By American Renaissance | Created at 2024-11-14 18:32:42 | Updated at 2024-11-22 16:27:09
1 week ago
A Telegraph journalist is facing a “Kafkaesque” investigation for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a social media post last year.
Allison Pearson, an award-winning writer, has described how two police officers called at her home at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to tell her she was being investigated over the post on X, formerly Twitter, from a year ago.
In an article for The Telegraph, she said she was told by one officer that “I was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently.”
When Pearson asked what she had allegedly said in the tweet, the officer said he was not allowed to disclose it. However, at this time last year, she was frequently tweeting about the October 7 attacks on Israel and controversial pro-Palestinian protests on the streets of London.
The officer also refused to reveal the accuser’s name. Pearson recalled: “‘It’s not the accuser,’ the PC said, looking down at his notes. ‘They’re called the victim.’”
Essex Police said on Tuesday night that officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”.
A police spokesman said: “We’re investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.
“As part of that investigation, officers attended an address on Sunday November 10 to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter.”
Police sources indicated that it was being treated as a criminal matter rather than an non-crime hate incident. However, it comes in the wake of an intense debate over the policing of protests and how forces should deal with alleged hate speech.
Last year, Suella Braverman, then the home secretary, raised the threshold for police recording non-crime hate incidents over a perceived threat that laws posed to freedom of expression.
It was amended following a Court of Appeal ruling in favour of Harry Miller, a former police officer, who successfully challenged the previous national policy for forces to record gender-critical views as non-crime hate incidents.
Judges said the policy had had a “chilling” effect on his freedom of speech.
Under the change, officers are only allowed to record a non-crime hate incidents if the incident is “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” and where there is a “real risk of escalation causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is considering reversing the changes to the guidance and restoring requirements for police officers to record non-crime hate incidents.
She wants to strengthen police recording of hate incidents amid concerns that the new guidance is preventing police from monitoring and identifying threats to Jewish and Muslim communities that may escalate into violence.
Police are recording more non-crime hate incidents than before, despite the crackdown. Data obtained from 30 of the 43 forces in England and Wales showed that the number increased by 0.4 per cent from 11,642 in the year to June 2023 to 11,690 in the year to 2024.
However, Essex Police only solved 14.3 per cent of reported crimes in the year to September 2024.
Elon Musk, the owner of X, has criticised British police forces for launching investigations into users over their posts.
In her article, Pearson said she was “shocked” to be confronted on her doorstep on Remembrance Sunday while still in her slippers and dressing gown.
“I was definitely shocked. Astonished. That too. Upset. How could I not be? It’s never nice having the police at the door if you’re a law-abiding person, because police at the door can mean only one of two things: tragedy or trouble. But to have them here on the saddest most solemn date in the calendar with this kind of malevolent nonsense, it was surreal.
“I have hundreds of black and Asian followers on X/Twitter, none of them ever suggested I’d said something bad or hateful. Besides, who decides where you set the bar for what’s offensive? This is supposed to be 2024 not 1984, yet the police officers seemed to be operating according to the George Orwell operational manual.”
When she asked the officers why she could not know what she was accused of, she said: “The two policemen exchanged glances. Clearly the Kafkaesque situation made no sense to them, either.”
