NHS doctor charged with inviting support for Hamas

Dr Rahmeh Aladwan arrested at her home in Gloucestershire for breaching police bail conditions Daily Telegraph 26/03/26 An NHS doctor has been charged with “multiple counts” of inviting support for Hamas.

Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, 31, of Pilning, Gloucestershire, was arrested at her home on Thursday morning for breaching police bail conditions imposed following previous arrests. The Metropolitan Police said she had been charged under the Terrorism Act 2000 for allegedly inviting support for a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas, on four separate dates from July to December last year. Dr Aladwan was also charged with using “words that were threatening, abusive or insulting intending thereby to stir up racial hatred or having regard to all the circumstances was reckless as to whether racial hatred would be stirred up” under section 18 of the Public Order Act in King Charles Street, London, on July 21 last year. She was further charged with publishing or distributing written material that was “threatening, abusive or insulting intending thereby to stir up racial hatred” on Nov 19 last year. She is due to appear at Westminster magistrates’ court on Friday. Video posted on social media appears to show her arrest. In the footage, she can be seen in handcuffs asking police officers: “Is this necessary for social media posts?” They reply: “It’s for transport.” Earlier this year, the trainee surgeon was banned from practising medicine for 15 months by a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) panel, pending the outcome of a full investigation by the General Medical Council. The MPTS panel concluded that a lengthy ban was needed “after balancing the risk to the protection of the public, the public interest and the interests of the doctor”. Dr Aladwan has described anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as “concepts” used by Jewish people to “promote a narrative of victimhood”, placing a trademark symbol to the right of the word Holocaust in a social media post. Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis and abducted 251 hostages on Oct 7, 2023. A United Nations report found that Hamas attackers raped women at the Nova music festival site, used “sexualised torture” against hostages and raped women’s corpses. Earlier this week, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, agreed to reforms that will make it quicker and easier to suspend anti-Semitic and racist doctors. The overhaul gives regulators new powers to suspend doctors who demonstrate racist or anti-Jewish views but would previously have been able to continue working. Mr Streeting supported the reforms after expressing his anger last year at doctors who were not punished for anti-Semitism allegations, including Dr Aladwan. It led Mr Streeting to ask regulators to explain “why they are failing so publicly and abysmally in their responsibility to protect Jewish staff and Jewish patients”.