UK police detain journalist Kit Klarenberg over ‘political views’

ByNews Desk- The Cradle 

The Cradle contributor was questioned for five hours by counter-terrorism police over his journalistic work and political opinions

UK counter-terrorism police detained journalist Kit Klarenberg upon his arrival in his home country from Belgrade, Serbia, on 17 May, subjecting him to an extended interrogation over his “political views” and his reporting.

Klarenberg has written extensively for The Cradle, exposing London’s many covert operations in West Asia.

According to The Grayzone, six plainclothes police were waiting for him outside his plane, promptly moving him to a back room and informing him of his detention under Schedule Three, Section Four of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act.

Klarenberg was questioned for over five hours about his journalistic work, including “his personal opinion on everything from the current British political leadership to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

The counter-terrorism police seized his electronic devices and SD cards, took DNA swabs, fingerprinted him, and photographed him multiple times. He was threatened with arrest if he failed to comply.

Klarenberg’s most recent investigation for The Cradle exposed how UK government-affiliated contractors have been training Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces using US funding.

He made waves in recent months by exposing London’s use of Yemeni NGOs to covertly undermine the Ansarallah-led government in Sanaa as well as Jordan’s use of UK intel techniques known as “digital media exploitation … used to monitor, manipulate, and disrupt dissent in the kingdom.”

Klarenberg has also ruffled feathers in London with his reporting for The Grayzone, exposing “major British and US intelligence intrigues,” including a report on how at least two of the hijackers who carried out the 11 September attacks in New York had been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation.

Another of his major exposés was a report revealing that journalist Paul Mason worked as a UK security state collaborator tasked with discrediting alternative media outlets, academics, and peace activists critical of NATO’s role in the Ukraine war.

Last year, The Cradle’s Arabic editor Radwan Mortada was sentenced in an irregular Lebanese military court hearing to one year and one month in prison for “the offense of insulting the military establishment.”

Moreover, one of our Turkish contributors, a former editor at Cum Hurriyet and a radio interview show personality, Ceyda Karan, has been eluding imprisonment for her journalism.

Another frequent correspondent, Hedwig Kuijpers, a Belgian national who often reports on contentious Kurdish issues in Iraq, Iran and Syria, has been missing for several months, sparking concerns about her safety.

Klarenberg’s detention sets a dangerous precedent for free speech in the UK, a country that since 2019 has kept Wikileaks founder Julian Assange locked up in a maximum security prison pending extradition to the US for reporting on the secret activities of western governments and their war crimes. US officials have even publicly encouraged his assassination.