UK ‘terror’ police detained two Irish neutrality activists as they travelled to a peace demo in London, claiming that they posed a terror and security threat.
Truth and Neutrality Alliance’s Bill O’Brien and Patrick Downey suffered intrusive body searches and were fingerprinted, handprinted and swabbed for DNA, all while denied legal representation through police-state ‘terrorism’ legislation.
The Starmer regime repeatedly used the tactic against British and international journalists, lawyers and peace activists who expose Israel’s genocide and the UK’s collaboration. The Burnham government has rapidly shown it is no better. And with the political and media push for ever more war spending, even the idea of neutrality is treated as a threat. O’Brien described the by now all too familiar threat – in this case exploiting the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019:
They told us we were being ‘detained’, not arrested – and that if we didn’t answer any questions we’d be incriminating ourselves. You don’t have the right to remain silent. They said as soon as we charge you with an offence, all your rights kick in.
The pair had been invited to London to speak at a ‘No2NATO’ protest. Border police seized their phones and held them incommunicado for around five hours — long enough to ensure they couldn’t speak at the protest. Despite asking for the Irish embassy to provide support, UK ‘terror’ police did not even contact the embassy.
The legislation is used to deny legal representation while obliging detainees to “answer all questions, surrender PINs and passcodes to electronic devices and submit to searches”. It withholds the right to silence, making refusal to provide any and all information a criminal offence in itself. Downey said:
They wanted to know if I’d ever worked for Russia, or if I had any ambitions to work for the Russian government. A tonne of questions like that.
The pair were later released without charge.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
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