A British blogger says police hauled him out of his home and interrogated him — all for posting a meme that dared to criticize Hamas.
Pete North, 47, recorded officers arriving at his Yorkshire home late last Thursday and telling him he was under arrest because he “posted something on the internet” that their hate crime unit “didn’t appreciate.”
North told the Telegraph the arrest centered on a meme he posted last month on X featuring a Palestinian flag with the words: “[Expletive] Palestine. [Expletive] Hamas. [Expletive] Islam. Want to protest? [Expletive]-off to Muslim country and protest.”
Instead of focusing on the meme’s broad message, officers zeroed in on the part targeting Hamas — the Iran-backed terror group responsible for the October 7 massacre in Israel.
“The officer in the interview said, ‘Well, firstly, let’s start with the meme. You posted a meme that said [Expletive] Hamas,’” North recalled.
North said he replied: “Yeah, I did, because Hamas are a proscribed terrorist organization internationally, including in Britain.”
But when he pressed the arresting officer if he even knew who Hamas were or what atrocities they committed, “He just … shook his head,” North claimed.
“If you’re going to arrest people for memes, you probably need to pay more attention to current affairs,” he added.
North Yorkshire Police confirmed they arrested a man “on suspicion of publishing or distributing written material intended to stir up racial hatred.” He was released without charge after a lengthy interrogation.
North believes that was the whole point — intimidation, not justice.
“The whole point of this exercise is not to win convictions. It’s to terrorize people like me into thinking twice about posting spicy memes,” he told the Telegraph.
His arrest is only the latest example of UK police facing backlash for going after speech rather than crime. Just weeks earlier, an American cancer patient living in Britain claimed she was questioned by police over a “threatening” post online.
Critics say the pattern is clear: British authorities are criminalizing political expression — even when it targets a globally recognized terrorist group.
