Serving a prison sentence in Russia apparently was not enough. Years after Konstantin Rudnev completed his term, the accusations that put him behind bars keep following him from one continent to another. This was the message a French NGO brought to Warsaw, where the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) held its 2026 […]

Alya: You say that Russia’s forcible transfer of Ukrainian children is the crime of genocide. In international law, genocide is defined by Article 6 of the Rome Statute. What would it take to change this legal framework to include the deportation and militarization of Ukrainian children? And is the Office of the Prosecutor in any position to do that work under current US sanctions and Karim Khan’s leave?

Kateryna: We don’t need to change any legal frameworks to prosecute what the Russians are doing with Ukrainian children. Militarization and political indoctrination, as well as Russification of young Ukrainians, is a part of Russia’s bigger strategy to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state and to subjugate everything in the Ukrainian nation to the Russian influence and control. I don’t see legal problems; we simply still lack the political will to call the crimes by their proper names.

The UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention posits that all states that signed the convention, 154 as of today, should act to stop it—not only those affected by genocide. If the international community recognized what the Russians are doing as a crime of genocide, it would mean that yet another time in history the international community was not able to prevent genocide, to recognize some early warnings, to react properly to what the Russians did, for example, in occupied Crimea or Donbas before 2022. It is not easy, and the international community and world political leaders should be mature enough to face all these challenges, recognize that they were involved in the commission of these crimes through silence and inaction, and finally stop it.

So that is why, according to the Rome Statute, the Office of the Prosecutor can start an investigation of the crime of genocide in the Ukrainian context. It is possible: the ICC’s Ukraine-situation investigation in March 2022, supported by 43 states, included not only war crimes and crimes against humanity, but also the crime of genocide. So we have all the legal tools and means, but politically it is very difficult.

Recently, there has been a global shift towards this—in the context of the war between Arabian states and Israel, not Ukraine. But for example, Israel’s attacks against Gaza’s education have already been termed "scholasticide," so as a part of the genocidal intent, as a part of the crime of genocide. So for us lawyers and human rights defenders, this is the task—to push the international community to do the same with Russia. It is not easy because Russia is one of the five "world policemen" expected to maintain this international legal order.

I believe that, perhaps in decades, but we will see how Russia’s actions will be recognized as the crime of genocide. The forcible transfer of children from one group to another group is the fifth universally recognized element of the crime of genocide.

Alya: Your organization was involved in documenting this. How does this pipeline actually work?

Kateryna: Yes, let's take Olga Druzhinina, who fostered four children from the occupied territories of Ukraine. Her story is very interesting: first, it seemed that she could be just an ordinary Russian brainwashed by TV shows about children from Donbas. But then we found that Olga is very close to [former Russian President] Medvedev, and through Medvedev to President Putin. Olga is the head of one non-governmental organization, "Semia Arktiki" [Family of the Arctic], and this organization aims to find foster parents for orphans— now including orphans from occupied territories of Ukraine. The co-head of this organization also fostered Ukrainian children.

It is a very well-built, pre-planned architecture of people involved in the commission of this crime—not some sporadic reaction to the full-scale invasion. They planned to do it. And I will not be surprised if, in the future, we find that these families also adopted children from Crimea or from Donbas even before 2022.

Her husband is a veteran of the Russian Armed Forces. He participated in many wars of the Russian regime, including the wars in Chechnya. It was clearly against the child's best interest to be sent to the family of this Russian serviceman and his wife. So their case was widely publicized. We recorded many different details. Later, we found photos of these children in the "Warrior Center" camp in Novosibirsk, and her foster daughter from occupied Ukraine wearing a St.George’s [Russian imperial] ribbon and in military uniform.

So the Ukrainian identity of these children was completely eradicated. It was prohibited to mention that they were Ukrainians, and the main goal of this family was to repress their unloyalty to the Russian state, to re-educate them, mold them into Russian patriots. Unfortunately, I don’t know the fate of these teenagers from Mariupol, but as far as I know, they were not returned to Ukraine. And now they are already young adults—meaning they will soon be conscripted into the Russian army. They have this military duty because they were forcibly given Russian citizenship. And young children also remain under the control of Olga and his husband.

Olga and her husband are members of the so-called "Putin Team." They were recognized many times as the best family of the Yamalo-Nenets region. The governor of Yamal-Nenets is also Putin's person. His candidacy was supported by Putin for re-election to this position. And this governor has many times mentioned that Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine were accepted by foster families from his region, even without the proper documents.

It is very difficult to influence their behavior without sanctions. In this sphere of foster care, the balance between placing children in Russian institutions and Russian families is hard to find. Russia presents only two options for the forcibly transferred Ukrainian children: Russian boarding institutions or Russian foster families. And of course, ordinary people think: a family is better than a boarding institution. The truth is that there is a third option: just return these children to Ukraine, to their homes.

And I would like to highlight that, according to the order of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, these children from institutions will not be returned to boarding institutions in Ukraine. They will inevitably be placed with a foster family, and they can participate in choosing this family or changing it. Ukraine is doing its best to guarantee that its actions comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but unfortunately, Russians are very hard to persuade to return these orphanage children.

Alya: On 11 May 2026, the EU Council sanctioned 16 individuals and seven entities for the systematic unlawful deportation, forced transfer, and forced assimilation of Ukrainian children, including through indoctrination and militarized education. Your organization pushed for these sanctions. Are they working?

Kateryna: In January–February 2026, we criticized the European Union’s sanctions policy. New persons were being added to lists, but we found that the level of coordination and harmonization of sanctions policies was only 5%. Only 13 individuals and three organizations were under sanctions in all jurisdictions analyzed by us: Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, the European Union, Switzerland, and Japan. It was terrifying because sanctions exist, yet they are riddled by many loopholes and are actually inefficient.

That is why we started persuading them to do something with this system. And on 11 May, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union synchronized their sanctions packages: the people are included in all jurisdictions. For us, this is a big achievement.

Another achievement: a shift in their perception of where this vertical of guilty persons ends. Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova—okay; ministers, children's rights ombudspersons at the regional level, heads of the occupation authorities—okay. But what about the "ordinary" Russian people who fostered poor Ukrainian children and now contribute to their militarization? The 11 May sanctions saw the United Kingdom and Canada listing ordinary Russians, like the family from Yamalo-Nenets that fostered four Ukrainian children, including teenagers from Mariupol, and then sent them to re-education camps of the "Center Warrior" to be militarized as Russian soldiers.

If these results of our work seem small, we must remember that for the Russians, it is a very sensitive issue. They are mad because of the sanctions—and this was visible when the “Yolochka” boarding institution in occupied Crimea’s Simferopol, called a “concentration camp” by ordinary Russians, was sanctioned. Already in December 2014 [after Russia’s occupation of east Ukraine], the first Ukrainian orphans were sent to Russian foster families from this “Yolochka.” 12 years later, children from Kherson boarding institutions also went through “Yolochka.”

Alya: You've documented over 20,500 deported children. How many of that cohort are approaching Russian conscription age?

Kateryna: It is hard to tell because the way the Ukrainian side is collecting statistics is not good enough. So you should address this question to the competent bodies of Ukraine.

But according to our calculations, just to describe the situation in general: all Ukrainian teenagers under Russian control start receiving draft notices at the age of 16. According to the Russian legislation, it should be at the age of 17, but they're so afraid that these children will escape or will return to Ukrainian-controlled territories, that they start this process in violation of their own legislation.

Everything is organized around schools. They’re not about education under occupation, but have become additional buildings of the military commissariat. Specific teachers are responsible for this conscription process. Boys aged 16-17 are being brought to the military commissariat in organized groups. You cannot escape, you cannot refuse, because you will hear “knock-knock” on your door: the occupation authorities and your teacher will ask: “Where are you? You should go.”

Another problem: Russia and Belarus started exchanging data, meaning that if this child receives a draft notice at the age of 18, he will not be able to cross the border—which matters because the checkpoint of Mokrany-Domanove between Belarus and Ukraine is the main point of returning Ukrainian children from Russian control. Every year, the Russians amend their legislation to impose more obstacles to the repatriation process.

So the only way for a Ukrainian teenage boy to escape is to do this several days before a "povestka" [draft notice] comes to his house at 16 years.

According to our intelligence, since 2014, 48,000 Ukrainians from occupied territories were forcibly mobilized by Russians, including those from occupied Crimea. Some of them participated in the "special military operation.” Around 20% of all prisoners of war in Ukrainian camps for Russians are originally Ukrainians who were forced to sign a military contract. Many of them were forced, manipulated, or brainwashed, so it was not done of their own will.

But I would like to highlight that the average age of a Russian soldier is 35. This is not the war of young Ukrainians who reached the age of majority and were sent to the battlefield as cannon fodder. We see that the Russians’ main goal is to rebuild the army degraded by the Ukrainian side during the first month of the full-scale invasion, to have officers and other qualified personnel who will develop a strategy and conquer more and more territory. That is why they're investing in all these military patriotic movements and centers.

That is why I was really impressed when I saw that their All-Russian championship on drone racing will be for children aged seven. Should we next expect that children in kindergartens will assemble and disassemble a rifle? Their society is very militarized. This is the biggest problem. And now, Russian soldiers are those who are teaching Ukrainian children to fight tomorrow.

Alya: Thank you so much, Kateryna, for your time.

One year since the ceasefire agreement, more than 1,400 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, nearly two million still need shelter, not a single hospital is fully functioning, and 1.4 million face crisis-level hunger.

 

Patricia Teitelbaum, President of the International Movement for Peace and Coexistence, opened the third-anniversary commemoration of the 7th October 2023 Hamas massacre by welcoming guests to an exhibition named Memory, Dignity and the Duty to Prevent.

Held in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 7th October, it was co-organised by IMPAC and the American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Institute, and hosted by Hildegard Bentele, the German EPP MEP who chairs the Parliament’s delegation for relations with Israel. Over 200 were present, including at least 55 MEPs.

Photographs by Israeli Ziv Koren lined the gallery. Sculptures by the Gaza-border blacksmith Yaron Bob, forged from rocket metal, stood among them. Teitelbaum said the gathering was meant to restore dignity stripped from the victims and to commit those present to preventing a repetition. “Our common duty to prevent, to combat extremism and radicalisation, that would be a noble way to honour those who were murdered.”

Benedetta Buttiglione, director of the AJC in Brussels, thanked former hostage Omri Miran for being in the room, and called Bob’s rockets-into-roses a refusal to let destruction have the last word. Memory, she said, because the dead would not be forgotten; dignity, because every victim was a human being and not a statistic; and a duty to prevent, because remembrance meant taking responsibility.

Sarah Mordekhay, from the Eshkol region on the Gaza envelope, then lit candles in memory of some of the victims she knew, such as Bernard Cowan from kibbutz Sufa. She described 7th October as the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Shoah, but this time in their homeland: entire families wiped out, “not for what they did, but for who they were.” Never again, she said, meant no justification for terrorism and no tolerance for antisemitism.

Bentele, as host, recalled that more than 1,200 people were murdered that day, including citizens of EU member states, and that 44 EU citizens were among those taken hostage. Some survivors, she said, later took their own lives because the suffering was unbearable. She turned to Miran, who spent 738 days in Hamas captivity, and called his journey from Israel to Strasbourg an act of courage. “Remembrance is our responsibility,” she said. 

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola spoke next and began with an apology. Two days earlier, French MEP Rima Hassan of La France Insoumise had visited the exhibition and thrown down the Israel flag, causing the EU flag to fall as well. Witnesses said she stepped over the European flag and made no attempt to pick it up.

Addressing Miran, she said she felt she must apologise, nonetheless. “I hope, dear Omri, you know that the actions of one person this week do not reflect the sentiment, ethos or belief of the vast, vast majority of members of this house who are as outraged as me.” The room applauded. She recalled her visit to Kfar Aza and Re’im on 13th October 2023 with the Speaker of the Knesset: the smell of death, a child’s burnt swing, and a make-up brush handed to her in a bus shelter at Re’im, which still sits on her desk.

She named the Bibas children, Ariel and Kfir, and spoke of girls who survived sexual violence in captivity only to meet sceptics. She did not confine the dead to Israel. “So many since also died in Gaza,” she said. “We are not blind to anyone’s suffering.” The way forward, she argued, had to end terror, disband Hamas and its proxies, and renew the fight against antisemitism. “The line between legitimate criticism and antisemitic narratives should be a chasm that no one crosses.”

Yaron Bob then presented Metsola with a sculpture, the Hand of Peace, a hand rising from broken ground to hold a broken olive branch. The branch was broken, he said, because the losses were terrible; the hand still held it because hope had not been given up. “My dream is that one day there will be no more rockets for me to use”, he concluded.

Israel’s ambassador to the EU and NATO, Avi Nir-Feldklein, asked who in the room had woken that morning wondering whether their country would survive the day. He thanked Metsola for speaking when others stayed silent and told Miran that an entire nation had rejoiced at his return.

Miran spoke last. Abducted from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, he described the safe room with his wife Lishay and their daughters Roni, then two, and Alma, six months old; the murder of the kibbutz security coordinator, Ilan Fiorentino; and the moment terrorists used a 17-year-old neighbour to force the family to open the door.

A rifle was pointed at Roni’s head. As he was led away, the child broke free and screamed for her father. He did not look back, afraid they would be shot. He was beaten by a mob on entering Gaza, held in 23 places, including tunnels about 30 metres underground, and filmed for propaganda. His captors, he said, told him they would repeat 7th October “until the last Jew had either left or been slaughtered.”

Asked whether Gaza’s losses had changed their minds, they answered that 50,000 babies had been born that year: “50,000 new martyrs.” Pressure on Israel, and what he called a false symmetry between Hamas and Hezbollah and Israeli self-defence, had been read by those captors as encouragement, not as a call for peace.

Hildegard Bentele, the host MEP, had already given the day’s answer to the flag incident, writing on the evening it happened: “Knocking down the EU and Israeli flags at our commemoration exhibition does nothing to ease that suffering. We should come together to honour the victims and work to ensure such atrocities never happen again. Remembrance deserves respect.”

International Organization for Migration (IOM) Director General Amy Pope warns: "As winter rain begins, the combined supply pipeline of humanitarian shelter partners covers barely 17 per cent of identified winter needs"

RT | October 8, 2026

Brussels is steering Europe toward totalitarianism and a “Euro-Gestapo” while lecturing Russia on democracy, Slovak MEP Lubos Blaha has warned.

Blaha made the remarks during a European Parliament debate on Tuesday, responding to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who denounced Russia’s recent parliamentary elections as undemocratic.

The politician questioned why Brussels was focusing on Russia while cracking down on dissent within the bloc.

He cited arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters in Germany and the imprisonment of Estonian opposition figures, who he claimed were jailed for opposing war with Russia.

“Are you going to set up the Euro-Gestapo here, Mrs. Kallas, and lock up everyone who wants peace?” he asked.

The Slovak lawmaker also questioned why Brussels was debating Russia’s elections while Europe faced mounting unrest.

“You may not have noticed, but Spain is in the streets, France is in the streets, and you are here dealing with Russian elections. You must be joking,” he said.

Blaha went on to accuse Brussels of double standards over Ukraine’s suspended presidential elections.

“You blame the Russians for having elections, but you don’t mind that [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelensky has been governing for three years without any elections, without a mandate,” he said. “You are hypocrites!”

Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, but elections have remained suspended under martial law.

Blaha also cited the annulment of Romania’s 2024 presidential election, claiming the vote was canceled because “the wrong candidate won.” Romania’s Constitutional Court scrapped the result over alleged irregularities and accusations of Russian interference after EU- and NATO-skeptic Calin Georgescu won the first round. Pro-EU candidate Nicusor Dan won the rerun in May 2025.

The MEP argued that Russia had held elections despite the ongoing conflict and daily Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on its territory.

The September poll saw the ruling United Russia party win nearly 58% of the party-list vote.

Blaha also defended Russian President Vladimir Putin, contrasting his popularity with that of Western European leaders.

“You have nothing to criticize Putin for, Mrs. Kallas,” he declared. “Unlike you and your Merzes and Macrons, he has the support of his own population.”

Recent polls have put German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s approval rating at a record low of 10% in October, while French President Emmanuel Macron’s support fell to 17% in September. Neither Kallas nor European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was directly elected to her current position by voters, having assumed office through the EU’s institutional appointment process.

Blaha belongs to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer-SD party, which opposes EU sanctions on Russia and has criticized Western military assistance to Ukraine.

IMEMC | October 7, 2026

Nearly 22,000 Palestinian students and education workers were killed during three years of Israeli attacks, according to a statistical report released Wednesday by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The report documents Israeli violations against the education sector from October 7, 2023, through October 7, 2026.

Issued under the slogan, “Three Years After the Genocide: Education Is a Will That Cannot Be Broken,” the report said Israeli forces killed more than 19,189 school students and 1,386 university students in the Gaza Strip. Another 28,586 school students and 3,082 university students suffered injuries of varying severity.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed 134 school students and 39 university students and injured 871 school students and 283 university students. The forces also abducted 416 school students and 481 university students.

Among educational and administrative personnel in Gaza, Israeli forces killed 805 school employees and 246 university lecturers and staff members.

The report also documented the injury of 3,298 school employees and 1,493 university personnel. In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed seven school staff members and injured 26 others, while abducting more than 176 teachers and school employees and 21 university staff members.

Regarding attacks on educational institutions, the ministry said Israeli forces completely destroyed more than 179 public schools in Gaza and more than 105 schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). More than 63 university buildings were also completely destroyed.

In response to the widespread destruction and in an effort to maintain the educational process, 700 teaching and learning centers were opened throughout the Gaza Strip, along with 12 virtual schools serving students from Gaza inside Palestine and abroad.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces continued targeting educational institutions. They issued a final demolition order against the Janba School in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, and closed four schools in Hebron’s Old City for several days: Yasser Amr, Al-Faiha, Qurtuba, and Al-Ibrahimiyya schools.

Israeli authorities also denied work permits to teachers at private schools in occupied Jerusalem, preventing them from reaching their workplaces, and continued invading Palestinian universities, most recently Birzeit University.

By Junaid S. Ahmad | MEMO | October 7, 2026

There are careers that end in triumph, careers that end in scandal, and careers that achieve the rarer distinction of staging their own final indictment. António Guterres has found his in Islamabad.

After nearly a decade as Secretary-General of the United Nations, he arrives in Pakistan in the twilight of his tenure and performs the ritual that has come to define him: smile warmly, praise generously, deplore abstractly, and avoid saying anything that might seriously inconvenience the powerful men standing beside him. His record is littered with eloquent concern, grave warnings and solemn appeals. What it has lacked, again and again, is the one quality that gives moral language meaning: courage when courage carries a cost.

In Islamabad, the performance is almost indecent. Guterres praises Pakistan as a source of “solidarity and solutions,” commends the “resilience” of its people, and assures them that the United Nations stands with them. Meanwhile, former prime minister Imran Khan remains imprisoned after the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his detention arbitrary.

UN experts have raised concerns about his treatment, prolonged isolation and conditions of confinement; the UN Committee Against Torture has separately highlighted broader allegations of politically motivated detention, torture, intimidation and repression.

Guterres does not need opposition politicians or troublesome journalists to brief him. He could simply read his own institution’s reports. But that would ruin the choreography.

So the Secretary-General moves through meetings with Pakistan’s political and security establishment while one of the country’s most popular and persecuted political leaders sits behind bars. Outside the diplomatic bubble, Khan’s supporters confront barricades, arrests and the familiar machinery of coercion. The Pakistani state, chronically incompetent at governing, once again discovers astonishing administrative efficiency when citizens decide to protest.

And Guterres praises their resilience. The euphemism is almost grotesque. A population is subjected to repression, institutional decay and coercive politics, and the world’s senior international diplomat congratulates it for enduring the experience. It is the diplomatic equivalent of praising a prisoner’s fortitude while refusing to ask who locked the cell.

But Islamabad is not a lapse in the Guterres record. It is the culmination of it.

The same moral evasion has defined his response to Gaza. For years, Guterres has described the catastrophe in increasingly apocalyptic terms: mass death, starvation, displacement, destroyed hospitals, shattered families, collective punishment and violations of international law. He has rarely lacked adjectives for horror.

What he lacked was willingness to name its most consequential possibility. Genocide.

When confronted directly, Guterres retreated into procedure, insisting that such a determination belonged to the courts. It was bureaucratic cowardice dressed as juridical sobriety. Apparently, a Secretary-General may describe the destruction of a people in exhaustive detail, denounce their starvation, mourn their children and warn of their dehumanization — but the moment the facts threaten to crystallize into the politically dangerous word, he develops an almost priestly devotion to institutional restraint.

The absurdity became complete when UN experts explicitly warned of genocide and a UN Commission of Inquiry later concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. The institution Guterres leads could say what Guterres himself repeatedly would not. This was not neutrality. It was evasion refined into method.

That is the essence of the Guterres tenure: moral vocabulary without moral escalation. He has perfected the art of sounding anguished while remaining politically non-threatening. His speeches travel bravely to the edge of the necessary conclusion, stare into the abyss, invoke international law, then retreat into another carefully worded appeal to governments that have already demonstrated their contempt for it.

Gaza became a theatre of catastrophic adjectives without commensurate political naming. Pakistan now becomes a festival of diplomatic compliments beside a prison cell.

The parallel is devastating. In Gaza, the UN system could document devastation while its Secretary-General recoiled from the word that carried the greatest political charge. In Pakistan, UN mechanisms can document arbitrary detention, abuse and repression while their chief shakes hands with the authorities presiding over the system they have condemned.

That is not merely institutional contradiction. It is leadership failure.

No serious person expects a UN Secretary-General to command armies, free prisoners by decree or compel governments into decency. But the office possesses one form of power that cannot be dismissed so easily: moral authority. Guterres has spent much of his tenure conserving it so carefully that, when history demanded its expenditure, there was often nothing to show for it.

He has confused caution with wisdom and diplomatic acceptability with statesmanship. But statesmanship is not the art of saying only what power can comfortably tolerate. Its purpose, at decisive moments, is precisely the opposite.

And so Islamabad is a fitting final tableau: Guterres praising resilience while surrounded by evidence of why resilience is necessary; representing institutions whose own findings he seems unwilling to embody; smiling through repression in Pakistan after years of speaking around genocide in Gaza.

History will not care how many statements he issued, how solemnly he frowned, or how often he invoked international law.

It will ask what he said when speaking plainly became dangerous. Too often, António Guterres chose not to. He saw almost everything. He described almost everything. And when history demanded courage rather than description, he chose cowardice.

The situation of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons has undergone unprecedented and dangerous transformations in scale and severity since the onset of the genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip.

Palestinian Information Center – October 6, 2026

RAMALLAH – The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) has warned that Israel is expanding its use of the charge of “incitement” into a tool for controlling education, expression and collective memory in Palestinian institutions.

The warning followed the recent arrest of a school principal in al-Eizariya and the demolition of a martyrs’ memorial at Birzeit University on Monday. The PPS said both incidents reflect a wider policy targeting spaces where Palestinian awareness is shaped and where the memory of prisoners, martyrs and national symbols is preserved and passed to new generations.

According to the society, prosecutions under the label of “incitement” are no longer limited to social media posts or personal statements. They now extend to educational content and symbols inside institutions, placing schools and universities under direct threat of surveillance and punishment.

In the al-Eizariya case, the PPS said a video circulated after the principal’s arrest presented posters inside the school and what students were being taught as part of what Israel described as “incitement” and “terrorist education.”

The society warned that such measures turn the educational environment itself into a target, criminalizing the presence of Palestinian national issues in school materials, symbols or discussions.

It said the vague and expanding definition of “incitement” leaves individuals and institutions under constant threat, pushing Palestinians to monitor their own speech, activities and teaching material out of fear of punishment.

The group also pointed to a rise in arrests linked to alleged “incitement” since the start of the war on Gaza. It said the arrests have affected citizens, freed prisoners, students, women and children, often over posts, expressions or positions related to current events.

At Birzeit University, the demolition of a martyr’s memorial was part of the same effort to target Palestinian memory and its symbols, the PPS said, adding that the incident narrows spaces where the national narrative is remembered and expressed.

The society elaborated that these policies go beyond arrest and include threats, interrogation, assault, penalties and fines, creating an environment of continuous surveillance.

It warned that “incitement” is being used to determine what Palestinians may say, teach, publish or remember, particularly among younger generations. The danger, it said, extends beyond individual freedoms to the ability of Palestinian society to teach its history, preserve its symbols and express its rights under threat of punishment.

MEMO | October 6, 2026

Paris police chief Patrice Faure on Tuesday banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration planned for Wednesday, the third anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, over “risks of public disorder,” Anadolu reports.

“At the request of Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, I issued an order banning a demonstration ‘against the genocide in Gaza and for respect for the ceasefire’ in Paris on Wednesday,” Faure said on US social media platform X.

He noted that such a demonstration could pose “significant risks of public disorder,” citing a “high terrorist threat” and antisemitic acts that “remain at historically high levels” across France.

“In light of this, and in view of all the risks identified, it is my responsibility to ensure everyone’s safety. I have therefore decided to ban this demonstration,” Faure added.

Israel’s genocidal war launched three years ago in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 people, injured many more and destroyed most of the enclave’s infrastructure.

L’arrestation d’Ian Proud par la police secrète à l’aéroport de Londres marque un nouveau plus bas dans la mesure où l’État profond peut aller pour contrôler un faux récit.  

L’arrestation d’Ian Proud par la police secrète à l’aéroport de Londres marque un nouveau plus bas dans la mesure où l’État profond peut aller pour contrôler un faux récit. Mais cela montre aussi un nouveau niveau de peur.

Aussi fou que cela puisse paraître, il semble bien que les nations d’Europe occidentale, du moins, se préparent à entrer en guerre contre la Russie à un moment donné dans un avenir pas trop lointain. Ce qui est particulièrement inquiétant, c’est qu’il semble y avoir un vide distinct dans tous les domaines de ce que nous pourrions appeler largement les « médias » pour remettre en question ce récit. Il y a trente ans, il était considéré comme normal que les journalistes soient la source de questions embarrassantes envers les acteurs étatiques et soient généralement une épine dans le pied, puisqu’ils remettaient en question chaque décision prise et chaque idée présentée. Notre travail était d’être anti-establishment et d’adopter un point de vue très cynique sur la « politique ». Cela n’avait rien de remarquable. C’était ce que nous faisions. Être méprisé par les grandes puissances faisait partie du travail ; travailler à des heures antisociales et avoir peu d’amis en faisait aussi partie.

Aujourd’hui, il n’y a plus de journalistes dans ce que nous appelons les médias « grand public » pour faire cela. Ils ont été remplacés par des « créateurs de contenu » plus jeunes, plus habiles avec les réseaux sociaux, qui croient que le journalisme est plus ou moins un rôle grammatical, où la matière première vous est remise avec toutes les informations qu’elle contient, et où le rôle du journaliste est simplement de la raffiner au style du jour pour la consommation de masse.

Le danger de cette transition est que presque tout ce qui nous est présenté comme des nouvelles est en réalité faux, ou au mieux lourdement expurgé pour maintenir les masses là où l’élite veut qu’elles soient : contenues, préparées et mal informées.

La guerre en Ukraine en est un excellent exemple. La principale raison pour laquelle les populations aux États-Unis et au Royaume-Uni sont si fabuleusement biaisées contre la Russie et si sympathiques à l’égard de l’élite corrompue de Kiev est que, pendant des années, elles ont été lavées le cerveau avec des « nouvelles » sur la Russie qui étaient négatives et qui alimentaient astucieusement un préjugé raciste – un préjugé cultivé depuis au moins une décennie, sinon plus. Le résultat est qu’aujourd’hui un certain nombre de mensonges sont devenus établis dans les salles de rédaction, où les journalistes, même ceux qui savent, contournent simplement les nuances et présentent une histoire de conte de fées, conçue pour être comprise par les masses qui n’ont pas d’autres sources d’information pour même la remettre en question.

Tout récemment, des médias occidentaux ont rapporté une « peste » en Russie, avec des histoires de « confinement », à la suite du cas d’un travailleur dans un laboratoire mort d’une pneumonie dans des circonstances encore incertaines. Les médias occidentaux, dans le cadre de leur rôle consistant à maintenir la russophobie à son apogée, sont si verrouillés et chargés que leurs réactions « à la gâchette facile » aux mauvaises nouvelles venant de Russie sont compréhensibles. Ils sont aussi avides de contenu accrocheur, et de telles histoires nourrissent un public affamé qui a déjà eu sa première dose de ce genre d’histoires d’hystérie COVID et qui en veut davantage. La vérité est totalement immatérielle. L’hystérie et les mensonges sont ce qui est injecté à un rythme fébrile par des « créateurs de contenu » aux dents et aux griffes rouges, l’écume à la bouche dans leur désir de servir l’État profond et les élites qui ont tant investi dans un agenda.

Le contraste entre la Russie et l’Occident est intéressant, cependant, lorsque nous examinons les médias. Tout récemment en Russie, le correspondant de la BBC basé à Moscou a fait vibrer Internet sur les réseaux sociaux avec sa courte interview du ministre russe des Affaires étrangères, qui a eu la gentillesse de répondre à sa question orientée sur l’idéologie de guerre de la Russie avec l’Ukraine. Ce que absolument personne n’a relevé, c’est à quel point la Russie est heureuse d’accueillir des journalistes étrangers qui ont un agenda si distinct pour alimenter la russophobie chez eux, tandis que les journalistes russes sont interdits dans ces capitales de l’UE depuis des années. La vieille Europe, qui tenait autrefois si cher des valeurs comme la liberté de la presse, a adopté le modèle soviétique, tandis que la Russie est en réalité plus avancée en ce qui concerne ces principes de ce que nous attendons dans une démocratie. La Russie n’a pas peur des questions embarrassantes, contrairement à l’Occident.

Nous devrions nous demander qui bénéficie réellement d’une guerre avec la Russie.

Est-ce trop sceptique et « théoriste du complot » de supposer que le complexe militaro-industriel a fait du lobbying avec succès pour une telle guerre pendant AU MOINS une décennie et, surtout, qu’il a réussi à convaincre l’establishment du renseignement et de l’armée au Royaume-Uni d’utiliser son levier sur les médias pour fournir aux journalistes la matière première qui renforce un préjugé contre la Russie ?

Normalement, une telle idée pourrait être rejetée comme pure absurdité. Mais considérez simplement jusqu’où le Royaume-Uni, par exemple, est allé pour éradiquer toute couverture médiatique pouvant être considérée comme au moins favorable à la Russie – ou même simplement pour tenir le gouvernement britannique responsable en posant les questions que les journalistes britanniques ont cessé de poser. Si l’élite au Royaume-Uni qui contrôle les journaux déficitaires (réfléchissez-y) est si sûre de sa logique selon laquelle la Russie est l’ennemi avec lequel nous devons aller en guerre, pourquoi est-elle si terrifiée par des journalistes – ou quiconque, d’ailleurs – qui expriment simplement un point de vue avec des questions sur le récit ?

Je ne peux pas être le seul commentateur occidental à croire que les agents doubles Sergueï Skripal et sa fille Ioulia n’ont pas été empoisonnés avec l’agent neurotoxique Novitchok à Salisbury en 2018, ce qui a été rapporté à l’époque comme ayant « déclenché une immense crise diplomatique entre la Grande-Bretagne et la Russie ». N’est-ce pas la véritable histoire que les chefs de la sécurité britannique ont décidé, après avoir découvert que Sergueï Skripal était en réalité un triple agent qui transmettait des informations à Moscou, qu’il était dispensable ? Et quel meilleur moyen de soi-disant donner une leçon aux Russes, tout en blâmant Moscou pour sa mort, que de l’assassiner lui et sa fille en utilisant un agent neurotoxique qui était soit du Novitchok – qu’un laboratoire britannique situé juste en bas de la rue où vivaient les Skripal avait commodément dans un réfrigérateur – soit un poison similaire ? Ce qu’il est important de noter à propos du Novitchok, c’est que les victimes meurent généralement instantanément au contact. Ce qui est probable, c’est que les Skripal n’ont pas été empoisonnés par la substance russe mais par une version britannique d’un autre agent neurotoxique. C’est un exemple choquant de la médiocrité du journalisme britannique que les scribouillards au Royaume-Uni rapportent simplement l’incident Skripal d’empoisonnement au Novitchok sans le moindre fragment de preuve pour l’étayer. Ils n’ajoutent même pas une note de scepticisme dans leurs reportages sur la substance et sur qui « affirme » qu’il s’agit de Novitchok.

Nous voyons le même niveau choquant de reportages atroces et biaisés sur la guerre en Ukraine, que le public britannique a simplement été informé par le récit médiatique comme une « invasion » par l’armée de Poutine. Aucun contexte, aucune nuance, aucun aperçu de la perspective russe, car personne ne peut supporter, semble-t-il, que l’histoire soit obscurcie par les faits.

Et c’est la même chose avec l’histoire de la « peste » russe, comme ce fut le cas avec l’histoire de l’« attaque » de la base de la RAF récemment, qui était probablement juste des voleurs locaux achetant de l’essence de contrebande à des soldats américains/britanniques corrompus cherchant à se faire un peu d’argent rapide à la base britannique. Remarquez avec quelle rapidité Trump a utilisé l’histoire comme base pour déplacer tous les bombardiers américains hors de la base et les renvoyer sur le sol américain, où ils sont complètement inutiles dans sa soi-disant guerre au Moyen-Orient. Pour Trump, c’était une occasion pour un autre coup médiatique qui le maintient à la une et tout le monde dans l’expectative. Il était probablement reconnaissant aux Britanniques de lui avoir offert la matière première. Un autre problème de cette nouvelle génération de journalistes est leur complaisance à rapporter des « nouvelles » qui ne sont pas du tout des nouvelles, mais simplement du matériel utilisé comme distraction, un jour à la fois. Trump est un maître dans la manipulation des médias avec ce jeu, disant généralement quelque chose de si stupide et de si controversé, ce qui détourne les journalistes du vrai journalisme. Si vous pouvez occuper les journalistes avec des articles sur le dernier commentaire ou la dernière déclaration idiote de Trump, alors vous les contrôlez en contrôlant leur temps.

Regardez simplement comment l’affaire Epstein n’est pas rapportée ni enquêtée. Comment Trump s’en est sorti impunément, puisque depuis le 28 février l’attention des journalistes a été détournée vers la guerre avec l’Iran – ce qui est l’une des raisons pour lesquelles Trump maintient cette histoire vivante avec des mouvements de troupes constants et des discours sur une attaque massive après les élections de mi-mandat. Les gens n’ont pas fait le lien entre la fuite du matériel Epstein et le déclenchement de la guerre avec l’Iran pratiquement le même jour.

Pour les Britanniques, l’histoire « les Russes arrivent » n’a aucun article cynique de la part de journalistes qui sont à 100 % complaisants avec son récit erroné. La peur des élites à Londres est cependant palpable, celle qu’elle sera toujours remise en question par des acteurs marginaux occupant de la bande passante sur les réseaux sociaux. Dans le passé, c’était le correspondant de RT à Londres, qui pouvait poser des questions difficiles et être généralement une épine dans le pied du village de Westminster qui contrôlait les journalistes comme des rats tenus dans un panier. La principale raison pour laquelle RT a été expulsé du Royaume-Uni était qu’il offrait un style de reportage sur la politique britannique qui nous avait quittés depuis trente ans – tel est le monde trouble de l’État profond et la façon dont il a vu comment, à Bruxelles, les journalistes pouvaient être manipulés jusqu’à devenir des sténographes pour lui.

Pourtant, même avec ce nouveau style stalinien de contrôle des médias au Royaume-Uni, l’État est branlant. Même avec la mise en place impressionnante qu’il a maintenant de domination médiatique totale, où les journalistes débitent des ordures totales sur la guerre en Ukraine ou sur ce qu’on leur dit d’écrire sur le Moyen-Orient, la peur est toujours là.

L’exemple du vidéoblogueur Ian Proud, un ancien diplomate britannique autrefois basé à Moscou, est inquiétant mais poignant. Le simple fait de se rendre à Moscou pour assister à une conférence où Poutine parlait a suffi pour qu’il subisse le traitement complet de la Stasi à l’aéroport de Heathrow – détenu et tout le contenu numérique saisi.

Les interviews YouTube de Proud, avec son style de présentation ringard, s’avèrent populaires car il offre simplement une vision plus sobre de la Russie et du Foreign Office britannique, son ancien employeur. Ces interviews attirent l’attention des espions britanniques, qui sont si nerveux à l’idée que la vérité sur la Russie éclate et que les mensonges honteux qui sont maintenant emballés pour le public britannique soient révélés, qu’ils ont dû infliger à Proud la routine américaine de « fouille en prison ». La Grande-Bretagne, un pays qui était autrefois un phare pour le monde avec sa vision de la liberté et en particulier sa passion pour la liberté d’expression, est tombée à un niveau que nous ne pouvons comparer qu’à un pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest qui vient d’installer un nouveau dictateur, complet avec des lunettes noires et des épaulettes. Ce que l’affaire Proud à l’aéroport de Heathrow montre, c’est que ce nouveau régime au pouvoir ne reculera devant rien pour contrôler un récit, et que le dernier bastion de la liberté d’expression – les podcasts YouTube – est la prochaine cible. Plus la chaîne de Proud devient prospère, plus il est inévitable qu’il soit contraint de quitter le Royaume-Uni et de s’installer en Russie pour continuer à exercer la liberté d’expression. Les glands d’épaule de l’État profond britannique ne dormiront pas bien tant que le pays n’aura pas un récit médiatique qui ferait rougir Joe Staline – et les journalistes britanniques les aident à atteindre cet objectif.

Britain has vowed that Russia will be held accountable for alleged war crimes committed during its invasion of Ukraine, as evidence continues to accumulate of torture, disappearances, executions and the deportation of Ukrainian children.

Speaking at the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, James Ford, the UK’s Deputy Ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), warned that more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, the suffering of Ukrainian civilians showed little sign of abating.

The British intervention was notable not simply for its condemnation of Moscow, but for its emphasis on ensuring that evidence is preserved for future prosecutions.

According to the UK Government, more than 260,000 alleged war crimes have now been recorded. Britain says it will continue working with Ukraine to document violations and support international mechanisms intended to pursue those responsible.

Evidence gathered by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the United Nations and expert missions operating under the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism paints a grim picture.

Investigators have recorded accounts of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, conflict-related sexual violence and what Britain described as fabricated prosecutions of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.

Particularly disturbing is the fate of Ukrainian children. International investigators have documented the unlawful transfer and deportation of children from Ukraine, together with attempts to alter their identities and subject them to programmes of militarisation and indoctrination. Reports have also detailed alleged executions, sexual violence and widespread mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

These are allegations that reach considerably further than the brutality inevitable in any major war. Taken collectively, they raise fundamental questions about the systematic conduct of Russian forces and authorities in occupied Ukrainian territory.

Bucha and Irpin remain synonymous with the horrors uncovered following Russia’s withdrawal from areas around Kyiv in 2022. As Mr Ford told the conference, the international community has not forgotten either city — nor the countless other Ukrainian communities affected since.

Nor is this merely a reckoning with crimes of the past. Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities intensified sharply during the summer. The British Government said August witnessed record numbers of jet-powered drone attacks and near-record numbers of ballistic missile strikes. July and August produced the two highest monthly civilian casualty totals of 2026.

During the first eight months of this year, civilian casualties were 55 per cent higher than during the equivalent period in 2025.

The approaching winter brings another threat. Moscow has signalled its intention to step up large-scale attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, raising the prospect that millions could again face disruption to electricity, heating and essential services as temperatures fall.

Britain’s message in Warsaw was therefore that accountability cannot wait until the fighting is over.

London is supporting several mechanisms intended to transform the collection of evidence into eventual justice. These include the International Criminal Court, the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine and the Register of Damage, which records claims arising from Russia’s invasion.

Wars are inevitably followed by political pressure to move on, negotiate compromises and rebuild relations. But a lasting settlement in Ukraine will have to confront the uncomfortable question of whether peace can genuinely be durable if those responsible for the gravest alleged crimes believe they will never face consequences.

Britain argues that Moscow itself holds the key to ending the bloodshed. Ukraine, it says, has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to pursue peace, while Russia has intensified its attacks.

The UK is consequently demanding that Russia accept a full and unconditional ceasefire, enter serious negotiations in good faith and commit itself to a just and lasting settlement.

That demand carries a wider significance. The war in Ukraine is not merely a struggle over territory. It has become a test of whether borders may be redrawn by military force and whether the laws governing armed conflict retain meaning when confronted by a major power prepared to disregard them.

The documentation now taking place may therefore prove almost as important as events on the battlefield. For Moscow, the calculation may once have been that time would eventually encourage the West to forget. Britain’s message was unmistakable: it will not.

EU Sanctions Russian and North Korean Organisations Over Deportation of Ukrainian Children

Media-Society.com // Two Warsaw meetings examine human rights across the OSCE region, but their mandates and institutional status are not the same The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting and the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference perform broadly similar work: both bring governments, civil society and international institutions together to examine whether OSCE states are meeting their human-rights […]

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 5, 2026

Employees of Georgia’s largest healthcare system have until Nov. 1 to get the flu vaccine or an approved exemption, or they will be suspended without pay. If suspended employees don’t submit proof of vaccination by 4 p.m. Nov. 15, they will be fired.

According to the Emory Healthcare website, the vaccine mandate applies to all employees, including contractors and remote workers.

Employees suspended for missing the first deadline, Nov. 1, 11:59 p.m., will not be allowed to use their paid time off.

COVID-19 shots are not mandated, but employees are “encouraged to engage in shared decision-making with their provider” on whether or not to get the vaccine.

A spokesperson for the healthcare system said the requirement is intended to protect patients and staff and to encourage everyone to get vaccinated.

Dr. Sherika Newman of Doctor in the Family, a physician-led patient advocacy and health consulting service in Atlanta, told CBS News that flu vaccine requirements are common in healthcare.

“Asking health care providers or people who interact with patients to take the flu vaccine early every year is what we always mandate so that we are protecting ourselves from spreading viruses to vulnerable populations,” Newman said.

She said everyone should get vaccinated, not just healthcare workers, although only healthcare workers will lose their jobs if they don’t get the vaccine.

Cleveland Clinic: 2024-2025 flu shot increased risk of getting the flu

Flu vaccine effectiveness can vary, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which cites studies since 2009-10 showing effectiveness between 19% and 60%. The major factors influencing vaccine effectiveness are a person’s age and health and how well the vaccines match the circulating virus strains.

According to a Cleveland Clinic study published last year, people who received a flu vaccine formulated for the 2024-25 flu season had a 27% higher risk of getting the flu than those who didn’t get the vaccine.

It wasn’t the first study to find that flu vaccines could actually increase the risk of becoming ill.

A 2023 study co-authored by Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged that “viruses replicating in the respiratory mucosal environment continue to present a particular challenge for developing effective vaccines with strong protection.”

“The flu shot has never really prevented transmission of the flu and in some years (i.e., last year) the efficacy of preventing the flu is actually negative,” said Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense. “Flu would blow through a vaccinated population with nearly the same ease as it would an unvaccinated population.”

A 2012 peer-reviewed study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases showed that children who received the flu vaccine were at significantly increased risk of contracting non-flu respiratory virus infections.

Moderna’s mRNA flu shot added to the mix this year

According to the CDC’s FluView vaccination chart, as of Sept. 26, flu cases were at “minimal” levels across almost all 50 U.S. states, including Georgia.

Flu season typically begins in October and ends in May, with highest transmission rates in December and February.

The CDC recommends flu shots for people age 6 months and older, assuming they have no medical conditions that make vaccination risky.

Flu shot formulations differ each year based on information about which strains may circulate that year. The formulations aren’t tested for safety or efficacy before they’re distributed to the public.

In March, vaccine advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended trivalent vaccines to protect against two influenza A and one influenza B viruses.

In the past, most flu vaccines were made from a flu virus grown in eggs, and then inactivated and made into a vaccine. Or, they were made from recombinant protein vaccines, which have pieces of the flu pathogen that the immune system learns to recognize and fight.

This year, Moderna’s controversial mRNA flu shot, mFLUSIVA, approved in June, is also available for people age 50 and over.

Number of healthcare workers getting flu, COVID vaccines declining 

Manufacturers say they will produce up to 135 million doses of flu vaccine for the U.S. market this flu season.

In recent years, many healthcare workers have been resisting flu shot mandates and declining the shot.

For example, record numbers of frontline health workers in the U.K. refused the flu vaccine in 2024-25.

Rates of U.S. healthcare workers who take the COVID-19 and flu shots have also been declining in recent years.

Numbers are lowest among health professionals who work in nursing homes. In the 2024-25 flu season, only about 42% of those workers got the shot, compared with about 81% of workers in acute care hospitals.

---

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

On September 30, the Archdiocese of Athens and the Greek Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family signed a memorandum of cooperation aimed at preventing domestic violence. The document was signed by Bishop Varnavas of Christoupolis—Protosyncellus of the Archdiocese of Athens and representative of Archbishop Ieronymos—and Deputy Minister Elena Rapti. This new agreement expands the existing […]

By Cam Wakefield | Reclaim The Net | October 3, 2026

So what does it take for a police force to stop using a “trial” deployment of live facial recognition (LFR) technology? Apparently, scanning the faces of more than half a million people and catching nobody is not it.

In fact, it gets you an extension of four months and an expanded area to “hunt” in.

The British Transport Police (BTP) has now revealed that its initial six-month LFR deployment at London railway stations produced one alert – that was false.

The trial cost £320,786 ($425k) to carry out. That was just the cost of equipment hire and police officers’ time, and the figure comes from a freedom of information document obtained by Liberty Investigates.

It ran from February to July across 18 deployments, which the BTP’s own register says resulted in 537,697 people having their faces scanned.

The single alert was raised on February 24 at Kings Cross, against a watchlist of 455 people. The alert was false, and the false alert rate was 0.00517 percent.

The story doesn’t end there, because the BTP’s own register doesn’t stop at the end of July. It goes on to September 24, and now includes 27 deployments – and a total of 926,912 people who have had their faces scanned.

This extension has produced alerts. On August 20 at Kings Cross St Pancras Underground, there was one true alert, unconfirmed. On September 4 at Waterloo, there was one true alert, confirmed, and the outcome was no action. And on September 24 at London Bridge, there were two true alerts, both confirmed, with the outcome again being no action.

The arrest column in the register still reads zero.

In other words, the machine has now correctly identified three people – but the police have not found any reason to arrest any of them.

The register also shows that the number of people on the watchlist has grown. On February 11, it was 381, and by September 14 at Victoria Underground, it had more than doubled, to 862.

This is where things get even better. The expansion was “welcomed” by Transport for London (TfL), who said the technology “will target and identify people on police watchlist at key stations chosen for maximum impact.”

TfL also justified the move by saying it would “specifically tackle violence against women and girls, whose travel behaviours are shaped by experiences of sexual harassment and sexual offences.”

Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy is not impressed. “Tackling violence against women and girls on public transport must be an urgent priority, but that means investing in what actually works; not spending more than £320,000 on a measure, which when piloted, resulted in zero arrests and a single false alert,” she said.

“Live facial recognition technologies are a serious invasion of our privacy. The government should be suspending their rollout until there are stronger safeguards in place, including a proper legal framework,” the MP added.

This is not one force experimenting on its own. We have reported London Mayor Sadiq Khan approving live facial recognition for Oxford Street, London police using it at a protest for the first time, the High Court clearing the way for police use of it, and Greater Manchester Police joining the rollout. Liberty Investigates found that more than half of police forces in England and Wales have now deployed it.

Meanwhile, biometric images that do not match those on the watchlist are deleted immediately, while those that do match are deleted within 24 hours, as is the watchlist itself, once a deployment is finished.

BTP’s own policy makes clear that the surveillance is not limited to the cameras that are part of the LFR system. Footage from the LFR camera masts will be kept for up to 31 days, “in line with general police retention periods for CCTV.”

It seems that no matter how many times these deployments are extended, and how many people are scanned, the watchlist will just keep growing.

The police will keep getting more money to throw at this tech, that has not yet proven itself as useful for anything but wasting public money.

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | October 3, 2026

A new US bill, Ban Flock Act, has been introduced, with the aim of stopping the federal government from using automated license plate readers (ALPRs).

“Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, who is planning a Senate version.

“Going to the doctor? Flock knows. Dropping your kid off at school? Flock is tracking you. Flock is always watching,” he continued.

According to the text of the House bill, H.R. 10691, federal agencies and officials are to be banned from acquiring, possessing, accessing or using ALPRs, or data collected by these devices, without an Act of Congress that explicitly authorizes it.

This would include data collected by private security networks, homeowners’ associations, commercial parking operators, and data brokers.

Any such authorization must set data retention at no more than 48 hours, and “rigorous protections for due process, privacy, free speech and association.”

State and local governments that have ALPRs would not be eligible for grants from the Justice, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Homeland Security departments.

The bill, whose sponsors in the House are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and in the Senate Jeff Merkley, also seeks to make sure that no federal money is used to buy, lease, or operate ALPRs, while evidence obtained in violation of the proposed legislation would be inadmissible in federal court.

Individuals would be able to sue for actual and punitive damages, while state attorneys general would be able to sue to enforce the ban.

Toll systems would be exempt from the ban, but the data collected would have to be deleted within 48 hours of payment, and could not be checked against a law enforcement hot list.

“AI-powered cameras are keeping track of our every move and weaponizing this data against working people to make record profits,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Merkley noted that the right to privacy includes the freedom to move around the community without every move being monitored.

The Ban Flock Act is not the first attempt of its kind – in early September, Republicans Thomas Massie and Eric Burlison introduced the Flock-Off Act, H.R. 10221, that also seeks to cut federal funding to state and local governments that use ALPRs, as well as biometric surveillance cameras.

In August, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered Flock cameras to be removed from state highways within 30 days, a year after the state approved $4.6 million for 440 of these devices.

Earlier in the summer, Senator Josh Hawley launched an investigation into Flock, and later expanded it to include Axon, Motorola Solutions, and Verkada.

“Flock does not stand alone in this industry; you and others are building large camera networks, assisted by artificial intelligence, that intrude on the privacy of all Americans,” Hawley said at the time.

Hawley has his own anti-Flock bill that has been announced but the text of the bill has yet to be filed.

Republicans and Democrats are now going after the same cameras, and the bill cuts off the federal money and the data trade, not just the cameras.

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – October 3, 2026

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 2, 2026

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 “evidence” of this comes from documents the group Rights & Security International (RSI) obtained under freedom of information law.

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.

The case is not the first time Prevent has been in the news for its controversial nature and the way it is implemented, but it is a stark reminder that the British government has no problem treating criticism of its policies as potentially dangerous.