UN demands answers from UK on terror law abuse

By KIT KLARENBERG – The Grey Zone

As the British state harasses and arrests a growing number of activists and dissident journalists, including the author of this piece, UN rapporteurs delivered a forceful letter of protest to London condemning its abuse of counter-terror legislation.

In December 2024, a quartet of UN rapporteurs focused on “peaceful assembly and of association” and the “right to privacy” delivered a strongly-worded letter to the British government. Expressing grave concerns about the potential “misapplication of counter-terrorism laws” to arrest, detain, interrogate and surveil dissident activists and journalists, including The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg, they demanded clarity on a number of serious issues. Given 60 days to respond, London remained suspiciously silent.

As a result, the UN’s correspondence with the British government has now been made public. The rapporteurs were clearly disturbed by reports of Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, and Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act, which covers “hostile” state threats, “being used to examine and obtain data from journalists and activists Johanna Ross, John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray and Richard Medhurst in circumstances where they appear to have no credible connection to ‘terrorist’ or ‘hostile’ activity.”

While awaiting a reply that never came, the UN “urged” British authorities to undertake “interim measures” to prevent any recurrence of potential human rights breaches under counter-terror legislation, and “ensure the accountability” of anyone responsible for “alleged violations.” Evidently undeterred by pressure from the UN, Britain has continued to escalate its war on dissidents.

Since the UN issued its letter of protest, British activists and journalists have since been arrested, raided, and prosecuted, including Asa Winstanley, Tony Greenstein, Sarah Wilkinson, Palestine Action cofounder Richard Barnard, and academic David Miller.

The UN letter focused on how “powers under counter-terrorism legislation have been used on multiple occasions to examine, detain, and arrest journalists and activists, particularly at the UK border.” Individuals “who are critical of Western foreign policy in the context of the conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war are especially affected by the reported misuse of these powers,” the rapporteurs wrote.

Ominously, the UN rapporteurs suggested this could amount to “over-use [or] misuse” of British counter-terrorism legislation “to target legitimate freedom of expression and opinion, including public interest media reporting, and related freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, and political dissent or activism.”

“Vague and broad” laws mean mass-persecution

The UN rapporteurs were especially scathing in their critique of the powers used to harass and potentially incarcerate targets. They charged that Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act “may be unjustifiably used against journalists and activists who are critical of Western foreign policy.” In each case they investigated, detentions under this legislation were “premeditated [and] examination, confiscation of devices, and DNA prints were conducted despite the apparent absence of a credible ‘terrorist’ connection” with the individual in question.

Such promiscuous application of ostensible counter-terrorism laws creates the unavoidable “risk of intimidating, deterring, and disrupting the ability of journalists to report on topics of public importance without self-censorship” in Britain. This “serious chilling effect,” the rapporteurs cautioned, could extend well beyond media, and “unjustifiably interfere with the rights to freedom of expression and opinion and participation in public life” across “civil society and legitimate political and public discourse.”

The UN took repeated aim “at the vagueness and overbreadth” of the 2000 Terrorism Act’s criminalisation of “expressing an opinion or belief…supportive of a proscribed organisation.” The legislation’s terms provide no definition whatsoever of the term “support”, an “ambiguous” deficiency that “may unjustifiably criminalize” legitimate opinions “not rationally, proximately or causally related to actual terrorist violence or harms.” They noted this prohibition “goes well beyond the accepted restrictions on freedom of expression under international law concerning the prohibition of incitement to violence or hate speech.”

Indeed, “speech that is neither necessary nor proportionate to criminalize, including legitimate debates about the de-proscription of an organization and disagreement with a government’s decision to proscribe” could be categorized as “supporting” a terrorist group under the 2000 Terrorism Act’s sweeping terms. This is especially problematic given certain factions proscribed by Britain, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, may be “de facto authorities performing a diversity of civilian functions, including governance, humanitarian and medical activities, and provision of social services, public utilities and education”:

“Expressing support for any of these ordinary civilian activities by the organization could constitute expressing support for it, no matter how remote such expression is from support for any violent terrorist acts by the group.”

Working for “hostile” governments without knowing

Similar alarm was sounded about the wording of Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, under which The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg was detained upon returning to his home city of London in May 2023. It stipulates that anyone entering British territory suspected of “hostile activity” on behalf of a foreign power can be held against their will and interrogated for up to six hours, while the contents of their digital devices are seized and stored. Non-compliance automatically results in arrest.

See the notice of detention issued by British state security to journalist Kit Klarenberg under Schedule 3 of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act of 2019 here.

Ever more disturbingly, Schedule 3 is suspicionless. Under the legislation’s terms, “it is immaterial whether a person is aware that activity in which they are or have been engaged is hostile activity, or whether a state for or on behalf of which, or in the interests of which, a hostile act is carried out has instigated, sanctioned, or is otherwise aware of, the carrying out of the act.” In other words, no conspirator in a suspected conspiracy has to have consented to potentially illegal activity.

“Hostile acts” are defined as any behavior deemed threatening to London’s “national security” or “economic well-being.” Again, the rapporteurs condemned this language as “vague and over-broad.” They concluded the phrasing granted British authorities “extraordinary discretion” to engage in “unnecessary, disproportionate or otherwise arbitrary interferences in the rights to liberty and privacy” of individuals detained under these powers. Moreover, as the Act’s targets are not formally under formal criminal investigation or arrest, or suspected of having committed any offense, they have no right to remain silent.

The UN branded this distinction as “artificial… given the punitive sanctions for non-compliance,” branding it as “inconsistent with the accepted meaning of ‘arrest’ or ‘detention’” under Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The “extreme breadth” of Schedule 3 also “enables unnecessary, disproportionate, arbitrary or discriminatory interference with an individual’s rights, including freedom from arbitrary detention, freedom of movement…and the rights to leave and enter one’s own country.” Article 17 of the ICCPR also states:

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with [their] privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on [their] honour and reputation.”

This is explicitly contrary to Klarenberg’s May 2023 experience at Luton airport. There, as the rapporteurs documented, he was “fingerprinted, subjected to oral DNA swabs, and photographed by the examining officer,” while asked excessively invasive questions about his financial affairs, personal and professional relationships, and living situation in his adopted home country of Serbia. His belongings were extensively “searched and he was compelled to provide the passwords to his digital devices, which included a smartphone, tablet, and two cameras.”

Not only was all data on these devices copied, but “the memory cards and SIM cards of the electronic devices were copied outside the interrogation room” and “retained by the police.” As of the letter’s dispatch, one of Klarenberg’s memory cards had “been retained for a period exceeding a year and five months” by British authorities, suggesting he “remains under criminal investigation” for uncertain offenses he did not knowingly or willingly commit.

The rapporteurs noted Klarenberg was among several journalists detained by British border officials whose “electronic devices [were] confiscated for a significant period of time and have not been updated on the use, retention or destruction of their data, or advised in relation to their personal data protection rights.” In many cases, these seized items have never been returned, without satisfactory explanation or seeming legal justification.

New British laws further criminalize dissent

In closing, the UN rapporteurs “encouraged” London to repeal legislation under which dissidents have been persecuted, or “amend it to protect freedom of expression, and…develop prosecutorial guidelines for its appropriate use to avoid the unnecessary or disproportionate incrimination of political dissent.” They further implored London to “indicate how the application of counter-terrorism laws” against activists and journalists “is consistent with international human rights law, and an appropriate application of the law,” while providing “an update on the retention of data taken from the journalists.”

 

They went on to “urge” the British government to “consider the growing number of instances” where laws purportedly intended to deal with violent terrorist threats “may have been inappropriately directed towards journalists and activists, and to consider addressing this through amendments to the legislation, guidance for relevant officials, and training of border security officers.” Britain’s failure to respond to the UN’s letter, and ever-ratcheting attacks on domestic dissent subsequently, amply indicate these entreaties have fallen on determinedly deaf ears.

In December 2023, Britain rammed through a new round of draconian legislation reinforcing and further codifying the “vague and over-broad” terms of the laws condemned by the UN, under the auspices of the National Security Act. Its terms introduce a number of completely new criminal offenses with severe penalties, and wide-ranging consequences for freedom of speech. Explicitly enacted to neutralize investigative journalism and prevent the emergence of a new WikiLeaks, the Act is so expansive, individuals will almost inevitably break the law without wanting to, intending to, or even knowing they have.

British journalist Johnny Miller seeks asylum in Russia following campaign of harassment

At almost exactly the same time when UN rapporteurs complained to the British government about its abuse of “counter-terror” legislation to persecute dissidents, independent journalist Johnny Miller was granted asylum in Russia. Miller, a British citizen, had reported from the front lines of the Ukraine proxy war for two-and-a-half years. During this period, supporters of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky subjected him a campaign of intensive harassment, hacking his digital devices and Telegram account, bombarding him and his family with anonymous death threats, and publicly stalking him.

Miller told The Grayzone he’s not sure who or what was ultimately behind the campaign of harassment, but strongly suspects British and/or Ukrainian intelligence played a role. He says it was evident from the start of 2024 his movements in Moscow were being closely tracked while he travelled around the city, and seemingly in advance. At repeated meetings with friends and sources in bars, cafes and restaurants in the Russian capital, individuals would be waiting there for him, staring at him menacingly:

“It might sound crazy, but I think that’s the point. The purpose was to drive me insane, and make me look insane if I ever spoke up about this publicly. But these intimidating encounters from afar happened too many times to be a coincidence, and were witnessed by those I met with. One of them was George Dusoe, a US diplomat who quit out of protest over Gaza, after growing disillusionment with US government policy, and then moved to Russia.”

Miller met with Dusoe for a coffee a day before a formal interview. Afterwards, as they headed for the central Moscow metro, Dusoe quietly informed him they were being followed by multiple people. “He’d not only experienced that personally while posted abroad, but was specially trained in how to spot and evade it,” Miller noted. While the pair eventually eluded their stalkers, losing them in the metro, the experience shook Miller.

To this day, he can’t help but wonder, “what if I was alone, and this happened at night?,” citing the example of Adrian Bocquet. A French military veteran, he travelled to Ukraine in April 2022, witnessed Kiev’s forces commit countless grave war crimes, publicly testified to these atrocities while disputing Western claims of Russian atrocities in Bucha after returning home, then was stabbed in Turkey by Ukrainian nationalists. Miller is understandably relieved to finally be granted a degree of legal protection, personally and professionally:

“Their aim was to make me so scared for my life I stopped my work, and they almost succeeded. The psychological impact was massive, it was a form of warfare, and it stressed me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before,” he commented. “It’s a sick irony that one of the main reasons I sought asylum in Russia is [in order] to apply for a new passport, I would’ve had to give the British embassy in Moscow my address. No way!”

While detained in Luton airport in May 2023, The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg was not only forced under threat of arrest and prosecution to provide British counter-terror police his apartment address in Belgrade, but its location within the building, how much he paid for rent, and whether energy bills were included in that price. To what malign ends this information was put isn’t clear. From Miller’s point of view, British intelligence is determined to harass dissidents wherever they are, inside the country or thousands of miles away.