To my colleagues in the UK media –
You may not agree with Palestine Action’s tactics, messaging, or political objectives. You may think protestors in general are noisy, irritating, and uncouth. Indeed, you may think the same of me! But all of us who work in UK journalism, in any capacity, should be horrified by the government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group. It goes far beyond holding a protest group criminally liable for their activities. It makes it illegal to express support for them, in any capacity, under the threat of up to 14 years imprisonment.
Our work as journalists is built on the bedrock of legally protected free expression. But there’s no journalistic exemption to the Terrorism Act 2000. Let’s imagine that one of your colleagues, after this week, writes an opinion piece arguing that Palestine Action are brave and heroic, that they were part of a long tradition of non-violent direct action that includes the Suffragettes and the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp.
You may disagree with the points they make. That’s fine – since when did everyone in the media get along?
But do you think they should be arrested? Do you think their house should be raided, work devices seized, that they should face prosecution and jail time? Because that is what the law allows for.
Perhaps you think this is unlikely. But already, journalists have been investigated under the Terrorism Act. One journalist reporting on Palestine had his home raided by police despite never being arrested or charged with an offence. He was targeted with sweeping warrants that granted police access to journalistic and legally privileged material, which were later ruled unlawful by the court. If one journalist can have their home raided by police under counter-terror powers, so can any of us.
I don’t think that free expression is a privilege that belongs solely to the media class. I don’t think that a teenager wearing a Palestine Action t-shirt should face arrest either. I don’t think someone conveying positive sentiments about the group to their friends should have to worry about prosecution. And I think that, when many ordinary people choose not to comply with the state’s restrictions on expressing support for Palestine Action after it’s proscribed, it is our moral obligation as journalists and media workers to back them up any way we can.
It doesn’t matter if you work for The Guardian or The Sun, Novara Media or The Telegraph, the BBC or GB News. The proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group is an unprecedented infringement on free expression. Every single one of us in the media, no matter our political affiliations, must stand firmly in opposition to it.