I’ve just watched an interview with Sarah Wilkinson on the Crispin Flintoff Show and it was disturbing to say the least. If you’ve read my recent newsletters, or been paying attention to social media, you will be aware Sarah Wilkinson is a pro-Palestinian journalist who was arrested in the UK under section 12 of the Terrorism Act. This is shocking enough, but Sarah has now broken down the treatment she received from police and the absurdity of her bail conditions.
Sarah says she was woken up at 7.10am and her street was filled with 16 or 17 police vehicles, all to arrest one woman. Officers in plain clothes barged into her house when she answered the door, and they refused to present a warrant, saying they had one, but didn’t need to show it.
Balaclava-clad men shoved Sarah’s son against a wall and led Sarah to a police van as they ransacked her house. Sarah says the handcuffs were painful and when she was taken to the police station, she was taken on a long route. It’s supposed to be a 45-minute drive, but the route took two hours and involved going in the wrong direction and U-turning. Sarah had no seatbelt in the police van and was repeatedly flung off her seat. The police officers were not wearing uniforms and she was concerned they might not have been police at all and she might have been abducted.
As Sarah points out, she is a 69-year-old woman who suffers from Crohn’s disease, and she cannot eat without medication.
Throughout her detainment, Sarah was denied her medication and therefore could not eat. She genuinely feared that if police had kept her for the full week, her health would have been at serious risk. She says she was given access to someone who claimed to be a nurse, but the nurse also refused to give her medication.
Sarah says this person did not appear to be a real nurse because when questioned, she could not even spell Crohn’s, let alone explain anything about the condition. Sarah was given a cup of tea on the understanding she would be given her medication afterwards, but she was then denied the medication, putting her health at risk. Sarah says the behaviour seemed to be deliberately malicious.
Sarah was initially denied a lawyer, but she knew her rights and demanded one which she was given. She was told little about why she was arrested, but she was shown a large file containing thousands of her social media posts. Her lawyer looked at some of the posts, but there were far too many to trawl through, The lawyer expressed confusion, pointing out all Sarah has done is report factual information and share articles, none of which is illegal.
Police discussed Sarah’s work with a Palestinian charity and demanded the location of her contacts in Gaza. Sarah was concerned that police would hand those locations over to Israeli intelligence and these people would then be bombed.
Sarah was given bail, but the conditions mean she is not allowed to use any electronic devices, not even a phone. She is allowed to conduct interviews, but only if she never touches any electronic equipment.
All of the electronic equipment in Sarah’s house was confiscated, even innocuous things like cables. She was told she is not even allowed to watch television or call for an ambulance if she needs one. She is also not allowed to travel, meaning she is effectively under house arrest. Given this prevents her from working as a journalist, the bail conditions are impossible to adhere to.
Sarah explained that not only did police trash her house, they hid her Crohn’s card inside of her mattress and she only discovered this because the mattress was upside down. She discovered other items in her house that she suggested had been deliberately hidden too.
Sarah was told she must hand her passport into the police station in one week. Only problem is police had taken her passport and not listed it on the confiscated items. She says they also hadn’t listed £200 that they’d taken and presumably pocketed. Worryingly, she says items were listed that she did not own or recognise.
Sarah must travel to the police station in one week, only she is not allowed to travel, and even if she was, there is no public transport to bring her home. The police officer told her to bring a tent.
If Sarah breaches any of her bail conditions, she will automatically receive a five-year prison sentence without going to trial or seeing a lawyer. She will presumably disappear.
Here is possibly the most disturbing aspect of the story: the urn containing Sarah’s mother’s ashes was cracked and the ashes were scattered around her loft.
As well as having her home trashed, Sarah has found multiple holes in her walls that are filled with putty. She therefore suspects her flat has been bugged and she has someone coming to locate and remove the bugs for her.
There is so much more that Sarah mentioned, so it really is worth watching the interview in full. Many of us are aware of the authoritarian direction the UK has been taking, but to hear it spelled out in this way really brings it home.
I had been under the assumption police needed some sort of excuse, no matter how tenuous, to raid your home, but it seems in Sarah’s case, the only excuse was the sheer volume of her tweets.
Police have placed Sarah on bail while they trawl through thousands of posts and articles, and they will presumably keep extending the bail while they do this. If so, it means Sarah has been silenced until the genocide is over. Also, it’s entirely possible she could be jailed for five years for failing to hand in the passport they confiscated.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
As is usual in a lot of posts on LBN, just imagine the outcry if this was happening in the country of an official enemy, Russia for example. Just imagine the rolling coverage, righteous indignation, endless opinion pieces condemning such draconian, repressive, anti freedom of speech actions...but here? Maybe one mention where they repeat the security services line about "old posts" that "may equate to holocaust denial" or whatever their phrasing is.
They are indeed coming for the and soon they will be no-one left to speak out for the rest of us. ...no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party...So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
I was convinced I saw a brief piece on her at the fraud but it was basically just restating the spurious nonsense that the gestapo were trotting out. I can't seem to find it now though and, as you say, no search results coming back. ...no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party...So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
Reporter Sarah Wilkinson arrested by UK government for opposition to Gaza genocide Kevin Reed 29 August 2024
British human rights activist and reporter Sarah Wilkinson was arrested by UK police on Thursday morning, and subsequently released, allegedly for content she published online in support of Palestine and against the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Sarah Wilkinson [Photo: X]
The social media account Suppressed News quoted Jack Wilkinson, her brother, as saying, “The police came to her house just before 7.30am. [Twelve] of them in total, some of them in plain clothes from the counter-terrorism police. They said she was under arrest for ‘content that she has posted online.’ Her house is being raided, and they have seized all her electronic devices.”
MENA Uncensored, a media company recognized by Lebanon’s Ministry of Information for whom Wilkinson is a contributor and roving reporter, said that she was detained for “supporting the Palestinian resistance and relaying what is really happening in Gaza and the West Bank to the world.”
The publisher said the UK government alleges that Wilkinson supports terrorism. MENA Uncensored also published on its X account a copy of a letter it issued last April spelling out the role of Wilkinson as a reporter assigned to “cover the unfolding crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean region, particularly in Gaza, including accompanying the Freedom Flotilla aimed at breaking the maritime siege imposed on Gaza.”
Later in the afternoon, MENA Uncensored reported that Wilkinson had been released on bail and “is back to the comfort of her home.” The UK police have not released any official statements on her arrest and detention.
The co-founder of Palestine Action Richard Barnard was the same day charged with three offences for comments made in two speeches. He is accused of supporting a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act (2000), and encouraging “criminal activity”. Barnard is to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on September 18 for a plea hearing.
Barnard was first arrested on suspicion of the charges in November 2023. The Canary reported of his case this week, “This was four days before he was due to begin trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court as part of the ‘Elbit Eight’. During that trial, the state accused him of several offences. The court acquitted him of 3 of them, including a charge of encouraging criminal damage. Authorities previously stopped him under Schedule 7 counter-terrorism powers in November 2020 alongside fellow activist Huda Ammori.”
The arrests of Sarah Wilkinson and Barnard follow by two weeks the apprehension of independent Syrian-British journalist Richard Medhurst under the provisions of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000. Police arrested Medhurst at London’s Heathrow Airport as he exited from his airplane, detained and questioned him for 24 hours and confiscated his electronic devices and journalistic equipment.
The arrests also follow by less than a week the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov by the French government in Paris on 12 different charges, including refusing to “share information or documents with investigators when required by law” and “complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group.” Telegram has emerged from the start of the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine as a source of information about the conflict that is unfiltered by NATO and Ukrainian media.
Like the arrest of Medhurst, the detention of Wilkinson is part of the escalation by the British ruling class against left-wing journalists and outspoken opponents of the US-backed Israeli campaign of extermination of Palestinians in Gaza.
Fearful of growing public opposition to war and the Gaza genocide, the imperialist ruling elites around the world are attacking basic democratic rights such as freedom of the press in a desperate attempt to control the narrative and stop information about what is actually happening in Gaza and Ukraine from reaching the public.
The arrest of journalists by the UK Labour government of Keir Starmer is taking place while the US Biden-Harris White House is leading a crackdown against student protesters on college campuses demanding an end to the war and genocide. These developments show that the threat to democracy comes from all factions of the ruling class
Sarah Wilkinson, 61, has been an outspoken opponent of Zionism for decades. She has courageously reported from the “Freedom Flotilla Coalition,” an international initiative that collected and is attempting to deliver hundreds of tons humanitarian aid directly to Palestinians. The flotilla has been repeatedly blocked from making its way to Gaza due to interference by the Israeli government and its imperialist supporters.
A review of Wilkinson’s posts on X shows that she has been reporting on the horrific impact of Israel’s onslaught on Palestinian men, women and children. The volume of material that she has been posting from numerous sources within Gaza provides graphic proof of the war crimes being committed daily.
For example, on August 28, one day before she was arrested, Wilkinson posted 43 photos and videos showing mainly casualties and deaths of children in Gaza. In many cases, the posts show the impact of Israeli airstrikes on schools and residences and tell the stories of the victims and their families.
Wilkinson’s arrest was immediately denounced widely on social media. Rock music artist and founder of Pink Floyd Roger Waters, posted a video on X in which he said Sarah Wilkinson was arrested, “for standing up for human rights and campaign against genocide.” Waters went on, “We know that these are policies that Keir Starmer doesn’t agree with … This is wrong. If you allow this to stand, the arrest of Sarah Wilkinson and the persecution of my friend Craig Murray among others, then you have absolutely accepted that England is now a fascist state. 1984 has arrived and is alive and well in the United Kingdom. Over my dead body.”The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Starmer turns the UK into the west bank .. what a surprise…
on September 2, 2024, 5:13 pm