Trump official previously compared Britain to Putin’s Russia
The United States has warned Britain not to arrest supporters of Palestine Action, as it says it’s “censoring” their free speech and “does more harm than good”.
Palestine Action is a British pro-Palestinian network which was founded in 2020, with the stated goal of ending global participation in Israel’s “genocidal and apartheid regime.”
The organisation also became active in the Gaza war protests in the United Kingdom, in the wake of the ongoing Gaza genocide.
Trump administration official, Sarah Rogers, who serves as US undersecretary for public diplomacy, was asked whether the British government should allow supporters of the proscribed terror group to protest.
In an interview with the news platform Semafor she said that she “would have to look at each individual person and each proscribed organisation”.
“I think if you support an organisation like Hamas, then depending upon whether you’re coordinating, there are all these standards that get applied”, she added.
“This Palestine Action group, I’ve seen it written about. I don’t know what it did. I think if you just merely stand up and say: ‘I support Palestine Action,’ then unless you are really coordinating with some violent foreign terrorist, I think that censoring that speech does more harm than good”, Rogers added.
Rogers has been a persistent critic of a perceived lack of free speech in the UK, while she recently compared Britain under Labour to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
This came after Keir Starmer said Elon Musk’s X could be banned over its AI tool Grok being used to edit pictures of real people to show them in revealing clothes such as bikinis.
In spite of concerns that it would criminalising legitimate protest, MPs voted to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation in July of last year.
This move came as the pro-Palestine group broke into RAF Brize Norton and vandalised planes.
Since then, more than 2,000 individuals have been arrested for expressing support for Palestine Action, many for holding signs reading: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”
Trump’s administration has been heavily criticised for launching an unprecedented assault on free speech in the US, including by arresting Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student and permanent resident who led pro-Palestinian protests in the US.
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