Pro Palestinian Independent journalist arrested and detained for 24 hours by UK police

Who is Richard Medhurst?

Richard Medhurst, 32 years old, is a British independent journalist with a combined following of roughly 1 million between all of his social media platforms.

Medhurst's field of journalism is primarily political commentary with a focus on UK and US politics and foreign affairs in the Middle East. He is a fairly accomplished independent journalist with his work reporting on events in countries, such as, Yemen, Ukraine, Syria, Niger, Lebanon, Iran and is currently focusing on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

His work as an independent journalist is not only found on his social media sites such as his X, Instagram and Youtube with him also doing work for international news outlets including, Al Jazeera, WikiLeaks, Black Agenda Report, Al Mayadeen, The Times, LBC and others .

What happened?

On the 15th of August, upon returning to the UK at Heathrow Airport, Medhurst was escorted and arrested off of his plane under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000.

He was accused by the police of "expressing an opinion or belief that is supported by a prescribed organisation".

In a recent social media post on X detailing his arrest and detainment he highlighted that the police "wouldn't explain what this meant" when he asked for clarity around the grounds of his arrest.

Medhurst was subsequently taken to an adjacent room in the airport. He was then handcuffed and escorted to a police station by police van where he was patted down serval times and strip searched.

His phone was seized alongside journalistic equipment and devices, such as, simcards, wireless microphones, headphones and was placed in solitary confinement in windowless cell with no toilet paper.

The police informed Medhurst that he had the right to inform someone that he was currently being detained, however, in practice, upon trying to excise this right he was told that his call were currently being withheld due to the nature of the alleged offence.

Upon questioning if he was allowed to call someone Medhurst was told "It's not an absolute right it can be waived."

After 15 hours of confinement Medhurst was interviewed by two detectives. The interview lasted about an hour to an upwards of an hour and an half.

Medhurst categorically rejects all the allegation levied at him by the police.

In a his recent social media post detailing the events, he said,

"I am not a terrorist. I have no criminal record. Prior to this incident I've never been detained in my entire life."

He later goes on to summaries himself as a product of the diplomatic community attributing this to the work of both of his parents winning Nobel peace prices for their work as United Nation Peacekeepers. He then went on to claim he has been a victim of terrorism in the past and goes on to very vocally condemn terrorism and stated that he loves the UK and respects it's laws and it's legal institutions.

Former Worker's Party MP for Rochadale George Galloway, responded to Medhurst's 8 minute long video accounting of the events on the X labelling it "Big News".

This arrest comes eight days after the raid of the home and arrest of Pro-Palestinian activist, the US based Scot Ritter by the FBI.

Ritter also having his journalistic materials seized by the FBI despite being a former United Nations Special Commission weapons inspector and serving as junior military analyst in operation Desert Storm.

This page will be updated with updates as the story develops.