One of the most important developments in the UK’s legal and media history has received no coverage from mainstream media outlets or journalism trade titles, such as the Media Guardian and Press Gazette.
Richard Thomas Medhurst is a British national who lives in Vienna and uploads regular news and analysis concerning developments in the Middle East to YouTube, which has demonetised his channel.
The Syrian-born, internationally accredited independent reporter has created 2,700 videos since 2006, clocking up over 52 million views and attracting 321,000 global subscribers.
On 22 August, he was flying to London Heathrow when his plane was diverted so he could be arrested by six armed police officers before it reached the airport terminal.
Medhurst was placed in restraints and his belongings searched after arresting officers told him he ‘had expressed an opinion or belief that was supportive of a proscribed organisation’. They seized his electronic devices, took a sample of his DNA and placed him in solitary confinement, where he was recorded for the duration with video and audio.
He was told he had the right to inform someone of his arrest but when he asked to inform his family, arresting officers denied his request on the basis that ‘they could waive this right’. He was further told he had the right to know the details of why he had been arrested but when he asked why, they told him this information would be provided to him at a later time.
Detained under Section 12 of The Terrorism Act (2000), Medhurst was initially denied access to legal assistance. Several hours later when the police called a solicitor on his behalf, his solicitor was informed that their call would be recorded, so his solicitor refused to take the call.
Section 12 of the Act criminalises opinion and can lead to a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.
After 15 hours in detention, Medhurst was interviewed by two detectives for over an hour before being released on bail. He remains under investigation and must report to a police station in three months.
Richard Medhurst, who has no criminal record, categorically denied all of the accusations against him.
The professional journalist’s parents are Nobel Peace Prize-winning, former United Nations Peacekeepers. His father formerly served in the Metropolitan Police where he was an expert in counter-terrorism, and his grandparents and great grandparents fought in both World Wars for Britain.
While Medhurst was being educated at a British school in Islamabad, the adjoining Egyptian embassy was bombed, making Richard Medhurst a childhood victim of terrorism.
The former UK Foreign Office diplomat and ambassador, Craig Murray, said in an interview on The Crispin Flintoff Show on Sunday that this type of detention “doesn’t happen without ministerial authority…” and that “the Home Secretary would have known about this”.
“The ruling class and the media have lost control of a narrative over Gaza. People just don’t buy what they’re saying anymore. There’s this panic reaction, so they’re going after those people who are putting the alternative narrative,” he added.
“Given everything we know about Keir Starmer and his history, I think this period of repression is going to get worse. We have a government with extremely authoritarian instincts now, which is even worse than the Tories when it comes to civil liberties.”
Murray later told Consortium News: “Journalists who oppose genocide are the chief target of the UK law”.
Until 2021, the diplomatic section of Hamas was not a proscribed ‘terrorist’ organision.
After the British government decided to change its status to ‘terrorist’, by extension, any individual or organisation who donates or assists with Gaza infrastructure, such as schools or hospitals – while the territory remains under Israel’s 16-year seige – is technically liable as ‘a supporter of terrorism’, including the United Nations.
Thus, as the law currently stands in the UK, it is legal to openly support the IDF and its hundreds of documented war crimes while under investigation by the ICJ and ICC for genocide, but it is illegal for a person to show any support for Hamas.
Britain’s foremost media workers’ representative body, the National Union of Journalists, declined to comment for this story, as did the International Federation of Journalists in Brussels, both of which Medhurst is a member of, and is accedited by.
Via a statement on his YouTube channel, Richard Medhurst, said: “Those like myself who are speaking up and reporting on the situation in Palestine … the most pressing news story in the world … are being targeted. This was a pre-planned and co-ordinated arrest. I’m the only journalist to have been arrested under Section 12 of The Terrorism Act, and although I was released on bail ‘unconditionally’, I do not know if I will be charged or imprisoned in three months. I am disgusted that I am being politically persecuted in my own country. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are under attack by a state that is cracking down on people speaking out about our government’s complicity in genocide.”
On 11 October, the now serving British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the State of Israel was right to cut off water and power to over two million civilians in the Gaza Strip, which the ICJ and ICC are investigating as a war crime.
On 8 July, the esteemed medical journal The Lancet reported that, as a consequence of this action, and the use of weapons provided to Israel by the US, Germany and UK, Israel may already have killed 186,000 mainly women and children in Gaza, since October. Among them, are over 175 media workers and journalists who have been killed by Israel, which disallows journalists from entering Gaza.
