UK state threats bill could pull British journalists into terror prosecutions – experts

British foreign correspondents could be at risk of prosecution if they use sources within state-backed groups in countries such as Iran under national security legislation being rushed through parliament this week. David Anderson, the UK’s former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has warned that unless the bill is amended it could accidentally pull journalists working in danger-zone countries into prosecutions for terrorism. The new anti-terror powers are designed to allow the UK government to label state-backed groups as terrorist organisations, enabling them to ban groups such as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The legal change, which is expected to complete its final parliamentary stages this week, would also create new criminal offences for people who “support, assist and obtain material benefits” from groups formally listed as state-supported threats. However, there are concerns that the national security (state threats) bill would in practice go beyond its main aim of targeting proxies, and could end up penalising foreign correspondents as well. Home Office guidance suggests that journalists are protected, but Lord Anderson said those protections were not explicit in the bill. “The bill seems to have been pulled together in a hurry, with mooted safeguards for NGOs and journalists largely absent from its text,” the peer told the Guardian. …