British counter-terror police detain journalist for ‘political views’
British counter-terrorism police last month detained and interrogated journalist Kit Klarenberg over his “political views” and “personal opinions”.
Klarenberg, who writes for independent news sites such as The Grayzone and The Cradle, is an investigative reporter who has exposed covert operations by the UK and US governments. A recent report by Klarenberg for The Cradle, for example, detailed how UK government-affiliated contractors are using US funding to train the Palestinian Authority. Another report for The Grayzone revealed that two of the September 11th hijackers had been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi operation.
On May 17th, the journalist was returning to London from Serbia when he was met at the airport by six plainclothes officers who informed him he was being detained under Schedule Three, Section Four of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act. The law allows law enforcement to detain a person at the border to determine whether they are engaging in “hostile activity” but clearly states that suspicion is not required.
“An examining officer may exercise the powers under this paragraph whether or not there are grounds for suspecting that a person is or has been engaged in hostile activity,” says the Act.
Klarenberg was taken into a back room where he was photographed, fingerprinted, swabbed for DNA and stripped of electronic devices. Authorities interrogated him for five hours about his work — with particular interest in The Grayzone — and “his personal opinion on everything from the current British political leadership to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
John Laughland, International Department Director for Dutch political party Forum voor Democratie (FVD), says he was subjected to similar treatment last year at London’s Gatwick airport. The author, a UK national and a noted critic of the UK’s globalist government, was interrogated for an hour about information which he says is publicly available online.
In Laughland’s case, however, he was told he was not being detained and therefore did not have a right to a lawyer, but was barred from leaving the interrogation room.
Graham Phillips, another independent journalist, was placed under sanctions by the UK government last year for his critical coverage of Ukraine.
But His Majesty’s Government is not the only “western democracy” harassing dissenting journalists.
In March, the IRS visited journalist Matt Taibbi at his home as he was testifying before Congress about the weaponization of the federal government.
Taibbi, an award-winning journalist and author, was tapped by Elon Musk last year to report on the Twitter Files, a tranche of internal communications from Twitter’s previous management team. The documents revealed the federal government’s deep collusion with the platform to silence the Biden administration’s political opponents.
On March 9th Taibbi provided testimony on what he found in the Twitter Files to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. He learned later that while he was testifying, an IRS agent came to his home unannounced and left a note at Taibbi’s home instructing the journalist to call him in four days. When Taibbi did, the agent told him that his 2018 and 2021 tax returns were being rejected due to concerns about identity theft. The IRS specifically added that the issues are “not monetary”.
Taibbi says that his 2018 tax returns were in fact accepted over four-and-a-half years ago and provided documentation to the House Judiciary Committee proving that fact, according to the Wall Street Journal. In all those years, the IRS never notified Taibbi or his accountant that there were any concerns about identity theft, and the agency reportedly owes Taibbi a “considerable” tax refund.
The author’s 2021 tax return had been rejected twice, despite his accountant filing with an IRS-approved PIN number. Given that Taibbi had already been in communication with the IRS regarding the issue, it did not justify a house call from an IRS agent.
The federal government has been openly displeased with Taibbi. Earlier in March, House Republicans revealed that Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan demanded that Elon Musk hand over the names of journalists who were given access to the Twitter Files.
