Erosion of civil liberties and freedom of speech in the UK

On Wednesday night, I watched Gaza: Doctors Under Attack on UK television, Channel 4. It was a harrowing experience. 

The Guardian describes the documentary succinctly “We are shown doctors doing their best in overwhelmed hospitals with no water or electricity, racing to treat wounds that have already begun to rot. We are shown them coming under what seem like targeted attacks, being detained in black sites where they will be tortured and interrogated. There is footage of a gang rape by soldiers. We are shown children, injured and dead, in vast numbers.”

This ground-breaking programme sheds light on the hellish realities of Gaza. Yet it was originally commissioned and later shelved by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), on the grounds that it might give the “perception of partiality”.  Guardian columnist Karishma Patel, a former BBC journalist, called this “Just the latest example of skewed journalistic values over Israel’s war”.

One of the things I have long loved about being British is our country’s pride in freedom of expression and the rule of law. But recent events surrounding the UK’s stance on Israel and Palestine have exposed deep fractures in our civil liberties, and that hurts. As government support for Israel’s military campaigns continues, those who dissent face professional sanctions, public smears or outright censorship.

From television presenters to university students, even measured criticism of the UK’s policy on Israel increasingly comes at personal and professional cost.

At the heart of this chilling climate is the erosion of freedom of speech, a fundamental human right. It has become clear that political alignment with Israel is being prioritised over a pluralistic public discourse.

The cases of Gary Lineker and Lord Sugar, both top BBC TV presenters, expose stark inconsistencies in the BBC’s interpretation of impartiality. Lineker was suspended for comparing the UK’s asylum policy to 1930s Germany and later faced backlash for sharing a post that included a rat emoji, a symbol he hadn’t recognised as offensive. Once informed of its connotation (an anti-Semitic symbol), he promptly deleted it and apologised. Meanwhile, Lord Sugar’s 2019 tweet comparing the then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to Hitler faced no serious challenge. Sugar remains the face of a flagship BBC programme.

Television personalities known for pro-Palestinian views have lately been absent from BBC broadcasts, and politically outspoken musicians have found themselves censored. This selective silence undermines the BBC’s public service remit and increasingly suggests editorial decisions shaped more by government policy than journalistic independence.

The public, too, has taken notice. More than 400 journalists and media professionals recently signed a letter urging the BBC Board to remove Sir Robbie Gibb, a director with close ties to both the Conservative Party and the Jewish Chronicle. Their concern is that under his influence, the BBC has repeatedly downplayed Palestinian deaths and prioritised Israeli voices.

A report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), a Muslim Council of Britain project which analysed 3,873 BBC articles and 32,092 broadcast segments of TV and radio lends statistical weight to these claims.

It found that the word “massacre” was applied 18 times more frequently to Israeli victims than Palestinian. Per fatality, Israeli deaths were given 33 times more coverage across articles. BBC presenters shared the Israeli perspective 11 times more frequently than the Palestinian perspective.

BBC presenters pressed 38 interviewees to condemn Hamas’ October 7 attacks, yet none were asked to condemn Israeli actions. Presenters actively shut down guests’ genocide assertions in over 100 documented instances. The BBC interviewed more than twice as many Israelis as Palestinians, despite the vastly higher Palestinian death toll.

The consequences go far beyond skewed headlines. Palestinians and their allies have faced job losses, legal threats and surveillance.

Sir Alan Duncan, a former Conservative minister was accused of antisemitism and later exonerated. He said “I’ve been put through a complaints procedure, which was potentially highly damaging to my reputation, when there hadn’t even been a complaint. It was in fact a political decision by invisible actors who have not come forward.”

A football club’s kit man was dismissed over social media posts critical of Israel. He insists he was sacked not for misconduct, but for expressing grief and outrage over the Palestinian genocide. His unfair dismissal case, supported by the European Legal Support Centre, will be heard in 2026.

University lecturers have been investigated for similar posts. Some workplaces have banned the display of watermelon imagery – a widely recognised symbol of Palestinian solidarity. Civil servants who wear keffiyehs (Palestinian scarves) or sign petitions risk disciplinary action.

Nowhere is this chilling shift clearer than in the case of Palestine Action, a direct action group targeting Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms company, which has operations in the UK. While some activists, as I described previously, have faced civil proceedings or minor criminal charges, the government has now proscribed Palestine Action, doing exactly the same things, under the Terrorism Act. This effectively equates acts of non-violent protest, such as spraying paint on objects with the violent terrorism of Al-Qaeda or Isis.

By redefining civil disobedience as terrorism, the state has criminalised protest itself, along with those who support it. These are not the actions of a democracy, but of a government embracing Soviet-style repression.

Taken together, these developments reveal a crisis for British democracy. When governments, media institutions and employers penalise speech in service of a geopolitical agenda, they corrode the very freedoms they claim to defend. The right to protest, to criticise and to dissent, and to speak truth to those in power are not abstract principles – they are the foundations of justice.

Fahri Zihni is former chair of Council of Turkish Cypriot Associations (UK), a former policy advisor at the UK’s Cabinet Office and a former president of the Society of IT Management, UK