Originally published by The Palestine Chronicle
British police arrested human rights activist Sarah Wilkinson after raiding her home on Thursday reportedly for “content that she has posted online,” and subsequently released her on bail.
“The police came to her house just before 7.30 am. 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”, her brother, Jack Wilkinson, said on X.
On Friday, her daughter posted on Wilkinson’s X account that “my mother was hurt, denied meds & bailed to ‘never’ use a phone/laptop.”
The pro-Palestine activist’s arrest caused an outcry across social media, and the hashtag #FreeSarahWilkinsonNOW was picked up across the platform.
Musician and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters slammed her arrest, saying “So 12 cops come around to the house and arrest you… for standing up for human rights, campaigning against genocide.”
In a video message on X, Waters said police cannot “come around and arrest people who have hearts and minds and have made up their own mind about foreign policy.”
“This is wrong! If you allow this to stand, the arrest of Sarah Wilkinson, and the persecution of my friend Craig Murray, among others, then you have absolutely accepted that England is now a fascist state. 1984 has arrived and is alive and well in the United Kingdom. Over my dead body.”
According to Wilkinson’s daughter, her 61-year-old mother was arrested “by 16 balaclava-clad thugs.”
‘Anti-Media British Government’
The Lebanese MENA Uncensored news platform demanded her immediate release and said in a statement that Wilkinson was a “news contributor and roving reporter” who had been “providing critical news coverage and analysis in collaboration with the website’s team,” particularly the “unfolding crisis” in Gaza.
She was also a member of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which was aimed at breaking the maritime siege on Gaza.
MENA Uncensored said she was arrested “for supporting the Palestinian resistance and relaying what is really happening in Gaza and the West Bank to the world,” adding that it held “the anti-media British government full responsibility of this stupid act of intimidating and oppressing journalists as well as human rights activist in favor of the israeli occupation entity.”
‘Thought Police’
Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, whose home was recently raided by the FBI said “This is getting very ‘Minority Report-like” a reference to the movie with dystopian elements.
“The thought police,” Ritter added in a comment on X. “This is the end of British democracy.”
Wilkinson’s arrest comes two weeks after Syrian-British journalist Richard Medhurst was detained under Section 12 of the UK Terrorism Act and held for 24 hours.
In a video on X, Medhurst said he was accused of “allegedly ‘expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a prescribed organization’” but police would not explain “what this meant.”
Medhurst believed he was “the first journalist to be arrested under this provision of the Terrorism Act,” and added, “I feel that this is a political persecution and hampers my ability to work as a journalist.”
Palestine Action Targeted
Also on Thursday, the Palestine Action movement said counter-terrorism police have “re-raided one of the #Filton10’s address, over 3 weeks after they were first arrested.”
Several activists from the movement were detained under the Terrorism Act for breaking into an Israeli-owned weapons facility in the Filton area of Bristol earlier this month.
In a later post, the movement said its co-founder Richard Barnard is facing “three charges for two speeches”.
“He is accused of supporting a proscribed organization under the Terrorism Act and encouraging ‘criminal activity’,” it added.
According to a report in The Times, Barnard was accused of “expressing an opinion that is supportive of a proscribed organisation contrary to section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000.”
Barnard will also face two charges of encouraging or intending to encourage criminal damage, the report said.
“It follows an investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North West into a demonstration in St Peter’s Square, Manchester, on October 8 last year,” it added.
Nurah Tape is a South Africa-based journalist. She is an editor for The Palestine Chronicle.
