Another fortnight in the UK, another police incident targeting so-called “hate speech” in which the word “hate” is being seriously abused.
The British press is abuzz with news of Allison Pearson, award-winning Telegraph journalist and novelist, who was door-stopped in her home on Remembrance Sunday by the police. What is the charge in question? Burglary? Fraud? Assault? Of course not: a year-old long-deleted tweet. Pearson had committed the sin of thinking the wrong thing and making a factual error in the process. Following public outcry, the charges have now been dropped – but how did this happen in the first place?
Pearson was accused of stirring up racial hatred in this tweet, although Pearson claimed that she was unaware which post caused offence. The Guardian believes it has located the incriminating material. On 16 November 2023, Pearson had reposted a photograph and criticised the police for posing with “lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel” – the sarcasm is laid on thick. She concluded bitingly: “Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters”. Once the mistake was pointed out, Pearson deleted it, but the all-seeing Internet has archived it here. At this time tensions were escalating about the soft policing of Gaza protests following the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
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Pearson got the origin, date, and context of the image wrong. The photograph was actually from an August 2023 protest in Manchester in support of a Pakistani political party, the PTI, which was founded by Imran Khan (who incidentally became prime minister of Pakistan before he was deposed and jailed. The BBC has more). The flag is green and maroon and even says “Pakistan” on it. The relation to Palestine, Israel, and Hamas was mistaken by the original source.
It could even be argued that Pearson’s mistake wasn’t that the people in the photograph were anti-Semitic – Khan and his Islamist party have been embroiled in antisemitism rows, in fact, and Khan has described Osama bin Laden as a “martyr” instead of a “terrorist”. They simply aren’t Palestinians.
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Journalists can get the bit between their teeth. They are working in a fast-paced environment in which they are exposed to a lot of political material and tensions run high. The quick-fire nature of X also encourages swift and emotionally charged responses. Writers build up certain grievances, and an element of confirmation bias is not unusual. Pearson acted hastily then deleted the tweet. It was a mistaken connection. But are we not allowed to make mistakes and then retract them in a free society? To err is human, and to be investigated by the police for making a digital error is deeply disturbing. If it is a non-crime hate incident, why are the police involved at all? Surely this is totally at odds with the “open justice” on which we so pride ourself in the UK? Even the police who knocked on her door were in doubt as to what law she had contravened. Before the case was closed three separate forces had become involved to determine what crime (or perhaps “non-crime”) she had committed.
The Guardian reports that the police force released part of a transcript of the conversation it said its officers had with Pearson, taken from body-worn video footage, in which the officer told the bewildered journalist: “It’s gone down as an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online. That would be the offence.” The police force also submitted a separate complaint to the media standards watchdog Ipso over false reporting.
On 16 November Pearson responded to the “sinister, frightening nonsense and wholly disproportionate police over-reach”, claiming: “1. I am not a racist. 2. I didn’t post a racist tweet. 3. My tweet did not incite violence against any protected characteristic. 4. My fairly innocuous tweet was deleted a year ago. 5. Senior lawyers say my tweet does “not come near the threshold for criminal prosecution”. 6. But Essex police upgraded the accusation from Non-Crime Hate Incident to offence under the Public Order Act. Why?” She tagged Elon Musk, whose support she has gained in the process.
The Pearson investigation has sparked fierce debate about the state of free speech in the UK. Was this an example of egregious police overreach and a waste of precious resources? Ex-PM Boris Johnson wrote an article for the Daily Mail urging British police to “police the streets, not the tweets”. Toby Young has come out in spirited defence of Pearson in The Spectator, claiming that “this is our Brave New World”, while Lionel Shriver explored “the true meaning of free speech” in the same issue. Kemi Badenoch criticised the probe as “absolutely wrong” and encouraged people not to report others to the police simply “because they don’t like something”. Keir Starmer claimed that tweets should not be the police’s priority and forces should “instead concentrate on what matters most to their communities”.
After public outcry, the Essex police have decided to drop the case. The decision followed advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that there was no reasonable chance of a conviction, The Guardian reports.
This is an encouraging step, but the buck can’t stop here. It should never have happened in the first place.
There are double standards at play. As Neil Johnston reports, the timing sharpens the contrast:
The police force at the centre of the Allison Pearson row has not investigated a controversial imam who called for “Zionists” to be destroyed.
Users of X, formerly Twitter, alerted Essex Police to comments by Shaykh Shams Ad-Duha Muhammad after footage of him calling for “punishment” of those who support the existence of Israel was posted […]
It can now be revealed that, three days before Pearson tweeted, the footage of Ad-Duha Muhammad’s comments was flagged to the force on social media.
Speaking in Arabic, he called in prayer: “O Allah, destroy the Zionists who fight your allies and obstruct your path. O Allah, seize them with a mighty and powerful grip, O Lord of the worlds, and unleash upon them your punishment that cannot be repelled by the criminal people.”
A British journalist has come under fire for a deleted tweet, while hate preachers appear to get a free pass. If this isn’t two-tier policing, what is?
