A London hospital reported a former midwife to Prevent and the nursing regulator more than a year after she had left her job, following a complaint from UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) over her social media posts describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide.
Fatimah Mohamied, who worked at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for five years until March 2024, was shocked to discover that her former employer had referred her to both the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and the UK government’s Prevent counterterrorism programme almost a year later, in March 2025.
Both referrals followed a letter from UKLFI accusing her of supporting a terrorist group, bullying and “stirring up racial hatred” over blog and social media posts critical of Zionism and an article written by two Jewish midwives.
According to legal correspondence seen by Middle East Eye, UKLFI had written two separate letters to the hospital about Mohamied’s online posts.
The first letter sent by UKLFI was on December 2023 accused Mohamied of allegedly supporting terrorism on 7 October 2023 on her private account on X. This letter was sent to the trust after the hospital received separate complaints about Mohamied’s posts.
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UKLFI sent a second letter on 5 March 2025 on a separate issue that accused her of antisemitism, bullying, harassment, and spreading racial hatred after Mohamied criticised an online article written by two Jewish midwives.
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital then referred Mohamied to Prevent and the NMC on 25 March 2025.
The NMC swiftly dismissed the case, saying her posts were lawful expressions of personal belief and did not amount to antisemitism.
Police also closed the Prevent referral after a counterterrorism officer assessed her accounts and found no concerns.
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Mohamied has since launched legal action against the hospital, accusing it of post-employment harassment and discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
She argues that she was targeted for her “long-held anti-Zionist beliefs”, which are protected under the law as a philosophical belief.
“This was an unconscionable and disproportionate response to my lawful expressions of belief,” Mohamied said through her legal team.
“I should be entitled to express my anti-Zionist beliefs and support for Palestinians without being reported to the police.”
The Trust did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Mohamied’s lawyers at Leigh Day said the case highlights how UKLFI’s lobbying directly prompted action against a former employee who was no longer working at the hospital.
In correspondence seen by MEE, the hospital’s chief executive assured UKLFI that the matter would be “addressed via internal processes”, even though Mohamied had left the hospital almost a year earlier.
Mohamied described receiving an email from an SO15 counterterrorism officer in May as “distressing and alarming”.
‘We say the Trust’s referrals against Fatimah…were an entirely disproportionate response to her lawful expressions of belief’
– Liana Wood, lawyer
The referrals, she said, had caused her “significant anxiety”, particularly as a British Muslim worried about her family’s safety.
Liana Wood, a lawyer at Leigh Day who is representing Mohamied, described the Trust’s referral as “disproportionate” and an “infringement” on her client’s rights.
“We say the Trust’s referrals against Fatimah, made a year after she had stopped working for them, were an entirely disproportionate response to her lawful expressions of belief on her personal blog and social media accounts,” said Wood.
“Fatimah’s case, which has parallels with other cases we have seen recently in the NHS, highlights the need for employers to resist pressure from lobby groups in such cases, and to carefully consider any potential infringement on an individual’s rights before taking action against them.”
Alba Kapoor, the racial justice lead at Amnesty International UK, also called on the government to abolish Prevent, and described the programme as creating a chilling effect on free speech in Britain.
“The Prevent Duty is a dangerously broken system that we have long called on the Government to scrap,” Kapoor told MEE.
“Time and again we see how the programme focuses on monitoring ideology to the point where it has a chilling effect on free speech and impacts the right to freedom of expression.
“This problem runs deep: it is time to abolish Prevent.”
Under UKLFI pressure
Mohamied is seeking compensation and a declaration from an employment tribunal that the Trust unlawfully discriminated against her.
A spokesperson for UKLFI confirmed it had sent two letters -one in October 2023 and a separate letter in March 2025- to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital about Mohamied but acknowledged that it was not aware that she had stopped working at the hospital.
“We were not aware that the hospital had reported Ms Mohamied to the NMC or Prevent. If they did it attests to the seriousness of the situation and the way they viewed her behaviour,” a UKLFI spokesperson told MEE.
“We have not been sent any findings of the NMC or the counter-terrorism police regarding these matters. We remain of the view that Ms Mohamied’s post regarding the Jewish midwives was antisemitic and liable to stir up racial hatred.”
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Since the beginning of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, UKLFI has lobbied the NHS and sent legal threats to several hospitals to police how NHS workers express support for the Palestinian cause.
In June, a senior nurse at Barts Health NHS Trust was reprimanded after managers accused him of antisemitism over a video call background showing a painting of a fruit bowl with a watermelon, a symbol that has come to represent the Palestinian flag amid censorship.
This incident, coupled with a legal letter from UKLFI about staff wearing pro-Palestine symbols at work, triggered Barts Health NHS Trust to launch an investigation and declare that any expressions of support for Palestine were banned.
In early 2023, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital faced criticism from pro-Palestine groups after it took down artwork made by Palestinian children from Gaza.
The display was taken down at the behest of UKLFI, who submitted a legal letter complaining about the artwork on behalf of patients who claimed they felt “vulnerable and victimised” by the artwork.
Months later, a freedom of information request revealed that the hospital did not receive a single complaint from Jewish patients about the artwork. But despite hundreds of complaints, the hospital refused to restore the artwork.
