Israel beats and arrests American journalist while the US is silent

And the UK has arrested and charged accredited journalists under the Terrorism Act 2000 as the western war on free speech intensifies

Published in The National, October 13th, 2024.

Two days ago, the GrayZone journalist Jeremy Loffredo was beaten, kidnapped, blindfolded and taken to an Israeli military base by the Israeli Offensive Forces (IOF) along with 4 other journalists.

Four were released but Loffredo remains captive. His crime? Doing journalism. He was reporting on the damage Iranian missiles inflicted on the Nevatim airbase and near Mossad’s Tel Aviv HQ earlier this month, which Israel is keen to conceal from the rest of the world. He is being charged with “aiding the enemy.”

You can watch Loffredo’s last dispatch from Israel here, where he reported:

“Since the missile strikes, Israeli authorities have attempted to downplay the significance of the attacks, censored the locations of missile impacts from media publication, and claimed that Iranian missiles targeted Israeli civilians.

What I saw today, here in Israel, is clear evidence that Iran was targeting the same Israeli intelligence and military infrastructure that has been used over the past year to carry out brutal assassinations and attacks.”

Loffredo’s attorney said:

“[He] published the information openly and fully, without attempting to hide anything. If this information constitutes aiding the enemy, many other journalists in Israel, including Israeli reporters, should also be arrested.”

The 28-year-old could face life imprisonment or even the death penalty. What does the United States have to say about Israel’s brutal treatment of an American citizen doing his job? Nothing, so far.

This despite the fact that US media outlets PBS and ABC News openly featured the aftermath of the Iranian missile strikes but face no such charges.

The latest information is that the Israeli judge overseeing the case ordered Loffredo’s release because the Israeli military censors allowed Israeli media to publish both word of his arrest and the publications that led to it, so could no longer justify his detention. However, the Israeli police have appealed the decision, so Loffredo remains in custody until tomorrow’s appeal hearing.

It’s not just Israel and the US that are preventing journalists from reporting Israel’s crimes. Richard Medhurst was arrested at Heathrow on August 15th on charges under Section 12 of the UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000. Section 12 of the Act criminalises opinion and can lead to a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. He was held for 24 hours and was accused of “allegedly expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization.” He was never given a clear reason for his arrest, but believes it stems from his reporting on Israel’s genocide, in which the UK is complicit. He lives in Vienna but must report to a UK police station in 2 months.

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Medhurst said of his ordeal:

“I felt the whole process is meant to intimidate you and make you feel like you’re being crushed by the state, by the government, that the government is in control … You’re not allowed to say anything, and you have to shut up and accept this.”

At the end of August, UK journalist Sarah Wilkinson was arrested for content she published online about the genocide in Gaza. Her house was raided by 16 plainclothes police officers, her electronic devices were confiscated and the urn containing her mother’s ashes was desecrated.

The same day as her arrest, the co-founder of Palestine Action, Richard Barnard, was charged with 3 offences under the Terrorism Act 2000 for comments he made in two speeches.

So-called democratic governments are waging an all-out war on free speech, threatening, intimidating and imprisoning ordinary citizens and the few brave journalists who are trying to do their job - to inform the citizenry and hold power to account.

Unless more of us speak up and openly resist these fascist moves by our governments, those of us who express opinions at odds with state-sanctioned narratives could face the same fates.