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.
You’re doing the thing.
Hasan explained why he supports the Houthis actions, why are you leaving out that context? Is it because most people might actually sympathize with it as well? Y’all just can’t help yourselves with your outrage, can you? lmfao
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 😡
WTF has this to do with priorities? Just because i despise the israeli government and the action they take i have to give hasan a pass when he blurts out insane takes on a daily basis?
Yeah, and i agree the US and Israel are in some ways full blown terror regimes which did horrible things. Doesnt take away from the fact that Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis are terror orgs. Yeah, sure the US caused probably more harm over the last century then the three groups together. But that doesnt legitimize anything ffs.
Hasan fans should really start reading books about the matters they are so invested in instead of just parroting some dumbass twitch streamer.
Nobody’s asking you to “give Hasan a pass” but we’re asking you to see the Palestinian issue from the eyes of a neighbour who doesn’t see any recourse from the international community against the heinous acts perpetrated by the Israeli regime and the IDF against civilians in Gaza and other regions nearby. If nobody punishes a bully am I a bully myself if I intervene to defend the bullied person? I personally don’t think so, especially if the teachers and the principal constantly side with the bully against the bullied.
This will never sit well with me, I’ll personally take matters into my own hands anytime I see a situation where someone powerful acts against someone poor, especially when the institutions tasked with defending those who aren’t powerful sit in a corner fiddling their fingers and not acting in line with their declared objectives.
This being said I despise any kind of religious extremism (any religion at all in fact, but I don’t expect everybody to become atheist all of a sudden. I completely expect everybody not to be an extremists tho) so I also despise the founding reasons of Hamas, the houtis, the islamic brotherhood or any other religious organisation. But still I understand and justify their reasons for being in a fight against Israel.
I don’t understand and I don’t justify the stances of international organisations which should be defending the Palestinian people and who are the cause why I have to support religious extremists in this specific context (looking at UN aggressively)
This whole subthread is literally about why Hasan being questioned for communicating with terrorists is unsurprising.
All the downvoted people are saying “makes sense since he literally supports a terrorist organization”
The rest are just people arguing “an eye for an eye”, “I don’t think they should be labeled terrorists”, and “it was justified terrorism”, none of which matter in this conversation, because anyone who has been in contact with or expressed support for any terrorist organization should be questioned. He doesn’t have to be arrested specifically, but definitely questioned. They’re ignoring the topic to virtue signal, but this conversation is about the justification for Hasan’s questioning, which still is “absolutely yes he should be questioned” and now that it’s also been resolved, that’s that.
So you’re saying all documentarists and journalists who have been studying and interviewing people related to terrorist organisations should also be detained and questioned because interviewing someone is also supporting them? Or Anyone questioning the “terrorist” label, because questioning is supporting?
Beware of asking such restrictive reading of complex issues for your enemies, you can’t always be sure to be on the side of the “good guys” and you might find sooner rather than later that your inability to understand the complexity of any matter could bring you behind bars with those who you felt were supporting a terrorist organisation
Anyone who has recently been in any contact with terrorists should expect to be questioned regardless of motive. It is to confirm that indeed those are the motives and that you aren’t being blackmailed and forced. This is basic immigration checking.
And no, questioning does not mean arrest. Going behind bars is a huge leap in logic. Being questioned is inconvenient but is neither punishment nor silencing. They were not sending a message.
when you travel to any country, they have the right to question you for whatever reason just like you have the right to information from them.
And what happen when the people questioning you find your answers to be not in line with the current political climate? When you’re being detained in a separate room with no lawyer or witness capable of providing an independent account of the questioning and the consequent actions taken by the police? I personally am much more scared of state enforced violence rather than of citizen actions given the disparity in power these two type of violence entail.
All border questioning today usually take place in a well lit room full of other people keeping the law enforcement accountable and under scrutiny. If you don’t think moving these kind of interactions in a closed room to be alarming or, at least, unprecedented I’m sorry to say you haven’t thought about the extreme consequences this new policy may bring us to.
Lastly I return to my previous point: who has the right to identify a group of people as “terrorists”? Because if the answer is the same entity who then enforces the punishment against this group we are circular situation unacceptable for the legal standard we have set for our societies