From Kua Kia Soong

Malaysian NGOs and activists who see the West as the source of human rights and have no comprehensive laws on ‘national security’ or ‘anti-terrorism’ should think again.

A few days ago, Richard Medhurst, an independent British journalist who defends the right of Palestinians to oppose Israeli apartheid and genocide, was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport and detained for almost 24 hours under the UK’s Anti-Terrorism Act 2000.

Medhurst is known for his campaign against American, British and Israeli war crimes in the Middle East and for his support of former imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

He was accused of allegedly “expressing an opinion or belief in support of a prescribed organisation”. Offenders can be punished with up to 14 years in prison and a fine.

Medhurst said he was strip-searched, handcuffed and taken in a police van to a station, where he was strip-searched again, fingerprinted, photographed and placed in solitary confinement. His phone and work equipment were confiscated.

Like Julian Assange – who was released in June after a plea agreement with the US government – ​​and Scottish author Craig Murray, Grayzone correspondent Kit Clarenberg and Brazilian politician David Miranda, Medhurst is another journalist targeted for his political beliefs and statements.

In 2010, Assange’s Wikileaks published a video called “Collateral Murder,” which shows US helicopters firing on Iraqi civilians and medical personnel.

A few months later, Swedish prosecutors issued the first arrest warrant for Assange, accusing him of sexual abuse. Assange denied the allegations and the investigation was eventually dropped, but it was the beginning of a 14-year saga that saw the publisher locked up for more than 12 years, first for almost eight years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and then for more than four years in the notorious Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom.

Assange was released in June of this year after signing a plea agreement with the US, which was seeking his extradition on espionage charges. By then, his family said, his health had deteriorated dramatically. He has rarely been seen in public since.

Former Brazilian politician David Miranda, who played a key role in exposing the Edward Snowden leak, was also detained in the UK several years ago under the same law that Medhurst was arrested under.

Miranda successfully sued the British government, arguing that the law does not apply to those who engage in journalism. However, the law has since been amended to include “expressing an opinion or belief which supports a proscribed organisation (deemed a terrorist organisation)” if “it is reckless as to whether it will encourage a person to whom the expression is made to support a proscribed organisation.”

Earlier this month, the home of former UN weapons inspector and frequent Sputnik radio guest and columnist Scott Ritter was searched by the FBI for alleged violations of the Foreign Agent Registry Act (FARA). Ritter has denied the allegations.

All this intimidation is intended to send a message to all other journalists and commentators: if you dare to speak negatively about Israel and its Western allies, it could happen to you too.

An all-encompassing definition for journalists and bloggers

The current definition of terrorism in the UK is so broad that it even covers political journalists and bloggers who publish material that the authorities consider dangerous to public safety.

David Anderson QC, the official reviewer of counter-terrorism laws, said Britain has one of the most comprehensive counter-terrorism laws in the western world, giving police and the Crown Prosecution Service the powers they need to deal with dissidents.

He said that in other European and Commonwealth countries the bar is much higher and that there must also be an ‘intent to coerce or intimidate’.

It appears that these anti-terrorism laws now apply to journalists and bloggers as well.

Anti-terror legislation has also been expanded to rein in academics. Ernest Moret, a French publisher, was on his way to the London Book Fair when he was stopped and questioned by police officers under the UK’s Anti-Terrorism Act on 19 April 2023.

The legislation gives police officers the power to stop, question and detain people to determine whether they are involved in the “preparation or incitement of acts of terrorism”, as defined by the Metropolitan Police.

The officers said Moret had taken part in demonstrations in France against a controversial pension reform. Britain’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) was among the organisations that condemned Moret’s arrest.

British police have also used their powers under the Terrorism Act to seize the laptop of a young Newsnight journalist, Secunder Kermani, in a move that has shocked BBC colleagues and alarmed freedom of expression campaigners.

Kermani has produced a series of reports on British-born jihadists. He has built a reputation for contacting Western-born ISIS fighters and interviewing them online about their motives. The development has caused concern among BBC journalists.

There are also concerns that the law could be used by police to track down sources of academic research into Islamic extremism. The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at Kings College London has built up a huge database of Western jihadists.

The anti-terror law must change

At the Court of Appeal, David Miranda, the partner of former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, challenged a ruling that he was lawfully detained at Heathrow Airport in 2013 under the Terrorism Act. This resulted in the seizure of 58,000 highly confidential documents that he was carrying in encrypted files for the journalist.

The Court of Appeal ruled that Miranda’s detention was lawful under applicable law, but that the clause under which he was detained was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The ruling rejected the broad definition of terrorism advanced by government lawyers. The proper legal definition of terrorism, the appeals court has now ruled, requires “some intent to cause a serious threat to public safety, such as endangering life.”

The verdict essentially states that the police acted within the existing law, but that the law itself needs to be amended.

In response, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: “The Terrorism Act should be used to deal with terrorists, not journalists or whistleblowers. The ruling recognises the important role journalists play in holding government to account and shining a light on a range of issues.”

Kua Kia Soong is an academic and former Member of Parliament.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.