Sometimes the journalist really is the story: “Telegraph journalist faces ‘Kafkaesque’ investigation over alleged hate crime”, reports the Telegraph.
A Telegraph journalist is facing a “Kafkaesque” investigation for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a social media post last year.
Allison Pearson, an award-winning writer, has described how two police officers called at her home at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to tell her she was being investigated over the post on X, formerly Twitter, from a year ago.
In an article for The Telegraph, she said she was told by one officer that “I was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently.”
When Pearson asked what she had allegedly said in the tweet, the officer said he was not allowed to disclose it. However, at this time last year, she was frequently tweeting about the October 7 attacks on Israel and controversial pro-Palestinian protests on the streets of London.
The officer also refused to reveal the accuser’s name. Pearson recalled: “‘It’s not the accuser,’ the PC said, looking down at his notes. ‘They’re called the victim.’”
An accused person is not told what crime they are alleged to have committed nor who is accusing them, but the police speak as if the crime is already proven. There was a time when Britain defined itself as a place where this could not happen.
Here is another account of the same events from GB News:
Those 14 years of Conservative government really worked out well.
You know it’s not really about “hate.”
It’s “please please don’t rile them up, keep the peace, we know we can’t handle them anymore.”
It’s surrender.
Can someone explain to me what happened to the British people? Why is the country not conducting protest marches on Westminster, yelling bloody murder, voting in pro free speech MPs? Why are MPs not demanding change every single day in the House of Commons? Why are the newspapers and journalists, the very people whose livelihoods depend on the right to free speech, putting this as the headline in every newspaper, every news broadcast, every single day? Why does not every house in Britain have a sign up saying “I might hate what you say but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
Britain, the mother of the right to free speech. I guess mum has got dementia and has been locked away in a home.
America has a lot of faults, but the first amendment is our one remaining shining star.
@Fraser Orr – Just waiting for 2029 to give the Commies of Labour the bum’s rush like we did with the Tories last time.
Reform UK might end up being corrupt as the other two cheeks of the “Uniparty” arse, but we’d still rather roll the dice one more time rather than have to start yet another civil war and the butchery and disruption that would cause.
It’s not like they haven’t been warned.
There are plenty of lampposts and piano wire, but ordinary rope will do at a pinch.
Just waiting for 2029 to give the Commies of Labour the bum’s rush like we did with the Tories last time.
Why wait. Why not now? If you wait for elections to change things you are going to be sadly disappointed. The question though is about the British people. Do they really hold free speech in such low regard that they aren’t making a huge fuss about some of these terrible things? Are they really in favor of these hate speech laws? Do they realize that they are headed toward being a banana republic where the government tells them what to say? Are they happy to install Telescreens in their houses so that they don’t get any disinformation?
There are plenty of lampposts and piano wire, but ordinary rope will do at a pinch.
I’m not at all advocating political violence. What I am asking is why is there barely any protest at these outrages? Why are the people not flocking the streets? And most of all, FFS what they hell is wrong with your press? Even if they have abandoned their job of reporting the news, surely they realize that without free speech it is their head first on the chopping block?
I’ve posted this firstly because who doesn’t like a bit of Kipling in the morning? Second, I believe, I hope, and I pray that the penny has dropped and that this sentiment still exists amongst my fellow Englishmen.
I have to disagree with Fraser Orr.
“newspapers and journalists, the very people whose livelihoods depend on the right to free speech”
Their livlihoods are presrved very well parroting government lines – think of climate change and the BBC. The free speech is carried on the internet by people who dissent. Free speech is a threat to people like the BBC.
@Fraser Orr: you’ve missed an important point of the story; Allison Pearson (pbuh) writes for the Telegraph , so she is automatically “far right” and therefore had it coming to her.
I want to think that the police involved know this behaviour on their part is nonsense. And that they picked on a high-profile journalist on Remembrance Sunday so that the stupidity and Orwellian nature of it all could be brought to a wide audience.
A precedent was set with the unjust persecutions of free speech warrior Tommy Robinson, with the travesty continuing at this very moment.
I should have added this:
https://www.rebelnews.com/tommy_robinson_pleads_not_guilty
I hope and expect that both Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage pledge to overturn these absurd laws and ensure that all such “offences” are removed from public record. Nothing less will do.
And if the U.K. leaves the European Convention on Human Rights, that a new government ensures that free speech is clearly established as a right in British law on the same basis as the First Amendment.
Jonathan, I hope – but don’t expect. I fear things are too far gone.
Jonathan Pearce, thy name is Hopium.
Henry, well if you have constructive ideas, then let me know. Knock yourself out.
A few people on this blog like Mr Farage. He’s been remarkable in drive a few agendas, so I want to see him and his Reform Party take this issue by the scruff of its neck.
Sure, fight the establishment like Tommy Robinson does. He has skin in the game, do you?. I also ask this: have any of you good folks here been persecuted, let alone arrested and imprisoned. If the answer is no that’s because the government thinks you are irrelevant.
People who took to the streets (after an Islamic terrorist murdered three girls – and the establishment pretended the murderer was a Welsh Christian) are now in prison (where there are vicious gangs to attack them) – and well be in prison for years (unless they die – as one already has). Even people who just tweeted this or that are in prison – again for years, unless they die.
To call for an unarmed population to resist a regime that is both armed and ruthless is irresponsible, wildly irresponsible. Fraser Orr calls for protests (NOT an uprising) the problem is that the courts, the judges, have made it brutally clear that they consider protests to be an uprising – and just being near such events (even without taking part) can get people years in prison – where they will be abused by gangs.
The only hope is an election, although that may be five years away, and the hope that Kemi Badenoch proves to be a better Prime Minister than Cameron, May, Johnson and Sunak (Liz Truss was betrayed) – and actually repeals such legislation as the Equality Act of 2010 (and the Climate Act – and-so-on). And clears out the “Woke” (Critical Theory) judges – who are presently appointed by a left-establishment committee (the terrible system the European Union wants to impose on Hungary and call the rule of leftist judges “the rule of law”) and have signed up for the Progressive agenda on XYZ.
Five years is a long time to wait – I very much doubt I will still be about. But there is no other realistic alternative.
Note that the accuser is not considered an accuser – but rather automatically a “victim”.
In short – there is a presumption of guilt.
And the “crime” is saying something that is against the establishment line.
Whether it is against “diversity and inclusion” (i.e. Critical Theory and its obsession with race, ethnic groups, and sexual groups), against Covid “vaccines” (as Mark Steyn found out the hard way), or against the C02 is evil theory (in American con men such as Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann use the laws of libel to silence critics – just as the Dominion Computer Voting Machine Corporation does).
Whether it is done by the Criminal Law or the Civil Law, or just by a screaming cancel mob demanding that you lose your job or position, the purpose, the objective, is the same.
To silence dissent.
“Offences”??
Allison Pearson “was accused of a non-crime hate incident.” The police did not claim that she committed an offense.
What Kemi and Nigel should pledge is that any police-person who investigated “non-crime hate incidents” will be fired, and any police-person who does so in the future shall be subject to cruel and unusual punishment.
Except that the First Amendment cannot be repealed by a simple majority in Congress.
Paul Marks, you make some very good points.
In response I want to make a few of my own:
That unarmed population you speak of greatly outnumbers the regime and all of its elements.
Think of the Solidarity movement in Poland that helped bring down that regime. Yes, the world was a different place with the then-Pope and Ronald Reagan as allies in spirit. Now the world has Donald Trump and others pushing back against the destroyers.
The reason for the imprisonment of those that took to the streets is the government greatly fears what they represent and what they bode, folks actually taking action to express their deep displeasure about the direction the country is heading.
Finally, most people may not have firearms but that doesn’t mean they are unarmed. There are all kinds of effective weapons besides guns.
The Tories are finished Paul. They had 14 years in power and they did nothing to wind back the clock on repressive legislation and taxes. They are a spent force.
Go Reform UK!
Unless the Tories have a night of the long knives in Central Office and change their regulations so that power is sent back to the constituency level, it doesn’t matter what Kemi says as she will not have many allies in the Tory party should they win an election. The dripping wet blob will continue as before.