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‘Can’t Make This Up’: Journalist Arrested Under UK Anti-Terror Law Hours After Criticizing It

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Journalist Richard Medhurst addresses supporters of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange outside 10 Downing Street following the second day of his final extradition appeal on February 21, 2024 in London. (Photo: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)

“I criticized the Terrorism Act before getting on the plane, then got arrested under the Terrorism Act upon landing.”

Richard Medhurst, a Syrian-British independent journalist who defends Palestinians’ right to resist Israeli apartheid, occupation, and other crimes, said this week that he was recently arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport and held for nearly 24 hours for allegedly running afoul of a highly controversial anti-terrorism law critics say is used to silence legitimate dissent.

Medhurst—who is known for his work opposing U.S., British, and Israeli war crimes in the Middle East and for his advocacy for formerly imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—said on social media Tuesday: “I criticized the Terrorism Act before getting on the plane, then got arrested under the Terrorism Act upon landing. Can’t make this up.”

In a nearly nine-minute video posted Monday night on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, Medhurst said that “on Thursday, as I landed in London 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 prescribed organization,’ but wouldn’t explain what this meant,” he continued.

The controversial law criminalizes anyone who “invites support for a proscribed organization” or “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive” of such a group. Violators can be punished with up to 14 years’ imprisonment and a fine.

As Laura Tiernan explained Tuesday at World Socialist Web Site:

Introduced by [former U.K. Prime Minister] Tony Blair’s Labour government, the act is a legal dragnet. In Medhurst’s case, it appears that commentary defending the right of Palestinians under international law to resist foreign military occupation and genocide is being defined as support for terrorism.

Hamas is among the organizations proscribed as terrorist by the U.K. government. While its military wing was proscribed in 2001, Hamas was banned in its entirety in 2021, aimed at criminalizing support for the Palestinian people. The political wing of Hamas won elections held in Gaza in 2006 and the organization also oversees charitable work.

Medhurst said: “I categorically and utterly reject all the accusations by the police. I am not a terrorist. I have no criminal record. Prior to this incident, I’d never been detained in my entire life.”

“I’m a product of the diplomatic community, and I’m raised to be anti-war,” he explained. “Both of my parents won Nobel Peace Prizes for their work as United Nations peacekeepers. They had a tremendous effect on my worldview and outlook and instilled in me the importance of diplomacy, international law, and peace.”

Medhurst said he was searched, handcuffed, and taken in a police van to a station where he was searched again, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in solitary confinement. His phone and work equipment were seized. When he questioned why he’d been arrested, “the police would say something like: ‘Well, we’re just the arresting officers. We don’t really know.'”

“No one in the world knew what had happened to me or where I was,” he said. “I had to ask like four or five different guards for several hours until I finally received a call. In total, I spent almost 24 hours in detention. At no point whatsoever was I allowed to speak to a family member or a friend. After waiting 15 hours, I was finally interviewed by two detectives.”

“I felt that the whole process was designed to humiliate, intimidate, and dehumanize me and treat me like a criminal, even though they must’ve been aware of my background and that I’m a journalist,” Medhurst alleged. He contended that his arrest was “done on purpose to try and rattle me psychologically,” and noted that “many people have been detained in Britain because of their connection to journalism.”

He named Assange—who was freed in June following a plea deal with the U.S. government—as well as Scottish author Craig Murray, Grayzone correspondent Kit Clarenberg, and Glenn Greenwald’s late partner, Brazilian politician David Miranda, as people who have been targeted for their political beliefs and expression.

“Freedom of the press, freedom of speech really are under attack,” Medhurst warned in the video. “The state is cracking down and escalating to try and stop people from speaking out against our government’s complicity in genocide.”

Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice over its 320-day assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, wounded at least 93,000 others, starved hundreds of thousands more, and obliterated the coastal enclave.

“We cannot call ourselves a democracy as long as reporters are dragged off of planes and detained and treated like murderers,” Medhurst concluded. “I am disgusted that I am being politically persecuted in my own country.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘Can’t Make This Up’: Journalist Arrested Under UK Anti-Terror Law Hours After Criticizing It

‘Insane Torture’: Israeli Soldiers Confirm Horrific Abuse of Palestinians at Sde Teiman

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS repulished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinians imprisoned at Sde Teiman are shackled and blindfolded 24 hours a day and are forced to sit still and silent in painful positions for hours on end. (Photo: Whistleblower)

“Teeth were broken, bones were broken,” said one soldier. “You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity,” said another.

An Israeli newspaper on Friday published interviews with Israel Defense Forces reservists and medical staff who witnessed the “day-to-day torture” of Palestinian prisoners at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert, where dozens of detainees have died and others were allegedly raped.

The Israelis described seeing torture and abuse of Palestinians detained in Sde Teiman, who included everyone from Hamas fighters to innocent civilians, and ranged in age from children to octogenarians.

“We said, ‘It’s torture.’ But you don’t get into it; you change the subject immediately.”

“What’s happening there is total dehumanization. You don’t really relate to them as if they’re real human beings,” said one public hospital physician who worked at Sde Teiman. “In the end it’s no less than torture. There are ways to administer even poor treatment, or even to torture a person, without crushing cigarettes on them.”

One female former medical staffer said that “the place was totally unimaginable, I had never considered anything like it.”

“My first thought was: What have I done?” she said, describing prisoners being forced to relieve themselves in diapers and take their meals through straws.

“The conditions there were described as torture,” she added. “Maybe. In many senses, yes, I agree with that. Maybe even insane torture.”

A 37-year-old male reservist said some of the worst abuse was committed by members of Force 100, the unit of the nine Israelis recently arrested for allegedly gang-raping a Sde Teiman prisoner.

“They took… guys aside and really laid into them,” he said. “I think that each time teeth were broken, bones were broken… And there was also a dog.”

Former Sde Teiman prisoners have described dogs attacking and performing “vile acts” on them.

Another IDF reservist said that “when you come to the camp, the first thing that hits you is the smell… of dozens of people who have been sitting in close quarters for more than a month in the same clothes and in insane heat.”

“They let them shower for a few minutes around twice a week, but I don’t remember ever seeing that they gave them a change of clothes, in any case not on my shifts,” he added.

The Haaretz interviewees said that much of the abuse occurred in the open.

“It wasn’t something that was done in the dark,” the 37-year-old reservist said. “Everyone saw what was going on… It’s not something that was done behind the back of the commander of the camp.”

“Most of the guys were just fine with what was happening,” he continued. “There were some who were a little bothered by it, and there were others who were bothered by it at the start and then they toed the line with the system.”

“There were people who in conversations suddenly mentioned the word ‘torture,'” he added. “And then we said, ‘It’s torture.’ But you don’t get into it; you change the subject immediately.”

Some of those interviewed by Haaretz expressed misgivings about what they did or saw at Sde Teiman.

“When I was there, I wrestled with myself about whether to stay on and try to do the right thing, the best I could as a moral person, or whether I should just get up and declare that I refused to take part in it,” said one male reservist and student. “I came out with a heavy feeling of guilt.”

Another reservist said, “The more distance I have from the place, the more my eyes have opened up.”

“What most disturbed me was to see how easily and how quickly ordinary people can disconnect themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes when they’re in the midst of a shocking human situation,” he added.

There were also rare moments of mercy.

“Sometimes the military police gave the minors candy, like in the evening, before sleep,” the 37-year-old reservist said. “One time a detainee started to cry. He was older, 60 years old. So the duty officer tried to speak to him and cheer him up a little.”

But more often, guards were “filled with rage,” said one reservist, who added that “there’s a desire for revenge.”

“What most disturbed me was to see how easily and how quickly ordinary people can disconnect themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes.”

One reservist said that “there was a female officer who gave us a briefing on the day we arrived. She said, ‘It will be hard for you. You’ll want to pity them, but it’s forbidden. Remember that they aren’t people.”

“You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity in a second, how easy it is to come up with justifications for treating people as if they’re not people,” he added.

One 27-year-old female reservist said that upon arriving at Sde Teiman—where she was welcomed with popcorn and cotton candy—she was alarmed to find that “good people whom I know talked about being cruel and abusive to people, like they were talking about something routine.”

“The dehumanization frightened me,” she said. “I couldn’t understand how a group of young people who were around me every day underwent such a dangerous process in such a short time.”

Another reservist said that some Sde Teiman staff—especially the volunteers—were “sadists” who “really enjoy beating up Arabs.”

The Haaretz interviews add to a growing body of evidence of torture and other war crimes perpetrated by Israelis against Palestinian prisoners at Sde Teiman and other lockups.

Former Palestinian detainees and Israeli personnel have described beatings, rape and sexual torture by male and female soldiers, routine amputations due to constant shackling, burnings, electrocutions, attacks by dogs, ice-water dousings, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, constant loud music, and other abuse.

The Israeli military is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Sde Teiman detainees, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.

On Friday, Alice Jill Edwards, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, said that “there are no circumstances in which sexual torture or sexualized inhuman and degrading treatment can be justified.”

“I am troubled by recent attempts by Israeli citizens—including reportedly one member of Parliament—to intervene violently after the arrests of soldiers on these abuse charges,” she said of the recent storming of Sde Teiman and another base by a far-right mob in response to the arrests of the alleged rapists.

“Criminal proceedings into all allegations must proceed unhindered,” Edwards added. “No one is above the law. No one is immune from prosecution for torture.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS repulished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘Insane Torture’: Israeli Soldiers Confirm Horrific Abuse of Palestinians at Sde Teiman

40,000 dead in Gaza a ‘milestone the world must be ashamed of’: Irish Premier

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Original artticle republished from MIMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Ireland’s Prime Minister Simon Harris attends a press conference at Government Buildings in Dublin on April 12, 2024 [PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images]

Ireland’s Prime Minister, on Thursday, said that 40,000 dead in Gaza is a “milestone the world must be ashamed of”, Anadolu Agency reports.

“International diplomacy has failed to protect innocent children, some only days old,” Simon Harris said on X.

He called on Israel to stop the bombings in Gaza and asked Hamas to release the hostages.

In addition to his call for a ceasefire in Gaza, Harris urged the EU to reassess its association agreement with Israel.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since a 7 October, 2023 attack by Hamas.

The Israeli onslaught has since killed over 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,400 others, according to local health authorities.

Over 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on 6 May.

READ: Pope Francis calls for ceasefire in Gaza amid ongoing Israeli onslaught

Original artticle republished from MIMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Continue Reading40,000 dead in Gaza a ‘milestone the world must be ashamed of’: Irish Premier

Western Media, Leaders Slammed for ‘Deafening’ Silence Over Israeli Torture Revelations

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A leaked photograph obtained by CNN shows a blindfolded man with his arms over his head at the Sde Teiman detention facility. (Photo: CNN)

“Can you imagine the response if Palestinians were holding Israelis in mass rape camps and torturing them to death?” asked one critic.

Human rights defenders are calling out Western news outlets and political leaders for their conspicuous lack of coverage and vocalized condemnation after leaked video footage appeared to show Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian detainee in the notorious Sde Teiman prison and the release of a new report documenting systematic torture of prisoners held by Israel.

Earlier this week, Israel’s Channel 12 aired a video showing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists assaulting a Palestinian man at Sde Teiman, which is often called “Israel’s Guantánamo.” The victim was reportedly hospitalized with a severe anal injury, ruptured bowel, broken ribs, and lung damage. In addition to torture, former Sde Teiman detainees have described rampant rape and sexual abuse, allegedly often committed by female soldiers.

Instead of avoiding the Sde Teiman rape story, Israeli media have aired an interview with one of the IDF suspects—who are being hailed as “heroes” by far-right Israelis including multiple Cabinet ministers—and panel discussions including one in which a journalist called for “institutionalized” rape of Palestinian prisoners. This, as Israeli leaders demanded an investigation of the rape video to find and punish whoever leaked the footage, and as Israeli lawmakers argue that it’s permissible to rape Palestinian prisoners.

Meanwhile, there has been very little coverage of Sde Teiman on U.S. broadcast media, which have come under fire for allowing Israeli officials to censor their coverage of the Gaza onslaught. This stands in stark contrast to the myriad—and sometimes outright false—reports of Hamas militants raping Israeli women during the October 7 attack, which have prompted embarrassing corrections.

“Can you imagine the response if Palestinians were holding Israelis in mass rape camps and torturing them to death? Every U.S. politician would condemn it, there would be congressional resolutions, countless CNN segments, and celebrity outrage,” Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi said Thursday on social media. “But the victims are just Palestinians.”

Dazed politics editor James Greig said on social media Wednesday that “it feels redundant to complain about double standards at this point but still, the contrast between the silence about Sde Teiman and the months of lurid, detailed, and at best factually dubious reporting published when Hamas was accused of sexual violence is extremely stark.”

Syrian British journalist Richard Medhurst wrote Thursday on social media that “the silence by mainstream media on the IDF’s rape culture is deafening.”

“These journalists are literally covering for the most violent form of rape, recorded on camera, and documented by doctors,” he added.

When there is coverage of alleged Israeli crimes in the U.S. media, it is often presented in a manner that casts doubt upon the veracity of Palestinian claims—which are increasingly beyond doubt amid an avalanche of evidence.

On Monday, asCommon Dreamsreported, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released a detailed report, ominously titled “Welcome to Hell,” which documented widespread torture and abuse of Palestinians across Israeli’s detention apparatus. The report found that “there is no room to doubt” that Israel’s torture methods are a systematic, organized policy of its prison authorities.

Israeli whistleblowers have described having to frequently amputate Sde Teiman detainees’ limbs due to damage from constant shackling. IDF officers have admitted that dozens of Palestinians have died at the prison. IDF soldiers allegedly murdered one detainee by shoving an electric baton in his anus. United Nations experts and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem have confirmed what the latter described as the “systematic” torture of detainees “that amounts to a war crime and even a crime against humanity.”

Meanwhile, Israeli protesters have rallied for the right to rape Palestinians, and a far-right mob whose members included a Cabinet minister and multiple Knesset lawmakers stormed two military bases last month in an attempt to free the alleged IDF rapists after nine suspects were arrested.

Yet “there is still no international outcry,” journalists Lubna Masarwa and Peter Osborne wrote in a Middle East Eyeopinion piece published Friday. “This collective omerta from politicians and the media about Israel’s monstrous conduct is hard to comprehend, given that we are talking about systematic war crimes committed on a horrifying scale by a country already under investigation at the International Court of Justice for potential genocide.”

“Their silence amounts to complicity,” the authors continued. “As for Israel, the majority of the political and media classes do not appear to think there is much wrong in the torture and abuse of prisoners, with some ministers actively defending the abusers.”

“These are the signs of a very sick society indeed—one that has passed through an invisible barrier into savagery,” they added. “There are no red lines, no respect for international law, and no accountability. The silence of the West shows that we, too, have entered the same nightmare universe.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingWestern Media, Leaders Slammed for ‘Deafening’ Silence Over Israeli Torture Revelations

Netanyahu Isn’t Interested in Peace, So Why Does Biden Keep Pretending Otherwise?

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Original article by JAMES ZOGBY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with Rear Adm. David Saar Salama at the Ashdod Naval Base on October 29, 2023. (Photo: Office of Benjamin Netanyahu)

Instead of turning a blind eye to Israel’s behaviors that are deliberately designed to provoke more war, the U.S. needs to stop playing games and get serious about holding Israel accountable.

Why—in the midst of critical negotiations to implement U.S. President Joe Biden’s plan to bring about a cease-fire in Gaza, release Israelis held captive by Hamas and a significant number of Palestinians held by Israel, and move toward a negotiated permanent end to the conflict—would Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu decide to assassinate the chief Hamas negotiator while he was visiting Iran? And why—while the U.S. says it was working to deescalate tensions with Lebanon’s Hezbollah—would Israel choose to up the ante by assassinating Hezbollah’s number two?

We know the answers to both questions: Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t interested in peace. He doesn’t want a negotiated deal to release hostages and end the war on Gaza. He doesn’t want to deescalate the conflict there or in the north with Hezbollah. And he most certainly doesn’t want a “two-state solution” that would grant the Palestinian people independence in a sovereign state of their own.

There are two things Netanyahu does want, and, at this point, both are perversely connected. Above all, he desperately wants to remain in office, because should he lose his post as prime minister, the prosecution of the corruption charges against him will continue in full force. As the charges are so serious and the evidence so clear, he will likely be convicted and humiliated. This is not speculation—it’s widely discussed in Israel and was even hinted at by President Biden in a May 28 interview with Time Magazine. When he was asked “Is Netanyahu prolonging the war for political reasons?” Biden responded, “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.”

Why hasn’t the administration condemned the assassinations in Beirut and Iran when they know that they will surely sabotage the efforts of negotiators?

The second reason is that Netanyahu wants the war to continue and even be accelerated. He made this clear in his remarks before U.S. Congress and in an address to the Israeli public a few days ago. He seeks “total victory,” which he defines as more than the military defeat of Israel’s enemies. Without acknowledging any Israeli culpability, he charged that the Palestinians had created a hate-filled culture which in the post-war period would require massive deradicalization—the outcome of which would have Palestinians accepting Jewish hegemony in Eretz Israel and understanding their place as a conquered and subordinate people.

This is the messianic Zionist vision that has long driven Netanyahu and which he now sees as possible, but only if all of Israel’s enemies—meaning Iran and its surrogates—are brought to heel. And this can only be realized if Israel can involve the U.S. in their regional conquest.

Netanyahu’s worldview raises several additional questions that must be considered. If we know that Netanyahu has never accepted the terms of the Biden plan, why has the president continued to maintain that it was “Israel’s plan” and placed the burden on Hamas to accept it? And if we know that Netanyahu is unwilling to make any peace agreement for fear of losing his other extremist coalition partners (who have threatened to abandon his government should he accept any terms leading to peace), why do we continue to dance around that fact? Why hasn’t the administration condemned the assassinations in Beirut and Iran when they know that they will surely sabotage the efforts of negotiators? Why, when we know that Netanyahu has no intention of completing a deal to release those held captive, do we continue to allow him to exploit the pain of their families, pretending that negotiations are close to completion, when we know they aren’t? And why, when we know that the demands and actions of Netanyahu’s extremist coalition partners are wreaking havoc in the West Bank and Jerusalem—terrorizing the Palestinian population, annexing more land, building more settlements, and erasing the possibility of Palestinian self-determination—have we been so passive and tolerant in response?

Let’s be clear: Hamas and Hezbollah are not good actors. The former was born of the brutal and sustained Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. It was nurtured by Israel to create division in the Palestinian ranks and fueled by Israel’s ruthless decades-long strangulation of the population of Gaza. The latter was born of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and by that country’s corrupt sectarian system that denied the Shia community adequate representation and resources. It was fueled by Israel’s decades-long occupation of Lebanon’s south and massive devastation of the country’s infrastructure in 2006. To be sure, both have engaged in condemnable actions. But to criticize only them, while absolving Israel of its far greater crimes, is hypocritical at best.

If the U.S. were serious about ending conflict in the region, instead of turning a blind eye to Israel’s behaviors that are deliberately designed to provoke more war, we need to stop playing games and get serious about holding Israel accountable. This leads to one final question: Why, when we continue to massively supply Israel with weapons and block all efforts to sanction their deplorable behaviors, do we expect that anything will change?

Original article by JAMES ZOGBY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingNetanyahu Isn’t Interested in Peace, So Why Does Biden Keep Pretending Otherwise?