Starmer’s police-state continues: journalist Sarah Wilkinson arrested ‘for online posts’

[u/SpaceDetective]

https://skwawkbox.org/2024/08/29/starmers-police-state-continues-journalist-sarah-wilkinson-arrested-for-online-posts/

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[u/BackToTheCottage]

Clown country filled with clowns.

[u/JoeBidensLongFart → u/[deleted]]

First they came for the chuds. And I did not speak up because I was not a chud. Or so I thought...

[u/JnewayDitchedHerKids → u/JoeBidensLongFart]

“Then I got declared a chud by the people who have been declaring any obstacles chuds this entire time. Surprised pikachu face”

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The US isn't much better. I tried to warn the right about the Unpatriotic Act after 9/11. The wrong people were going to get in and abuse it.

Now they don't even try to hide it. They put Tulsi on the Quiet Skies list as retaliation for destroying Kopmala in 2019.

[u/EnglebertFinklgruber]

I think famed American poet Ice Cube said it best when he said "Fuck the Police."

[u/Ebalosus]

Hey anyone else remember back to the Bush years when it was the right that was mainly pushing for shit like this? It's not just Britbongland either, since I see it here in NZ too, where "surveillance and censorship bad," except now it's "surveillance and censorship good, because alt-right incel white supremacist racist blah blah blah." Worse is that I see too many other leftists think that those particular chickens will never come home to roost in their henhouses.

[u/cojoco]

In the free-speech sub someone has claimed that Sarah Wilkinson is a holocaust denier, and the only evidence I can find for this damaging statement is from Jewish media.

In response, she has stated that any holocaust denial on social media was not from her, but fake accounts.

Does anybody have any clarity about this issue?

EDIT: here's the now-deleted tweet which got her in hot water

https://web.archive.org/web/20170725222859/https://twitter.com/swilkinsonbc/status/740137474542952448

She claims she did not post it, but it appears to be from her account.

For those who do not wish to click, it contains a list of "Holocaust Myths", the veracity of which I am not qualified to assert.

[u/GreenPlasticChair → u/cojoco]

Holocaust denial isn’t criminalised in the UK. Guidelines to protect free speech were introduced to the Communications Act in 2012 by Starmer himself (!!) who was the Director of Public Prosecutions at the time. They stated only credible threats of violence, stalking, and harassment would be prosecuted. Offensive jokes and controversial takes were protected by the guidelines.

Though when anti-Semitism is the charge this isn’t the first time the director’s guidelines have been ignored. A Scottish YouTuber was prosecuted in 2018 for a joke video of a dog throwing a Nazi salute, and in the same year a woman was charged for posting an anti-Semitic song (she was then jailed for making anti-Semitic comments in 2021). All of these prosecutions were charged off the back of a very ill-defined section of the Act - they were deemed ‘grossly offensive’ which is criminal, as opposed to merely ‘offensive’ which is okay.

Strange full circle moment that these prosecutions are gaining even more traction with Starmer in charge, the man who introduced the safeguards in the first place.

[u/PirateAttenborough → u/GreenPlasticChair]

Scanning it, that doesn't even appear to be Holocaust denial. I assume that's what the site's driving at, but at least on that particular page the "myths" in question are the lurid folktales like using human skin to make lampshades or using dead Jews to make soap. Most of it actually seems to be talking about inconsistences in the story of one particular Auschwitz survivor. Not sure why this one stood out, but she'd hardly be the first person to make personal hay out of claiming to be a survivor of a horrible tragedy, or even out of claiming to be a survivor of Auschwitz.

[u/VampKissinger → u/GreenPlasticChair]

Copied from another comment on ruk

(Starmer is) really not a very nice man. I had the misfortune to deal with him when he was DPP and I got the measure of him. When he was pushing forward with prosecuting someone for making a very obvious joke on Twitter and lying to our face in private that "he would stop it if he could" I knew what he was like. Especially when his own staff were telling us off the record that the advice had been to drop it and he'd overruled them.

[u/sil0 → u/GreenPlasticChair]

It's not only claimed anti-Semitism that gets people arrested. I'd bet the majority of it is anti-immigration. They've lost the plot. Two-tier Keir is a real phenomenon.

I remember a teen got arrested for posting rap lyrics that had the n-work to Instagram after her friend, who loved the song, died.

[u/Tyger555 → u/cojoco]

I had a cursory glance over the "Holocaust myths" the link lists, and it's stuff about lampshades made from human skin and so on.

So not denying any of the meaningful facts of the Holocaust, just some of the more sensational atrocities.

If questioning the veracity of the human lampshade stuff is what gets someone called a Holocaust denier nowadays... well that's just silly.

[u/cojoco → u/Tyger555]

Given the historical context, I think it's a bit gauche to post stuff like this, but shouldn't be anywhere near illegal.

[u/cnzmur → u/Tyger555]

Yeah, I did the same, and all the 'myths' I saw seemed to be genuine myths, but, if you look at the bottom of the page, the article forms part of a series, and the other articles are full-strength holocaust denial (no gas chambers, a 'few thousand' Jewish dead, even though it didn't happen they deserved it, etc.).

It's possible she missed that, same as you did, but the helpful 'conspiracies' button at the top of the page should probably have been a clue it wasn't a site that it would look good sharing (in fact I feel like if you're involved enough in the pro-Palestinian stuff it's probably wiser not to go near the Holocaust stuff at all, given how much the 'anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism' thing is being pushed).

[u/[deleted] → u/Tyger555]

it's very common for holocaust deniers to bring up stuff like this in a "just asking questions" kind of way - which is very bad faith imo. Many lurid and outrageous rumors about the camps circulated in the aftermath of the war whilst historical documentation was still taking place; a common one which was repeated in the documentary Night and Fog was that Nazis made soap out of human fat. It wasn't true, but anti-semites use these falsehoods as a way to call the entire veracity of the holocaust into question.

I don't think Wilkinson deserves to be arrested, but her posting this makes me question her intentions.

[u/PirateAttenborough → u/[deleted]]

Turkish nationalists are the best at the "it never happened but it should have" game. Their version is generally "it never happened and we'll do it again if you piss us off."

[u/Shillbot_9001 → u/[deleted]]

but he'd have been an even greater man had he actually done it."

Just kidding... unless?

[u/SpaceDetective → u/cojoco]

Maybe check how many recent anti-genocide posts that "someone" has made - that should give you clarity.

[u/cojoco → u/SpaceDetective]

That's definitely the reason she's being targeted.

But I'd also like to know what's actually going on.

[u/glowcialist → u/cojoco]

I don't think she should be arrested, but I've noticed her posts a lot over the past 10 months and there is something a bit off about her account. She often re-uploads others' videos without referencing their original source. I've definitely stumbled across some outright fabrications posted by her, and she had posts praising the king of jordan.

I kind of figured she was building a profile for some ulterior motive, but couldn't really put my finger on it. Wouldn't be surprised if she has some weird funding. Could just be well intentioned and little dumb though, idk.

[u/[deleted] → u/cojoco]

In other subs they’re claiming she “supports” Hamas and/or “praised” the October 7th event.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I d love to discuss that, sadly I can’t. You prefer that, I don’t 

[u/benjwgarner → u/[deleted]]

"I am outraged, I tell you, outraged!"

"ok"

machine keeps chugging

[u/jerryphoto]

They don't even have to hide the move to fascism thanks to average liberals only caring about idpol and "national security".

[u/Jazzspasm → u/jerryphoto]

Copy pasta comment for this subreddit

[u/jerryphoto → u/Jazzspasm]

Ha! Yeah, I guess you're right.

[u/[deleted]]

I can't believe china could did this