Efforts to silence activists are “multi-sited, institutionalised and systematic”, say researchers who documented 964 incidents in 6 years
~ Josie Ó Súileabháin ~
Legal threats, investigations, arrests, job terminations, financial sanctioning: independent legal and human rights researchers have verified 964 incidents of political repression against Palestine solidarity activism between 2019 and 2025, spotlighting a deep “structural mechanism” aiming to depoliticise the movement “by systematically dismantling its organisational capacity”.
The data and research were published by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) in collaboration with Forensic Architecture (FA). Almost a third of all incidents in the data set involved a campaign of smearing, disinformation and censorship from pro-Israel advocacy groups and mainstream media outlets.
The most frequent group to be targeted are students, academics and teachers with 336 documented incidents of repression. In 20% of cases in the index, the institutions of education are themselves actors of oppression. 141 instances involved pro-Israeli lobby or lawfare groups and 119 instances where journalists or media organisations were actors. “This campaign of repression is both a reflection of and a catalyst for a severe democratic crisis,” wrote ELSC, which said it represents “a fundamental threat to Britain’s sponsorship of and complicity in genocide.”
“To repress Palestine solidarity is to reassert the structural power that these systems exist to protect”, say the groups, noting political repression is a “key stage in the larger project of erasing Palestinian history, presence, and the facts of their oppression from public consciousness and institutional memory.”
Sajia Iqbal, an East London secondary school teacher, testified at a press conference held on 25 February with the release of the research.“During my Easter break, an organised, premeditated smear campaign was created against me by the Jewish Chronicle, Daily Mail and GB News” said Iqbal, who had taken part in boycott action against products from illegal settlements sold in her local supermarket by taking them off the shelves in a public action.
“I was doxed online, my name and school plastered everywhere in order to shame and humiliate me,” she said. UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) also wrote directly to the school where she worked, claiming she had committed aggravated trespass and was “an unsuitable role model for my children, that I may even be spreading my pro-Palestinian views to pupils. The school then began investigating for breaching the rules of political impartiality,” the teacher testified.
In the early hours of the morning, the Metropolitan police had arrived at the home of Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan to arrest the NHS trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon for ‘malicious communications’ and ‘incitement of hatred’ on 21 October 2025. Only a month before, the junior doctor had been exonerated by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service as she posed no risk to patient safety.
ELSC and Forensic Architecture documented a coordinated smear campaign orchestrated by the Daily Mail, Jewish News and Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) in response to the doctor’s social media posts and protest speech on 21 July. This functioned “as a direct catalyst” for anonymous actors to file formal complaints, triggering an internal investigation, referral to PREVENT and a report to the professional regulator.
“NHS doctor sparks disgust… allowed to keep her job after allegedly denying holocaust… escaped suspension after she made slit your throat gesture at Jewish protesters,” are some of the headlines published by the Mail Online in the lead up to her arrest. The day after she was put in handcuffs, the Daily Mail claimed the doctor “called for Jihad on the streets of London.”
The regulator could find no reason to revoke her license, as she had an impeccable clinical record. Her lawyer pointed out that as a British Palestinian doctor she was herself a victim of genocide and dispossession. Yet by leveraging the Terrorism Act 2000 and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, the political repression became justified.
“Ultimately,” the ELSC states, “this report and the accompanying Index of Repression are themselves acts of resistance… we convert smears into documented evidence, bans into records of censorship, and bureaucratic threats into legible patterns of harassment.”
Image: Hasan Esen/Anadolu Agency CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
