British journalist could face years in prison for refusing to hand over his passwords to the police

 It is an unprecedented case. And it risks triggering an unprecedented threat to journalism. The UK police have repeatedly tried to obtain the passwords to the phones of the British independent journalist, Richard Medhurst, the first reporter arrested in London under Section 12: his analyses and comments on Israel’s bloodbath in Gaza – which Amnesty International has characterised as genocide – have been interpreted by the police as support for organisations banned from the UK, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

The son of two UN peacekeepers, Medhurst was arrested last August at London’s Heathrow Airport: as soon as he landed, he was taken off the by six police officers. In an interview with Il Fatto Quotidiano, Medhurst said that he was on his way to the Beautiful Days Festival, where he was supposed to speak with former British ambassador Craig Murray and British rapper Lowkey. Detained for almost a full day, interrogated for two hours, his two phones, headphones, cables, microphones, sim cards seized. Since then Richard Medhurst has been under investigation for terrorism, if he is indicted and convicted under Section 12, he faces fourteen years in prison.

The British journalists’ union, the NUJ, and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) publicly condemned his arrest and the use of anti-terrorism laws against journalists “simply for carrying out their work”.

Richard Medhurst was carrying an iPhone and a Google Pixel with a Graphene operating system, which is privacy-focused and considered particularly secure. He refuses to hand over passwords because, like all reporters’ phones, they contain information that could identify his sources...<<<Read More>>>...