{"id":296971,"date":"2024-10-20T07:00:57","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T07:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=296971"},"modified":"2024-10-22T06:57:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T06:57:33","slug":"jonathan-cook-police-escalate-the-british-states-war-on-independent-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=296971","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Cook: Police Escalate the British State\u2019s War on Independent Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Jonathan Cook \u2013 jonathan-cook.net Oct 18, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>The UK government and police \u2013 the British state \u2013 made clear today it is waging a war of intimidation against the country\u2019s independent journalists in a desperate attempt to silence them.<\/p>\n<p>Ten Metropolitan police officers made a <a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/ali-abunimah\/uk-police-raid-home-seize-devices-eis-asa-winstanley\">dawn raid<\/a> on the home of investigative journalist Asa Winstanley and seized his electronic devices under the UK\u2019s draconian Terrorism Act. A letter from the Met indicates that the associate editor of the Electronic Intifada is being investigated by the force for \u201cencouraging terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Winstanley is the latest \u2013 and most high profile \u2013 independent journalist to be targeted by counter-terrorism police in recent weeks. Earlier, Richard Medhurst was arrested at Heathrow airport on returning to the UK from a trip abroad. Then Sarah Wilkinson was arrested and her home ransacked.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">This is an utterly shocking account from journalist Sarah Wilkinson of her recent violent arrest by 16 counter-terrorism police, several masked, at 7.30am.<\/p>\n<p>They smashed up, or stole, many of her belongings; emptied an urn of her mother&#8217;s remains over the floor; have denied her\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1830729753709408299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 2, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Winstanley has repeatedly embarrassed the British establishment by exposing its covert and deep ties to Israel and its collusion with the Israeli lobby.<\/p>\n<p>In his book <em>Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn, <\/em>Winstanley exposed in shocking detail how antisemitism was weaponised against the former Labour leader.<\/p>\n<p>The book would have made uncomfortable reading for his successor, Sir Keir Starmer, now Britain\u2019s prime minister, because it documents his role in the smear campaign. While in opposition, Starmer\u2019s Labour party expelled Winstanley and made legal threats against him.<\/p>\n<p>As the Electronic Intifada website <a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/ali-abunimah\/uk-police-raid-home-seize-devices-eis-asa-winstanley\">notes<\/a>: \u201cNow that Labour is the UK\u2019s ruling party, it has the potential to use the apparatus of the state against those it views as its own \u2013 or Israel\u2019s \u2013 political enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is precisely no reason for police to raid Winstanley\u2019s home or seize his electronic devices. The preposterous accusation of \u201cencouraging terrorism\u201d clearly relates to his online work, which is fully in the public domain.<\/p>\n<p>The British state wants to insinuate through the dawn raid and confiscation of his devices that he is somehow harbouring secret or classified information, or in illicit contact with terror groups, and that incriminating evidence will be forthcoming from searches of those devices.<\/p>\n<p>It won\u2019t. If there were any real suspicion that Winstanley had such information, the police would have arrested him rather making a public show of a 6am raid and search they knew beforehand would turn up nothing.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t about terrorism at all. It is about frightening those opposing Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza, and the West\u2019s collusion in it, into silence. If the British state is going after someone like Winstanley, you are supposed to conclude, they will surely soon come for me too.<\/p>\n<p>Even the name of the \u201ccounter-terrorism\u201d raid is performative: \u201cOperation Incessantness\u201d. The message the state wants to send is that it will not rest till it has us all behind bars.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t believe this nonsense. The police have nothing on Winstanley. Exposing information about Israel and its genocide, and the British government\u2019s culpability, is not a crime. At least not yet.<\/p>\n<p>They want you to think it is, of course. They want you scared and mute. Because every time you go out and protest, you remind the world that the British government, and their bully-boys in blue, are the real criminals \u2013 for enabling genocide.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/supporting-jonathan\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Donate<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2024-10-18\/police-britain-war-independent-journalism\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The raid on investigative journalist Asa Winstanley isn\u2019t about terrorism \u2013 except the UK government\u2019s. It is about scaring us into staying silent on Britain\u2019s collusion in Israel\u2019s genocide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":296972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296971"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296974,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296971\/revisions\/296974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/296972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}