By MLToday Editors
On Saturday morning June 27 at around 11 am, U.S. human rights lawyer, professor and journalist Daniel Kovalik was detained by three counter-terror police officers at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport under paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, which allows border police to detain and question people they believe to be involved in “hostile state activity.”
Kovalik — who was visiting England to attend a wedding — was detained for approximately two and a half hours and interrogated extensively on his political views about “everything under the sun,” including on Israel, Palestinian and Lebanese resistance organisations Hamas and Hezbollah, the war against Iran, and on China and Russia. He told Crispin Flintoff that despite the scope of questions, ultimately, “I think what they wanted is my electronic devices. That’s what they wanted and they got them.”
Kovalik was told he would be arrested if he did not co-operate with the interview or provide the passwords to his electronic devices. Officers seized his phone and laptop, took his DNA, fingerprints and photographs from nine angles, copied his bank and credit cards and rifled through his luggage. They also questioned him about a book he was carrying — a gift from a student by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa & Other Stories — before releasing him.
During his interview, Kovalik repeatedly informed the interrogating officers — who refused to identify themselves when asked — that he is a practising lawyer, that his electronic devices contained material protected by legal professional privilege and that he objected to their seizure. A supervising sergeant subsequently confirmed that Kovalik had properly asserted legal professional privilege but said his devices would nevertheless be retained “with intention to copy.”
The decision to retain and copy the devices despite those objections raises serious concerns about the protection of legally privileged material, the preservation of client confidentiality, and compliance with the safeguards governing legal professional privilege under Schedule 3.
Another notable case of a legal professional persecuted by the British state is that of British solicitor Fahad Ansari who was detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in August 2025 following a family trip in Ireland. During Ansari’s detention, his work phone was seized, copied and retained. Ansari — who believes his phone data may have been sent to Israeli intelligence agency Mossad — brought judicial review proceedings against the British Home Secretary and Chief Constable of North West Police, arguing that the seizure of his phone and handling of legally privileged material was unlawful.
Kovalik is author of The Case For Palestine, Why It Matters and Why You Should Care (2024). London has long targeted pro-Palestine journalists, activists, academics, doctors, musicians, former MPs — George Galloway and his wife Gayatri — and more recently moved onto lawyers, forcing some into exile — including Galloway and journalist Steve Sweeney — while persecuting those at home with yearslong and expensive court-cases which are often, eventually dropped, making the legal process itself the punishment. This was seen years earlier during the British state’s persecution of WikiLeaks founder, journalist and publisher, Julian Assange, where a common refrain amongst activists and journalists covering the case was that “the process is the punishment.
The UK is not alone in heightening repression against progressive journalists. Under Israeli pressure, the US seized The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal’s devices on his return from a reporting trip to Iran. Blumenthal was targeted with smears by an Israeli doxxing outfit and by Trump ally Laura Loomer when he arrived in Iran to report on Ali Khamenei’s funeral and the war.
Over the last month, the British Home Office outright banned journalists and commentators from entering Britain, including Jeremy Loffredo — who was detained by Israel when reporting in occupied Palestine — Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur, claiming that their “presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Britons who have taken part in “the crime of all crimes” of genocide — by serving in the Israeli army following October 7 — have returned to Britain with open arms, despite the Genocide Convention requiring states to prevent, punish and prosecute individuals responsible for or complicit in genocide.
But then, this would include the British government itself.
As we expect further persecution of those opposed to genocide, it is worth stating for those seeking to visit Britain and/or travelling out of the United Kingdom, that it may be worth considering leaving electronic devices one prefers not to part with at home, considering the primary purpose of these relentless state attacks — aside from to intimidation and disruption — appears to be intelligence gathering, likely for Israel. Kovalik regrets taking his devices with him, adding that, “Activists and others need to be smart, they shouldn’t be bringing their phones and computers onto international trips. Buy burner phones.”
After his ordeal, Kovalik has no plans to return to Britain, “I cannot see myself coming back to the UK for some time. Honestly, that seems foolish for me to do that.”
Finally, as is typical when these state attacks occur against those opposed to genocide in Palestine, the British mainstream media remains mute, ignoring these detentions and arrests entirely. However, netizens — on the increasingly restricted social media websites — continue to share their outrage about another dark chapter of British history. Former MP George Galloway wrote on X: “Dan Kovalik is a US citizen, and an international lawyer, among whose clients is the President of Colombia. Yesterday he was seized by British “anti-Terrorism ” police at John Lennon International Airport in Liverpool. His devices were seized, and his fingerprints and DNA were taken under legal duress. The political police in Britain are out of control.”
Letters from US readers protesting the mistreatment of Dan Kovalik should be sent to the British Ambassador to the US:
Sir Christian Turner
Ambassador to the United States
British Embassy
3100 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington DC 20008
His email address: <<public.affairsdc@fcdo.gov.uk >>
Readers outside the US should send letters of protest to the British government’s Home Secretary, Ms. Shabana Mahmood:
The Rt. Hon Shabana Mahmood MP
Secretary of State for the Home Department
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
United Kingdom
Her email address: <<HomeOfficePolicyMP@homeoffice.gov.uk>>
