{"id":271969,"date":"2024-08-26T12:01:19","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T11:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=271969"},"modified":"2024-08-22T06:47:48","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T05:47:48","slug":"i-was-arrested-at-heathrow-airport-as-a-terrorist-for-my-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/08\/i-was-arrested-at-heathrow-airport-as-a-terrorist-for-my-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"I Was Arrested at Heathrow Airport as a \u201cTerrorist\u201d for My Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>20 Aug 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap\" dir=\"auto\"><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color\" dir=\"auto\">&#8220;I was arrested at London&#8217;s Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act, Sec 12 because of my reporting. Six police officers were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft. I was held for almost 24 hours and questioned. I believe I&#8217;m the first journalist to be arrested under this provision of the Terrorism Act. I feel that this is a political persecution and hampers my ability to work as a journalist.&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"I Was Arrested at Heathrow Airport as a \u201cTerrorist\u201d for My Journalism\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QYa-cb7MzIo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap\" dir=\"auto\"><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color\" dir=\"auto\">Richard Thomas Medhurst (1992) is an independent journalist, political commentator, and analyst from the United Kingdom with a focus on international affairs, US politics, and the Middle East. Medhurst is known for his coverage of the Julian Assange extradition case in London, as one of the only journalists to report on the trial of the <\/span><\/span><\/em><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap\" dir=\"auto\"><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color\" dir=\"auto\">WikiLeaks <\/span><\/span><em><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap\" dir=\"auto\"><span class=\"yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color\" dir=\"auto\">founder from inside the court. He has also covered the Iran nuclear deal talks on the ground in Vienna. Medhurst was born in Damascus, Syria. His father is English and mother is Syrian. Both his parents served in United Nations Peacekeeping and Observer missions and were among the UN Peacekeepers awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. Owing to his parents\u2019 professional mobility, he has lived in Syria, Pakistan, Switzerland, and Austria. He speaks four languages fluently: English, Arabic, French, and German.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>20 Aug 2024 &#8211; &#8220;I was arrested at London&#8217;s Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act because of my reporting. Six police officers were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft. I believe I&#8217;m the first journalist to be arrested under the UK Terrorism Act and feel that this is a political persecution that hampers my ability to work as a journalist.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[3223,378,234,880,639],"class_list":["post-271969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-video-clips","tag-fake-justice","tag-journalism","tag-media","tag-state-terrorism","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271969"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271971,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271969\/revisions\/271971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}