Cops in unmarked car stop jogger with Palestine flag for ‘facial recognition’

Two Essex police officers in an unmarked car have stopped a jogger in or near Southend on Sea for carrying a Palestine flag. The stop is just the latest in a string of incidents of police harassing or even arresting people protesting peacefully against genocide.

Journalist and editor at the Grayzone, Wyatt Reed, published to X the video capturing these moments, first shared by Palestine Pulse.

The jogger keeps his cool, records the incident and uses the opportunity to explain that he is upset about Britain’s collusion in Israel’s murder of Palestinian children. The police captured in the recording avoid saying he is detained but imply that he is not free to leave.

They then claim that ‘facial recognition’ was triggered as they went past him and that he has previously been stopped with ‘writing’ on his flag. The man says it is the first time he’s been stopped by police, and one officer insists he is “wrong” to describe the UK as complicit:

“We stop a lot of people that have done nothing wrong”

Raising yet more questions about police priorities and the mushrooming state misuse of facial recognition, the cops confess to stopping a lot of people for nothing and only a few criminals:

We stop a lot of people that have done nothing wrong and we stop a few people that have done something wrong.

Welcome to the police state constructed by Keir Starmer and his fellow friends-of-genocide. Don’t hold your breath for Andy Burnham to undo Starmer’s destruction of UK rights or the state’s collusion in Israel’s crimes. He hasn’t yet shown any sign of an intention to do so.

Featured image via the Canary