In recent days, independent journalist Richard Medhurst was arrested and detained under counter-terrorism laws – presumably for his work around Israel and Gaza. However, Medhurst joins a long line of working journalists who the state has targeted. Most recently, independent media professional and Canary writer Samantha Asumadu has also been subject to attempted hacking.
If you were wondering, the Canary will not tolerate it.
Samantha Asumadu: highly experienced but under scrutiny
Samantha Asumadu is a highly experienced journalist, broadcaster, and editor. She has been a working journalist since 2010 when she lived in East Africa. Asumadu has done breaking news reporting for CNN and France 24. She created news pieces for AFP, filmed in the DRC for DW Global, and also directed a documentary for Al Jazeera English.
Since moving back to the UK, she has written for the Telegraph, the Guardian, the New Statesman, and openDemocracy. She has appeared on BBC Women’s Hour and other BBC radio shows. She’s been a guest on the Trash Future Podcast and hosted guest episodes for the socialist military podcast Hell of a Way to Die including the recent SpyCops Legacy series.
Asumadu told the Canary:
I founded Media Diversified (2013-2022) with a mission to challenge the homogeneity of voices in UK news media, and founded the Bare Lit Festival of writing in 2015. In 2022 I was a finalist for Private Eye’s Paul Foot Investigative and Campaigning Journalism Award and the Society of Editors, National Investigation of the Year, Media Freedom Award for my investigation into Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences. I currently report for the documentary podcast series, Trapped: The IPP Prisoner Scandal. The series was a finalist in the 2024 Sandford St Martin Awards.
As the Canary has documented, the IPP prisoner saga has been one of the more controversial, yet perhaps underreported, scandals in recent years. Asumadu has undoubtedly helped significantly raise the profile of this story. However, that could have come at a cost – because it may well have attracted the attention of the security services.
Now, Asumadu has opened herself up to further scrutiny. She said:
Recently I embarked on a five-part investigative series about state surveillance and government authoritarianism for the Canary. Three parts have been published and there are two to go.
Her work for us covered the notorious Forde Report into racism within the Labour Party. It also looked at how the state is silencing and imprisoning peaceful activists. Asumadu most recently delved into the links between the recent far-right race riots and the ‘acceptable’ faces of this kind of ideology like Douglas Murray.
It was then that Asumadu began experiencing issues.
Targeting independent journalists
There have been multiple attempts to access her social media accounts, on multiple occasions. However, most concerningly on multiple occasions Samantha Asumadu has had what are called “AirTags” moving with her phone.
Apple designed AirTags as small tracking devices so people could find their phones, keys etc. However, they have also been used by criminals to help steal people’s belongings. Ergo, it is likely that the state also uses them to monitor people it considers a threat.
So, it seems at best worrying that at the same time someone was attempting to hack multiple social media accounts of Asumadu’s, she also was being tracked by an AirTag. She told the Canary:
14 years ago I went to DRC to do a story about blood minerals for DW Global. A mining company started to follow me – worried I was going to find and expose something I expect. Since then I am hyper vigilant. So whilst I don’t always know where a threat is, I know there is a threat. Security services follow both activists and journalists. Activists are hyper vigilant in different ways. They are used to their groups being infiltrated. Thing with me is I am an activist and a journalist. So I am hyper vigilant in both ways. It’s served me quite well so far.
The Black Writers Guild issued a statement, saying:
The Black Writers’ Guild is working to support member and award winning journalist Samantha Asumadu. The founder of Media Diversified and host of the Trapped podcast investigating Indefinite Public Prosecutions who has also been widely published in The Guardian and The Telegraph has been the target of multiple hacks to her professional accounts and discovered surveillance devices in her orbit. The Black Writers’ Guild is providing pastoral support as Samantha Asumadu carries out a safety audit. Every Black writer has the right to work freely and safely in Britain.
Of course, some people will look at this story and think ‘hyperbole’. However, the arrest of Richard Medhurst is a case in point into why Asumadu’s situation is cause for concern.
Nothing new under the sun
Medhurst booked his plane tickets on his day of travel. He arrived at Heathrow Airport and almost as soon as he got on the plane six cops got on board and removed him. Therefore, his arrest must have been pre-planned – the implication being that clearly authorities are monitoring non-corporate media journalists’ output.
This is probably one of the worst-kept secrets going. As independent journalist Alex Tiffin found out, the Cabinet Office under Boris Johnson had been monitoring his social media. Canary journalist’s names (including Steve Topple) cropped up in the data it had been storing on him.
So, it is highly likely Samantha Asumadu is being monitored, along with countless other independent journalists. It is of course ironic that some of her work has been around SpyCops – when it appears she may well now be the target of state surveillance herself.
The technique being used – of disrupting someone’s work with the view to intimidate them or put them off continuing is not new. In 1981, a parliamentary debate partially revealed the extent to which security services were intercepting postal mail of individuals/organisations on their radar. As one MP put it:
It is real James Bond stuff – spy fiction – but it happens every morning of the week. The figures for a recent year show that in London mail sent to 400 addresses was continually intercepted, and mail sent to a large number of other addresses was intercepted on a temporary basis – for example, offices of trade unions whose members were on strike or of an organisation that might be arranging a demonstration. I have no reason to believe that the figures have decreased. If we multiply by six or seven to equate London to the country as a whole, we see that a large amount of mail is regularly spied on and passed to the security services.
Fast forward to 2024, and the only difference is postal mail has been replaced by apps. Asumadu described it as:
When I write an investigative or comment article, it’s like zipping up a skirt, trousers, or coat. All the teeth have to be there, perfectly aligned, undamaged for me to zip to the top and finish. Before that I have to painstakingly find each tooth. Whoever has been hacking my accounts has been trying to hide the teeth and smash them if they can’t hide them.
Samantha Asumadu: watching the watchers
The end result of this is Samantha Asumadu has been not only put off continuing her work, but also left scared for her safety. The Canary has been supporting her throughout this time. As she summed up:
Leave me alone to get on with my work. I deserve safety and autonomy as much as any other working journalist in the UK.
It is unacceptable that security services are targeting independent journalists in the way Asumadu and Medhurst have been. If the state conducted its business in an acceptable manner, then journalists would not have to delve into the murky depths of its most sordid affairs – therefore, security services would not need to monitor their work.
However, that is not the reality we live in. So, until such time that it is, the Canary will continue to support its journalists, and all those from other independent outlets, in their work. And as for the security services, we have a message for you: you’re not the only ones that can do the monitoring.
Featured image via the Canary
