Man charged with supporting proscribed organisation

A man has been charged with showing support for a proscribed organisation after a Met Police investigation into alleged Hamas-supporting social media posts.

A public referral flagged the posts to the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) in late October 2023. Specialist officers assessed the posts and determined that they required further investigation as they could be in breach of terrorism laws.

The investigation was passed to detectives in the Counter Terrorism Command and a 38-year-old man was arrested in west London on 17 November 2023 in connection with the investigation.

Muhammad Abu Jweid was charged on Friday 8 March, with two counts of expressing an opinion or belief in support of a proscribed organisation (Hamas) contrary to section 12 (1A) of the Terrorism Act, 2000.

He has been released on bail and is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 20 March.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “We’ve had a large volume of online content and social media posts referred to us since the horrific attacks by Hamas in October last year. Every single post that is referred gets assessed by specialist officers and where we identify something that could be a criminal offence, then we will take action to investigate and identify the person behind it.

"Posting any material online that glorifies, supports or encourages terrorist activity is not acceptable, and we’ll do everything we can to identify those responsible and bring them to justice.”