A JOURNALIST at the centre of a major hate speech row has been accused of penning a “racist” tweet said to have led to a police interview.
Allison Pearson, a star columnist for the Daily Telegraph, has said she is the victim of a “Kafkaesque” police crackdown on free speech after she was interviewed over a Twitter/X post.
She has not said which tweet police were referring to but The Guardian reported that the complainant has been in touch to say it was a post referring to two people of colour posing with a Pakistani political flag as “Jew haters”.
Pearson, known for her provocative interventions in her Telegraph column, previously revealed how she had been visited by Essex Police on Remembrance Sunday, claiming that officers told her she had been accused of a "non-crime hate incident" for "stirring up racial hatred".
She said the offending post had been made "a year ago" and The Guardian said it had been made "several months ago".
Police in Essex have reported the Telegraph to the Independent Press Standards Organisation accusing the paper of false reporting and The Guardian reported a “gold group”, which police use for critical incidents, has also been set up.
A person claiming to be the original complainant to the police told The Guardian they had reported Pearson because they felt the tweet was racist.
They said the post, made during a storm over the policing of pro-Palestine protests, showed officers posing for a photograph with a group of people of colour who were holding a green and maroon flag used by supporters of the Pakistani political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, with the word “Pakistan” written on it.
Pearson, apparently mistaking the officers for members of the Metropolitan Police who she said had refused to pose for photographs with a Jewish organisation, is said to have written: “How dare they.
“Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”
The National has been unable to verify the tweet. The Guardian reported that the picture was actually taken in Manchester, where Greater Manchester Police have jurisdiction.
The person who spoke to The Guardian said they are a person of colour and a former public servant with training in criminal law.
They said: “Pearson tweeted something that had nothing to do with Palestine or the London protests: she tweeted a picture of two persons of colour holding a flag of a Pakistani political party standing next to some GMP officers … Her description of the two people of colour as Jew haters is racist and inflammatory.
“Each time an influential person makes negative comments about people of colour I, as a person of colour, see an uptick in racist abuse towards me and the days after that tweet are no different.”
Pearson’s supporters in the row include former prime minister Boris Johnson, who also used to work for the Daily Telegraph.
Sharing one of Pearson’s articles about the incident, Johnson (above) said the police were acting like a “woke Securitate”, in reference to the notorious secret police of communist Romania.
He added: “How can [Keir] Starmer’s Britain lecture other countries about free speech when an innocent journalist gets a knock on the door – for a tweet?”
But the person who claimed to have made the complaint added: “I have no political affiliation and will call out racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia when I see it.
“This is not a debate about free speech; this is about a journalist who tweeted something false during the height of the tensions in London following the October 7 atrocities.
“She could have tweeted an apology stating she was wrong. She didn’t.
“I am not a left-wing activist, I am a member of the public shocked by her original tweet, and her recent doubling down is not helping.”
In a post on Twitter/X on Thursday, Pearson wrote: “The British people deserve to be informed about the Kafkaesque state of their justice system.
“Instead of solving frightening crime police are frightening people.”
The Telegraph was approached for comment.
