, I don’t know what is.