Hasan Piker, the biggest progressive political streamer in America, was detained by Customs and Border Protection for hours of questioning upon returning to the U.S. from a trip to France this weekend. Piker posted about the incident on X and later talked about it on stream.
He was detained in Chiago and questioned for two hours about protected journalistic activities like who he’s interviewed and his political beliefs. He was asked whether or not he’d interviewed Hamas, Houthis, or Hezbollah members. He was questioned about his opinions on Trump and Israel and asked about his history of bans on Twitch. His phone and laptop were not confiscated.
No one sympathizes with the houthis.
Also I’m not leaving out any context. There is no universe where anything the houthis did was excusable. Hasan did explain it, and it made him look worse. He tries to justify the kidnapping of innocent civilians (some Asian workers who had nothing to do with it, who were working on a brittish vessel only partially owned by some Jewish person.) and holding them hostage for a year in that debate. “What else were they supposed to do?” How about not terrorism? How about going to Palestine? How about activism, propaganda, anything other than terrorism?
While you scrutinize the finer points of morality relating to the detainment of sailors as part of an economic blockade, Israel is intentionally starving millions of children. Your priorities are so out of whack it’s absurd that you don’t recognize it. You don’t have to support the Houthis to acknowledge that their economic blockade of Israel is justified. If engaging in that level of nuance makes me a terrorist in your eyes, you’ve completely lost the plot.
Besides, the word terrorist has always been used by the US as a propaganda tool to paint specific militant groups that are enemies of US empire as barbaric and inhuman. If the basic definition of terrorism were applied fairly across the board then the IDF and US military would be considered the most prolific terrorists and the US and Israel the largest state sponsors of terror. The standard of violence is set by the oppressors.
I wish I was as articulate as you. You explain things very well. I just go 😡