If you are a British citizen and you criticize a government program online, that criticism can be collected and stored by a government-linked body.
At least that seems to be the upshot of the actions of the Prevent Standards and Compliance Unit (StaCU), “a body linked to the Home Office,” that has been keeping “observations” of those who speak against the government’s Prevent counter-extremism program on the internet.
The group has now revealed that in the year from March 2024 to February 2025, StaCU made 77 “observations” of people who were critical of the program online – and that most of these “observations” came from X, with some from Reddit. Mainstream media articles were also included, as were posts from or about several organizations, including Hope Not Hate, Maslaha, and the Open Rights Group.
The “observations” are filed as “open-source complaints” and stored internally by StaCU. RSI is unsure what happens to this data next, and who the government may be sharing it with. What is known is that the process involves “attempting to independently verify claims.”
As RSI’s Freedom of Expression and Belief Team Leader Jacob Smith put it, “You should be able to criticize government policy without getting put on a list.”
Smith also noted that the fact that the government “has been trawling X and Reddit to find out who has been critiquing Prevent” should serve as “a stark reminder that, in the government’s eyes, anything you share online is fair game and could go into a file forever.”
The Home Office tried to keep this secret and refused to hand over the documents at first, but RSI won an appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, and the documents were released.
As RSI noted, it is unclear if any automated tools were used to find the posts, and if not, how the unit “found” them, or what it does with the data it collects.
A side event held during the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has brought together parliamentarians, journalists and civil-society representatives to discuss terrorism, religious freedom and the European Union’s relationship with Pakistan.
The event, “Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism”, took place at the Palais des Nations on 1st October. Speakers included Greek MP Georgios Manous, EU Today Publisher and Editor Gary Cartwright, Stéphane Michot of Ideal International, with a contribution from Prof K. Warikoo.
Two interventions focused particularly on Pakistan and the implications for European policy.
Victims of terrorism at centre of debate
Gary Cartwright began with the victims rather than trade or institutional policy.
“Terrorism is not an abstract concept,” he told the meeting, describing a bomb exploding in a market, a child killed outside a school and families waiting for someone who will never return.
He acknowledged that Pakistan itself has suffered heavily from terrorist violence. The 2026 Global Terrorism Index ranked Pakistan as the country most affected by terrorism in 2025, recording 1,139 deaths and 1,045 incidents.
At the same time, Gary raised the record of militant organisations operating from Pakistani territory. The UN Security Council describes Lashkar-e-Tayyiba as a Pakistan-based organisation involved in terrorist activity and records its involvement in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which approximately 164 people were killed and hundreds injured. The same UN entry also records links to the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament.
Questions over EU education funding
Gary also questioned the safeguards surrounding European education funding in Pakistan.
In December 2024, Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen asked the European Commission whether EU money intended for education could reach Islamic religious seminaries and what controls were in place over the use of those funds.
In its February 2025 response, the Commission said EU assistance in Sindh and Balochistan was primarily directed through provincial education authorities. It also confirmed that, in selected areas of Balochistan, EU support facilitated formal education for pupils enrolled in religious seminaries through a government-recognised certification programme intended to ease their transition into state education. The Commission said projects were subject to field visits, reporting, monitoring and evaluation.
Gary stressed that he was not arguing that religious education itself constituted extremism. His argument was that European taxpayers should be able to establish where money was going, who administered programmes and what safeguards existed against extremist recruitment.
His intervention then turned to Pakistan’s GSP+ trade status.
Pakistan has benefited from GSP+ since 2014 and is currently the scheme’s largest beneficiary. According to the European Commission’s figures on EU-Pakistan trade, more than 85 per cent of Pakistan’s exports enter the EU duty and quota free. Continued participation requires Pakistan to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions covering human and labour rights, environmental protection and good governance.
Gary called for Pakistan’s GSP+ preferences to be suspended pending an assessment of the country’s compliance with its international commitments, counter-terrorism obligations and safeguards surrounding EU-funded programmes.
The issue has been examined previously by EU Today. Its 2025 white paper on Pakistan’s GSP+ compliance argued that the evidential threshold for beginning temporary withdrawal proceedings had been reached, while a Geneva side event in March 2026 considered Pakistan’s human-rights record and the conditionality attached to GSP+ preferences.
Pahalgam attack raised by Greek MP
Greek MP Georgios Manous approached the subject through terrorism, religious freedom and European security.
He referred to the terrorist attack at Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on 22 April 2025, in which 25 tourists and one local civilian were killed. EU Today previously examined the attack and its victims in its coverage of the Pahalgam massacre.
Manous also addressed Pakistan’s blasphemy legislation and the position of Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis, linking those questions to the broader problem of religious extremism. Concerns over minority rights and blasphemy laws have also featured in EU Today’s continuing coverage of the debate over Pakistan’s GSP+ eligibility.
The Greek MP then turned to Europe, arguing that extremist ideologies and networks should not be viewed solely as a South Asian security problem.
Pakistan, meanwhile, continues to present itself as both a major victim of terrorism and an international counter-terrorism partner. At the fourth US-Pakistan Counterterrorism Dialogue in Washington in August, the two governments reaffirmed cooperation against ISIS-K, al-Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Balochistan Liberation Army, while discussing border security and the disruption of terrorist facilitation networks.
The Geneva discussion therefore centred on two linked questions for European policymakers: how Pakistan’s counter-terrorism record should be assessed, and how that assessment should interact with the conditions attached to EU trade preferences and European-funded programmes.
The U.S. Senate just voted 47-51 against a bill introduced by the Senators Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders which would have “forced Secretary of State Marco Rubio to submit to Congress, within 30 days, a report on what information is available about the killings of the nine US citizens, the status of US and Israeli investigations into the killings, the number of US citizens currently held in Israeli prisons, the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons, and a description of the steps the US government has taken to reduce violence in the West Bank.”
In other words, the Zionist occupied Senate voted against releasing information about Israel killing American citizens in order to protect Israel.
The bill would have forced Marco Rubio to release the information about nine US citizens who have been killed by settlers and Israeli security forces, including the late Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli occupation forces while reporting in the West Bank in 2022, an intentional murder that was covered up by the Biden administration.
The Biden administration covered up for Israel, claiming that her murder was the “result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad”.
But later, the whistleblower Colonel Steve Gabavics, who worked at the time for the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator in Jerusalem and led the investigation into Shireen Abu Akleh, revealed that his team found she was intentionally targeted, but the U.S. covered it up to protect Israel.
In an interview with Democracy Now!, he noted, “We were able to disprove very quickly the assertion that there was a Palestinian gunman in front of Shireen Abu Akleh, that the IDF had shot at, and they had accidentally shot her instead… the indications of everything we read from the reports that we got from the IDF on their locations, and proximity to where the event happened, what we got from the investigation from the Palestinian Authority, and our investigation, to us it was very clear that the (IDF) individual in the vehicle who took the shot, would have had a clear line of sight and would have had visibility of Shireen Abu Akleh walking down the middle of the street for a period of time before he took the shots”.
But he revealed that the Biden administration covered up this information, saying, “After we had completed this we were on regular video calls, classified and unclassified with the state department … I indicated that the evidence to me indicated that there would have been enough if we actually built a criminal case to have enough information and facts to beyond a reasonable doubt, for a conviction at some level. We were pushing for the fact that they needed to formally admit the fact that it was not an accident, that a (Israeli) soldier killed Shireen Abu Akleh, that it was an intentional shooting, and unfortunately, that was not what came out … When the actual statement came out, that was absolutely not what I expected… I was shocked … all the data indicates the exact opposite, it was not fog of war… This was not what we had found”.
He added, “It all came down to not trying to anger the Israelis by holding them accountable for intentionally killing an American citizen”.
Yet again, AIPAC-bought members of the Senate want to continue the cover-up of the Israeli murder of American citizens in order not to anger Israel and its lobby.
When I first saw footage of Gaza doctor Munir al-Bursh and his family kneeling beside the white-shrouded body of his son, surrounded by mourners, I thought it was an old video. It was not.
My conclusion, however, was understandable. In December 2023, only months after the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the al-Bursh family was targeted in an Israeli attack. Dr. Munir, director-general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, was wounded. So were other members of his family. His daughter, Jinan, only 13, was killed.
That same day, Gaza’s beloved doctor was back at work, joining the many doctors across the Strip trying to save lives as Israel’s killing machine claimed them by the thousands.
Alas, the latest footage was not old footage resurfacing. It was a new coffin, a new funeral, another child buried by the same family. This time, the attack took place during what some in the media continue to call the ‘Gaza ceasefire.’
On September 19, an Israeli drone strike killed al-Bursh’s eldest son, Basir, outside a tent west of Jabaliya refugee camp.
“We were together side by side,” the grieving father recalled. Basir had warned him: “The Israelis are targeting both of us.” Moments later, his son stepped outside the tent and was killed.
One can be forgiven for confusing Gaza’s present with its recent past. The scenes emerging today are almost indistinguishable from those that preceded the so-called ceasefire of October 2025. The sequence repeats itself with terrible familiarity: Israeli strikes, shelling and sniping; Palestinians killed; the bereaved carrying their dead through Gaza’s destroyed streets, searching among the ruins for somewhere to bury them.
Al-Bursh’s story is part of this terrible continuum, but its significance extends beyond his personal loss. Throughout the genocide, he and other Palestinian doctors became Gaza’s de facto spokespeople. They counted the dead and wounded, documented hunger and destruction, and chronicled the collapse of the medical system from within its hospitals.
In the process, they became Gaza’s highest moral authority, more credible than politicians or self-proclaimed leaders.
And the world listened. Gaza’s doctors forged a bond with global civil society that no political institution could manufacture.
Perhaps that helps explain the staggering price Gaza’s medical community has been made to pay. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed since 2023, amid at least 920 attacks on healthcare.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, like Dr. al-Bursh, became a symbol of that medical resistance. The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital remained at his post through siege and repeated Israeli attacks before Israeli forces detained him in December 2024. He remains imprisoned without charge or trial, amid reports from his lawyer of beatings and deteriorating health.
Dr. al-Bursh, meanwhile, remains steadfast despite repeated blows that would have broken many others. His wife, too, embodies sumud, the Palestinian tradition of steadfastness nurtured at home and passed from one generation to the next.
Even in the immediate aftermath of his son’s killing, al-Bursh continued warning about Gaza’s collapsing healthcare system. Indeed, hospitals have been forced to suspend scheduled surgeries and outpatient services, while severe shortages of fuel, medicines and equipment continue.
“The limited quantities of fuel reaching the enclave barely keep health facilities alive,” al-Bursh warned a day after his son’s murder.
His statement came as world leaders gathered thousands of miles away, in New York, for the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly.
And once again, Palestine echoed through speech after speech, though this time the language carried a new urgency.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned “the genocide that Netanyahu continues to perpetrate in Gaza.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres described Israel’s mass extermination as involving “a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed” during his tenure. Even French President Emmanuel Macron called Gaza “a spectacle that shames us all,” asking: “What is our credibility worth if we remain inactive on Gaza?”
Then came Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Dozens of delegates walked out as he approached the podium, leaving row upon row of empty seats, while protests continued outside the UN. Netanyahu responded by calling those who departed “moral cowards.”
One might pause here and speak of tides turning, currents changing and a world slowly loosening the decades-long grip of Israel and its American benefactor.
But Gaza does not have the luxury of time. While the words reverberate through the halls of the United Nations, children are still killed in front of their families. Mass funerals remain part of Gaza’s daily rhythm.
Approximately 1.7 million people remain displaced, many under inadequate shelter, without sufficient clean water or sanitation. Hospitals remain crippled. And above this landscape of ruin, the drones still circle.
Between today and the next UN General Assembly lies an entire year—365 days in which those words can either acquire meaning or become yet another entry in the long archive of speeches on Palestine. However, there is time for rhetoric to become policy: for sanctions to be imposed, boycotts activated, meaningful aid delivered and those responsible for war crimes held accountable.
Until then, Dr. Munir al-Bursh and thousands of Gaza’s men and women will continue to hold the fort amid shattered hospitals, destroyed homes and an exhausted population.
Their resilience is extraordinary. But Gaza cannot be expected to endure simply because it has proved capable of enduring.
In New York, Palestine is spoken of from the podium. In Gaza, Palestinians are still being carried to their graves.
It is time to close the distance between words and action, once and for all.
In cooperation with the Centre for Palestine Studies at SOAS University London and Friends of Palestinian Universities, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has released a new report, “Scholasticide and Genocide in Gaza: Assessment, Testimonial and Legal Analysis,” documenting Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s educational system and examining how this policy forms an integral part of Israel’s ongoing three-year genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The report demonstrates that Israel’s attacks on education in Gaza, including on UNRWA educational faciltiies and staff, go far beyond the destruction of schools and universities or the killing of Palestinian teachers. They constitute a comprehensive policy aimed at dismantling the educational, intellectual, social and cultural foundations necessary for the continued existence and development of Palestinian society.
Drawing on dozens of testimonies and affidavits collectd by PCHR field researchers and lawyers in Gaza, alongside PCHR’s extensive documentation, open-source material, United Nations reports, academic research and relevant international jurisprudence, the report identifies five interconnected patterns of scholasticide: the killing of students, teachers and academics; causing serious bodily and mental harm to them; destroying of educational facilities; obstructing the establishment alternative educational structures; and imposing genocidal conditions that prevent students from accessing education.
By July 2026, PCHR had documented the killing of approximately 20,051 students, more than 830 teachers and educational staff, and over 194 scholars, academics and researchers. Nearly the entire educational infrastructure in in Gaza has been extensively damaged or destroyed, while hundreds of thousands of students have endured prolonged interruption of their education amid displacement, starvation, bombardment, loss of family members, destruction of homes, lack of electricity and internet access, and the collapse of essential services.
PCHR’s report finds that certain acts committed within Israel’s campaign of scholasticide constitute genocidal acts under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, including killing members of the protected group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
The report further highlights the long-term impact on Palestinian children and young Palestinians, including psychological harm, educational loss, diminished future opportunities and intergenerational trauma. Israel’s erasure of the educational infrastructure and broader civilian life in Gaza does not only constitute an attack on the rights of the present generation but also on the future generations.
Education has historically played a central role in sustaining Palestinian identity, knowledge, social cohesion and cultural continuity, particularly in the context of prolonged displacement and occupation. Israel’s destruction of universities, schools, libraries, academic records and cultural institutions therefore carries consequences far beyond the loss of physical infrastructure. It seeks to sever Palestinians from their history and intellectual life, diminish their capacity to rebuild their society, and deprive future generations of the means to learn, develop and participate fully in their community.
PCHR stresses that the destruction of Gaza’s education system did not begin on 7 October 2023. For decades, Palestinian schools, universities and educational institutions have been subjected to attacks, restrictions and destruction during successive Israeli military operations. The unprecedented scale of destruction since October 2023 however represents the culmination and intensification of this longstanding pattern.
PCHR calls on the international community, particularly States Parties to the Genocide Convention, to:
Take immediate and effective measures to bring Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza to an end, including its policy of scholasticide.
Ensure full compliance with the three provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice in the case of South Africa v. Israel.
Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and halt all military, financial and other assistance that may contribute to the commission of international crimes.
Support international accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court, and ensure that those responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are investigated and prosecuted.
Take concrete measures to protect Palestinian students, teachers, academics and educational institutions and guarantee the restoration of the right to education in Gaza.
Provide sustained support for the reconstruction of Gaza’s schools, universities, libraries and educational infrastructure, while ensuring that reconstruction does not substitute for accountability.
Address the long-term psychological, educational and developmental consequences suffered by Palestinian children and young people and ensure their access to rehabilitation, mental-health support and inclusive education.
Russian troops in occupied Oleshky are confiscating food delivered to civilians by Ukrainian drones and questioning residents found with Ukrainian-supplied products, according to the head of the town’s Ukrainian military administration. The allegations come after Ukrainian forces transported about four tonnes of food and medicines across the Dnipro in one of their largest humanitarian drone operations to date.
Russian forces in occupied Oleshky are taking food parcels delivered by Ukrainian military drones from local residents and treating possession of the supplies as possible evidence of collaboration with Ukraine, according to Tetiana Hasanenko, head of the Oleshky City Military Administration.
Hasanenko said Ukrainian forces had delivered food to the Russian-controlled town by drone on several occasions, but that the latest operation was considerably larger, involving approximately four tonnes of supplies.
In comments published on 30 September, she said some residents managed to collect one or several packages, while others were unable to reach the supplies.
Russian personnel were subsequently taking some of the food from residents, she said.
According to Hasanenko, people found with goods that were not Russian-made were also questioned about where they had obtained them. Residents could then be accused of co-operating with the Armed Forces of Ukraine if Russian personnel concluded that the products had arrived through Ukrainian drone deliveries.
The allegations cannot be independently verified from inside Russian-controlled Oleshky. However, severe food shortages and restrictions on humanitarian access to the town have been independently documented by the United Nations.
Four tonnes carried across the Dnipro
The latest operation took place on 27 September and involved Ukrainian military units working with the Kherson regional authorities.
Instead of dropping the cargo directly from altitude, packages were lowered on cables to designated locations.
Units involved included the 30th Marine Corps, the 34th Separate Marine Brigade “Borysfen”, National Guard formations and Ukrainian border guards.
Ukrainian authorities say drone deliveries have become one of the few remaining ways of bringing supplies into the town. The Kherson administration said it had been sending food across the Dnipro by drone since March.
It estimates that around 2,000 civilians remain in Oleshky, including almost 50 children.
The town lies on the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro, opposite Ukrainian-held territory around Kherson. The area is exposed to artillery fire, short-range drone operations and extensive mine contamination.
UN documented food shortages
The humanitarian conditions described by Ukrainian officials are consistent with findings published by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
Residents told UN investigators that the security situation had deteriorated considerably during 2025 and 2026.
The last grocery shop in Oleshky had stopped regular operations in January because supplies had run out, according to testimony collected by the UN. For months, residents depended on preserved food and limited private deliveries.
As of 24 June, the UN said no food deliveries had reached the town since 26 May.
Drone attacks and mines have also made attempts to bring supplies into Oleshky dangerous. On 2 June, a civilian convoy carrying food and humanitarian assistance struck a landmine at the entrance to the town, killing one person and injuring three others.
Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power is required to ensure that food and medical supplies are available to the civilian population and to facilitate humanitarian relief when local resources are inadequate.
Pressure for humanitarian access
The deteriorating situation has prompted repeated Ukrainian appeals for international intervention.
The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations recently called on Pope Leo XIV and international humanitarian organisations to support efforts to reach civilians trapped in the town. EU Today reported on the appeal for humanitarian access and civilian evacuation, which was also directed towards the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN member states.
Hasanenko has also alleged that disappearances continue inside the occupied community.
She said one family had recently disappeared after being detained by Russian forces, adding that Ukrainian authorities did not know whether its members were still alive.
The individual case cannot presently be independently confirmed. The UN has, however, documented arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of civilians in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory during the war.
With independent humanitarian organisations unable to operate freely in Oleshky and conventional supply routes severely restricted, Ukrainian forces are increasingly using drones for a role far removed from their conventional battlefield purpose: carrying food and medicines across the Dnipro to civilians who remain behind Russian lines.
The report documents Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s educational system and examines how this policy forms an integral part of Israel’s ongoing genocide. By July 2026, Israel had killed over 20,051 students, over 830 teachers & educational staff, and over 194 scholars...
EU’s Council is again pushing for the new chat control regulation to allow the bloc’s police to order internet companies to scan people’s private communications for illegal content in “parts of a service” for a period of time, rather than having to obtain a warrant to target a specific suspect.
This is one of the three key points from a note (PDF) prepared for the sixth and potentially final trilogue on the legislation, also known as Chat Control 2.0, that is to take place on Tuesday, 29 September. The document, dated September 18, was leaked from the Council and is marked as a “presidency note.”
The Council, the European Parliament (EP) and the European Commission (EC) will be negotiating behind closed doors, with the latter represented by Commissioner for Internal Affairs Magnus Brunner.
The other two key points are that the Council believes limiting searches to specific suspects would “not generate any added value compared to the possibilities already existing under criminal law,” and that it wants the scope of the new rules to remain broad, covering not only known illegal photo and video content, but also new material, and “the solicitation of children.”
The note is based on previous discussions and reveals that the EP is willing to accept an approach that requires search plans, but with the caveat that they must be “targeted” and subject to review by judicial or independent administrative authorities.
The Council, however, wants searches to be authorized in “parts of a service or, where possible, to individual users,” and that the search plan would have to include the technologies used and other relevant safeguards, again subject to review.
The note reveals that the Council also wants to make sure that any mechanism to review and possibly suspend searches “should operate in a manner that does not deter providers from carrying out own-initiative searches.”
As a last resort, the Council will ask member states if they would be willing to drop “own-initiative searches or detection orders on non-public content” from the scope of the regulation – but only if no other compromise can be found “providing at least for the same level of effectiveness as the current voluntary practice.”
Former German member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party Patrick Breyer has no doubt that what is being proposed is “mass surveillance by another name,” and that the goal of the Council, Commission and some member states is to “permanently normalize mass surveillance across Europe.”
Breyer said that the proposal to scan “parts of a service” would in reality mean that “every user in the EU” would be subject to this.
And, he noted, this is not a new system that would replace the old one, but would rather exist in parallel with it. The old system, meanwhile, “is a proven disaster,” the former MEP said, revealing that in Germany, over half of investigations target minors for “consensual sexting” while 75 percent of flagged chats are “not actionable.”
The Council’s own legal service has in the past said that scanning an entire service or parts of it is “highly probable” to be found “general and indiscriminate” surveillance, and therefore unlawful.
Greek journalist and former European Parliament member Stelios Kouloglou filed a criminal complaint Monday against officials at Israeli spyware maker NSO Group, alleging that his phone was infected with Pegasus while he served on a parliamentary inquiry into surveillance software, Anadolu reports.
The complaint was submitted to the Athens prosecutor’s office, Greek public broadcaster ERT reported. Kouloglou said a forensic examination by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab found that his phone had been infected around Oct. 21, 2022, and again on March 6 and 7, 2023.
At the time, he was a substitute member of the European Parliament committee investigating the use of Pegasus, Predator and similar spyware. The complaint said the infections coincided with significant phases of the committee’s work.
Kouloglou alleges the spyware could have given those responsible access to communications, contacts, documents, location information and data related to his political work. The complaint seeks an investigation into alleged breaches of communications privacy, unauthorized access to data and violations of personal data law.
Speaking after filing the complaint, Kouloglou said surveillance was an issue affecting all citizens and expressed hope that Greek prosecutors would investigate the case.
His lawyer, Zacharias Kesses, said no action had previously been taken despite the allegations being known.
There is no running away from the fact that there are extremely troubling ideas throughout the Torah, Talmud, Mishneh Torah and Tanya.
Ideas like “choseness”, “promised land”, “return to Zion”, “building the temple”, “tikkun olam”… etc come from no other than Torah itself, soaked in supremacy, dominance aspiration, deception and mass-killing.
We can no longer hide our heads in the sand, pretending not to know, pretending not to see.
Jewish anti-Zionists should move on now, and use all their activism outside the Palestine solidarity movement, direct their work towards their people where serious discussions happen, plans are drawn, funds are raised, weapons are shipped and is genocide plotted and enacted. They should work with their own Jewish communities to try to get them out of the mess of supremacy and genocide they got themselves into.
Instead of wasting their time denying any links between Judaism and Zionism, instead of throwing their energy on controlling the Palestinian discourse, and instead of relentlessly monitoring us, Semite Palestinians lest we slip and “conflate Zionism with Judaism”or say something “antisemitic”, that may offend a Jew, Anti-Zionist Jews should change course and adopt a different role to play.
They should shift their activism within, try to effect change within their own Jewish communities who by vast majority are still supporting the Genocide with all their wealth, their leverage, all their influence and all their might.
They should leave us Palestinians to lead our Liberation Movement, and to narrate our authentic, untamed, unfiltered, unkosherised story without censoring, blacklisting, slandering or intimidation.
The future of the planet depends on the uprooting of Jewish supremacy, deception, hatred and violence from their ideology, and joining the human race as equals not as “chosen”.
Failing to confront the elephant in the room would end up in a World Nakba, like nothing we have ever seen before.
This is a WARNING, a mere WARNING of a brewing global disaster, I see in the horizon, and I am praying that together we would be able to prevent before it’s too late.
British police on Sunday arrested two demonstrators during a pro-Palestine protest outside the ruling Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool, Anadolu reports.
Protesters gathered outside the conference venue, with several holding homemade signs expressing support for Palestine Action, a group banned by the UK government.
Police officers moved to arrest an elderly man who was sitting beneath a tree, before making a second arrest involving a protester holding a sign supporting the banned group.
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which organized the protest, said it had hoped the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, “would do the sensible thing and bin the ban on Palestine Action given the weight of public pressure to do so and the escalating amount of resources required in enforcing it.”
Nearly 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 175,000 others wounded in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza since 2023. The offensive has also destroyed around 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure.
Despite a ceasefire that took effect last October, the Israeli army has continued daily attacks in Gaza, killing over 1,400 Palestinians and injuring around 5,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
Germany’s opposition lawmakers have accused Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government of seeking to create a “secret police” by dramatically expanding the powers of the country’s intelligence agencies.
The accusations came during the first parliamentary debate on the reform on Thursday, with lawmakers from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Left and the Greens raising concerns over surveillance and fundamental rights. The government argues that the changes are needed to counter growing security threats.
Under a reform approved by the cabinet last month, the BND foreign intelligence agency and the BfV domestic security service would gain broader operational powers, allowing them to move beyond primarily gathering and analyzing information.
Among the proposed changes, the BND could sabotage foreign companies, penetrate foreign IT systems and disable weapons deemed a threat to Germany. The BfV, meanwhile, could secretly enter homes and access computers and mobile phones under certain circumstances.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the reform would usher in a “new era” by turning the country’s intelligence services into “genuine intelligence agencies” capable of actively countering threats. He said Germany must bring its services to the level of its European partners.
AfD MP Gottfried Curio branded the proposed overhaul of the BfV “Stasi 2.0,” referring to East Germany’s notorious secret police, and called the reform a “coup against the rule of law.” The AfD, however, supports granting the BND greater operational powers.
The BfV has itself been locked in a legal battle with the AfD. In 2025, the agency designated Germany’s most popular party a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization, but a Cologne court in February barred it from applying that classification while the case proceeds.
The ruling came months before the AfD scored major gains in regional elections. It won 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt earlier this month and 38.3% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday.
Green MP Konstantin von Notz said granting the BfV such extensive powers would be a “grave mistake” and questioned whether parts of the reform would survive scrutiny by the Constitutional Court. He nevertheless backed giving the BND greater powers.
Left Party MP Clara Buenger went further, warning that the BfV could become a “new German secret police.”
“Fundamental rights are being trampled on here,” she said, arguing that the agency would gain powers traditionally reserved for police.
The debate comes as Merz’s government braces for growing AfD influence at the regional level. The Telegraph and Die Weltreported in July that Berlin was developing a “secret plan” to counter potential “obstructionism” by regional authorities, allowing the federal government to bypass them in a crisis.
The German government wants the intelligence reform to take effect at the beginning of 2027. It still requires approval from both the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
Israeli settler gangs are using drones to terrorize Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, harassing families and guiding armed raids that have killed Palestinians, TheNew Arab(TNA)reported on 25 September.
“When herders left their homes in the morning, the drones would pursue and shadow them; if they approached certain areas, settlers would gather to attack and drive them away. Eventually, the drones began monitoring residents inside their homes around the clock, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop them,” Rabie Abu Naim, a displaced resident of Al-Khalayel, east of Ramallah, told TNA.
Settlers later rigged the drones with speakers blaring abuse and orders to leave, and drones were also used to drop tear gas on targeted communities, as violent assaults wounded many until terrified families fled, the report said.
Abu Naim also pointed to the killing of a boy and a young man in Al-Mughayyir days ago, saying drones “played a major role” in a raid that began with a drone tracking a flock of sheep, after which settlers moved in to steal the animals while shielded by the Israeli army, which “killed the two victims in cold blood during the incident.”
In Mikhmas, shepherd Mohammed Abu Siyam told TNA that settlers sent a drone after his 19-year-old son, Nasrallah, and other young men searching for livestock stolen from the village in February.
With the drone watching their every move, armed illegal settlers lay in wait for the young men, then opened fire, killing Nasrallah and wounding others.
Another Palestinian living in Hajjah, near Qalqilya, told TNA that settler drones fly so close to village homes that families fear the machines will crash through their windows, leaving residents under constant watch and feeling that “privacy is non-existent, and everyone feels constantly threatened.”
Illegal Israeli settlement councils have recently begun arming settlers with drones to film, scout, and watch the areas around outposts, building on earlier Israeli funding that equipped outposts with drones as part of a so-called security package.
Palestinians, meanwhile, are barred from owning drones even for their work, and the Israeli army has arrested numerous Palestinian photojournalists over the past three years for having them, citing a military order that has banned Palestinians from possessing the devices since 2017.
Israeli occupation forces have also raided toy shops across West Bank cities dozens of times, confiscating every drone on the shelves, including those made for children, and threatening shop owners with arrest if they sell them.
In May, OCHA documented settlers using drones to chase residents of Arab al-Mleihat, a community since emptied.
Salah al-Khawaja of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission told TNA that the constant surveillance of Palestinian homes can become “an additional factor driving families to leave the areas where they live.”
The latest report by the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq contains detailed testimonies by the victims of violent, grotesque attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank.
The EU has published a wide range of reports detailing what social media companies like TikTok and Meta are doing to comply with its Digital Services Act (DSA). The reports detail the extreme censorship needed to stay on Brussels’ good side.
Under the European Commission’s “voluntary Code of Conduct on Disinformation,” the largest online platforms operating in the EU are required to submit biannual reports explaining their efforts to combat so-called “disinformation.” Although adherence to the code is described as “voluntary,” those who do not comply are subject to fines under the DSA, which came into force in 2023.
The commission published reports by Meta, TikTok, Google, Twitch, and more than two dozen other platforms on Wednesday. Each report spans hundreds of pages, and details the speech restrictions and censorship policies put in place at the behest of the EU.
These include restrictions on political speech surrounding elections, which the EU has mandated in every major European vote since 2024, under the pretext of fighting “Russian interference.” According to documents released by the US House Judiciary Committee earlier this year, these measures have almost always been used “to disadvantage conservative or populist political parties.”
In its report, TikTok admitted that it removed more than half a million posts concerning elections in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Hungary, Malta, Portugal, and Slovenia this year. RT has covered the EU’s efforts to interfere in the Bulgarian and Hungarian elections in depth, and found that TikTok came under particularly intense pressure from Brussels, after its failure to implement sufficiently draconian restrictions during Romania’s presidential election in 2024.
Each report is hundreds of pages long, and every major social media company admitted that they now defer to EU-approved “fact-checkers” to police content on their platforms. Meta explained that it now automatically down-ranks content flagged by fact-checkers, while YouTube stated that it has trained AI models to pre-emptively remove content it thinks would fall foul of these groups.
Multiple reports specify that the platforms themselves must pay the fact-checkers’ salary. These fact-checkers flagged more than 14 million posts on Facebook in the first six months of this year alone.
Every social media platform devoted a chapter in its report to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with Facebook noting that all posts on the conflict are subject to monitoring for “disinformation and misinformation” by pro-EU fact-checkers.
Russian media outlets are banned from Facebook, while Ukrainian outlets are free to operate, and Kiev is permitted to fundraise on the platform.
Despite mentioning “disinformation” more than a dozen times, the DSA does not define the term.
Israel employs military technology capable of identifying specific individuals, tracking their movements, and striking them with precision, despite the clear civilian status of those targeted and their non-participation in hostilities or posing of any imminent threat to Israeli forces or others.
For the last several days, Israeli forces have blocked the main entrances and exits to the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, further restricting Palestinian movement.
The punitive measure was taken after a Palestinian man carried out a shooting attack near the illegal settlement of Halamish, located to the northwest of Ramallah in the Occupied West Bank, on Sunday, September 20.
The attack resulted in the killing of an Israeli settler. The assailant was also injured and later identified as Qadri Samara (37). Samara was shot at by Israeli soldiers stationed at an army post near the site of the attack.
Although Samara managed to withdraw from the scene, later in the day Israeli forces carried out a raid at the HClinic Hospital in Ramallah and arrested him.
Following his arrest, the Israeli army also stormed Samara’s town of Biddu, northwest of Jerusalem, on Sunday evening, raiding his home and surrounding worshippers inside a mosque.
Ben-Gvir calls for implementation of death penalty law for the first time on Samara
In a security meeting held on Monday, September 21, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for the controversial death penalty law, mandated in March, to be used against Qadri Samara.
The law has faced widespread condemnation from international human rights groups for multiple reasons, mainly because it applies exclusively to Palestinians, while exempting Israelis convicted of the same offenses from the same penalty.
Both Israeli soldiers and illegal settlers have enjoyed total impunity despite murdering thousands of Palestinians over the past two decades in the occupied West Bank, a territory regarded under Palestinian jurisdiction in accordance with international law.
Iranian cinema has a long history of confronting censorship. But the Women, Life, Freedom protests changed the terms of that confrontation. Where filmmakers once worked within, or carefully around, an elaborate approval system to tell their stories, many now bypass it entirely at great risk.
Forced disappearances have plagued Mexico for decades. In 2019, something remarkable happened: Twenty-one disappeared people were found, alive. They had been toiling in narco-slavery camps, an under-covered aspect of Mexico’s illicit drug trade. But there wasn’t a happy ending. (This story was originally published in Spanish by Quinto Elemento Lab):
Freedom had not been kind to the captives. Few had been able to regain even the wretched standard of living that had pushed them into the arms of the cartels in the first place. Many were scarred by paranoia, trapped in addiction or suffering mental illnesses. Some had been abandoned by their partners or families. More than one, we learned, died after being rescued, some by their own hand. We came to feel that these men had been triply betrayed: first by the narcos who had lured them into the mountains, then by the government that failed to look for them, and finally by a society that refused to welcome them back into its fold.
We are telling their stories not because we hope to secure justice, but simply to establish the truth. This was a modest ambition shared by one of our interlocutors, Andrés. He told us that many of the survivors’ accounts had been doubted. He’d even read criticisms on social media: That’s what they deserve for being shiftless and lazy. “Those people should try thinking before they speak, because they don’t know when they might suddenly find themselves in a similar situation,” Andrés said. “They might be lucky enough to be rescued, or unlucky enough to die out there. I decided to give this interview because this situation’s not going to change. In Mexico, there’s sexual slavery, human trafficking, forced labour. This didn’t start yesterday; it’s been going on for many years.”
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