The head of RT’s Lebanon bureau, Steve Sweeney, has said British counterterrorism officers who briefly detained him at a London airport wanted to know if he had links with Russian officials and if he still loved his home country, the UK.
RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan revealed in a Telegram post on Wednesday that Sweeney had been apprehended on arrival at Heathrow Airport and interrogated at length about his work for the Russian broadcaster.
The British journalist, who has since returned to Lebanon, appeared live on RT on Thursday, saying that as soon as he got off the plane he was met by “two plain-clothed police officers,” who took him away for questioning.
The officers told Sweeney that he was not under suspicion or arrest, but “merely detained,” which still allowed them to seize his phones, laptop, and other devices, he recalled.
During the questioning, which lasted “about four hours,” the officers were “particularly focusing on Russia and my reporting for RT. They asked me whether I have links to Russian officials, which is a fairly... a broad description,” Sweeney said.
“Then they switch focus… to Lebanon. They were very interested in the nature of my relationship with Hezbollah, for example,” the journalist stated.
The officers also asked “about my feelings towards my own country, whether I love my country, whether I feel uncomfortable in my country. Why do I come back to my country if I do not like it?” he recalled. According to Sweeney, he flew to the UK to “spend a week with family and friends, take my daughter to a concert, [and] see my mother.”
The journalist said that following his detention, he could “no longer feel safe in my own country.” As a result of the “dystopian” policies pursued by the government of Keir Starmer, he has become “a dissident living in exile,” simply because he was doing his job, he added.
“The political climate is not just the same in Britain – this is Europe-wide. You know, journalism is not a crime, but in those countries, journalism is a crime,” Sweeney stressed.
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