Surgeon treating patients in Gaza says police in London ‘harassed’ his family

shish_mish@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 171 points –
Surgeon treating patients in Gaza says police in London ‘harassed’ his family
theguardian.com
16

He later told BBC Newsnight that the officers had questioned his wife on why he had travelled to the Palestinian territory, who paid for his ticket and which charity he was helping.

A spokesperson for the Met said: “On 16 October, police officers responding to a report that a man was planning to travel to a war zone attended an address in north London where they spoke with one of the occupants.

“Having identified that the man had left the UK for humanitarian purposes, the officers signposted the occupant to current FCDO advice.”

How is that harassment or an attempt to silence them?

They didn't need to question anyone.

The 7/7 bombings would suggest otherwise.

Guaranteed the name the cops were given had a Dr. designation before his name so they damn well knew they were visiting a physician.

#ACAB

Stop trying to import US BS to the UK. They have enough of their own shit to be dealing with.

You mean like when the UK police force were deemed institutionally racist[1]? Or that other time it was found to be institutionally racist[2]? Yeah we have some shit to deal with here in the UK.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/22/institutional-racism-britain-stephen-lawrence-inquiry-20-years
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/21/metropolitan-police-institutionally-racist-misogynistic-homophobic-louise-casey-report

I agree. The police have a duty to investigate people travelling to high risk areas, to confirm they're not travelling for some sort of terrorism training only to come back and do something horrid. They were doing their due diligence.

If the doctor had actually gone into detail and described the "harassment", then maybe that would be different, but all we have is him saying "they harassed my family" and the police statement gives the detail.


FYI, you should put > in front of each line to do a quote in Markdown. Lemmy is also different to reddit in that you need to put them in the blank lines to make a continuous quote. Like this:

He later told BBC Newsnight that the officers had questioned his wife on why he had travelled to the Palestinian territory, who paid for his ticket and which charity he was helping.

A spokesperson for the Met said: “On 16 October, police officers responding to a report that a man was planning to travel to a war zone attended an address in north London where they spoke with one of the occupants.

“Having identified that the man had left the UK for humanitarian purposes, the officers signposted the occupant to current FCDO advice.”

If you were just trying to do italics, then you need to do it for each paragraph, I think.

Hopefully in London it's better but you shouldn't just take the cops word as fact.

It doesn't really sound like harassment. They spoke with his wife, she satisfied them it was for humanitarian purposes, they pointed her towards the official advice about travelling to war zones. That sounds like standard procedure.

The doctor himself doesn't provide any detail. He just says they "harassed" his family, but doesn't describe any form of harassment.

Would it be better that police didn't investigate people who take trips overseas to countries with high terrorist activity?

Is that polices role? I thought that was more border security. You think cops are going to find the sneaky terrorists? If he'd have said "I'm going to defend the motherland!!!" then do they arrest him? What charges and jerisdiction were they following here?

Border security work at the border. This sort of thing is exactly the kind of thing that would be delegated to local police.

If he’d have said “I’m going to defend the motherland!!!” then do they arrest him?

If his wife said that (as he is currently in Gaza), they would probably deny him re-entry. There would be no charges for anything, it's just an investigation. As for jurisdiction, they have it.

The UK has previously been the victim of terrorist attacks involving UK residents travelling overseas for training. Hell, there's even a documentary about it, called Four Lions.

Calling Four Lions a documentary is kinda funny

Rubber dinghy rapids bro :D :D

I actually saw them filming establishing shots for the movie in Sheffield, doing these panning in shots to their house from a cliff near where I lived. They were really cagey about it though, they wouldn't tell us much about it or the even title, they said it was "about a prison break". The London Marathon scene was also filmed in Sheffield, they blew up one of the shops on Wicker St, then that place was remodelled into somewhere qutie nice.