Key events
Why US state department says it is sanctioning Imran Ahmed
This is what Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy at the US state department, said on her social media thread last night about why Imran Ahmed is being sanctioned.
WE’VE SANCTIONED: Imran Ahmed, key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens. Ahmed’s group, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), created the infamous “disinformation dozen” report, which called for platforms to deplatform twelve American “anti-vaxxers”, including now-HHS Secretary @SecKennedy. Leaked documents from CCDH show the organization listed “kill Musk’s Twitter” and “trigger EU and UK regulatory action” as priorities. The organization supports the UK’s Online Safety Act and EU’s Digital Services Act to expand censorship in Europe and around the world.
Obviously, among other organisations supporting the UK’s Online Safety Act is – the UK government!
There is more on X trying to close down the CCDH here.
Two British anti-hate speech campaigners sanctioned by US state department
Good morning. Christmas is the time of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men. But there is not much sign of that in US/UK relations this morning, where the Trump administration has just sanctioned two Britons, among others, for supposedly trying to suppress free speech in the US, and that has led to the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey engaging in a Twitter spat with a senior figure in the US state department.
Let’s start with the sanctions. Yesterday Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, issued this statement saying:
The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose. These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states—in each case targeting American speakers and American companies. As such, I have determined that their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.
The state department has sanctioned five Europeans.
The list includes two Britons: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, and Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index. Ahmed used to work for the Labour party and he is close to Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. According to Politico’s London Playbook, Ahmed is based in Washington, where he has an American wife and child, and he now faces deportation. Politico also says Melford faces having her US visa revoked.
Last night Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy at the state department, posted a thread on X defending the decision. She said the Trump administration was targeting the “censorship-NGO ecosystem”.
Today, the United States issued SANCTIONS reinforcing the “red line” I invoked on @GBNEWS. Namely: extraterritorial censorship of Americans.
Today’s sanctions target the censorship-NGO ecosystem.
These sanctions are visa-related. We aren’t invoking severe Magnitsky-style financial measures, but our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil.
She also took a swipe at the Liberal Democrats.
None of those sanctioned is a current UK or EU official—however, we know that foreign government officials are actively targeting the United States. This week, the UK’s Liberal Democrats claimed President Trump’s National Security Strategy amounts to “foreign interference” by a “hostile foreign state” because it correctly identifies mass migration and decaying national sovereignty as existential European security concerns.
In fact, Davey did not say the national security strategy amounts to foreign interference in British politics because it is critical of mass migration. He said that because the document explicitly says US policy for Europe should prioritise, among other things, “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”.
In a direct response to Rogers on X last night, Davey made this point himself.
Donald Trump has made it his explicit policy to ‘cultivate resistance’ in the UK and elsewhere.
So yes, I think that counts as foreign interference.
I will be blogging until about 2pm. If there is time, I may even get round to covering something festive.
