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Declassified UK

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British current affairs website

Declassified UK
Type of siteNews and investigative journalism
Founder(s)
EditorMark Curtis
URLwww.declassifieduk.org
Launched2019
Current statusActive

Declassified UK is an investigative journalism and media organisation founded in 2019 by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis. It describes itself as "the leading media organisation uncovering the UK's role in the world." Curtis is an established author on UK foreign and aid policy, and Kennard is a journalist who formerly worked at the Financial Times and wrote for numerous other newspapers.

After Declassified UK had published articles relating to the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry refused to engage or provide further comment to the news organisation. This effective blacklisting in September 2020 led the Council of Europe to issue a media freedom alert for the UK. The UK government only intervened to reverse the blacklisting after Declassified UK threatened legal action in the matter.

Declassified UK has been regulated by IMPRESS since June 2021.

History

Declassified UK was set up in 2019 by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis and was at first hosted on the website of the Daily Maverick, an independent South African website, before launching a standalone website on 20 September 2021. Kennard is an investigative journalist and author who has previously written for news outlets such as The Guardian, the Financial Times, openDemocracy and The Intercept, usually focusing on Britain's role on the international stage. Curtis is a historian and journalist who has written extensively about post-Second World War period foreign policy of the British government, publishing numerous works on the subject. Declassified's chief reporter is Phil Miller, an investigative journalist, author and filmmaker whose book Keenie Meenie explores the history of Keenie Meenie Services, a British mercenary organization.

Board members at Declassified include South African former MP Andrew Feinstein and former Guardian security editor and defence correspondent Richard Norton-Taylor; its advisors include former Guardian associate foreign editor Victoria Brittain, activist and musician Lowkey, American journalist Glenn Greenwald and Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi.

Its website says: "The 'mainstream' UK media is not uncovering the reality of Britain's role in the world and the public is being largely kept in the dark. This means that governments are not being held to account for their policies. The problem is not just with the UK's right-wing, billionaire-owned media but also with its more 'liberal' outlets and the BBC, the most popular source of news for the British public. The British media are less and less mainstream – and are if anything becoming even more embedded in the establishment, regularly amplifying extremist policies that support war, human rights abusers and corporations contributing to catastrophic climate change. The government publishes key information on its policies virtually every day which is often very revealing. But only a tiny proportion of this is ever covered in the establishment media. Those journalists choose not to cover it, or else don't care. We do. However, much remains hidden. Britain's culture of secrecy is deeply embedded in Whitehall. This means that numerous government policies are hidden from the same public who should be able to hold a government to account in a democracy. These hidden policies often need to be exposed, and the secret state challenged."

Exclusives

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In August 2020, Declassified published a story about a British soldier, Ahmed Al-Batati, being investigated by the Royal Military Police for protesting UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia. British missiles, fighter jets and bombs have been used in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen since 2015.

In November 2020, Declassified revealed that the United Kingdom had 145 overseas military bases, many more than the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had previously claimed.

In February 2021, it revealed that figures from the British royal family had had more than 200 meetings with leaders of "tyrannical" Middle Eastern monarchies since the start of the Arab Spring in February 2011. These included 44 meetings with the Bahraini House of Khalifa and 40 with the Saudi regime.

On 8 September 2021, in the wake of the final withdrawal of the United States troops from Afghanistan, Phil Miller reported that "a Cold War-era file on Margaret Thatcher's support for the Afghan mujahideen" was being censored by the UK government. This was despite the fact that the documents have become eligible for release to the National Archives under the 30-year rule.

On 3 January 2022, Richard Norton-Taylor reported that "British warships deployed to the South Atlantic after Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982" were armed with 31 nuclear depth charges. The story was later picked up by Argentine newspaper Clarín and British tabloid, the Daily Express.

Ministry of Defence media blacklisting

In August 2020, Declassified journalist Phil Miller, who wrote the piece about Ahmed Al-Batati, asked the MoD for comment. An MoD press officer responded by questioning what angle Miller's article was taking and claimed not to know much about Declassified; the officer later told Miller, "we no longer deal with your publication". Following this, the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights organisation, issued an alert warning of a serious breach of press freedom. In addition, the International Press Institute wrote a letter to the MoD and the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, asking them to clarify the reason for the blacklisting.

After the MoD issued an apology, Declassified editor Mark Curtis told Press Gazette: "We are looking at taking legal action against the MoD because we think they have certainly acted against the Civil Service Code, for example, and there may be other codes of conduct or other legal requirements that they might not be consistent with by telling us that." The National Union of Journalists called upon Wallace to intervene and an independent review was later ordered. The inquiry was headed by Tom Kelly, who was one of Tony Blair's Downing Street press spokespeople when Blair was Prime Minister. It found that MoD press officers believed their communications director had "sanctioned a blanket ban" on giving any comment to the website. Curtis said, "It is clear that Declassified was blacklisted, which is contrary to the way that public officials are required to deal with news organisations. The MoD should admit it and stop trying to let its most senior media official off the hook. The MoD is used to dealing mainly with compliant journalists who are happy to follow the official line. Declassified is different, and seeks instead to perform a public service by revealing what governments do."

References

  1. "About Declassified UK". Declassified UK. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  2. ^ Declassified UK staff (22 September 2020). "Government apologises to Declassified UK as defence minister orders independent review into blacklisting". Declassified UK. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  3. "Declassified UK". IMPRESS.
  4. Declassified UK (19 September 2021). "Our new website launches tomorrow, with a week of revelations and our AMA with Chomsky on Weds at 6pm.
    It's two years since we established. Thanks to all our public supporters and independent trust funders, we're moving to another level"     (Tweet). Retrieved 15 October 2021 – via Twitter.
  5. "Matt Kennard". The Intercept. 11 May 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  6. Lucas, Caroline (5 July 2003). "Perfidious Albion". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  7. "Keenie Meenie". Pluto Press. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  8. ^ "Who we are". Declassified UK. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  9. Miller, Phil (25 August 2020). "Military police probe British soldier over Yemen war protest". Declassified UK. Daily Maverick. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  10. Miller, Phil (24 November 2020). "REVEALED: The UK military's overseas base network involves 145 sites in 42 countries". Declassified UK. Daily Maverick. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  11. Miller, Phil (23 February 2021). "Revealed: British royals met tyrannical Middle East monarchies over 200 times since Arab Spring erupted 10 years ago". Declassified UK. Daily Maverick. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  12. Miller, Phil (8 September 2021). "Margaret Thatcher's support for Afghan jihadists covered up by UK censors". Declassified UK. Daily Maverick. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
  13. Norton-Taylor, Richard (3 January 2022). "UK deployed 31 nuclear weapons during Falklands War". Declassified UK. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  14. "El Gobierno pedirá explicaciones a Gran Bretaña por la presencia de armas nucleares en la Guerra de Malvinas" [The Government will ask Great Britain for explanations for the presence of nuclear weapons in the Malvinas War]. Clarín (in Spanish). 5 January 2022.
  15. King, Jon (7 January 2022). "Falklands row erupts as Argentina issues stunning nuclear weapons warning to UK". Daily Express. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  16. ^ Tobitt, Charlotte (3 September 2020). "Journalists 'blacklisted' by MoD press office considering legal action". Press Gazette. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  17. "Investigative Media Outlet "Declassified UK" Blacklisted by the Ministry of Defence". Council of Europe. 1 September 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  18. Stone, Jon (6 September 2020). "Council of Europe issues media freedom alert over UK government blacklisting of investigative journalists". The Independent. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  19. Griffen, Scott (4 September 2020). "Investigative news outlet Declassified UK blacklisted by Ministry of Defence". International Press Institute. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
  20. Tobitt, Charlotte (22 September 2020). "MoD apologises after press office refused to engage with Declassified journalists". Press Gazette. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  21. Norton-Taylor, Richard (27 August 2020). "Declassified UK: Ministry of Defence blacklists British journalists who report on UK military". Declassified UK. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  22. ^ "UK defence ministry blacklisted website critical of its Middle East policies, finds inquiry". Middle East Eye. 8 December 2020. Retrieved 9 December 2020.

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