My phone is not being returned to me by police as, astonishingly, I am now formally under investigation for terrorism. Whether this relates to support for Palestine or for Wikileaks has currently not been made clear.
What follows is, unspun and unvarnished, my account of my interview under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act as given to my lawyers:
I arrived from Keflavik airport, Iceland to Glasgow airport at about 10am on Monday 16 October. After passport control I was stopped by three police officers, two male and one female, who asked me to accompany them to a detention room.
They seated me in the room and told me:
I was detained under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act
I was not arrested but detained, and therefore had no right to a lawyer.
I had no right to remain silent. I had to give full and accurate information in response to questions. It was a criminal offence to withhold any relevant information.
I had to give up any passwords to my devices. It was a criminal offence not to do this.
They searched my baggage and my coat, going through my documents and taking my phone and laptop. They did not look at one document from Julian Assange’s lawyers that I told them was privileged.
They asked me about boarding cards for Brussels and Dublin they found and what I had been doing there. I replied I was at a debate at Trinity College in Dublin, while in Brussels I had attended a human rights meeting focused on the case of Julian Assange.
They asked me to identify the individuals from some visiting cards I had from the Brussels meeting (one was a German MP).
They asked me the purpose of my visit to Iceland. I told them that I was attending a coordinating meeting of the campaign to free Julian Assange. I said I had also attended a pro-Palestinian rally outside the Icelandic parliament, but that had not been a prior intention.
They asked how I earnt my living. I said from two sources: voluntary subscriptions to my blog, and my civil service pension.
They asked what organisations I am a member of. I said the Alba party. I said I worked with Wikileaks and the Don’t Extradite Assange campaign, but was not formally a “member” of either. I was a life member of the FDA union. No other organisations.
They asked if I received any money from Wikileaks, from Don’t Extradite Assange or from the Assange family (separate questions). I replied no, except occasional travel expenses from Don’t Extradite Assange. In December I had done a tour of Germany and received a fee from the Wau Holland Foundation, a German free speech charity.
They asked what other campaigns I had been involved in. I said many, from the Anti-Nazi League and Anti-Apartheid movement on. I had campaigned for Guantanamo inmates alongside Caged Prisoners.
They asked why I had attended the pro-Palestine demo in Iceland. I said one of the speakers had invited me, Ögmundur Jónasson. He was a former Icelandic Interior Minister. I said I did not know what the speeches said as they were all in Icelandic.
They asked whether I intended to attend any pro-Palestinian rallies in the UK. I said I had no plans but probably would.
They asked how I judged whether to speak alongside others on the same platform. I replied I depended on organisers I trusted, like the Palestine Solidarity Committee or Stop the War. It was impossible to know who everyone was at a big rally.
They asked if anyone else posted to my twitter or blog. I replied no, it was all me.
They asked how considered my tweets were. I replied that those which were links to my blog posts were my considered writing. Others were more ephemeral, and like everyone else I sometimes made mistakes and sometimes apologised. They asked if I deleted tweets and I said very seldom.
I volunteered that I thought I understood the tweet that worried them and agreed it could have been more nuanced. This was the limitation of twitter. It was intended to refer only to the current situation within Gaza and the Palestinian people’s right of self-defence from genocide.
That was more or less it. The interview was kept to exactly an hour and at one point one said to another “18 minutes left”. They did not tell me why. At one point they did mention protected journalistic material on my laptop but I was too dazed to take advantage of this and specify anything.
They took my bank account details and copies of all my bank cards.
ENDS
This is an enormous abuse of human rights. The abuse of process in refusing both a lawyer and the right to remain silent, the inquiry into perfectly legal campaigning which is in no way terrorism-associated, the political questioning, the financial snooping and the seizure of material related to my private life, were all based on an utterly fake claim that I am associated with terrorism.
I have to date not been arrested and not charged. Contempt of court is therefore not in play and you are free to comment on the case (although in the current atmosphere any kind of free thought is liable to vicious state action). I am safe and currently in Dublin. I intend next to travel to Switzerland to take this up with the United Nations.
My legal team have already made a submission against this outrage to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and are looking at the possibility of judicial review in the UK. We also have to prepare the defence against possible terrorism charges, ludicrous as that sounds.
I am afraid this all costs money. I am grateful for the unfailing generosity of people in what seems a continual history of persecution.
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Hoping for all the best, Craig Murray, it’s inspiring to hear you are fighting back as always, being a light to the darkness of our time, and are not going to stand for this gross violation of human rights and decency. I have made sure to bring this to the attention of everyone I know who will listen, and I’ll have to finally put my money where my mouth is and start subscribing, after treasuring reading your blog for what must be a few years now.
I have long held off due to finances, but I can afford a few quid, since I’m more thankful by the day that the Establishment is not after me like everyone I seem to follow online (it’s amazing how much money that can save you), and thankfully being from outside the UK, the skilled economic geniuses of our world have devalued the pound enough of late so as to make it more affordable for me to support British dissidents (their intention, I’m sure).
Even if it adds up combined with all the others I’m supporting these days, I can hardly think of money better spent. When wealth has become so highly concentrated among the few, I think it’s more important than ever, practically and morally, that those of us with less are willing when possible to take the opposite approach of our masters and be supportive and generous with each other.
Best of luck to you staying safe and well in these hard times, and that goes toward all my fellow readers and commenters of this site, as well.
The grim irony is you’d be of no interest to them if you were publicly lusting for genocide. That is what their system is worth.
No interest?
Quite the opposite. He’d be a regular on the BBC’s daily politics show and Radio 4, were he an apologist for Israel’s disproportionate response. Probably BBC 1’s Question Time too. He’d be classed as a trusted, authoritative voice and no doubt introduced as ‘the esteemed’ former ambassador, ‘Sir’ Craig Murray. Articles in the Telegraph, Times, book deals, you name it, the sky would be the limit.
Being a critic of govt policy certainly isn’t profitable or easy. That’s why we should all respect the likes of Assange, Murray; Fisk, Greenwald and other whistleblowers and truth tellers, for at least trying to shine a light in the dark.
Something I rarely do now: I thought I’d watch Question Time, last Thursday (still on BBC iplayer).
Programme was recorded in Lisburn in Northern Ireland. So I thought, this gathering would be up to date on what’s going on in the NEWS???
One member of the panel, John Finucane MP, when talking about Gaza, made, in my opinion, the most sense. But the Chair, Fiona Bruce, seemed to be really aggresive towards him. Probably because he wasn’t singing from the BBC Songsheet.
Anyway, I thought that if Mr Murray was in Ireland, maybe he could contact Mr Finucane (who’s a lawyer) to bounce details of his recent NON arrest.
Unfortunately, you need to build some credibility as genocide afficionado. So Craig can start by organizing Alba Friends of Israel (I assume nobody trade-marked it yet, otherwise, join it), and after a year or two of rabid posts in the blog of AFoI, Craig could get his laptop and iPhone back.
No doubt the Scottish colonial police force (Police Scotland) carried out their duties with gusto, orders I’ll bet from further up the food chain and South of the Border. The dis-united kingdom has thin veneer of democracy but scratch the surface and you will find a much darker set of rules that do not resemble anything like a democracy.
The rolling back of civil right in the dis-untied kingdom has been going on for years under many a guise, the most popular one is of course terrorism which has been used to curtail or free speech and movements both shadowed by dis-untied kingdoms police forces whenever we take to the streets to demonstrate.
The supposedly dis-untied kingdoms security services especially the domestic ones probably spend more time spying on dis-untied kingdom citizens and their activities than they do looking into genuine threats, these security services are NOT our friends, they are used to keep our abilities to speak out and point out real injustices to a minimum.
You are a gadfly Craig that they just can’t seem to swat, keep up the good work.
Expect the unexpected: a police raid at some point in the next few weeks, and all your devices to be seized. Anticipate the harassment will continue – you can minimise the inconvenience. The objective is to wear you down.
Back up your devices, put your notes into safe keeping, protect your sources etc.
I can only imagine how you are feeling. Do not despair – your voice is important. Thank you for continuing to speak out. Best wishes
The hostages won’t even condemn Hamas, so why should you?
At this point, it is probably wise for released hostages not to say anything about Hamas to try and not put the hostages at further risk of reprisal from the people holding the hostages.
Before you give me any what-about Israel’s actions, this is my official stance:
Hiram Johnson (1866-1945) – a Progressive Republican senator in California. said during World War I, ‘The first casualty, when war comes, is truth’.
At this moment, truth is coughing up blood, and I want to give things time before judging anyone. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t provide aid and medical support to Palestinian civilians because, like the people executed by the Hamas attackers, they deserve compassion and care.
“further risk of reprisal from the people holding the hostages.”
Further? Your evidence for reprisals to date is what? Still, kudos for the masterly bit of FUD. Instead of just saying it was a dumb move to let the hostages be interviewed in the first place like some of the supporters of Israel, you have come up with a means to throw doubt on their stories. Meanwhile it seems that what the hostages have most to fear is being killed by Israeli bombs, those that weren’t almost immediately killed by the IDF when “liberating” the kibbutzes.
It is understandable why Yocheved Lifshitz’s testimony has annoyed you. The “Hamas=ISIS” propaganda is the basis for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It depends on painting Palestinians as demonic beasts incapable of empathy.
If “Hamas=ISIS” they would have american and israeli support.
Similar happened to Kit Klarenberg of The Grayzone, The border is an easy place for the pigs to go fishing.
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/05/30/journalist-kit-klarenberg-british-police-interrogated-grayzone/
I don’t know about ‘progress’: this country just gets worse and worse and its quite clear that voting is NOT going to change anything.
As it says on the badge, if voting could change anything they’d make it illegal.
I just send you £500, as a “birthday present” via IBAN.
I know you would like us to subscribe to your blog, but as I am not in the UK, it cost me about £4 (and bound to increase) for each IBAN-tranfer; therefor expect fewer, but larger donations from me.
I wish I was rich, as you deserve a hundred times more.
I studied in Britain some half a century ago. The Britain I grew to like and enjoy seems to be gone, now.
So, so sorry.
That’s an incredible amount. don’t feel sorry
We didn’t notice when Parliament destroyed our freedom.
Would some lawyer (or other well-informed person) tell us (1) what the maximum penalty is for failing to answer questions, and (2) whether a jury trial is possible when one is charged with that?
Mr. Murray, T.P.T.B. will never forgive you for ratting on them in such spectacular fashion in 2004, unless, of course like Churchill, you have that certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat. So I suspect you’ll have to put up with this sort of molestation from their minions for the rest of your natural.
Should have asked them to give you the “not entitled to a lawyer” thing in writing. I doubt they would have because I think they were lying.
I believe that under section 7 of the terrorism act you DON’T have a right to a lawyer for the first hour.
Another of our rights/privileges happily thrown away by the complete f*ckin morons who inhabit Westminster and absolutely don’t represent ‘us’.
” complete f*ckin morons who inhabit Westminster”
Are they morons or is the outcome intended?
Johnny.
Yes it’s the intended outcome, but driving that outcome are the security services and they got what they intended with the laws. The 650 oxygen thieves that inhabit Westminster are useful idiots for the TPTB, they don’t comprehend that the laws they approve apply to them as well as us. Ergo: morons.
” they don’t comprehend that the laws they approve apply to them as well as us.”
More accurately, they think that the laws don’t apply to them. We are those that the law binds but does not protect and they are those that the law protects but does not bind, along with their masters, the oligarchs, AKA “The Establishment”.
Craig’s reference to SECTION 7 was a transparent mistake. SECTION 7 clearly has nothing to with what happened. As the photo of the letter from the police shows, they were actually using SCHEDULE 7.
O/T.
“Julian Assange to be made honorary citizen of Rome”
https://nitter.net/wikileaks/status/1716781818349797768#m
And.
“The International Federation of Journalists, representing more than 600,000 journalists worldwide, calls for Julian Assange’s immediate release”
https://nitter.net/wikileaks/status/1716846469175488932#m
Craig, you were “dazed” because you don’t understand the world you are living in. You have a right to a lawyer and a right to remain silent only because someone in the past fought for and gained those rights for you. The mistake “progressives” make is a) to assume they came from some ineffable “spirit of the ages” type entity that moves through history with some power of inevitability which meant these rights HAD to come about; b) to assume that they don’t have to be repeatedly defended and upheld with each generation because history is on some kind of ratchet so that any right, once gained, can never be repealed, and c) that the world we live in today is in some way different from the one which existed in 1800, or 1500 or 1500 BC. It isn’t. It’s the same people peddling the same utopian claptrap along the lines of, “we need to tighten things up just for now because the threat — whatever it is this week — is unprecedented. But don’t worry, just this one last push and we’re in Nirvana. Seriously. Definitely going to happen this time.” The idea that government itself is the problem 95% of the time never seems to occur.
If it’s any comfort to you, you’re in the same position as the 18th century pamphleteers who were desperately cranking out the truth on hand presses while the “proper” people were propping up corrupt governments. You’re an ACTUAL journalist, just like Julian Assange, and completely UNLIKE the staff of the Guardian, the Times, the BBC, ITV and the entire membership of the NUJ. People like you are rarer than rocking horse manure. I just hope you can see that.
Craig, pass this on to your legal team and ask what they think.
“I have always viscerally opposed war. I have dedicated my life to conflict resolution and reconciliation.
“But in the coming Gaza genocide, every act of armed resistance by Hamas and Hezbollah will have my support.
“If that is a crime, send me back to jail.””
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23864847.craig-murray-detained-terror-laws-palestine-protest/
They may not have seen that. At a guess,, it’s missing the word “legal” as in “every legal act of armed resistance”. Ask your legal team if you should clarify your meaning. At the moment, like it or not, under UK Law “Hezbollah and Hamas’ military wings are proscribed by the UK as terror organisations.”.
And again, like it or not, nobody is above the Law.
what if the law is illegitimate in the first place. wasn’t it a crime to be one of the lesser races in Nazi Germany? i don’t remember specific cases, but I know the German legal establishment provided a veneer of legal cover to the Nazis. if the law is like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, what does it even mean to say “And again, like it or not, nobody is above the Law”. that statement only has meaning in the context of some kind of legal system that is concerned with justice, and with upholding the law.
No, but their rights were increasingly restricted.
Back to Craig, IANAL, but it would seem that this comes under the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 which was used to modify the 2000 Terrorism Act:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/section/1/enacted
“1 Expressions of support for a proscribed organisation
In section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (support), after subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) A person commits an offence if the person—
(a) expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, and
(b) in doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation.””
If this is so, this has little to do with Assange apart from who else might have been there.
Section 7 may have been the mechanism, but the above the cause.
And that, I think, gives the right to (time restricted) questioning without legal representation, and no right to refuse to reply. Personally I think some specialist duty solicitor should be there when possible unless immediate threat, and there was a lot of fuss about this at the time.
Law is law; but it can be amended or repealed. Or indeed, challenged in court via a judicial review. Anyways, that’s it from me.
i’m not sure the law can be, and Jews, Gypsies, Socialists, Homosexuals were all targeted specifically, their property stolen. I don’t see where you addressed my question about the legitimacy of the law at all. i know there are mechanisms for changing or challenging the law, but those mechanisms also existed in Nazi Germany and were utterly meaningless. This is increasingly the case in the west – see Julian Assange.
This is about UK Law in 2023 as it relates to Craig.
this is also about the UK legal system, which is corrupted. Assange didn’t do anything but they trumped up charges against him. they will go after him for the positions he holds; it’s not like they would refrain from going after him if he had changed a word or two in his quote.
yesindyref2
Thanks for sharing that, to me, stunning detail. Expression of opinions & beliefs is so broad brush it appears to make even any discussion of “sensitive” topics potentially illegal, depending on the interpretation of tptb. Looks to me like we’re a fag paper’s thickness away from being in Stazi land, and being grassed up by your neighbour or any bugger overhearing a conversation down the Pub or anywhere. One potential problem I can see on the horizon (I could be totally wrong) is where this may impact on discussion of certain historical facts that form bases for current conflicts: Sykes-Picot agreement, for example, or the actual wording/detail/conditions relating to the Balfour declaration—something which Craig wrote about quite a while ago now, but nonetheless relevant. This looks like a sinister “catch all” to silence dissent once and for all!
Oh, some are above the law alright, unfortunately.
Yesindyref2, see paragraph ~22 of Craig’s post above:
– “I volunteered that I thought I understood the tweet that worried them and agreed it could have been more nuanced. This was the limitation of twitter. It was intended to refer only to the current situation within Gaza and the Palestinian people’s right of self-defence from genocide.”
To my understanding, people, the cops didn’t have the right to question our host under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 or take his laptop and phone, since to do that they would have to have reasonable suspicion that he was concerned in the preparation or instigation of ‘terrorist acts’ as defined in paragraph 1 of the act. So he should be entitled to compo there. However, there is reasonable suspicion that, with his tweet, he has fallen foul of the act as regards Section 12(1A) (as outlined above by YIR2), which is a serious offence with potentially serious penalties.*
* For a comparison, in recent years, over a dozen people have been sentenced to prison terms of between 3 and 8.5 years for being members of the proscribed far-right organisation National Action (membership of proscribed organisation appears to have similar penalties to those for expressing support for them). As far as I’m aware, no NA member has actually ever carried out any terrorist acts. One of their members was sentenced to life (with a minimum term of 20 years) for ‘plotting’ to kill the former Labour MP Rosie Cooper, but as far as I can tell, all that consisted of was him buying a big (but legal) knife and telling people in the pub that he was going to kill her. In contrast, the person who actually attempted to murder the Labour MP Stephen Timms, stabbing him twice before being disarmed, got a minimum term of 15 years and may be out and about soon.
Hollywood does scenarios like 24, where there’s, say, a dirty bomb on the loose and the estimate is it will kill 1 million people in Washington in that 24 hours. CTU has one of the terrorists who refuses to talk, so Jack Bauer tortures him, he reveals the info, and Jack with info from Chloe save the day and 1 million lives.
So implicitly the question is – is it morally right to torture one guilty person to save 1 million? I daresay there will be a million and one different answers to that one!
that hasn’t happened though. it’s a very strained hypothetical to justify torturing people, which doesn’t work at getting useful information but is just grand for intimidating and cowing people.
Hollywood used to portray torturers (always Japanese or Chinese or Germans, certainly no American would do that!) as the epitome of evil, then it switched to portraying torturers as so many Hamlets, tortured by the moral dilemma of having to torture an evil terrorist in order to save countless innocent lives. “you can’t handle the truth” says Jack Nicholson – the willingness to torture has become a kind of virtue signalling, exemplifying moral courage and unflinching realism. It’s all bullshit. torture doesn’t work, those millions aren’t being saved by it, and the people who practice it are dirtbags.
Why would a bomb be set for such a long time? It’s a silly hypothetical situation
This is outrageous. These fishing expeditions on the part of government are becoming much too common for us to be able to pretend we live in democracies. I wish you good luck in getting these goons off of your back.
I imagine that westminster’s paymasters got in touch complaining about that guy Murray and that the Scottish branch of the IDF was tasked to feel his collar. It’s all connected, follow the money.
When Wilt was arrested in Wilt, one of his students shouted “Keep yer hands on yer bollocks and don’t sign anything”, seems like good advice.
i’m not a psychic – i don’t even play one on the internet – but it seems like we are all headed to a real bad place and the pace is accelerating.
pretzelattack
October 24, 2023 at 22:37
Yep…to hell in a handcart springs to mind. Not that visitors to this site and elsewhere have been blind to what has been going on, indeed, they’ve not really tried to hide it, have they? The disrobing of the Velvet Glove started quite some years ago now, and it’s debatable as to just when. Was it when they hit Assange with the sex offences that came to nothing more than a ruse? Or when CIF-type opinions in relation to newspaper articles started to be curtailed or just closed altogether? For me, it’s hard to put my finger on it, but it’s here, and I agree, accelerating at some pace.
Wishing you all the best Craig from Australia. I have donated some money, hope it helps.
From rootling on Schedule 7 of the Terrorist Act 2000 I came across an article including the following:
“Schedule 7 provisions give police the sort of powers that are usually associated with totalitarian regimes. Without need for any justifiable suspicion, the police can inspect and confiscate computers, mobile phones and cameras, and can force people to answer questions under threat of arrest.
While intended to be used only to question people about terrorism offences, it is now quite clear that the police are using Schedule 7 stops to gather intelligence about political activity that is unconnected in any way to terrorism.
Evidence people have presented to Netpol shows that people have been questioned on their involvement with anti-militarist and anti-arms trade campaigns, environmental protest groups, and even independent journalism”.
The date of the article, written by two people who had been stopped several times after visits to Egypt and Palestine is 2013. More recent attempts by human rights organisations to challenge these excessive police powers have resulted in some tiny inconsequential changes to police conduct. Most Schedule 7 stop and search is carried out against Muslims. There appears very little official interest in what these draconian powers are actually achieving to reduce actual terrorism and its risks. I doubt if Starmer will take any interest either.
What about a highest court to appeal or overturn such laws or rulings? How can these laws be legal under international law and regulations re: freedom of speech and assembly?
Where is the democratic check and balance in GB?
I am a reader of this blog so my question is not bar any knowledge of the corrupt realities in GB´s political elite culture – but still there must be constitutional rules and regulations. How is “Schedule 7” still intact?
In Germany the Highest Constitutional Court has mostly no teeth or its rulings come many years too late. But still, decisions there are not always foregone. (Writing this with all my contempt and criticism of our German legal system and community of lawyers.) Sometimes laws are overturned, rulings corrected, laws abandoned. From what I gather here, no such revision of security laws did take place in GB in the past 20 years at least. Why is Britain called a democracy? I mean this regarding the serious legal terms not the usual banter.
“Evidence people have presented to Netpol shows that people have been questioned on their involvement with anti-militarist and anti-arms trade campaigns, environmental protest groups, and even independent journalism”.
It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that this was not the intended use of the legislation, “terrorism” simply being its cloak of respectability to get it through Parliament, to be discarded as soon as it was safely on the books. Indeed, it appears its first recorded invocation was to prevent the Home Secretary from being heckled.
Bayard
I guess this is in much the same way that newer legislation like the Online Harms Bill etc. is supposed to tackle child porn and protect children from kiddy fiddlers. The net, we can be assured will be cast wider than that.
Wow, so very sorry you’re having to suffer this endless bullying.
It’s disturbing to say the least.
Donation made.
Stay strong Craig.
Another bone-chilling advance in the persecution of anti-war voices—there’s almost nowhere left to go but violence. Mr Murray is a light in the darkness and any outrage against him is an outrage against us all. This “investigation” must be met with a furious backlash.
Support from NY!
The sort of stuff we were led to believe only pariah nations did. What kind of secret unaccountable ar*ehole set this affair in motion? MI6 operative, my guess.
Sorry to learn of this.
Well, since you advocate for an internationally recognized terrorist organization, it’s fair to assume you might be not just vocal supporter of terrorism, but perhaps contribute to it practically. Which these officers would now investigate—kudos to them.
I have expected some story about how badly you were handled, your rights abused and so on. You were detained for 1 hour, you weren’t beaten, tortured, pressured to agree with false accusations—nothing. Talking to officers about things that might clear you of your terrorist status—that’s all (I hope you won’t be cleared, tho).
Just to complete the picture—do you by any chance support Russia as well? Because, you know, it’s never enough to support just one kind of terrorists—it’s nice to also support those terrorists patrons too.
How would you know?
Gift voucher day I guess, same as every day..
jesus, you fell for the propaganda justifying the Israeli genocide in Palestine—I guess it makes sense you fell for the propaganda against Russia, too. Do you still believe in Iraqi WMDs? how about the gas attack on the civilians in Douma—you think the Assad regime did it?
You and your “Our Values” elites are the supporters of terrorism.
The whole world is taking note so it’s going to be very difficult to return to business as usual.
Alex
Do you consider the criticism voiced by virtually every respected international legal body or NGO describing Israeli actions either “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide” or “apartheid” or more generally “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” to be terrorist views? Since Craig Murray has done nothing else than supporting that criticism.
Or do you really want to wait until you experience police torture yourself to understand the loss of fundamental freedoms? Do you need to be beaten up to know that it hurts? I don’t think so.
Anyway I assume these 852 top EU officials would disagree with you:
“842 EU employees protest against von der Leyen’s Gaza policy. Diplomats warn that the West has lost all credibility in the Global South because of its ignorance of civilian deaths in Gaza.”
“In an unprecedented letter of protest, some 850 EU employees attack Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s high-handed policy on the war in Gaza. The background is the debate on how Brussels should act on Israeli attacks on Gaza and cutting off civilians from food and water in the wake of the Hamas massacres on Oct. 7. While an EU majority has demanded that Israel comply with international humanitarian law, von der Leyen had initially failed to do so, effectively adopting Berlin’s position. To that end, the protest letter said it was “concerned” about “the apparent indifference” to civilians in Gaza: “The EU is risking all its credibility.” Already last week, diplomats had told the Financial Times that the standard applied to Russia in the Ukraine war should also apply to the Gaza war. Since this was obviously not the case, one must now assume that the states of the Global South “will never listen to us again. The very next UN resolution on Ukraine will see “a big explosion in the number of abstentions.””
Rest of it in German though:
https://www.german-foreign-policy.com/news/detail/9385 – [ automated translation ]
You write as though you think Craig Murray should be grateful he was detained for only one hour and wasn’t beaten, tortured, or pressured to agree with false allegations.
So Craig was not beaten up so everything is hunk dory ?
Shocking but not really surprising.
I bit the bullet and made a small donation towards this or the work you do on here and elsewhere. I will try to make it a regular thing.
Read Craig’s post yesterday and this morning the Telegraph story on how senior Nat West staff discussed using anti-terrorism laws to justify de-banking Farage.
“I had to give full and accurate information in response to questions.”
Francis Bacon: “‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”
Following my comments on “Now we have your attention”, I would expect a democracy with stated values including
• the rule of law,
• individual liberty,
• mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs, and for those without faith,
would have the right to question someone who has made a statement that they will not condemn a heinous terrorist attack against those values but will instead condemn those who stand against that terrorist attack.
As to the legal technicalities as to right to remain silent, to a lawyer, length of questioning without one, etc., I don’t know all of those laws that have been through parliament in detail and they should always be subject to question–so I don’t know if the way you were treated was in accordance with those laws.
It is not “incredible” you would be arrested and questioned given your statements, it is good.
Peculiar logic you have arrived at there. If a society says it values the rule of law and individual liberty then it should detain, question and search citizens, seize their belongings, without legal representation, and without evidence of any crime?
Orwell:
If a terrorist attack is committed, do not stop and question people who make statements in support of the terrorists.
Or…?
Israel has committed terrorist acts and war crimes in its ongoing genocide. should you be stopped and questoned too, for implicitly supporting that?
I just looked up “Section 7 of the Terrorism Act”. This is just more harassment because you give honest reporting and assessment of events. You have done nothing wrong unless some equivalent of jigsaw identification can be invented, and so harass to take away time and money.
Section 7 is just part of the rules based system. We do as we like, you do as you’re told!
Now the Aussies are deploying military aircraft to the ME to support the murdering Zionists.
“The Australian Government is deploying additional Australian Defence Force personnel and aircraft to the Middle East region as part of Operation Beech.”
https://nitter.net/RichardMarlesMP/status/1716958667382407341#m