from Sputnik News:
Independent Journalist Richard Medhurst was arrested in the UK on Thursday under the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000, according to a video he posted Monday on X recounting the experience.
“On Thursday, as I landed in London’s Heathrow airport, I was immediately escorted off the plane by six police officers who were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft. They arrested me – not detained – they arrested me under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 and accused me of allegedly ‘expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization’ but wouldn’t explain what this meant,” Medhurst says in the video.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 has a clause that was added in 2019 that made it illegal to “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization” if “in doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organization.”
Medhurst’s reporting has focused heavily on the Israeli-Gaza war and has spoken out against funding Ukraine. He also posted about the very act that he was arrested for.
“The fascist ‘terrorism act’ being used to hold activists without charge or trial because they tried to stop actual terrorism and genocide by the IDF,” Medhurst posted the same day he was arrested. Medhurst was referring to Palestinian activists who have been detained recently under the Terrorism Act.
I was arrested at Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act, Sec 12 because of my reporting.
6 police officers were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft.
I was held for almost 24 hours and questioned.
I believe I’m the first journalist to be arrested under this… pic.twitter.com/pbf6q5dXIf
— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) August 19, 2024
Medhurst says he was then handcuffed and transferred to a police station where he was searched and his electronic devices seized.
“I was placed in solitary confinement, in a cold cell that smelled like urine. There was barely any light and the bed, if you can even call it a bed, was simply a small concrete ledge with a paper-thin mattress. The cell had no windows, no heating, no toilet paper. I was recorded 24/7 with audio and video, even when going to the toilet. I had to eat food with a piece of cardboard you’re supposed to fold in two in order to scoop up the meal,” Medhurst said, describing the conditions he was held in.
He was then held for nearly 24 hours without being allowed to contact his family and his attempts to speak to a solicitor (UK legal advisor) were hindered and possibly monitored.
“The police said that I have the right to inform someone that I’m locked up. So I said okay, I want to call my family, then they go ‘Well, your calls are withheld due to the nature of the alleged offense’ I tried to ask well, what’s the point of a right if you can just randomly withdraw it? Why tell me that I have this right at all? And one of them said something along the lines of ‘Well, it’s not an absolute right, it can be waived,’” Medhurst described.
