George Galloway’s pattern of courting controversy with hostile regimes has escalated dramatically, with the former British MP and his wife detained by counter-terrorism police at Gatwick Airport on Saturday under anti-terror legislation.
According to the Metropolitan Police, Galloway and his fourth wife Putri Gayatri Pertiwi were stopped under Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 after arriving from Moscow via Abu Dhabi. Both were released without charge after several hours. However, that didn’t stop Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain from denouncing the 70-year-old’s detention as “politically motivated intimidation,” claiming police provided no information about charges or alleged offenses.
Galloway’s detention comes just months after a controversial spring tour of anti-Western capitals. In May, he accepted the “Martyr Ismail Haniyeh award” at an Iranian state media festival in recognition of his “outspoken defense of Palestine.”
“I am honored to receive this award. I actually hold in my safe the passport of the martyr Ismail Haniyeh because when we arrived with one of our convoys to break the siege on Gaza in 2009, he had promised me a Palestinian passport but they had run out of Palestinian passports,” Galloway said in his acceptance speech. “So he gave me his own personal passport and it is one of my most treasured possessions.”
At the time, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp slammed Galloway’s behavior as “appalling.”
“Hamas is a banned terrorist organization responsible for repressing its citizens in Gaza and murdering innocent civilians. It is despicable that Galloway has expressed admiration for a senior member of their leadership and that he has travelled to Iran, a state hostile to the West, to do so,” he said.
After his Iran visit, Galloway traveled to Moscow for Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day parade, posting images from Red Square and describing the Russian military display as “moving, emotional, inspiring, humbling.”
Galloway has a long history of controversy regarding Israel. In 2014, he declared Bradford an “Israel-free zone,” a statement that earned him a criminal caution from West Yorkshire Police for inciting racial hatred. Disturbingly, he called Zionism a “blasphemy against Judaism and against God,” and in 2019 he was dismissed from TalkRadio following antisemitic comments.
Source link
