Declassified UK

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.[3] After Phil Miller, the journalist who wrote the piece, asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for comment, an MoD press officer responded by asking him 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".[4] The Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights organisation, responded by issuing an alert warning of a serious breach of media freedom.[5]

After the MoD issued an apology,[6] 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."[4] The National Union of Journalists called upon Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to intervene[7] and an independent review was later ordered.[2] 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.[8] 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."[8]

• Official website