NHS FightBack calls on all health workers to demand an end to the persecution of prominent British Palestinian anti-genocide medic Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan. Dr. Aladwan was arrested at her home in Gloucesteshire at 7.30a.m. on Tuesday morning by Metropolitan Police officers.
The arrest escalates the two-year campaign against Dr. Aladwan, a National Health Service (NHS) doctor for seven years (a trainee trauma and orthopaedic surgeon) with an impeccable record. Her persecution is being organised by the highest levels of the state, including by Labour government Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
The persecution seeks the removal of Dr. Aladwan’s medical license and is being led by the Zionist partly-government funded Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA).
After being held for hours during which she was interviewed, Dr. Aladwan was released on bail Tuesday evening. She revealed that in custody, she was “Denied water for 6+ hours, Refused essential medication, Held in a freezing cell, denied a blanket”, and was “Isolated with a disabled intercom.”
Dr. Aladwan was accused of offences including misusing a public communications network and sending malicious communications. This relates to her personal beliefs expressed in social media postings, and her political activity opposing Israel’s genocide Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. She has a large social media following of tens of thousands.
Until its proscription by the Starmer government in early July, Dr. Aladwan was a member of Palestine Action. Over 2,000 people have since been arrested under counter-terror legislation for protesting the banning of a non-violent protest group.
Dr. Aladwan’s arrest was filmed and had been viewed over 1.7 million times by Wednesday evening on the X platform. Her arrest was met with outrage.
The video starts as the arresting officer begins placing handcuff on Dr. Aladwan before explaining what she is being arrested for. The officer tells another person “She’s under arrest”. Dr. Aladwan asks “What for?”, under “what power” and “Why?” She is told she is “under arrest for four offences: malicious communications times three, and for inciting racial hatred” referencing Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act and Section 127 of the Communications Act, which concerns the misuse of a public communications network.”
The officer says the offences relate to a speech “on July 21 at a pro-Palestine protest which took place outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office… which amounted to calls for the eradication of Israel and implied support for all those involved in armed resistance against Israel, including organisations such as Hamas”.
The officer refers to “comments that can be interpreted as antisemitic, including antisemitic tropes which could be considered grossly offensive in character”.
As she was being taken into custody, Dr. Aladwan said to the arresting officer: “We’re Palestinians and we’ve had our family members and friends murdered. Are you doing this for Israel?
“This is what the UK does to their doctors, that are Palestinian, who have had family and friends murdered and who are anti-genocide. That’s it, that’s all we advocate for, we’re just against murder.”
She added: “A doctor for seven years, I’ve never harmed anybody and never had any patient complaints. This is what the British state is doing for genocidal Israel.”
Dr. Aladwan has faced extraordinary harassment over the last two years. The Canary website reports that its journalist “was present at a protest outside Downing Street on Wednesday 15 October. NHS doctors and nurses were protesting against state repression of their freedom of speech over Israel and Palestine. As we put out on our social media, cops got violent after they arrested a doctor that was there…
“The woman [doctor] arrested was de-arrested after just eight minutes,” it stated. The Canary explains that this apparently happened because Dr. Aladwan was actually the target for arrest in a case of mistaken identity. Canary provided a photo showing that prior to the arrest the police were in discussion with two men linked with the pro-Zionist group, Stop The Hate UK. Canary commented that footage from the day “shows cops with Dr Aladwan’s name on a piece of paper, as well as instructions on the law that they were going to arrest her under”.
Dr. Aladwan was arrested just two days before she is to appear, Thursday, before an Interim Orders Tribunal (IOT), which will determine whether to impose an interim order of conditions on her registration, or an interim order of suspension.
The doctor was cleared on September 25 by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in an investigation over her social media posts. The case against her was brought by the General Medical Council (GMC) regulator which said her fitness to practise medicine had to be investigated and demanded interim conditions be imposed or that she be suspended.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism stated on August 8 that it had “submitted a complaint to the General Medical Council (GMC) regarding social media posts on a doctor’s account.” This was one of “numerous complaints” it issued to the GMC. But these charges were thrown out by the MPTS, which said it did not believe the complaints against her were “sufficient to establish that there may be a real risk to patients” and that she had done nothing to “undermine public confidence in the medical profession.”
Dr. Aladwan’s solicitors, Rahman Lowe, stated, “The GMC presented allegations that her posts could be considered antisemitic, supportive of terrorism, or otherwise damaging to public trust in the profession. However, Dr Aladwan, represented by Barrister Tom Gillie of Matrix Chambers and Rahman Lowe Partner, Zillur Rahman, argued that her posts were a legitimate exercise of free speech, consistent with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
While cleared, Dr. Aladwan is still not free to practise and remains under investigation. This is due to the extraordinary intervention of a government led by Keir Starmer, who describes himself as a “Zionist without qualification”.
Health Secretary Streeting intervened to overturn the MPTS decision, describing Dr. Aladwan’s posts as “sickening comments” that had no place in the NHS, “and action needs to be taken to root the evil of racism out”. He told Jewish News, “I have no confidence in the ability of our medical regulation system to keep patients safe and I am taking urgent advice on next steps.”
On October 6, the Campaign Against Antisemitism notified the GMC that it would challenge in court, via judicial review, the decision not to impose conditions on Dr. Aladwan. Two days later the GMC referred the case back to the MPTS, with the new hearing set for October 23.
To date the British Medical Association, the main doctors’ union, has not even made a statement on Dr. Aladwan’s state sanctioned persecution.
On October 20, Dr. Aladwan published leaks from the GMC showing, in her words, that the GMC “seeks my suspension for being ‘unrepentant’.” She added, “The first tribunal found no need for any order. Now, the GMC demands suspension because I refused to ‘moderate’ speech that was already deemed acceptable. This is not about safety. It’s about punishment. They are explicitly seeking what the ‘Israeli’ lobby demanded: my removal from practice for my political views. This is the weaponisation of medical regulation. This is political persecution.”
Dr. Aladwan launched a crowd fund in September which has reached over £65,000 of a £70,000 stretch target—backed by almost 1,900 donors. Launching the fund, she said that £30,000 would be used to “defend my case at the IOT hearing and potentially at the full hearing should we have to. If we manage to get the case dropped, the money left will be used to tackle the GMC for persecuting British healthcare workers for their perfectly legal speech in opposition to the genocide for the past 23 months. The goal will be to have our British regulators dismiss vexatious complaints from the ‘israeli’ lobbies and genocide supporters and to respect our freedom of speech and our beliefs and not allow the lobbies to be used as an excuse to implement institutional censorship and bias.”
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