Thought Police

On a Sunday morning, the Essex police showed up at the home of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson to interrogate her because she had tweeted a photo of Manchester police officers posing with the Islamist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, some of whose leading members were recently charged with terrorism offenses.

Pearson’s crime, which resulted in the formation of a “gold group” normally used for dealing with major crimes, was tweeting “look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters” about the ugly photo.

The Essex police claimed that “a complaint of a possible criminal offence was made” of “potentially inciting racial hatred online”. Criticizing the friendliness of the police with Pakistani “Jew haters” had become a “possible criminal offence” while Islamists hating Jews was not.

According to the Essex police, “we police without fear or favour”. In truth, they appear to hardly police anything except speech. The Essex police have stopped answering calls about drug dealing and a Sun column noted that, “in the last year, Essex police have solved just 1 in 8 robberies and violent assaults, a mere 1 out of every 10 sexual assaults and 1 in 15 burglaries.”

Earlier this month, Sussex police arrested a 63-year-old Jewish man in front of his 12-year-old daughter for referring to Gabriel Kanter-Webber, a leftist activist claiming to be a ‘rabbi’ who signed a letter demanding an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas, as a “kapo”.

Rupert Nathan, who was locked up by Sussex police for denouncing the anti-Israel activist on a private Facebook group, stated that “My daughter was in tears – completely inconsolable. Still now she has this deep fear that the police are going to take me away and put me in jail.”

Ian Christopher Austin, Baron Austin of Dudley, was told by West Midlands police that he had been investigated for a tweet describing Hamas as “a death cult of Islamist murderers and rapists”. Apparently the authorities considered the “Islamist” part to be offensive.

These are only a few of the more prominent recent examples of a police crackdown on even the mildest forms of criticism of Islamic terrorism and appeasement by the police and public figures.

These arrests and investigations come after Islamic terrorist supporters have rampaged around the streets of London, Manchester and other cities, waving the flags of illegal foreign terrorist organizations including that of Hamas with no actions or consequences. Instead an infamous viral video from last year showed London Metro police officers arresting a man for saying that he did not want to see ‘Palestinian’ flags all over the city.

British police officers have been filmed refusing to take action against terrorist supporters advocating violence, calling for the killing of Jews and expressing support for terror groups.

The authorities are not cracking down on hate speech or on the incitement to violence, but on politically incorrect speech and on journalists and elected officials whom the Left opposes.

Over the summer, the Starmer government issued a message on social media warning, “Think before you post.” It launched a ruthless suppression campaign, raiding homes, arresting and imprisoning people opposed to mass migration after a Muslim terrorist murdered 3 girls.

“Think before you post!” the Crown Prosecution Service threatened. “Remind those close to you to share responsibly or face the consequences.”

Bernadette Spofforth, a 55-year-old British woman, was dragged out of her home, arrested and held for 36 hours for posting that the murderer was a Muslim terrorist. The charge she was held under was “posting inaccurate information”. The actual inaccurate information was coming from the government which had lied about the terrorist’s religion and arrested those who spoke out.

The government’s reign of terror against critics of Islam and mass migration has dovetailed with a reign of terror by Islamists and their political allies who have held major cities hostage.

While the situation has worsened with the rise of the Starmer regime and Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood, who had her own history of ugly anti-Israel activism, it has become routine for police officers to pay such threatening house calls to people from all walks of life.

Even as crime rose 10% over the last year, thought-crimes are being pursued with added vigor.

Beyond intimidating opponents of Islamic terrorism, the police have also taken to threatening and intimidating women who are opposed to their privacy being violated by transgender men.

Julie Bindel, a feminist author critical of transgender identity politics, had the police show up during a family meal after a transgender man in the Netherlands reported one of her tweets.

Maya Forstater, whose case for women’s rights and against transgenderism became a cause celebre when it was embraced by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, was investigated for 15 months over a tweet about a transgender doctor. In a Kafkaesque twist, the authorities initially refused to tell her what she was being investigated for, only that it involved a transgender person. Forstater was warned that she could be arrested if she did not cooperate.

Former MP Tom Hunt described being reported to the Suffolk police for writing diplomatically of the need to “confront the possibility that a disproportionate number of crimes are committed by individuals from certain communities”.

Many of these investigations are legally baseless and carried out in defiance of the actual law.

Back in 2021, the Merseyside police had put up billboards warning that “being offensive is an offence”. An infamous picture of one of those featured masked police officers threateningly posing. The force admitted that being offensive is not actually a crime.

And yet investigations of people for offending Islamists, leftists and radical activists continue.

The purpose of these investigations is simply intimidation. Like the “being offensive is an offence” billboards and “think before you post”, the purpose is to silence those who speak out.

The UK has become a totalitarian state where free speech, not Islamic terror, is seen as the greatest threat. The rise of Islamic terror has been matched by police terror aimed at critics.

After Muslim terrorists attacked the Charlie Hebdo satire magazine over its Mohammed cartoons, anti-terror units in the UK visited newsstands to collect the names of those who had bought copies. Rather than collecting the lists of names of Muslim terrorists, the authorities were collecting lists of names of those who might be guilty of offending them. And that is true now.

British police forces have failed to act against Muslim mobs attacking Jews, but they have taken action against Jews who have been in the vicinity of those mobs. A London Met police officer warned a Jewish man near a Muslim pro-terror rally that he was “quite openly Jewish” and since “this is a pro-Palestinian march”, he might be guilty of causing a “breach of the peace.”

London Police Commissioner Mark Rowley defended the actions of the police.

Supporting Islamic terrorism is not a crime in the UK. Speaking out against it, falling victim to it or standing up against it is.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

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