Is our media self-censoring over Palestine arrests?

Dear readers, in another weekend of town centre celebration, we found ourselves excited to get swept up in it all, just to be washed away to the East End by torrents of rain. Glasgow Pride and the Merchant City and Surge Festivals all attracted thousands of revellers. Football fans, including 10,000 Geordies, made their way to Parkhead as Celtic took on (and “pumped”) Newcastle United in a pre-season friendly that we’re naming the Mark Knopfler derby — Knopfler hails from Glasgow but is a famous Magpie fan. 

Robbie notes that the atmosphere in town was stellar, in the typical Glasgow fashion of sticking two fingers up at the dark clouds overhead, although there were several reports of Newcastle fans engaging in sectarian chanting and causing tension at the Pride march, so not all rosy. Meanwhile, Calum spent the weekend doing flat renovations and playing basketball with some very large men with spicy tattoos. 

We’re excited about this week’s stories, which include a retrospective look at a public health crisis that gripped Glasgow 25 years ago, killing over a dozen people.

Now, on with your Glasgow in Brief. 

Glasgow in Brief

🔔 A raft of arrests has followed the proscription of protest collective Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist group, at the start of this month. Membership or support of the group is now a criminal offence and Police Scotland have wasted no time enforcing the law, in increasingly hardline ways. At least three people have been detained in the last two weeks, on suspicion of flouting the law, including a TRNSMT attendee wearing a t-shirt that read ‘Genocide in Palestine. Time to take action’, with the words ‘Palestine’ and ‘Action’ apparently enhanced. The most recent detention, on 18 July, was along similar grounds: an activist was cuffed in the city centre for displaying a placard which read: “Genocide in Palestine Time to Take Action” — with the words Palestine and Action in larger font. But this was no ordinary one-man demo: Sean Clerkin is a seasoned protestor (as well as the person who sparked the police probe into the SNP’s finances). 

✍️ Reporting on Clerkin’s arrest under the Terrorism Act has been erratic, as the media tries to get to grips with the law. On Friday, two posts by The Herald on Facebook and X about Clerkin were swiftly deleted. In their subsequent reporting, the Herald blurred his face and declined to name him. In its live reporting, the Glasgow Times (a Newquest title, like The Herald), blurred out Clerkin’s face, as well as his placard, doing so on their social platforms too. But late the same day, The Times then ran unblurred pictures of both Clerkin and his placard. Then, once he was released, they also interviewed him. Newsquest then named Clerkin and ran his unblurred photographs at one of their sister titles. The National, another Newquest title, posted a video of the arrest and did their own live reporting in which they named Clerkin and ran multiple photographs of the placard and protestor alike. The Guardian, meanwhile, opted not to name or use a picture of Clerkin in their reporting. Confused? Well, so are we. 

What we can say is that the proscription of a controversial protest group — one that represents widely shared sympathy and support for the Palestinian cause in the UK — is having very real implications for freedom of political expression and media reporting therein. With an alleged offence under the Terrorism Act at play here, we can certainly understand the cautious approach to reporting so as not to contempt a solemn proceeding in Scotland, for which people have been sent to prison in the past. But the result is self-censorship in the media. 

🛝 After facing eviction from their community garden, Townhead community development group SiMY have had their lease extended by the council for three years. SiMY have worked with young people in Townhead since 1999, providing classes, outdoor excursions, and various social clubs. The group have a centre on the Lister Street Bowling Green where they have a community garden, and provide meals and a warm space for participants. It is used by 200 people a day but the council has previously described it as “strategically important” to its housing strategy, SiMY Operations Manager Molly Buckingham told The Bell. Faced with their eviction and the subsequent loss of what Buckingham describes as the only “community green space” in the city centre, SiMY launched a campaign in January 2025 to have their lease extended. After working with policy makers and elected representatives, and after a petition gained over 600 signatures, the council granted them a further three years on their lease. While this provides short-term security, the long-term future of SiMY and Lister Street Bowling Green, on which the local Olivewood Primary rely for all their outdoor activities, remains unclear. Ms Buckingham told The Bell that the extension is “a huge relief in the short term, and we are really pleased to be able to carry on our vital work for the community.”

🎛️ A fundraiser for Optimo DJ Keith McIvor, better known as JD Twitch, to access urgent care following diagnosis of a terminal brain tumour has raised over £112,000, more than doubling its target in under a week. The funds will be used to move McIvor into a private nursing home to meet his care needs as he deals with the effects of glioblastoma. Excess funds will be donated to Glasgow NW Foodbank, the Coalition for Racial Equality (CRER), braintrust and Taki’s Shelter in Crete. “Your support is helping to ease this incredibly difficult time and surround Keith with love, care, and dignity. From the bottom of our hearts: thank you,” wrote McIvor and his partner Marissa. Resident Advisor have described Optimo (Espacio) as “one of the greatest club nights in the history of dance music”. McIvor’s diagnosis triggered an outpouring of emotion from the city’s music scene. This weekend an event in collaboration with Optimo Music took over Queen’s Park Arena to raise additional funds. Clydebuilt Radio is currently pulling together an Optimo tribute show; if you’ve got any memories you’d like to share, send them here in MP3 form.

Stories you might have missed: 

🧑‍✈️ Glasgow Airport strikes called off

🐏 The mystery of why a man took a sheep on a train is finally solved 

💻 £14k of NHS laptops containing patient records stolen from Glasgow hospital

🇮🇷 Govanhill charity “used as an electoral base by the Islamic Republic of Iran”

Read/listen/watch: Govan Fair Queen, BBC

“It’s about a working class community that isn't rooted in poverty and hardships … it’s joyous and warm.” This is how comedian Paul Black describes his new comedy short, ‘Govan Fair Queen’. It centres around Linda, played with forlorn aplomb by Elaine C Smith. She forces her catty, tomboy granddaughter (Harper Blue Hamilton), to enter a beauty pageant that she never won when she was a child. It’s an important story for Black; his family are from Govan, and it’s set around the Govan Fair, a much-diminished event today but one with old roots in the area. Remarkably, the TV crew took over Black’s mum’s house, transforming it into a set for the short. She was offered a hotel, but declined, preferring to stay with Black’s sister instead. Govanite humility.  

We also rec:

🎤 Lewis Capaldi talks blue collar Glasgow, being a loser and the Big Yin with Theo Von

🎵 Revisit this Optimo 25-year-anniversary compilation

Catch up and coming up: 

• Liverpool, Montreux, Kingston, Kinshasa … Glasgow. But do we still deserve our UNESCO status as a city of music in 2025? Calum asked that big question over the weekend.

It’s legendary, but is our music scene out of tune?

A pulse check on Glasgow’s grassroots venues

The BellCalum Grewar

• Later this week, we’ll be conducting a post-mortem on an unprecedented public health crisis — one totally unique to Glasgow — that unfolded two and a half decades ago

Unconstructive critique - Celentano’s, 28-32 Cathedral Square

It ain’t cheap, but for our money the restaurant at Cathedral House Hotel has been plating up some of the city’s finest food since opening its doors in 2021. During the pandemic, owners Anna and Dean Parker moved back to her hometown from London, where her husband had been cheffing at Robin Gill’s acclaimed establishments (Darby's as head chef, as well as Sorella and The Dairy). At Celentano’s, the vibe is decidedly modern and Italianate, yet also true to the listed 1896 Scottish baronial building it is housed within. Apparently everything — from sourdough and vermouth, to pasta and pickles — is made in house, and you can almost taste the graft that goes into each dish. There’s a command of all things pasta, such as tiny lasagne fritti mouthfuls, buttery cod linguine and agnolotti, stuffed with whatever is most seasonal. We also enjoyed a plate of stracciatella cheese with pea sauce and preserved lemon, as well as a summery dish of creamed corn with kale and chanterelles. There was also a delightful little cured trout amuse bouche, rare-breed charcuterie and on-point cocktails — is there anything Cele’s can’t turn their hand to? 

Glasgow calendar: Wounded Landscapes with Chris Leslie 

Conflict, memory, and the changing face of Glasgow’s skyline, the lens of Chris Leslie’s camera will explore all of these themes in his New Glasgow Society lecture later this week. Leslie has documented better than anyone the mass demolition of social housing and high flats, as well as the subsequent “regeneration” — or lack thereof, across the city. His work reveals how “conflict and neglect leave similar scars on urban environments”. Wednesday 23 July 6:30pm. Tickets by donation here.

Other dates for your diary:

📚 Irvine Welsh discusses the sequel to Trainspotting at Queens Cross Church  

🎶 The Scottish Annual Hip Hop Jam takes place in Queens Park on Saturday