For “supporting a proscribed organization”. Aka. Hamas. The arrests are by counter-terrorism police.
The police came to her house just before 7.30am. 12 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 & they have seized all her electronic devices.
Others who have been arrested include Richard Barnard, Richard Medhurst and Craig Murray.
This is the law they are being charged under:
I have long opposed all “proscribed organization laws.” They destroy freedom of association and freedom of speech. In the US RICO is the primary culprit, justified by being used to go after the Mafia, but they’re all bad and they all wind up being misused. If someone commits an actual crime they should be charged, but freedom of association is fundamental and should not be abridged. RICO should be unconstitutional, but somehow isn’t. As for Britain, well, the laws on the books are draconian but were often not enforced.
Starmer, Britain’s PM, has always treated his job as crushing the left. This was clear when he was leader of the opposition and purged the party of the left, and now he’s done something even the Conservatives did not do, and done it to protect a genocide. When you look at the austerity politics his government is enforcing, it’s clear that he’s actually slightly worse than the Conservatives, which is quite the achievement. A monster in all regards.
In general the West, and especially Europe, is cracking down on freedom of speech. Strong, confident elites don’t need to do this. “Say what you want, it doesn’t matter” is how they think and feel, and they know it’s better to have people shooting off their mouths than acting.
But weak elites; scared elites; crack down.
A lot of this comes down “when times are good, people talk but rarely do.” In the best of times, most people fundamentally support the system. They want changes, yes, but they aren’t actually a threat to elites. But life in Britain has been getting worse for over forty years now and Corbyn scared the Labour establishment: he should never have been able to be elected leader and he should never have come within a hair of winning his first election.
So crush, crush away. Make examples of people.
The same is true of France’s arrest of the CEO of Telegram. This is all about instilling fear. Stay within the lines or we’ll crush you.