Suella Braverman has been condemned by a group of MEPs over the arrest in London of a French publisher who was interrogated by counter-terrorist police about his political views and “anti-government” contacts, reports The Guardian.
Twelve MEPs wrote to the home secretary to express their outrage at the “scandalous treatment” of Ernest Moret, who was detained for almost 24 hours and whose iPhone and laptop remain in the hands of the British police.
The European politicians accused the British government of infringing basic human rights and abusing anti-terrorism laws.
The French government is also being urged by French MPs to explain its role in the arrest of Moret in London on Tuesday.
Moret, 28, a rights manager at the radical publisher Éditions la Fabrique, had travelled to London for a book fair. He was quizzed by police about participation in a recent protest in France and asked if he supported Emmanuel Macron, in what his lawyer, Richard Parry, condemned as an “abuse of power”.
In their letter to Braverman, the MEPs – including politicians from France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Spain – accused the British government of complicity in the French government’s crackdown on protest.
They wrote: “The police officers claimed that Ernest had participated in demonstrations in France as justification for this act – a quite remarkably inappropriate statement for a British police officer to make and which seems to clearly indicate complicity between French and British authorities on this matter.”
They added: “We consider these actions to be outrageous and unjustifiable infringements of basic principles of freedom of expression and an example of the abuse of anti-terrorism.
“This assault on the freedom of expression of a publisher is yet another manifestation of the slide towards repressive and authoritarian measures taken by the French government in the face of widespread popular discontent.”