UK police raid home, seize devices of Electronic Intifada's Asa Winstanley | Hacker News Reader

UK police raid home, seize devices of Electronic Intifada's Asa Winstanley

electronicintifada.net

14 pointscempaka11 comments

This might sounds bizarre to our friends in the US, but there is no first amendment provision in most places.

> Although his devices were seized, Winstanley was not arrested and has not been charged with any offense.

Until we know the details it seems they have something, warrants against journalists in the UK aren't just issued from a cozy judge. They do have a lot of leeway.

Insighting hate and or violence in the UK is a crime. As terrible as it sounds, it's not the US. I'm curious to see what will come of this, but as this is the first reading I'm heading it from and it's from the electronicintifada themselves I would wait to hear more.

The earlier journalist arrests that were made in the UK were for expressing support for Hamas's resistance against Israeli occupation and campaigns in Gaza. Is a similar standard of "inciting hatred and violence" applied to supporters of the IDF?

Keeping it technical only, I think the issue is that Hamas are a proscribed terrorist organisation here in the UK and the IDF is the official armed forces division of a sovereign state. Regardless of your political orientation, showing support for one has real consequences in the real world.

Ah I see, so it's only "inciting" some forms of violence which is proscribed.

The "consequences" you are attempting to portray as some kind of inevitable law of nature are in fact a matter of policy choice, nothing more.

I don't play these word games. Sorry.

No charge is weird though, no? Even for the UK? In my country the judge have to state a reason to keep your belongings. Feel very political to me.

Worth dropping this in here: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/electronic-intifada/

Do you mean to suggest that the actions taken against the journalist reported in this article didn't actually occur, or that they did occur and are justified?

I think you are trying to add a narrative which is disingenuous.

If you want my opinion, I suspect they either pissed someone off or became a security risk.

Never heard of that site but it appears it's run and funded by a random guy who works in health care, helped by people who are proudly not professional journalists [1].... I'm not sure that is the great endorsement they think it is.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/frequently-asked-questions/

Well aware of that. Having compared several news outlets to their data, it matches what I would consider reasonable on veracity and political orientation.

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