British journalist arrested at London airport for defending Palestinians
Published on August 21, 2024
Ansarullah website – Follow-ups
British police arrested journalist Richard Medhurst, who regularly denounces the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, at Heathrow Airport last Thursday, on charges of expressing opinions and ideas in support of an organization classified as terrorist, before releasing him later.
Medhurst explained that 6 British security officers were waiting for him at the entrance to the plane and arrested him, indicating that he was targeted because he talks about the situation in Palestine, and he is the first journalist to be arrested based on this law, and there is an attempt to obstruct his work and political activity.
He pointed out that he was taken from the door of the plane to a car that took him to a police station, and his phone and cameras were confiscated, and he was searched completely, and his shoes and socks were taken off, and the police officers were searching his bag in a chaotic manner, and he was treated like a criminal.
He explained that the police officers kept him in detention without allowing him to make a phone call to inform his family of his whereabouts or inform his friends for 24 hours.
The journalist said that he rejected all the accusations against him, and stressed that he rejects war and has never been arrested in his life.
The journalist stressed that he loves his country, and that his work in journalism is part of presenting a different narrative than what the mainstream media presents, but he feels that he and others are being targeted because of their talk about Palestine.
He stressed that Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there are the most important urgent issue in the world, but he does not understand how any supportive or sympathetic statement can be misinterpreted and considered a violation of the terrorism law, which he sees as out of control, and he continued to talk about its shortcomings, even before he himself became a victim of it.
Medhurst said that anti-terrorism laws should be used to combat real terrorism, not journalism.
He explained: “We cannot consider ourselves to be living in a real democracy when journalists are dragged off a plane and treated like killers.”
He expressed his disgust at the way he was treated during his arrest, and said that freedom of the press is under attack by the state through escalation and repression to prevent the exposure of its complicity in the genocide in Gaza.
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