Chris Nineham – State of War, The Police, Palestine & the Politics of Protest
Chris Nineham – deputy leader of the Stop the War Coalition and Chief Steward for many of London’s demonstrations against the Israel Hamas War and the British government’s involvement (source) – was arrested for some reason at the Gaza protest in London yesterday. There’s also a video of him getting arrested.
This video is from 2 months ago. Among other things, he says
The police and the establishment in this country … are conducting a campaign of vilification and repression against the movement … it’s really a campaign against freedom of speech in general in this country and certainly on the issue of Palestine.
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We should take no lectures from the Metropolitan Police or any other police force about hate crime and about intimidation …
Journalism is not a crime – Tell that to the British state
https://www.declassifieduk.org/journalism-is-not-a-crime-tell-that-to-the-british-state/
Why are no national news outlets covering the crackdown on pro-Palestinian journalists in Britain?
“Journalism is the lifeblood of democracy” proclaimed prime minister Keir Starmer in a comment piece for the Guardian at the end of October. “Just because journalists are brave does not mean they should ever suffer intimidation”, he wrote.
Yet 11 days before his article was published, officers from the counter-terrorism unit of the Metropolitan Police raided the home of Asa Winstanley, a well-known pro-Palestinian journalist with the Electronic Intifada, and seized his devices under provisions of the UK’s Terrorism Act.
Winstanley was presented with a letter indicating that the raid was part of ‘Operation Incessantness’, a counter-terror initiative about which little is known.
This is not the first use of anti-terror laws to try to silence pro-Palestinian voices in recent months.
It follows the detention at Heathrow Airport of Richard Medhurst and the arrest of Sarah Wilkinson in August 2024, both of whom are independent journalists prominently associated with reporting Israel’s war on Palestinians.
The attacks on journalists are part of a wider pattern of harassment of pro-Palestine activists.
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In response to these outrageous infringements of journalists’ ability to do their jobs, Declassified UK noted back in September that “they are part of a sinister development that has serious implications for civil liberties and freedom of speech, yet it has been ignored by the mainstream media”.
This continues to be the case. Not a single national news outlet in the UK has reported on the policing of British pro-Palestinian journalists. Not one of them has thought to investigate what ‘Operation Incessantness’ might mean for press freedom.
Not one of them has reflected on the precedent set by the use of anti-terror laws for reporting on Gaza.
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https://www.declassifieduk.org/journalism-is-not-a-crime-tell-that-to-the-british-state/
dizzy: Bloggers are journalists and journalists are bloggers. Restrictions are applied to this blog contrary to human rights principles. Comments are not permitted, stats are manipulated. I finally managed to connect to Google Analytics and it told me I had 8 page views on one day, 14 on the following day – at least it’s obviously total BS.
I assume that UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is responsible for this but it could be Germany since this blog is hosted in Germany. I have no idea tbh because I’ve never been told and never been given the opportunity to challenge it.
On the plus side, I think that the Fascist human rights violators may also be paying for my hosting. If I’m reaching a far wider audience than acknowledged, somebody is paying for that bandwidth. Somebody is also paying to hide my name. I used to pay for it – about £20 a year – but decided that I couldn’t afford it one year. My name appeared on the DNS record but was hidden within about 20 minutes.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/02/26/business/26reuters-apple-shareholders.html
(Reuters) – An Apple Inc shareholder proposal critical of the company’s app removals in China received a relatively high level of support at the iPhone maker’s annual meeting on Wednesday, enough to push the company to respond, experts said.
The proposal, which called for Apple to report whether it has “publicly committed to respect freedom of expression as a human right,” was defeated, but 40.6% of votes cast supported the measure, according to company figures.
The proposal highlighted Apple’s 2017 removal https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ of virtual private network apps from its App Store in China. Such apps allow users to bypass China’s so-called Great Firewall aimed at restricting access to overseas sites, and Apple’s action was seen as a step to preserve access to the country’s vast market.
Wednesday’s vote stood in contrast to previous years when critics made little headway with big investors on the issue.
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