The Fijian Media Association (FMA) has demanded better police protection after a journalist working for the state broadcaster Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) was violently attacked outside a courthouse
In a statement today, the FMA again called for police to be more vigilant in managing security and threats outside the Suva High Court in the capital after another Fijian journalist was violently attacked by a convicted murderer leaving under police guard.
Journalist Apenisa Waqairadovu of the FBC suffered injuries to his arms and hands after he was attacked by Sairusi Ceinaturaga, who had just been convicted of murdering the one-year-old child of his de facto partner, the FMA stated.
After his conviction, Ceinaturaga walked out of the courtroom in handcuffs, followed a metre or two behind by a police officer who was outrun and scrambled to catch up when Ceinaturaga chased the journalist.
Ceinaturaga threatened Waqairadovu, swore and ran after him before pushing him down the stairs.
“This has been happening too often to journalists outside the courtroom, and we do not see any improved process despite our repeated calls for stronger security and protection,” the FMA stated.
“We have been consistently calling for urgent action from police to protect media workers — even after another convicted murderer Tevita Kapawale tried to attack journalists outside the courthouse in August.
‘Physical threats every year’
“Journalists have faced physical threats every year while covering court cases, and the Fiji Police Force’s repeated failure to provide adequate security for media personnel is unacceptable.
“The media plays a vital role in ensuring transparency and accountability in our justice system. Journalists have the right to report on matters of public interest without fear of violence or intimidation.”
The FMA is now demanding the Fiji Police Force immediately implement proper security protocols for court proceedings, including secure perimeters during prisoner transport and adequate police presence to protect journalists from violent offenders — the same call it made following the August incident.
The FMA says police must do better and relook at how they provide security at the courthouse.
“In the past officers would surround the accused person and escort him out, not let them just walk out with officers strolling at the back.
“In this case the journalist kept their distance but was still chased down and attacked and this is totally unacceptable.”
The FMA said reporters covered court stories in order to inform the public and to ensure that justice was served under the law.
“We are again urging the public to appreciate and understand the role journalists play in providing the coverage of how justice and the rule of law is administered in this country.”
Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt has defended his decision to ban the Samoa Observer in response to a joint letter from the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF).
“The action taken relates solely to the Samoa Observer, following sustained unprofessional behaviour, breaches of industry ethics, and continuous inaccurate and misleading reporting over an extended period.
“Samoa remains firmly committed to upholding media freedom, transparency, and open engagement with the media,” the statement said.
“However, it is equally important to clarify the context and the basis of the government’s decision.”
The release said that the move targets one media outlet and does not represent a broader clampdown.
‘Multiple opportunities’
According to the statement, the Samoa Observer was given “multiple opportunities for correction, dialogue, and improvement,” and that “No other media organisation in Samoa is affected. Engagement with all other local and regional media continues uninterrupted.”
The release also said it would follow due process.
“The Prime Minister has already indicated that a formal review will be undertaken in due course, once all matters surrounding the Observer’s conduct are addressed and resolved and the facts are fully documented,” the statement said. “This review will include an opportunity for the media organisation concerned to respond to the issues raised.”
The release also reiterated its recognition of the importance of a free press.
“The government reiterates that it welcomes robust scrutiny, responsible journalism, and constructive criticism,” it said. “At the same time, media freedom carries the corresponding responsibility of accuracy, professionalism, and respect for the truth.”
“The government invites PINA and PFF to engage constructively and to review the documented evidence of unprofessional reporting and breach of media ethical standards that led to this action,” the statement said.
“Samoa remains available to provide clarification and to work collaboratively to strengthen media standards across the region.”
No response to Samoa Observer
“The decision relating to the Samoa Observer is specific, justified, and based on conduct, not on an attempt or attack to suppress the free flow of information or journalism,” it said.
“The government of Samoa remains open to fair, balanced, and ethical engagement with all media organisations, both local and overseas.”
The Samoa Observer reached out to the government on November 19 to offer the opportunity to make corrections and provide clarifications on the five points originally raised as the reasons for the ban but no response has been received.
Former Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari says Israel has “lost the war on social media,” describing the online space as the most dangerous and complex arena shaping global public opinion, especially among younger generations.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington, DC, Hagari urged the creation of a powerful new propaganda apparatus modelled on the capabilities and structure of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite cyber intelligence division, reports Middle East Monitor.
He argued that Israel must now fight “a battle of images, videos, and statistics—not lengthy texts.”
Hagari proposed establishing a unit capable of monitoring anti-Israel content across platforms, in real time and in multiple languages, supplying rapid-response messaging and data to government and media outlets.
His plan also calls for the systematic creation of fake online identities, automated bot networks, and the use of unofficial bloggers — “preferably mostly young women” — to shape global perceptions.
He warned that the decisive phase of this battle would unfold a decade from now, when students using artificial intelligence tools searched for information on the events of October 7 and encountered “two completely contradictory narratives.”
Hagari, a former navy officer who served in sensitive military roles, became Israel’s top military spokesperson in 2023 before being dismissed from the position earlier this year.
Māngere East community stalwarts and activists from across Tamaki Makaurau Auckland have gathered at the local Village Green to pay tribute to their popular ‘power couple’ and entertainers Roger Fowler and Lyn Doherty with their whānau.
MC Emily Worman of Science in a Van summed it up best yesterday morning by declaring the event as the “perfect opportunity to show our aroha for both Roger and Lyn” after a lifetime or service and activism for the community.
Fowler recently retired from his community duties at the Māngere East Community Centre and is seriously ill with cancer.
The community presented both Fowler and Doherty with stunning korowai and their “main stage” entourage included Māori land rights lawyer and activist Pania Newton and former MP Aupito Sua William Sio.
“This is the perfect place to acknowledge them,” said Worman. “Right in the heart of our community beside the Māngere East Community Centre which started out as Roger and Lyn needed after school care for their kids — so you put your heads together and started an after school programme in the late 1990s.
“Right in front of the library that you campaigned to protect and rebuild back in 2002,
over the road from the Post Shop which you organised the community to successfully fight to stop its closure in 2010.
“Next to the Metro Theatre where the Respect Our Community Campaign, ROCC Stars, met with the NZ Transport Authority over 10 years ago now to stop a motorway from going through our hood.
‘Putting in the mahi’
“Next to Vege Oasis which would have been another alcohol outlet if it wasn’t for you and your whānau putting in the mahi!
“Right here in this festival — where, in previous years, we’ve gathered signatures and spread the word about saving the whenua out at Ihumatao.”
Worman said her words were “just a highlight reel” of some of the “awesomeness that is Roger Fowler”.
“We all have our own experiences how Roger has supported us, organised us and shown us how to reach out to others, make connections and stand together,” she added
Former MP Sua said to Fowler and the crowd: “In the traditional Samoan fale, there is a post in the middle – some posts have two or more — usually it is a strong post that hold up the roof and everything else is connected to it.
Roger Fowler about to be presented with a korowai by activist Brendan Corbett. former MP Aupito Sua William Sio (right) liked Fowler to the mainstay post in a Samoan fale. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“And I think, you are that post. You are that post for Māngere East, for our local community.”
While paying tribute to Fowler’s contribution to Mangere East, Sua also acknowledged his activism for international issues such as the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Fowler had set up Kia Ora Gaza, a New Zealand charity member of the global Gaza Freedom Flotilla network trying to break the siege around the enclave. He wore his favourite “Kia Ora Gaza” beanie for Palestine during the tribute.
‘Powerful man in gumboots’
Worman said: “Roger, we all know you love to grab your guitar and get the crowd going.
“But you’ve shown us over the years, it’s not about getting the attention for yourself — it’s about pointing us to where it matters most.
“I’ve never met such a quiet yet powerful man who wears gumboots to almost every occasion!”
Turning to Roger’s partner, “Lyn, on the other hand, always looks fabulous.
“She is the perfect match for you Roger. We might not always see Lyn out the front but — trust me — she’s a powerhouse in her own right!
“Lyn, who knows intuitively what our families need, and then gets a PhD to prove it in order to get the resources so that our whānau can thrive.”
Part of the crowd at Māngere East’s Village Green. Image: Asia Pacific Report
The work of health and science psychologist Dr Lyn Doherty (Ngati Porou and Ngapuhi) with the Ohomairangi Trust is “vast and continues to have a huge impact on the wellbeing of our community”.
Worman also said one of the couple’s biggest achievements together had been their four children — “they are all amazing, caring, capable and fun children, Kahu, Tawera, Maia and Hone”.
“And they are now raising another generation of outstanding humans,” she said.
The three grandchildren treated the Village Green crowd to a waiata and also songs from Fowler’s recently released vinyl album “Songs of Struggle and Solidarity” and finishing with a Christmas musical message for all.
The whānau are also working on a forthcoming book of community activism and resistance with a similar title to the album.
Fowler thanked the community for its support and gave an emotional tribute to Doherty for all her mahi and aroha.
Roger Fowler’s grandchildren sing a waiata on Māngere East’s Village Green yesterday. Image: Asia Pacific Report
In 2025 the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) welcomed 14 new organisations, on the occasion of its 42nd Congress, which took place in Bogotá at the end of October. The federation now has 194 members in 120 countries. Of varied origins, cultures, organisations, issues and sizes, yet united by a common struggle: the universal defence of human rights. These 14 memberships demonstrate the vitality of the human rights movement across the world, the relevance of the growth of an international federation dedicated to this universalist cause, and the need to bring together the strengths of civil society worldwide in the face of the challenges it is faced with. Local struggles, global problems, the organisations of FIDH find within the federation a space of solidarity where they can exchange ideas and collectively develop solutions to the shrinking civic space observed throughout the world.
“With these new arrivals, our federation is growing and becoming stronger, particularly on the Asian continent“, says Alexis Deswaef, President of FIDH, elected at the same congress in Bogotá.
UG Solutions, a US military subcontractor that guarded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid sites, is ramping up recruitment for a new deployment as plans advance for 12 to 15 distribution locations to reopen in Gaza next month, Drop Site News reported on 19 November.
A former US Army officer, who spoke anonymously citing security concerns, said a UG Solutions recruiter told him in late October that the company “was going to need a lot more guys” for a Gaza operation expected to begin in early to mid-December.
The officer was offered $800 per day for static guard duty and $1,000 for mobile roles, plus a steady allowance of $180 per day.
Fascism thrives in societies that grow desensitized to violence. Once cruelty is normalized, political life collapses into a spectacle of force, lies, and corruption. Under such conditions, the humanity of selected populations becomes disposable. Bodies disappear, injustice parades as lawful, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security reveal themselves as…
Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt says international media are “in the dark” about the reasons behind his decision to ban the Samoa Observerfrom government press conferences, arguing that overseas attention has created “support for one newspaper at the expense of the entire country.”
He also addressed concerns raised locally, directing criticism at the Journalists Association of Samoa (JAWS) for advising him to reconsider the ban.
“Now you have given me advice, but you should advise where the problem came from,” he said at a media conference this week. “Why are you advising me to lift the ban when you should be advising them [Samoa Observer]?”
La’aulialemalietoa said his duty was to the nation. “Who do I stand for? It is the country I represent. I will not back down from protecting the people of Samoa.”
He said he remained firm in his decision but hoped for a “constructive resolution” ahead. “As the Prime Minister, I will stand strong to do the right thing.”
On international reactions, he said some overseas commentators “do not understand Samoa” and claimed outside support was being used “to support one business and throw away the whole country that is trying to protect its future.”
He said the media was “part of democracy,” but argued that global reporting had focused on the ban itself rather than what he described as the issues that led to it.
Questioned actions of journalists
Turning to domestic matters, the Prime Minister also questioned the actions of local journalists, saying JAWS did not engage with ministries affected by earlier Samoa Observer reporting.
“You are talking to me, but why didn’t you talk to the ministries impacted?” he asked.
He also raised questions about the role of a media council. “Where do I go, or where does the government go, if this sort of thing happens?” he said, adding he was unsure whether such a body existed or had convened.
The Prime Minister said his concerns extended beyond media conduct to the protection of the Samoan language and culture.
“My whole being is about the Gagana Samoa. If there is no language, there is no country,” he said.
He also accused the Samoa Observer of showing disrespect and said harmful reporting left lasting effects.
“If you say something that hurts a person, it will stay with the person forever,” he said.
La’aulialemalietoa said he made it clear upon taking office that his position “is Samoa’s chair,” and the government must correct misinformation when it believed reporting was inaccurate or misleading.
“The government has to say something if a journalist is in the wrong,” he said, arguing that overseas commentary did not reflect local realities.
He said the government supported the media but insisted that cooperation depended on factual reporting.
“If you want to work together, the opportunity is open, but we cannot move forward until the writings are corrected.”
He dismissed one allegation as “a pure lie,” accusing journalists of trespassing onto his land.
“People do not walk onto my land like it’s a market,” he said, urging respect for aganuʻu and cultural protocol.
New Zealand pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched peacefully on The Warehouse in downtown Auckland today to protest over the sale of products by the genocidal state of Israel.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair Maher Nazzal and fellow protesters delivered a giant letter calling on the management to stop selling SodaStream products.
SodaStream — an Israel-based company since 1978 — is at the centre of the global BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) campaign.
The letter was reluctantly accepted by The Warehouse city branch duty manager Alyce, who needed to take a management phone call before agreeing to take the letter mounted on a board.
“The Warehouse’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes must stop,” said Nazzal in the letter. “I know you will be appalled as we are at Israel’s cruel and depraved war crimes against Palestinians.”
The letter was handed over by a small deputation on behalf of about 200 protesters who stood peacefully by the shop entrance escalator in Elliott Street as they chanted “Blood on your hands” and other condemnation of Israel over the genocide in Gaza that has killed at least 69,000 people, mostly women and children.
The letter addressed to The Warehouse management said that “trading in SodaStream products . . . supports Israel to continue its war crimes against Palestinian people. It encourages Israel to expand its illegal occupation and its genocidal oppression of Palestinians.”
One third of aid trucks
In spite of the so-called “ceasefire” brokered by US President Donald Trump commencing on October 10, only one third of the promised 600 aid trucks a day had been allowed into Gaza.
PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal explains the purpose of the giant protest letter to The Warehouse city branch duty manager Alyce in Auckland today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“On 19 July 2024 the International Court of Justice, in a landmark ruling, declared Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories — the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza strip — is illegal and no one should give ‘aid or assistance’ to Israel in maintaining its illegal occupation.
“However, The Warehouse is giving direct ‘aid and assistance’ to Israel’s racist policies through selling SodaStream. This must stop.
“Since 2005, Palestinian civil society organisations have called for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel, to build international, non-violent pressure on Israel to end its brutal oppression of Palestinians.
“Sanction Israel Now” declares a banner at today’s Palestine rally and march in downtown Auckland. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“BDS aims to pressure Israel to end its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, end its apartheid policies towards Palestinians and allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land in Palestine.
The PSNA letter said the protesters supported BDS against Israel — “just as we supported the international boycott of apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s”.
‘New Zealanders support sanctions’
“New Zealanders support sanctions against Israel by the ratio of two to one amongst those who give an opinion. New Zealanders expect The Warehouse to end its collaboration with Israeli apartheid and genocide and swap out of SodaStream for alternative brands,” the letter said.
Auckland’s central city branch of The Warehouse in Elliott Street . . . plea to drop SodaStream products. Image: Asia Pacific Report
The Warehouse Group’s says “ethical sourcing” policy was cited in the letter, quoting in part: “Like our customers, we care about doing the right thing — not only here in New Zealand but everywhere we operate.
“Our aim is to ensure our customers have confidence that our products have been ethically sourced.”
The letter continued: “Selling SodaStream directly violates this policy. So why do The Warehouse and it’s subsidiary, Noel Leeming, continue to sell these products linked to ethnic cleansing and genocide?”
Nasser said PSNA wanted the opportunity to speak with The Warehouse management directly about the stocking of SodaStream and looked forward to hearing from the business.
Earlier, at a rally in Te Komititanga Square several speakers about BDS policies included PSNA secretary Neil Scott and South African-born activist Achmat Esau, who explained how global sanctions had forced the brutal racist minority white regime in his homeland to abandon apartheid and bow to genuine democracy.
Esau recalled how in 1968 white South African Prime Minister John Vorster banned a tour by the England cricket team because it included a mixed-race player, Cape Town-born Basil D’Oliveira.
Boycott of apartheid South Africa
“After this incident, South Africa was excluded from international cricket until the release of political prisoner Nelson Mandela 22 years later.
“The anti-apartheid boycott of the South African regime from the 1960s until the 1980s was instrumental in bringing the racist apartheid regime to its knees,’ Esau said.
He said the success of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa was an indicator of how it could also succeed through the BDS movement against apartheid Israel.
“We must draw in the politicians and political parries to isolate, expose and oppose this evil Zionist regime that is guilty of state terrorism.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Elliott Street entrance to The Warehouse in Auckland. Image: Asia Pacific Report
On 21 November 2023, Farah Omar stood in the shade of a tree after finishing her live report for Al Mayadeen TV. Beside her were cameraman Rabih Maamari and their local guide — Hussein Akil, a resident of Ter Harfa — only a few kilometers from the Lebanese–Israeli border. None of the three knew that this live broadcast would be their final one. Minutes later, an Israeli drone fired a missile at the marked journalists, killing them all. If history has taught us anything: It’s never by accident, Israel kills journalists deliberately.
Farah (25), Rabih (44), and Hussein (26) were killed while covering exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel during the first year of the war — the incident condemned by the head of UNESCO. Their murders came just one month after an Israeli Merkava tank shot and killed Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdullah (37) in Alma al-Shaab on 13 October 2023. The same strike injured six other journalists working for AFP and Al Jazeera. A year later, on 25 October 2024, another deliberate Israeli strike targeted journalists as they slept in Hasbaya, killing three and injuring several others.
Israel kills journalists with full knowledge
All three incidents share the same pattern — the journalists notify the UN and military personnel of their presence, clearly identifying themselves to both warring sides, but Israel shoots to kill anyway. The targeting was intentional and far from “exceptional.” Israel has repeatedly killed journalists — during the genocide in Gaza and in its aggression against Lebanon. The United Nations reports that Israel has killed at least 248 journalists in Gaza — more than in any conflict in modern history — in addition to 13 journalists in Lebanon, six of them on duty — since October 7. Israeli forces also struck a media center in Sanaa, Yemen, killing 31 journalists and media workers — according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Elsy Moufarrej — head of the independent Union of Journalists in Lebanon — tells The Canary that:
targeting journalists is not surprising from an enemy that represses the image exposing its crimes. That’s a war crime! Israel goes far with it because the international silence indirectly grants it impunity… There was no accountability for Israel, and that gives it a green light to continue.
Moufarrej and her colleagues have tried to pursue justice — since the killing of Issam Abdullah — through the International Criminal Court (ICC). This has been in coordination with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, CPJ, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) — yet progress remains stalled.
Moufarrej tells us:
We blame the Lebanese government for not taking any measures to ensure accountability. There should be a serious investigation here. Internationally, the ICC must be authorised to investigate the war crimes committed in Lebanon since 7 October — including the direct killing of journalists.
Had this happened, journalists today would not be facing increasing restrictions, nor would the population of the south be systematically displaced from their homes even after the ceasefire.
Israel’s apparently deliberate killing of Issam Abdullah should have served as a crystal-clear message for Lebanon’s government that impunity for war crimes begets more war crimes…
Since the killing of Issam, scores of other civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks that violate the laws of war and amount to war crimes.
On the ground, Lebanese journalists describe a climate of constant fear.
Constant state of fear
Reporter Rola Atwi recalls the moment she and her colleagues were targeted during a media tour in Yaroun— 300 meters away from the Lebanese border with ‘Israel’ — while accompanying UNIFIL and the Lebanese military on 14 November 2023.
Atwi tells The Canary:
I felt like life stopped. I felt direct danger. I was afraid I would never see my colleagues again.
Even after the ceasefire, reporting from the south has become extremely difficult:
There isn’t a single moment of safety. Roads are sometimes blocked or monitored by drones. Even gathering information is harder because people are afraid and under psychological pressure… We’re reporting about our own people and our own households.
Local journalist Dalia Bazzi, who lives in Bint Jbeil — about three kilometres from the border — tells The Canary:
We want to impose the law. There have been thousands of Israeli violations since the ceasefire, while Lebanon has fully abided by the agreement. The truth is evident.
She describes the horror she witnesses:
It kills me to know that a little girl has witnessed death. A 12-year-old once described to me the dismembered bodies of civilians after a massacre. She ran toward the site when she heard the strike, wanting to help. No child should have to live with that.
About 45 kilometers north, in Nabatieh, journalist Tarek Mrouwe describes the same reality:
We’re cautious but not afraid. We’ve gotten used to the situation. You start asking yourself: when will this end? Why are our areas always targeted? It’s sad that the government isn’t doing much, and those opposed to the resistance are indifferent.
Covering Israeli violations across the south, Tarek notes that:
Israel targets civilian cars and structures while claiming they’re military targets—but that’s false. They strike forests, and after the fires burn out, we see there was no military site.
Dalia confirms this with a recent example:
In Bint Jbeil, Shady Sharara and his three daughters were killed, while his wife and another daughter were wounded. It’s a massacre. Are these military targets?
She adds:
We woke up one day to two airstrikes on a civilian car in a crowded street as everyone was heading to work. The first strike was a few meters from my house. Have you ever replaced ‘good morning’ with ‘airstrike’? I ran to cover the news before even washing my face.
Despite this reality, international bodies remain largely indifferent. Israel’s long history of targeting journalists — in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and elsewhere — continues with impunity. As Elsy Moufarrej put it: Israel is “oppressing the image” of those who expose its crimes—especially the journalists who dare to report them.
Dewsbury and Batley independent MP Iqbal Mohamed has followed Blackburn colleague Adnan Hussain in resigning from the new Your Party and, like Hussain, has done so with a blast at his treatment during his time with the Corbyn/Sultana outfit, claiming that he was subject to “many false allegations and smears… reported as fact without evidence”.
Iqbal Mohamed: off
His full resignation statement insists that he and his colleagues “have acted professionally, patiently and in good faith” at all times during his period with Your Party – the launch period of the new party that has been marked by rows, divisions, and chaos:
Over the past few months at the invitation of organisers, I have helped steward the launch of Your Party alongside Parliamentary colleagues Adnan Hussain (who voluntarily left Your Party on 14 Nov 2025), Ayoub Khan, Jeremy Corbyn, Shockat Adam and Zarah Sultana (who voluntarily left the Independent Alliance and the Your Party stewarding group on 18 Sept 2025).
After careful consideration, I have decided to leave Your Party and continue serving as I was elected as an Independent Member of Parliament for Dewsbury & Batley.
The many false allegations and smears made against me and others, and reported as fact without evidence, have been surprising and disappointing.
However, I am confident that my colleagues and I have acted professionally, patiently, and in good faith throughout.
I thank everyone who has dedicated time, energy, and commitment to building and supporting Your Party, and wish them success in their future endeavours. British politics needs a genuine, inclusive force for positive change, and I hope Your Party fulfils that role.
I will continue working with my colleagues in the Independent Alliance, which has proven highly effective in advocating for the common good in Parliament over the past eighteen months. I am grateful for the sincerity, unity and trust that has defined our work, and look forward to continuing our shared commitment to peace, justice, equality, and truth.
However, not every allegation made against Iqbal Mohamed has been false. He told the Canary that he “fully” supports April’s Supreme Court ruling on gender that has horrified trans and human rights activists and set back the rights of trans people by decades. He also claimed as a cis man that this is not a “transphobic” view:
I fully support the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of sex being defined as biological male and biological female.
I fully support the rights of biological women to safe protected spaces from biological men. I also support the human rights of trans and all LGBTQ+ people.
None of the above views are transphobic. It would be misogynistic for anyone to advocate for biological women’s rights to safe and private spaces to be shared with biological males.
This guidance has been presented, both by the EHRC and by the media, as if only trans women could possibly fall foul of it and as if that would make it acceptable. As our trans Canary colleague Alex/Rose Cocker has pointed out today:
The EHRC and its transphobic stenographers in the BBCand the Timeswould like you to believe that this code will only impact trans people. This is a lie, and a deliberate one at that. Transphobes like to believe that they can tell who is trans just by looking at them, because they’ve convinced themselves that all trans women look like men in dresses, and all trans men look like tomboys.
This is false. If it wasn’t, having sex without disclosing that you’re trans wouldn’t be a crime. If trans people always looked like their assigned sex, the EHRC wouldn’t have to suggest that trans men could be banned from men’s and women’s toilets. Likewise, trans advocacy and education group TransActual UK reported that:
Our research has uncovered many stories of cis people, especially gender non-conforming women, being humiliated and excluded by staff or vigilante gender police when using the appropriate facilities and shown that this has already increased since the publication of the EHRC’s draft guidance.
Trans people already face grotesque discrimination that has needed decades of work and courage to unpick to reach the already deeply-flawed situation that prevailed before the Supreme Court ruling and those gains were wiped out with the stroke of a judge’s pen to please anti-trans bigots who dress their prejudice up as ‘women’s rights’. Few of them will mourn the departure of two MPs who oppose their efforts, even if those leaving give lip service to the rights stripped by the court.
Enough, now, in Your Party
Your Party co-founder Jeremy Corbyn said in April that he is “really saddened by the level of vitriol and hatred being directed toward the trans community. We are losing our common humanity.” Zarah Sultana went much further, saying that there is no room for transphobia on the left or in Your Party and that an “ironclad commitment to trans rights is non-negotiable” for any socialist party.
The party needs to decide whose position it is taking and whether trans rights really are human rights that it will fight for as hard as those of any other minoritised person or community. If it does, then it must stop ignoring the rampant transphobia that exists in its ranks – and make sure that Your Party is not a place for anyone with those views.
Despite being handed the 300-page document months ago, the government still hasn’t implemented the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) new trans code. It deals with the practical implementation of the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Equality Act defines women according to sex assigned at birth.
The EHRC immediately chose to interpret this as the basis for the complete exclusion of trans people from the single-sex facilities of their lived gender. However, it has since taken down the ‘interim’ guidance.
The lack of the new code has left trans people in a legal limbo. My community has been left without a clue to the extent of exclusion we are about to face.
However, the new code has now been leaked to the press. The news outletsof the UK managed to get their reporting out just in time for Trans Day of Remembrance, on which we mourn the lives lost to transphobic violence and discrimination around the world. This, I’m sure, was a coincidence.
The big reveal that has taken so long? The promised solution to the trans question? The service providers of the UK will be asked to take a guess at who they reckon is a tranny, and chuck people out accordingly.
Trans people could be asked about whether they should be accessing single-sex services based on their physical appearance or behaviour, according to proposed new guidance seen by the BBC.
Under the guidance, which has been seen by The Times, places such as hospital wards, gyms and leisure centres will be able to question transgender women over their use of single-sex services based on how they look, their behaviour or concerns raised by others.
Note the language used here: “trans people could be asked” and “question transgender women”. These statements are a rhetorical attempt to mislead the reader – either on the part of the EHRC or the news outlets. What’s more, the articles themselves expose them as such. Both go on to state some variation on the following:
The code reportedly notes that “there is no type of official record or document in the UK which provides reliable evidence of sex” because people are able to change their sex on passports and driving licences without a GRC. Instead, where there is “genuine concern about the accuracy of the response”, the code reportedly states it may be proportionate to exclude a transgender person.
‘Humiliated and excluded’
So, walk with me here. There’s no way to tell whether or not someone is trans by official documentation. As such, a service provider is allowed to exclude someone from single-sex spaces purely according to how they look and act.
Therefore, someone doesn’t have to be trans in order to be excluded under the new anti-trans guidance. So stating that “trans women could be questioned” etc. isn’t actually true, is it? Anybody could be questioned, and anybody could be excluded, based purely on “concerns raised by others”.
The EHRC and its transphobic stenographers in the BBCand the Timeswould like you to believe that this code will only impact trans people. This is a lie, and a deliberate one at that. Transphobes like to believe that they can tell who is trans just by looking at them, because they’ve convinced themselves that all trans women look like men in dresses, and all trans men look like tomboys.
This is false. If it wasn’t, having sex without disclosing that you’re trans wouldn’t be a crime. If trans people always looked like their assigned sex, the EHRC wouldn’t have to suggest that trans men could be banned from men’s and women’s toilets. Likewise, trans advocacy and education group TransActual UK reported that:
Our research has uncovered many stories of cis people, especially gender non-conforming women, being humiliated and excluded by staff or vigilante gender police when using the appropriate facilities and shown that this has already increased since the publication of the EHRC’s draft guidance.
‘Get this right’
It falls on equalities minister Bridget Phillipson to make the EHRC’s guidance into law. The EHRC’s Kishwer Falkner – a woman criticised for her bigotry by the fucking Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide – has urged Phillipson to implement the new code. Likewise, the Guardian reported that the code was leaked by government figures who believe Labour is “delaying publication to avoid a potential backlash”.
I have responsibilities to make sure that’s done properly and we’re taking the time to get this right.
This is an important area and we want to make sure that women have access to a single-sex provision – that’s incredibly important for domestic violence services, rape crisis centres, so that women are able to heal from the trauma they’ve experienced.
But of course, trans people should be treated with dignity and respect.
Let’s not mince words. If a trans person is trying to access a rape crisis centre, it is because they have been raped. However, that fact is less important than the possibility that they might make a cis woman uncomfortable. There’s no “dignity and respect” in that.
Similarly, there is no way to “get this right”, with all the time in the world. This transphobic code necessarily involves an assault on the rights of anyone who could be perceived as trans, regardless of their gender status. Trans+ Solidarity Alliance founder Jude Guaitamacchi called out that very fact, stating:
These leaks reveal that not only does the EHRC’s proposed code of practice seek to require trans exclusion, it instructs service providers to police this based on appearance and gender stereotypes.
This is a misogynist’s charter, plain and simple, and the government must reject it.
Echoing the sentiment, a spokesperson for TransActual stated:
We’ve seen this before – people trying to make our society into a place that is only safe for ‘normal’ ladies. Not just loos. But sports centres, changing rooms and more. We know from experience that women of colour and butch lesbians are more likely to be seen as unfeminine by strangers, so this policy would have racist and homophobic impacts as well as being obviously incredibly harmful for trans people.
We offer our solidarity to the many cis women who have been targeted and harassed for their appearance by ‘gender critical activists’ who believed they were trans, and who would be put even further at risk by these rules.
We cannot believe that government would be so foolish – so hell-bent on shooting itself in the foot – as to go along with this. We therefore trust that Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson will treat it with the contempt it deserves and reject this costly, cruel and unworkable guidance, sending it back to the EHRC to be completely rewritten.
Congratulations to the anti-trans left. You’d better own the EHRC trans code.
I want to finish this article with a direct address. Almost every time I – or one of my colleagues – write a piece on trans issues, the comment section is populated by people who cheer on the anti-trans policies. Some, I’m sure, are right-wing trolls who merely pretend to be on the left to muddy the water.
However, I’m also sure that some of you genuinely believe that you are on the left. Lets ignore for a minute the fact that trans banswere a policypriority for the fascist Trump regime. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
You might believe that trans women don’t belong in women’s sport. In turn, that opened the door to your wholesale opposition of trans people living their lives as they see fit. Maybe you believe that women’s oppression is rooted wholly in biology. Accordingly, you fight against the rights of the trans men you believe to be women, because they can’t be allowed to make decisions for themselves.
I want to congratulate you. I am now wholly defined by my biology, or at least, whatever anybody cares to guess is my biology. This is your great victory. Please do celebrate.
Only, own your victory with your whole chest, because all of it belongs to you. I cordially invite you to comment with expressions of joy, invectives for trans people to stay out of single-sex spaces, and explanations of why you’re actually the true leftist and all of the fascists you keep company with are mere coincidence.
Just remember to append your comment with the following:
I believe that the accompanying discrimination against intersex people, butch lesbians, femme gays, and gender non-conformists is worthwhile to achieve this goal.
The Israeli occupation launched Operation Iron Wall on 21 January 2025. It targeted West Bank refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams, displacing 32,000 Palestinians and obliterating homes and civilian infrastructure.
Israel continues to deny displaced populations the right of return, making this the largest West Bank forced displacement since 1967.
Operation Iron Wall: Israel’s goes after refugee camps
Two days after a temporary ceasefire in Gaza was reached, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) undertook massive raids. They deployed Apache helicopters, drones, armoured vehicles, bulldozers, and hundreds of ground troops to clear the three refugee camps.
Soldiers stormed homes, ransacked possessions, interrogated civilians, and issued evacuation orders via drones and loudspeakers, giving little time or explanation.
Displacement occurred under active military operations and threat of sniper fire. Vulnerable groups, including wheelchair users, faced extra hardships. Occupation forces often cruelly forcing them to abandon their assistive devices.
Plans to permanently displace 32,000 Palestinians
Satellite imagery analysed by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Satellite Centre confirm the scale of destruction.
Israel has demolished and damaged more than 850 buildings across Palestinian refugee camps. Meanwhile, extensive bulldozing of roads cleared the way for military access.
The IOF claim these measures are necessary “to reshape and stabilise” the area and combat “terror”.
They failed to justify the displacement and demolition as crucial military necessities, and did not take appropriate measures to safeguard displaced populations. They provided no shelter, food or water, nor evacuation routes, as required under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Statements by senior Israeli occupation officials made clear their intent to make displacement permanent. Defense Minister Israel Katz told the IDF:
not to allow residents to return and terrorism to grow again.
Meanwhile Bezalel Smotrich threatened that camps:
will be turned into uninhabitable ruins.
Forced displacement constitutes a war crime when the displacement is the result of illegal attacks. But when it is part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, it is classified as a crime against humanity. The scale, organisation, and deliberate nature of Operation Iron Wall’s forced displacement fulfil these criteria.
A campaign of ethnic cleansing
According to Human Rights Watch the campaign amounts to ethnic cleansing. The policy is specifically designed to violently remove an ethnic or religious group from a geographic area.
Displaced Palestinians are living in terrible conditions.
Médecins Sans Frontières has reported worsening health, unmet needs, and inadequate access to healthcare, food, and water supplies.
The occupation’s restrictions on movement and limited humanitarian access make these challenges worse. Israel’s closure of camps has barred UNRWA school access for thousands of children.
Many families live in cramped makeshift shelters, where privacy and dignity are strained.
They face repeated forced relocations and Israeli occupation authorities have failed to meet their obligations under international law.
Unspeakable terror
The report’s testimonies speak of the terror experienced.
Nadim M. from Tulkarem described being zip-tied and threatened by snipers while being forced out with his family. Anoud C., who was undergoing intensive treatment for lung cancer, was at home in Jenin camp at the time of the raid. She said:
I could hear explosions, there were four explosions first, before the helicopter began to shoot over our heads and at the people.
Anoud and her family fled from their home with nothing, holding a white cloth. Fatima B. escaped the Jenin raid under airstrikes and warnings broadcast by drones. There were also fatalities, including the pregnant Rahaf al-Ashqar, who the Israeli forces killed when they detonated an explosive at her home in Nur Shams.
Since the camps’ evictions, the IOF has consistently barred residents from returning. They have made sure the damage has been long lasting damage. These actions breach Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting “wanton destruction”. But the occupation’s military has failed to justify demolitions or prove an operational need. Civilians continue to suffer the consequences.
Israel must answer for its crimes
UNRWA established the three refugee camps in the early 1950s. They were to house Palestinians expelled from their homes following ‘Israel’s’ creation in 1948.
Those refugees, and their descendants, had resided in these camps since then.
The occupation’s military campaign against these refugee camps perpetuates a familiar pattern of repression and dispossession. Israeli occupation policies reflect apartheid and persecution. ‘Israel’ has carried out decades of settlement growth and violence against Palestinian communities. Administrative detentions have reached record highs since the genocide started.
Human Rights Watch is urging governments to investigate and prosecute the growing litany of Israeli war crimes — and they must act now.
Governments must also use sanctions, arms embargoes, trade suspensions, and enforcement of ICC arrest warrants to pressure Israel to stop its crimes. Without international intervention, human rights violations and ethnic cleansing risk becoming entrenched and normalised, worsening the humanitarian catastrophe, and prolonging injustice.
The Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is at it again. Gulling, wooing, and grinning his way into the establishment of another country, he is greasing palms and making deals. Effusive and flattering of his host, this time US President Donald Trump, he received a state welcome on November 18 rarely afforded visiting dignitaries: a red carpet viewing of fighter jets, a horse-mounted guard of honour, and a feast in the East Room. He was also promised the much-sought-after F-35 fighter jets as part of a defence arrangement, elevating Saudi Arabia to the status of a “major non-NATO ally”. Along the way, MBS has done much to deter those who wish to remind him of a wretched human rights record and the barbaric habits of a state he claims to be modernising.
The gaudy occasion risked being sullied by a question from Mary Bruce of ABC News. Intended for the Crown Prince, it inquired about his role behind the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. The death squad responsible for strangling and dismembering the unsuspecting Khashoggi had been dispatched with his blessing, numbering among them a forensic specialist, a bone saw, and a body double. Many of its members hailed from bin Salman’s own protective guard, the Rapid Intervention Force.
Trump’s intervention was abrupt: “You’re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. But he [MBS] knew nothing about it. You don’t have to embarrass our guest.”
His guest has much to be embarrassed about, and more besides. With surliness and much petulant audacity, the opportunistic princeling has seized such power in the realm as to marginalise all other decision makers, including rival family members. The most important decisions, be they on vast investment agreements, the refurbishment of the country’s medieval bearing, or authorising the extrajudicial killing of an irritating scribbler, would issue from him.
To therefore suggest that the Crown Prince was ignorant of his own misdeeds is to fly in the face of hardened reality. When she was UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary killings, Agnès Callamard found that state responsibility for Khashoggi’s death was the only plausible conclusion. “His killing was the result of elaborate planning involving extensive coordination and significant human and financial resources. It was overseen, planned, and endorsed by high-level officials. It was premeditated.”
Most importantly, Trump’s breezy acquittal of MBS’s culpability resoundingly ignores the findings by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a 2021 declassified report submitted to Congress by the then Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. “We assess,” the report avers, “that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” This was the only reasonable conclusion given bin Salman’s “control of decisionmaking in the Kingdom”, the seminal role played by one of his key advisors and members of the Crown Prince’s protective detail in the operation, along with bin Salman’s appetite “for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi.”
The report goes on to make a most telling observation: that the Crown Prince’s assumption (one might even say seizure) of “absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations” since 2017 made it “highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without” his approval. Some equivocation is expressed about “how far in advance Saudi officials decided to harm” Khashoggi.
Bin Salman, for his part, reverted to his role as high-minded reformer while citing the defence of mistake. This was at least partially in keeping with previous admissions that his hands were not entirely clean on the subject. (Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan, reiterated that point in an interview with BBC Newsnight.) It had been “painful for us in Saudi Arabia”, he told Bruce. “We did all the right steps of investigating, etc., in Saudi Arabia, and we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happens like that again. And it’s painful, and it was a huge mistake.” Trump also gave his guest the needed ballast: “What’s he done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything else.”
Since Khashoggi’s murder, the response from the Kingdom has been one of denial, distancing, and detachment. It has involved isolating the killers as wayward enthusiasts and adventurers, lacking the force of a mandate. They were to be the convenient scalps, the necessary sacrifices. Of the group, five were subsequently sentenced to death while three were given prison sentences. Saud al-Qahtani, bin Salman’s disseminator of venomous social media, along with Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri, were acquitted for lack of evidence. Callamard was compelled to remark that “The executioners were found guilty and sentenced to death,” while “those who ordered the executions not only walk free but have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial.” That’s the MBS version of modern Saudi Arabia for you.
On 4 December 2025, 24 human rights defenders, including Seán Binder and Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos, will appear before the Mytilene Court of Appeals, on the island of Lesvos. This comes seven years (!!) after their initial arrests. The human rights defenders are facing felony charges of ‘membership of a criminal organisation’, ‘facilitation of the entry of third country nationals into the country’, and ‘money laundering’. The charges stem from work carried out by the defenders in Greece between 2016 and 2018, where they assisted people on the move whose lives were at risk while trying to reach safety to the island of Lesvos. If convicted, they face up to 20 years of imprisonment.
Seán Binder and Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos are migrant rights defenders who worked with Emergency Response Center International (ERCI) between 2016 and 2018. The humanitarian work carried out by ERCI was extensive, and included helping more than 1000 people reach safety, organising workshops and swimming classes for migrant children in the Kara Tepe camp, and providing residents in the Moria camp with medical assistance. ERCI was registered as a non-governmental organisation and regularly cooperated with Greek authorities, including with the Greek Coast Guard on rescue operations. The organisation was dissolved after the criminalisation of its members and volunteers.
In September 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeals’ decision, delivered on 13 January 2023, to dismiss four misdemeanour charges of ‘forgery’, ‘espionage’, ‘possession of unlicensed radio’ and ‘infringement of state secrets’ faced by Seán Binder and seven other non-Greek speaking defenders. This was due to procedural flaws, including key documents, such as the indictments, having not been translated for the accused. In January 2024, the remaining sixteen human rights defenders, including Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos, were acquitted of the same charges. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/11/17/greeces-mistaken-deterrence-migrants-and-aid-workers-facing-heavy-prison-sentences/]
On 21 August 2018, Lesvos Police arrested Seán Binder after he attended the police station voluntarily, having learned that another human rights defender had been arrested earlier that day. In the following days, they also arrested Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos, the field director of ERCI at the time. The human rights defenders were kept in pre-trial detention for more than one hundred days, accused of ‘people smuggling’, ‘money laundering’, ‘espionage’, and ‘membership of a criminal organisation.’ In December 2018, the human rights defenders were conditionally released on bail.
The upcoming trial is the second court case since 2018 initiated against the 24 human rights defenders based on their work, aiding, assisting and saving the lives of migrants and refugees, who were trapped in the Aegean Sea between Türkiye and Greece.
Front Line Defenders calls on the authorities in Greece to:
Immediately and unconditionally drop all charges against Seán Binder and Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos, and the other 22 human rights defenders who are also on trial;
Cease the criminalisation of human rights defenders who peacefully defend the rights of the migrants and refugees, including the humanitarian assistance to save the lives of people stranded at the marine and land borders;
Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in Greece are able to carry
out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions, including judicial harassment.
UNSC Resolution 2803 is unequivocally rejected. It is a direct contravention of international law itself, imposed by the United States with the full knowledge and collaboration of Arab and Muslim states.
These regimes brutally turned their backs on the Palestinians throughout the genocide, with some actively helping Israel cope with the economic fallout of its multi-frontal wars.
The resolution is a pathetic attempt to achieve through political decree what the US and Israel decisively failed to achieve through brute force and war.
It is doomed to fail, but not before it further exposes the bizarre, corrupted nature of international law under US political hegemony. The very country that has bankrolled and sustained the genocide of the Palestinians is the same country now taking ownership of Gaza’s fate.
It is a sad testimony of current affairs that China and Russia maintained a far stronger, more principled position in support of Palestine than the so-called Arab and Muslim “brothers.”
The time for expecting salvation from Arab and Muslim states is over; enough is enough.
Even more tragic is Russia’s explanation for its abstention as a defence of the Palestinian Authority, while the PA itself welcomed the vote. The word treason is far too kind for this despicable, self-serving leadership.
Recipe for disaster
If implemented and enforced against the will of the Palestinians in Gaza, this resolution is a recipe for disaster: expect mass protests in Gaza, which will inevitably be suppressed by US-led lackeys, working hand-in-glove with Israel, all in the cynical name of enforcing “international law”.
UNSC Resolution 2803 is unequivocally rejected. It is a direct contravention of international law itself, imposed by the United States with the full knowledge and collaboration of Arab and Muslim states. These regimes brutally turned their backs on the Palestinians throughout the…
Anyone with an ounce of knowledge about the history of Palestine knows that Res 2803 has hurled us decades back, resurrecting the dark days of the British Mandate over Palestine.
Another historical lesson is due: those who believe they are writing the final, conclusive chapter of Palestine will be shocked and surprised, for they have merely infuriated history.
The story is far from over. The lasting shame is that Arab states are now fully and openly involved in the suppression of the Palestinians.
Dr Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London). He has a PhD in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter (2015) and was a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. This commentary is republished from his Facebook page.
In 2025, over a thousand anti-transgender bills were introduced in 49 states across the country. Of those, over 100 have passed so far this year, continuing the trend of five consecutive record-breaking years of anti-trans legislation from 2020 to 2024.
In recent years, I have watched these state-level attacks on transgender people spread across more than half the country, with many of these policies now being embraced at the federal level. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care was constitutional, effectively opening the door for similar bans in 26 states.
Bowen told media at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the new proposal would allow Australia to prepare draft text and issue the overarching document of the event, while Türkiye will oversee the operation side of the meeting.
In a statement, Whipps said the region’s ambition and advocacy would not waver.
“A Pacific COP was vital to highlight the critical climate-ocean nexus, the everyday realities of climate impacts, and the serious threats to food security, economies and livelihoods in the Pacific and beyond,” he said.
“Droughts, fires, floods, typhoons, and mudslides are seen and felt by people all around the world with increasing severity and regularity.”
No resolution with Türkiye
Australia and the Pacific had most of the support to host the meeting from parties, but the process meant there was no resolution from the months-long stand-off with Türkiye, the default city of Bonn in Germany would have hosted the COP.
It would also mean a year with no COP president in place.
Australia’s Climate Minister Chris Bowen . . . “It would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can’t have it all. This process works on consensus.” Image: RNZ
Bowen said it would have been irresponsible for multilateralism, which was already being challenged.
“We didn’t want that to happen, so hence, it was important to strike an agreement with Turkiye, our competitor,” he said.
“Obviously, it would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can’t have it all. This process works on consensus.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s head of Pacific campaigns Shiva Gounden said not hosting the event is going to make the region’s job, to fight for climate justice, harder.
“When you’re in the region, you can shape a lot of the direction of how the COP looks and how the negotiations happen inside the room, because you can embed it with a lot of the values that is extremely close to the Pacific way of doing things,” he said.
Gounden said the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process had failed the Pacific.
“The UNFCCC process didn’t have a measure or a way to resolve this without it getting this messy right at the end of COP30,” Gounden said.
“If it wasn’t resolved, it would have gone to Bonn, where there wouldn’t be any presidency for a year and that creates a lot of issues for multilateralism and right now multilateralism is under threat.”
No safe ‘overshoot’
Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) international policy lead Sindra Sharma said the decision on the COP31 presidency in no way shifts the global responsibility to deliver on the Paris Agreement.
“There is no safe ‘overshoot’ and every increment of warming is a failure to current and future generations.
“We cannot afford to lose focus. We are in the final hours of COP30 and the outcomes we secure here will set the foundation for COP31.
“We need to stay locked in and ensure this COP delivers the ambition and justice frontline communities deserve.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A rift within New Caledonia’s pro-independence movement has further widened after the second component of the “moderates”, the UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), has officially announced it has now left the once united Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS).
The UPM announcement, at a press conference in Nouméa, comes only five days after the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party), another moderate pro-independence group, also made official it was splitting from the FLNKS.
It was in line with resolutions taken at the party’s Congress held at the weekend.
Both groups have invoked similar reasons for the move.
UPM leader Victor Tutugoro told local media on Wednesday his party found it increasingly “difficult to exist today within the [FLNKS] pro-independence movement, part of which has now widely radicalised through outrage and threats”.
He said both his party and PALIKA did not recognise themselves anymore in the FLNKS’s increasingly “violent operating mode”.
Tutugoro recalled that since August 2024, UPM had not taken part in the operation of the “new FLNKS” [including its political bureau] because it did not accept its “forceful ways” under the increasing domination of Union Calédonienne, especially the recruitment of new “nationalist” factions and the appointment of CCAT leader and UC political commissar Christian Téin as its new President,.
Téin was arrested in June 2024 for alleged criminal-related charges before and during the May 2024 riots and then flown to mainland France.
After one year in jail in Mulhouse (North-east of France), his pre-trial conditions were released and in October 2025, he was eventually authorised to return to New Caledonia, where he should be back in the next few days.
Christian Téin’s return soon Téin remains under pre-trial conditions until he is judged, at a yet undetermined date.
Téin and a “Collectif Solidarité Kanaky 18” however announced Téin was to hold a public meeting themed “Which way for the Decolonisation of Kanaky-New Caledonia?” on 22 November 2025 in the small French city of Bourges, local media reported.
“This will be his last public address before he returns to New Caledonia,” said organisers.
Tutugoro says things worsened since the negotiations that led to the signing of a Bougival agreement, in July 2025, from which FLNKS pulled out in August 2025, denouncing what they described as a “lure of independence”.
“This agreement now separates us from the new FLNKS. And this is another reason for us to say we have nothing left to do [with them],” said Tutugoro.
UPM recalls it was a founding member of the FLNKS in 1984.
UPM, PALIKA founding members of FLNKS 41 years ago On November 14, the PALIKA [Kanak Liberation Party] revealed the outcome of its 50th Congress held six days earlier, which now makes official its withdrawal from the FLNKS (a platform it was part of since the FLNKS was set up in 1984).
It originally comprised PALIKA, UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), Union Calédonienne (UC) and Wallisian-based Rassemblement démocratique océanien (RDO).
PALIKA said it had decided to formally split from FLNKS because it disagreed with the FLNKS approach since the May 2024 riots.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Readers respond to news articles and analysis on Shabana Mahmood’s proposals to change the asylum system
The government’s asylum proposals, rendering subsistence support discretionary and compelling refugees to return once their countries are deemed “safe”, represent a profound departure from both legal obligations and moral responsibility. These are not minor administrative adjustments; they are structural erosions of rights that strike at the heart of Britain’s commitment to fairness and justice.
The United Kingdom remains bound by the 1951 refugee convention and the Human Rights Act 1998. These instruments enshrine non‑discretionary duties, including the provision of subsistence and protection against refoulement. To reframe such duties as optional is to mischaracterise international law and invite judicial challenge. More importantly, it undermines the principle that rights are universal and inalienable, not favours dispensed at political whim.
In the aftermath of conflict, dictatorship, or mass human rights violations, societies face the challenge of addressing past atrocities while rebuilding for the future. Transitional justice refers to a set of legal and social mechanisms designed to achieve justice, accountability, and reconciliation in such contexts. These processes include truth commissions, criminal prosecutions, reparations for victims, and institutional reforms aimed at preventing future abuses. Rooted in the principles of human rights and international law, transitional justice seeks to balance the need for justice and survivor healing with the complexities of political and social stability.
Across the world, many charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play a crucial role in supporting transitional justice efforts. Whether by documenting human rights abuses, advocating for victims, or facilitating truth and reconciliation initiatives, these organisations help societies navigate the difficult journey toward justice and peace. This article by Barbara Listek explores some of the key NGOs working in the field, highlighting their impact in post-conflict and post-authoritarian contexts.
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) supports societies recovering from mass human rights violations by helping them confront the past and build more just and inclusive futures. Working alongside victims, local communities, and institutions, ICTJ provides expertise on truth commissions, reparations, criminal accountability, and institutional reform. Whether advising on the creation of truth-seeking bodies or supporting prosecutions of those responsible for serious crimes, the organisation’s work is rooted in the belief that acknowledging harm and delivering justice are essential for healing and long-term peace.
Since its founding, ICTJ has played a key role in transitional justice processes across the globe, including in Colombia, Tunisia, and The Gambia. Its approach is deeply grounded in the lived experiences of survivors, ensuring that justice efforts are not only technically sound but also meaningful to those most affected. By focusing on systemic change and survivor-centred solutions, ICTJ works to prevent the recurrence of violence and strengthen democratic institutions in countries emerging from repression and conflict.
Redress is a London-based organisation founded by British businessman Keith Carmichael after he was unlawfully detained and tortured in Saudi Arabia. Frustrated by the lack of legal support and accountability available to survivors like himself, Carmichael launched REDRESS to fill a critical gap in access to justice. His personal experience became the driving force behind the charity’s mission: to secure justice and reparation for victims of torture and other grave human rights violations.
Now more than 30 years old, REDRESS continues to lead efforts globally to end impunity for torture. The organisation provides legal representation to survivors, supports strategic litigation before national and international courts, and advocates for stronger laws and policies that prevent torture and ensure reparations. By working directly with survivors, while also influencing governments and international institutions, REDRESS helps ensure that survivors’ voices are heard and that justice becomes a meaningful reality, central to any process of healing and transitional justice.
The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) is an organisation founded in 1998 on the principle, first used during the Nuremberg trials after World War II, that certain crimes are so egregious that they represent offences against all humankind. These crimes include genocide, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial killing and torture, and as CJA argues, they should never go unanswered.
CJA’s approach is survivor-led and collaborative. The organisation works closely with local partners and in-country prosecutors to build cases that centre the voices and experiences of those most affected. Alongside this, CJA advocates for stronger laws and policies that make it harder for abusers to escape justice and hold everyone accountable to the human rights standards.
The African Transitional Justice Legacy Fund (ATJLF) is an organisation launched in 2019 to support African-led responses to past atrocities, rooted in the belief that sustainable peace and justice must be shaped by those directly affected. Backed by the MacArthur Foundation and WellSpring Philanthropic Fund, the ATJLF emerged alongside the African Union’s Transitional Justice Policy, helping translate its goals into practical, community-driven action. Managed initially by the Ghana-based Institute for Democratic Governance, the Fund has since become a nine-year institutionalised effort supporting civil society across West Africa.
By empowering survivor-led groups and grassroots initiatives, the ATJLF has helped amplify voices often excluded from transitional justice processes. Since its inception, over $2.5 million has been distributed to 46 organisations working in countries including Guinea, Liberia, and The Gambia. As it enters its legacy phase (2024–2026), the Fund is scaling its efforts beyond West Africa and focusing on deeper, long-term partnerships to ensure the impact of its work endures well beyond its closure.
Impunity Watch is an international non-profit organisation working with victims of violence to deliver redress for grave human rights violations and to promote justice and peace. The organisation approaches transitional justice work through a victim-centred approach, taking into account the long-standing criticism of transitional justice not being sufficiently victim-centred. It is also their aim to overcome systemic impunity and its root causes in order to achieve transformative justice (here we could link the article I wrote on transformative justice, but it is not published yet).
For more information about the organisation, we recommend visiting their website for an abundant collection of resources and information, such as the charity’s 2023-2027 Strategic Plan, information about the complex work Impunity Watch does, as well as their multimedia resources section.
The Global Survivors Fund (GSF) is an international charity organisation based in Switzerland, that has it as its mission to enhance the access to reparations for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence around the globe. It was founded in 2019 by Dr Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad – 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
The organisation’s work is centred around three core pillars: acting to provide interim reparative measures in situations where States or other parties are unable or unwilling to meet their responsibilities; advocating for the legally responsible parties (duty-bearers) and the international community to develop reparation programmes; and guiding States and civil society by providing expertise and technical support for designing reparation programmes.
To learn more about the organisation’s transformative work, donate or find information about positions openings, visit their website.
Founded in 2014, the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation (GIJTR) is a consortium of nine global organisations dedicated to addressing the transitional justice needs of societies emerging from conflict or periods of authoritarian rule. The initiative collaborates with communities worldwide to amplify survivors’ voices and inspire collective action in confronting human rights violations. By addressing past traumas, GIJTR aims to pave the way for a more just and peaceful future.
Over the past decade, GIJTR has engaged with communities in over 70 countries, collaborating with more than 800 local civil society organisations and supporting over 500 grassroots projects. Its initiatives include documenting human rights abuses, providing technical assistance to civil society activists, and promoting reparative justice efforts. Notably, the organisation has worked alongside survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in contexts such as Bangladesh, Colombia, and Guinea, supporting them in advocating for their rights and developing community-based programs aimed at meeting survivors’ needs.
The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is the only global network of historic sites, museums, and memory initiatives that connects past struggles to today’s human rights movements. With over 350 members in 65 countries, its mission is to ensure that the sites preserve the memory of past injustices while fostering dialogue and learning that prevent future violations.
Their slogan being “Remembering is a Form of Resistance,” the Coalition works with local communities, governments, and international partners to ensure that these sites serve as platforms for reconciliation, education, and activism. It convenes impactful projects and initiatives as well as training events that bring together site professionals, historians, and activists to develop best practices for memory‑based reconciliation and community empowerment
If you are interested in how museums can contribute to upholding human rights, or would like to visit one of such sites, we recommend checking out our article on “20 Human Rights Museums Around The World” to discover inspiring spaces that might be worth visiting (perhaps on your next trip!).
The Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC) is a Sarajevo-based, women-led research centre and NGO, dedicated to advancing transitional justice and promoting peace in post-conflict societies. Founded in 2011 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, PCRC works on issues related to justice, accountability, reconciliation, and human rights. Its efforts include conducting research, providing education, and supporting projects aimed at improving social cohesion and fostering sustainable peace. PCRC is also involved in advocacy and works with local and international organisations to develop and implement policies that address the needs of survivors of conflict and promote justice for atrocities.
PCRC’s signature programmes include Balkan Diskurs, an online platform empowering young journalists to report on regional issues, and Ordinary Heroes, a multimedia project showcasing stories of rescue and courage to promote tolerance and reconciliation. Its work has earned international recognition, including the 2014–15 Intercultural Innovation Award from the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the BMW Group, and praise from the Council of Europe for its exemplary peace education model.
Are you inspired by PCRC’s blend of research and action? Learn what it takes to follow in their footsteps by reading our guide on “How to Become a Human Rights Researcher.”
Rights for Peace is a London-based international organisation that seeks to address the root causes of violence and promote peace through human rights advocacy and transitional justice. Focusing on countries in transition from conflict or repression, Rights for Peace engages with local communities to ensure that victims of violence are heard and that justice mechanisms are effective. It works to strengthen the rule of law, promote accountability, and support processes of social healing through legal reforms and community-led initiatives. By fostering a culture of peace and justice, the organisation aims to prevent the recurrence of violence and contribute to long-term stability.
Currently active in Sudan and South Sudan, Rights for Peace collaborates with local partners to strengthen rule‑of‑law institutions and ensure that victims’ voices shape accountability processes. Its casework includes monitoring identity‑based violations and developing strategic litigation to hold perpetrators accountable, reflecting the organisation’s commitment to survivor‑centred justice.
The issuance of Interpol red notices against two Salvadoran human rights defenders currently in exile in Spain constitutes a grave misuse of the law enforcement mechanism, UN experts warned on 19 November 2025
“This move amounts to an act of transnational repression, as it extends the harassment of human rights defenders beyond borders, targeting them in a country where they are seeking safety,” the experts said.
Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya have applied for asylum in Spain, fleeing legal harassment in El Salvador stemming from their legitimate human rights work. Both human rights defenders work for the non-governmental organisation UNIDEHC, which has been targeted by the Salvadoran authorities since February 2025 for its support to the La Floresta community, who have been facing attempts of forced eviction since 2024.
“The charges brought against Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya in El Salvador and related arrest warrants issued by the authorities appear to be without basis and in direct connection with their legitimate human rights work for UNIDEHC to support communities under threat and denounce the actions of the Government under the state of emergency declared in 2022,” the experts said.
In May 2025, the court presiding over their case in El Salvador ordered the Interpol National Central Bureau to submit a request for the issuance of a red notice to the Interpol General Secretariat. Interpol confirmed the issuance in July 2025.
The experts pointed to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Interpol, which state that the organisation is “strictly forbidden” from undertaking “any intervention or activities of a political nature”, and that the organisation’s activities will be conducted “in the spirit of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.”
In September 2025, Rudy Joya was summoned by police under the pretext of his asylum application in Spain. Upon presenting himself to the authorities, he was detained and presented before a Spanish specialised court. Ivania Cruz was also summoned and appeared before the same court, which ordered that both defenders sign-in at a local court every 15 days, not leave the country, surrender their passports and report any change of address.
“We call on Interpol to immediately revoke the red notices and judicial sanctions against Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya, and on Spain to refuse to accede to the red notice and to ensure their safety by rejecting their forcible return to El Salvador,” the experts said.
The experts are in contact with Interpol and the governments of Spain and El Salvador on these concerns.
Ganna Yudkivska (Chair-Rapporteur), Matthew Gillett (Vice-Chair on Communications), Miriam Estrada Castillo (Vice-Chair on Follow-Up), Mumba Malila, and Ethan Hee-Seok Shin,Working Group on Arbitrary Detent
On a day which promised calm, following the ceasefire deal in Gaza, the Israeli occupation violated the truce for the 394th time.
They launched a bloody attack on various areas of the Gaza Strip, resulting in callous murder of 40 citizens, entire families, wiped from the civil registry.
A dozen more were wounded, some remain in critical condition.
Another day, another massacre
In the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, a building inhabited by displaced persons seeking sanctuary, an Israeli missile struck the family, killing five members of the Zakaria Azzam family, including children, some of whom were only a few years old. After the bombing, a small chair and a child’s dress remained as silent symbols of suffering and lost innocence.
Shuja’iyya and West Khan Yunis have witnessed repeated massacres despite the ceasefire.
Israeli rockets destroyed entire houses and neighbourhoods, while paramedics were seen gathering charred and dismembered limbs trapped beneath the rubble.
The occupation is claiming these raids targeted armed resistance leaders, who they say were convening for a meeting.
The reality on the ground reveals the victims were mothers, children and ordinary men.
The mirage of a ceasefire
In just four hours, forty people have been exterminated, adding to the catalogue of Israel’s butchering of Gazans.
The following morning, the occupation carried out a military incursion east of Gaza City, expanding the buffer zone by about 300 metres. Dozens of families were trapped inside their homes amid intense shelling. Their fate remains unknown.
The Government Media Office in Gaza stated that since the ceasefire agreement came into effect, the occupation has carried out about 400 documented violations. They have killed 300 civilians, which is exacerbating crowding in the very few safe areas that remain.
The office held the mediators and guarantors, led by US President Donald Trump, responsible Israel’s continuing violations. They accused them of impotence by failing to prevent Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure, most notably shelters and hospitals.
The office cautioned that silence is no longer an option.
It called for immediate action to stop ‘ongoing crimes and violations’ and pressure the occupation to implement the ceasefire agreement.
Such a move would ensure the protection of civilians and halt the deterioration of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders has called on the Samoan Prime Minister to lift the ban preventing the daily newspaper Samoa Observer from attending government press conferences.
“The measure is totally unacceptable — it comes after one of its journalists filed a complaint over violence committed by the PM’s security officers,” said RSF in a post on its BlueSky news feed.
Samoan Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Polataivao Schmidt “temporarily” banned the Samoa Observer on Monday from engagements with him and his ministers, triggering a wave of condemnation from Pacific and global media freedom organisations.
#Samoa: RSF is calling on the Prime Minister to lift the ban preventing the daily #SamoaObserver from attending government press conferences. The measure is totally unacceptable — it comes after one of its journalists filed a complaint over violence committed by the PM’s security officers.
As other criticism of the Samoan Prime Minister continued to flow during the week, former prime minister and leader of the Samoa Uniting Party, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, said the ban was a “clear attempt to silence scrutiny” and a serious decline in Samoa’s democratic standards.
Quoted in the Samoa Observer today, Fiame said that when a person held public office, transparency was an obligation, not a choice.
She warned that democracy weakened not through a single dramatic event, but through a series of actions that slowly eroded transparency and silenced independent voices.
Fiame said the banning of a major newspaper like the Samoa Observer could not be viewed as a simple administrative decision.
“It is an act that strikes at the heart of media freedom, a right that allows the public to understand and question those who hold power,” she said.
Fiame reflected on her own time as prime minister, noting that no journalist or media organisation had ever ever been shut out, regardless of how challenging their questions were.
She said leadership required openness, accountability, and the ability to face criticism without fear or restriction.
Meanwhile, the Samoa Observer’s editor, Shalveen Chand, reported that the Journalists Association of [Western] Samoa (JAWS) had also urged Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa to reconsider the decision and lift the ban on the newspaper’s journalists from attending his press conferences.
JAWS said in a statement it was deeply concerned that such bans might “become the norm” for the current government and for future governments.
While Indonesians worry about President Prabowo Subianto’s undemocratic moves, the failures of his flagship “breakfast” policy, and a faltering economy, Australia enters into another “treaty” of little import. Duncan Graham reports.
COMMENTARY:By Duncan Graham
Under-reported in the Australian and New Zealand media, Indonesia has been gripped by protests this year, some of them violent.
The protests have been over grievances ranging from cuts to the national budget and a proposed new law expanding the role of the military in political affairs, President Prabowo Subianto’s disastrous free school meals programme, and politicians receiving a $3000 housing allowance.
More recently, further anger against the President has been fuelled by his moves to make corrupt former dictator Soeharto (also Prabowo’s former father-in-law) a “national hero“.
Ignoring both his present travails, as well as his history of historical human rights abuses (that saw him exiled from Indonesia for years), Prabowo has been walking the 27,500-tonne HMAS Canberra, the fleet flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, along with PM Anthony Albanese.
The location was multipurpose: It showed off Australia’s naval hardware and reinforced the signing of a thin “upgraded security treaty” between unequals. Australia’s land mass is four times larger, but there are 11 Indonesians to every one Aussie.
Ignoring the past Although Canberra’s flight deck was designed for helicopters, the crew found a desk for the leaders to lean on as they scribbled their names. The location also served to keep away disrespectful Australian journalists asking about Prabowo’s past, an issue their Jakarta colleagues rarely raise for fear of being banned.
Contrast this one-day dash with the relaxed three-day 2018 visit by Jokowi and his wife Iriana when Malcolm Turnbull was PM. The two men strolled through the Botanical Gardens and seemed to enjoy the ambience. The President was mobbed by Indonesian admirers.
This month, Prabowo and Albanese smiled for the few allowed cameras, but there was no feeling that this was “fair dinkum”. Indonesia said the trip was “also a form of reciprocation for Prime Minister Albanese’s trip to Jakarta last May,” another one-day come n’go chore.
Analysing the treaty needs some mental athleticism and linguistic skills because the Republic likes to call itself part of a “non-aligned movement”, meaning it doesn’t couple itself to any other world power.
The policy was developed in the 1940s after the new nation had freed itself from the colonial Netherlands and rejected US and Russian suitors.
It’s now a cliché — “sailing between two reefs” and “a friend of all and enemy of none”. Two years ago, former Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi explained:
“Indonesia refuses to see the Indo-Pacific fall victim to geopolitical confrontation. …This is where Indonesia’s independent and active foreign policy becomes relevant. For almost eight decades, these principles have been a compass for Indonesia in interacting with other nations.
“…(it’s) independent and active foreign policy is not a neutral policy; it is one that does not align with the superpowers nor does it bind the country to any military pact.”
Pact or treaty?
Is a “pact” a “treaty”? For most of us, the terms are synonyms; to the word-twisting pollies, they’re whatever the user wants them to mean.
We do not know the new “security treaty” details although the ABC speculated it meant there will be “leader and ministerial consultations on matters of common security, to develop cooperation, and to consult each other in the case of threats and consider individual or joint measures” and “share information on matters that would be important for Australia’s security, and vice-versa.”
Much of the “analysis” came from Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s media statement, so no revelations here.
What does it really mean? Not much from a close read of Albanese’s interpretation: ”If either or both countries’ security is threatened,
to consult and consider what measures may be taken either individually or jointly to deal with those threats.”
Careful readers will spot the elastic “consult and consider”. If this were on a highway sign warning of hazards ahead, few would ease up on the pedal.
Whence commeth the threat? In the minds of the rigid right, that would be China — the nation that both Indonesia and Australia rely on for trade.
Indonesia’s militaristic president Prabowo Subianto is seizing books which undermine his political agenda. Duncan Graham #indonesiahttps://t.co/akvGdOqC9d
Keating and Soeharto
The last “security treaty” to be signed was between PM Paul Keating and Soeharto in 1995. Penny Wong said the new document is “modelled closely” on the old deal.
The Keating document went into the shredder when paramilitary militia and Indonesian troops ravaged East Timor in 1999, and Australia took the side of the wee state and its independence fighters.
Would Australia do the same for the guerrillas in West Papua if we knew what was happening in the mountains and jungles next door? We do not because the province is closed to journos, and it seems both governments are at ease with the secrecy. The main protests come from NGOs, particularly those in New Zealand.
Foreign Minister Wong added that “the Treaty will reflect the close friendship, partnership and deep trust between Australia and Indonesia”.
Sorry, Senator, that’s fiction. Another awkward fact: Indonesians and Australians distrust each other, according to polls run by the Lowy Institute. “Over the course of 19 years . . . attitudes towards Indonesia have been — at best — lukewarm.
And at worst, they betray a lurking suspicion.
These feelings will remain until we get serious about telling our stories and listening to theirs, with both parties consistently striving to understand and respect the other. “Security treaties” involving weapons, destruction and killings are not the best foundations for friendship between neighbours.
Future documents should be signed in Sydney’s The Domain.
Duncan Graham has a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He now lives in Indonesia. This article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission.
The other week I was sat pondering life during my morning commute (as you do!) and I was reminded of something very important that my late mother taught me. And this got me thinking.
During her 60 odd years on the planet, my mum had learnt a lot. And she gave some great advice as a result.
A lot of what my mother taught me has stuck with me for its honesty, relevance and truth – whether or not I understood it at the time. Whether in response to a problem shared or during one of her life chats, her advice was always spot on.
As a child, walking along whilst out together, she’d often bring up certain topics and give specific life lessons. I certainly remember these, and I appreciate them even more as I’ve gotten older and wiser, and in particular, as I think more and more about how I’d bring up any future children of my own.
So as 10 November drew around again, reminding me of the day she left this world, I decided to pen this blog in honour of my mum and her memory, sharing her wisdom.
I hope you find it insightful.
1. On religion:
Mum and I at Lichfield Cathedral (c. 2008/9).
Going to church every week doesn’t (automatically) make you a better Christian [believer]
Message:
I remember this message. It was crystal clear. My mum sat me down one day and told me: there’s no point sitting in church once a week but being not-a-very nice person, and then the world judging a kind, moral person who doesn’t attend service.
We did go to church most Sundays (my non-Christian dad dropping us off), but the learning didn’t end there. My mum’s emphasis was more on behaviour and values, than on rituals at home.
What she taught me was that it’s your behaviour – how you treat others every day of the week: your manners, principles, values and your morals (your actions) – that truly count.
Sitting in church [or any place of worship] diligently once a week, but not leading a good, kind, just life is futile.
In short: don’t judge others and don’t automatically assume the best, just because a person has a spotless attendance record.
2. On education:
Education is never wasted
It’s your ticket to independence
Message:
“Education is never wasted” – four words that have stuck with me forever.
I believe they’re fundamentally true. For education is a door to many opportunities.
Learning, training, gaining an education is never wasted – it’s an investment, not just for your career and financial future, but for your mind, expanding your view on the world and opening your eyes to new experiences.
For women in particular, it’s they key to independence. And more often than not, now it’s critical to run a home (given the current cost of living and reliance on two salaries).
Study hard, aim high – but always remember that family (including yourself, not work) comes first.
My mother certainly lived by this. She was the first in her family to obtain a university degree. She then went on to become a fantastic teacher and educator – and a great inspiration to me growing up.
3. On identity:
At Giza, Egypt, on a family holiday (2009).
“I’m me” – be you first, not a label
Message:
As a child, I struggled to understand why my Italian mother wasn’t…. well, very “Italian”.
We didn’t speak Italian at home, we only started travelling to Italy when I was in my early teens and well, we just didn’t fit the (at least very) visual stereotype.
Trying to get answers from my mum about why she wasn’t “more Italian”, she once responded to me: “I’m me”. I didn’t get it.
Years later as an adult, I do. I now understand her and I empathise with her – even if I don’t agree with how things turned out.
It hurt to have to “reclaim” my Italian culture, to feel cut off from traditions and people.
It felt unfair to have to learn the language as a foreign language in my teens (an idea my mother wasn’t happy with at first), instead of being bilingual from childhood – something which I’ll never experience
And it pains me to feel that sense of “imposter syndrome“, where to my mind I’m “not Italian enough” for Italians (too fair, too shy and not fluent enough), yet also too “different” (a little “odd”) (e.g. loud, emotive, “conservative”) according to British socio-cultural norms (a learning that started as a child being scorn/criticised by my peers for “talking with my hands” and later peaking when I moved way for university and met my British housemates).
It’s a long ongoing story for another time (this blog gives an introduction).
Yet, none the less, my mother made a very valid point.
Before nationality, religion, age, cultural background, ethnicity and so on: you are your own person. You are you. You are an individual.
Do not be restricted or contained to that – or limit your outlook on the world in terms of others.
Do not stereotype others. See them as an individual first behind the labels.
Be aware of cultural norms, adapt, be respectful, embrace everyone. Do not make assumptions about others and do not limit yourself. Your future is in your hands.
4. On money:
It’s about values, not money
Message:
“Those who’ve got it don’t need to flaunt it” – a phrase I remember my mother saying on several occasions. And she was right – no one likes a show off.
Humility is key. Flashing the cash isn’t classy. Less is more, as they say. All that glitters isn’t gold – that’s another one.
But manners? They’re golden.
Manners cost nothing, but mean everything. They’re priceless. Show the world who you are through your values and manners.
Be kind, be humble, be polite – that’s what speaks volumes, not money.
Coming into a fortune may change your financial status, but it doesn’t necessarily signify that every other area of your life is up to the mark, or that you’re a “better person”.
Growing up, we didn’t have a flashy car (quite the opposite). We didn’t go on a holiday abroad until I was around 12 years old. And we didn’t live extravagantly.
We didn’t really struggle, but there were challenges, sacrifices and choices to be made.
What my parents had, they invested it into their children’s education – both inside and outside the classroom.
5. On love:
Mum and dad on their wedding day (1974).
You’ll find love when you’re not looking
Message:
Many a person has said it and my mother is no different: “You find love when you’re not looking for it”.
Well, that’s certainly true for my parents. By the time they went on their first date, they’d already met several times after repeatedly bumping into each other at teacher parties in Bristol (where they were both living at the time).
There was no plan, no agenda. They were just where they were meant to be, when they were destined to be and the rest is history.
And that’s what I believe: it’s all down to God (fate).
I don’t only believe this because I personally believe that such things are all pre-planned (by the Divine), but because as they say, when you’re not looking and simply living your life, doing the things you love, you’re being truly and authentically you!
When you’re authentic to yourself, you find what (or who) matches you! And so, yes I do believe that my mother was right: love comes when you least expect it.
It’ll come. Be patient. Do you, and leave the rest to fate!
6. On charity:
The more you have, the less you give
Message:
Growing up, my mother always encouraged us to help others and to give selflessly.
I remember once sharing with her how it shocked me how some of my classmates (whose parents had a lot more than we had) wouldn’t bring a can of food to a school food collection.
I can honestly say that my mother was a selfless person. And what she taught me is that having more doesn’t (necessarily) increase our ability (or will) to give.
Just because someone has more, it doesn’t mean they’ll give more.
Helping others isn’t a burden, it’s a duty. We share the world with others and we should share what we have.
Give with your heart, whatever you can. And remember: it doesn’t need to be big – every little helps at they say.
Don’t assume, that those who have the most, give the most. Kindness is a human value – and that’s free.
7. On friendship:
Mum visiting me on my year abroad in Siena, Italy (2009).
There are fair weather friends
And there are real friends
Message:
Not everyone that comes into your life will stay in your life.
A true friend is there for you through good times and bad, through thick and thin.
A fair-weather friend is there for the good only. They won’t stick around when things get tough.
Accept it, grieve them and move on. They’re not a true friend.
When it comes to friends, less is more: it’s better to have a few solid true friends in your life, than a large group of fair-weather friends (acquaintances).
This is what my mum would tell me and she was 100% right. This is something I learnt about a lot growing up.
Now that I’m 37 and reflecting on life, I can honestly say that my friends are like family to me. And that my mum was right: she was my best friend.
8. On self-care:
Always be prepared for the unexpected
Message:
Thinking of my mum, I remember one random day when she looked at my shoes and then promptly decided it was time to go shopping: shoe shopping.
One pair of tan leather Mary janes later, I was all set.
Set for what? Well, life.
The thing with my mum is that she didn’t really do casual – smart casual yes – but casual, no. It didn’t suit her (and it doesn’t really suit me either).
“People always judge you by two things, your hands (and nails) and your shoes” she’d tell me. And rightly or wrongly, people do judge.
Heading off to university in particular, she’d always remind me to be prepared: “You never know who you’ll meet”. And she had a point.
Her motto was: always try and look your best.
People judge us out in the world and you never know what opportunity may arise or who you may meet. Invest in yourself.
Now, this doesn’t mean full make-up or putting lots of pressure on yourself. Just the simple stuff.
Keep your nails neat, make sure your shoes are in good condition and when it comes to make up: less is more. A simple bit of mascara and lipstick will do if that’s all you can face for the day.
9. On gender:
With mum and my grandmother – at a very young age!
It’s a man’s world:
Stand tall and fight your ground
Message:
It’s a man’s world, but don’t let that stop you. Be brave, be loud, be fierce.
Move beyond the words, roles and restrictions upon women carved out by men (even in your own family, faith community or place of study).
Reject gender stereotypes – starting with childhood and how you raise your children.
I know this was something my mum actively did as an adult, in how she carved out her own life regarding her relationships, faith, education, work and at what age she had children.
This later shaped my world from a young age. The youngest of three children, I was also the only girl.
I loved being a girl. I collected handbags from a ridiculously young age. I wore skirts, dresses, florals and always tried to increasingly get away with make-up. I was anything but a tomboy.
I also had dolls. But: they were only one part of my toy/activity collection.
I never had a pram to push a doll in and my parents never bought Barbie dolls (I did have one or two as a gift from friends). What I did have was many more puzzles, books, art materials – and a super cool music player.
As a child, I was encouraged to learn, explore and be happy with who I was.
And as a girl, I felt no different to my brothers based on gender, other than the fact that I was taught about the need to be independent and mindful of my personal safety (thus responding to the symptoms of living in a sexist society).
I wasn’t treated differently but I was made aware and encouraged to be the best I could be, carving out my future.
10. On activism:
You have to work from within the system – not outside
Message:
Advocating for my non-verbal autistic brother – back in the day when no-one really knew what autism was except for the professionals – was no mean feat.
My mum fought tirelessly for my brother, her family and for whatever she felt was necessary. And it wasn’t easy: I think the price she may have paid was sadly her health.
Passing the baton to my father and I after finding out her cancer was terminal, I knew of the responsibilities ahead of me. It was time to step up; my brother needed me.
I’d learnt from the best – typing out letters that my mother would dictate to me. Her brainpower met my typing power.
Inspired by my mum, I’d always been a fierce advocate of social justice. From family, to community, to wider society, there’s a role to play:
“You’re like a bulldog” my mum said to me one day. I remember this so well.
Shocked, I asked her what she meant. After all, this didn’t exactly sound complementary!
“Small but fierce. You’ll stand up and push when you need to” was her reply.
Well, yes. She was right we need to fight for our rights, always.
But, where I didn’t agree with my mother was how to do this – the approach to creating positive change, for advocating, for standing up for what’s right.
From a young age, I’d dreamt of changing the world; fighting against the system that was so flawed. My mother didn’t.
She wanted better. But she wanted long term change: sustainability.
My mother talked of the need to make change from within, slowly and in doing so, gaining support – if you really wanted to make a difference.
And you know what? v37-year-old me has to agree. She was on to something there.
She was usually right about most things…
Dedication:
This blog is dedicated to my late mother Emilia. May your memory forever be a blessing.
May we meet again one day. I love you, forever and always.
Shabana Mahmood and David Lammy have been found to have breached a prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to a prisoner who spent months segregated from other inmates, in what is believed to be a legal first.
Sahayb Abu was confined to his cell at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes, for 22 hours a day and prevented from associating with other prisoners for more than four months after Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, allegedly attacked prison officers at HMP Frankland.
Tens of thousands of families are desperately searching for loved ones ‘disappeared’ by the country’s drug cartels. Now, pigs, drones and AI are being used to find clandestine graves
Six years ago, Guadalupe Ayala was left distraught after her 25-year-old son, Alfredo Ezequiel Campos, was taken from his home in Tlajomulco. It was another name added to the list of more than 15,000 people recorded as missing in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. In the state capital, Guadalajara, a major traffic junction plastered with posters of missing people has been renamed the “roundabout of the disappeared”.
There are more than 100,000 missing people in Mexico – one of the tragic consequences of the country’s deadly drug crisis, with most of the “disappeared” believed to be abducted by organised crime groups and drug cartels. The total is likely to be even higher as many people are not reported missing for fear of retribution.
The UN Security Council passed a regime change resolution against Gaza on Monday, effectively issuing a mandate for an invasion force to enter the besieged coastal enclave and install a US-led ruling authority by force.
Passing with 13 votes in favour and none in defiance, the new UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution has given the United States a mandate to create what it calls an “International Stabilisation Force” (ISF) and “Board of Peace” committee to seize power in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump has hailed the resolution as historic, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has stood in opposition to an element of the resolution that mentions “Palestinian Statehood”.
In order to understand what has just occurred, it requires a breakdown of the resolution itself and the broader context surrounding the ceasefire deal.
When these elements are combined, it becomes clear that this resolution is perhaps one of the most shameful to have passed in the history of the United Nations, casting shame on it and undermining the very basis on which it was formed to begin with.
An illegal regime change resolution In September 2025, a United Nations commission of inquiry found Israel to have committed the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
For further context, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the most powerful international legal entity and organ of the UN, ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide and thus issued orders for Tel Aviv to end specific violations of international law in Gaza, which were subsequently ignored.
Taking this into consideration, the UN itself cannot claim ignorance of the conditions suffered by the people of Gaza, nor could it credibly posit that the United States is a neutral actor capable of enforcing a balanced resolution of what its own experts have found to be a genocide.
This resolution itself is not a peace plan and robs Palestinians of their autonomy entirely; thus, it is anti-democratic in its nature.
It was also passed due in large part to threats from the United States against both Russia and China, that if they vetoed it, the ceasefire would end and the genocide would resume. Therefore, both Beijing and Moscow abstained from the vote, despite the Russian counterproposal and initial opposition to the resolution.
It also gives a green light to what the US calls a “Board of Peace”, which will work to preside over governing Gaza during the ceasefire period. The head of this board is none other than US President Trump himself, who says he will be joined by other world leaders.
Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who launched the illegal invasion of Iraq, has been floated as a potential “Board of Peace” leader also.
Vowed a ‘Gaza Riviera’
On February 4 of this year, President Trump vowed to “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip. The American President later sought to impose a plan for a new Gaza, which he even called the “Gaza Riviera”, which was drawn up by Zionist economist Joseph Pelzman.
Part of Pelzman’s recommendations to Trump was that “you have to destroy the whole place, restart from scratch”.
As it became clear that the US alone could not justify an invasion force and simply take over Gaza by force, on behalf of Israel, in order to build “Trump Gaza”, a casino beach land for fellow Jeffrey Epstein-connected billionaires, a new answer was desperately sought.
Then came a range of meetings between Trump administration officials and regional leaderships, aimed at working out a strategy to achieve their desired goals in Gaza.
After the ceasefire was violated in March by the Israelis, leading to the mass murder of around 17,000 more Palestinians, a number of schemes were being hatched and proposals set forth.
The US backed and helped to create the now-defunct so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) programme, which was used to privatise the distribution of aid in the territory amidst a total blockade of all food for three months.
Starving Palestinians, who were rapidly falling into famine, flocked to these GHF sites, where they were fired upon by US private military contractors and Israeli occupation forces, murdering more than 1000 civilians.
The ‘New York Declaration’
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and France were busy putting together what would become the “New York Declaration” proposal for ending the war and bringing Western nations to recognise the State of Palestine at the UN.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, here came Trump’s so-called “peace plan” that was announced at the White House in October. This plan appeared at first to be calling for a total end to the war, a mutual prisoner exchange and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in a phased approach.
From the outset, Trump’s “20-point plan” was vague and impractical. Israel immediately violated the ceasefire from the very first day and has murdered nearly 300 Palestinians since then. The first phase of the ceasefire deal was supposed to end quickly, ideally within five days, but the deal has stalled for over a month.
Throughout this time, it has become increasingly clear that the Israelis are not going to respect the “Yellow Line” separation zone and have violated the agreement through operating deeper into Gaza than they had originally agreed to.
The Israeli-occupied zone was supposed to be 53 percent of Gaza; it has turned out to be closer to 58 percent. Aid is also not entering at a sufficient rate, despite US and Israeli denials; this has been confirmed by leading rights groups and humanitarian organisations.
In the background, the US team dealing with the ceasefire deal that is headed by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff has been juggling countless insidious proposals for the future of Gaza.
Even publicly stating that reconstruction will only take place in the Israeli-controlled portion of the territory, also floating the idea that aid points will be set up there in order to force the population out of the territory under de facto Hamas control. This has often been referred to as the “new Gaza plan”.
The disastrous GHF
As this has all been in the works, including discussions about bringing back the disastrous GHF, the Israelis have been working alongside four ISIS-linked collaborator death squads that it controls and who operate behind the Yellow Line in Gaza.
No mechanisms have been put in place to punish the Israelis for their daily violations of the ceasefire, including the continuation of demolition operations against Gaza’s remaining civilian infrastructure. This appears to be directly in line with Joseph Pelzman’s plan earlier this year to “destroy the whole place”.
The UNSC resolution not only makes Donald Trump the effective leader of the new administrative force that will be imposed upon the Gaza Strip, but also greenlights what it calls its International Stabilisation Force. This ISF is explicitly stated to be a multinational military force that will be tasked with disarming Hamas and all Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip.
The US claims it will not be directly involved in the fighting with “boots on the ground”; it has already deployed hundreds of soldiers and has been reportedly building a military facility, which they deny is a base, but for all intents and purposes will be one.
Although it may not be American soldiers killing and dying while battling Palestinian resistance groups, they will be in charge of this force.
This is not a “UN peacekeeping force” and is not an equivalent to UNIFIL in southern Lebanon; it is there to carry out the task of completing Israel’s war goal of defeating the Palestinian resistance through force.
In other words, foreign soldiers will be sent from around the world to die for Israel and taxpayers from those nations will be footing the bill.
‘Self-determination’ reservation
The only reason why Israel has reservations about this plan is because it included a statement claiming that if the Palestinian Authority (PA) — that does not control Gaza and is opposed by the majority of the Palestinian people — undergoes reforms that the West and Israel demand, then conditions “may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”.
A keyword here is “may”, in other words, it is not binding and was simply added in to give corrupted Arab leaderships the excuse to vote yes.
Hamas and every other Palestinian political party, with the exception of the mainstream branch of Fatah that answers to Israel and the US, have opposed this UNSC resolution.
Hamas even called upon Algeria to vote against it; instead, the Algerian leadership praised Donald Trump and voted in favour. Typical of Arab and Muslim-majority regimes that don’t represent the will of their people, they all fell in line and bent over backwards to please Washington.
It won’t likely work As has been the story with every conspiracy hatched against the people of Gaza, this is again destined to fail. Not only will it fail, but it will likely backfire enormously and lead to desperate moves.
To begin with, the invasion force, or ISF, will be a military endeavour that will have to bring together tens of thousands of soldiers who speak different languages and have nothing in common, in order to somehow achieve victory where Israel failed.
It is a logistical nightmare to even think about.
How long would it take to deploy these soldiers? At the very least, it’s going to take months. Then, how long would this process take? Nobody has any clear answers here.
Also, what happens if Israel begins bombing again at any point, for example, if there is a clash that kills Israeli soldiers? What would these nations do if Israeli airstrikes killed their soldiers or put them in harm’s way?
Also, tens of thousands of soldiers may not cut it; if the goal is to destroy all the territory’s military infrastructure, they may need hundreds of thousands. Or if that isn’t an option, will they work alongside the Israeli military?
It is additionally clear that nobody knows where all the tunnels and fighters are; if Israel couldn’t find them, then how can anyone else?
After all, the US, UK, and various others have helped the Israelis with intelligence sharing and reconnaissance for more than two years to get these answers.
How do regimes justify this?
Finally, when Arab, European, or Southeast Asian soldiers return to their nations in body bags, how do their regimes justify this? Will the president or prime minister of these nations have to stand up and tell their people . . . “sorry guys, your sons and daughters are now in coffins because Israel needed a military force capable of doing what they failed to do, so we had to help them complete their genocidal project”.
Also, how many Palestinian civilians are going to be slaughtered by these foreign invaders?
As for the plan to overthrow Hamas rule in Gaza, the people of the territory will not accept foreign invaders as their occupiers any more than they will accept Israelis. They are not going to accept ISIS-linked collaborators as any kind of security force either.
Already, the situation is chaotic inside Gaza, and that is while its own people, who are experienced and understand their conditions, are in control of managing security and some administrative issues; this includes both Hamas and others who are operating independently of it, but inside the territory under its de facto control.
Just as the Israeli military claimed it was going to occupy Gaza City, laying out countless plans to do this, to ethnically cleanse the territory and “crush Hamas”, the US has been coordinating alongside it throughout the entirety of the last two years. Every scheme has collapsed and ended in failure.
It has been nearly a month and a half, yet there are still no clear answers as to how this Trump “peace plan” is supposed to work and it is clear that the Israelis are coming up with new proposals on a daily basis.
There is no permanent mechanism for aid transfers, which the Israelis are blocking. There is no clear vision for governance.
How a US plan envisages Gaza being permanently split into two sections – a green zone and a red zone. Image: Guardian/IDF/X
‘Two Gazas’ plan incoherent
The “two Gazas” plan is not even part of the ceasefire or Trump plan, yet it is being pursued in an incoherent way. The ISF makes no sense and appears as poorly planned as the GHF.
Hamas and the other Palestinian factions will not give up their weapons. There is no real plan for reconstruction. The Israelis are adamant that there will be no Palestinian State and won’t allow any independent Palestinian rule of Gaza, and the list of problems goes on and on.
What it really looks like here is that this entire ceasefire scheme is a stab in the dark attempt to achieve Israel’s goals while also giving its forces a break and redirecting their focus on other fronts, understanding that there is no clear solution to the Gaza question for now.
The United Nations has shown itself over the past two years to be nothing more than a platform for political theatre. It is incapable of punishing, preventing, or even stopping the crime of all crimes.
Now that international law has suffocated to death under the rubble of Gaza, next to the thousands of children who still lie underneath it, the future of this conflict will transform.
This UNSC vote demonstrates that there is no international law, no international community, and that the UN is simply a bunch of fancy offices, which are only allowed to work under the confines of gangster rule.
If the Palestinian resistance groups feel as if their backs are against the wall and an opportunity, such as another Israeli war on Lebanon, presents them the opportunity, then there is a high likelihood that a major military decision will be made.
In the event that this occurs, it will be this UNSC resolution that is in large part responsible.
When the suffering in Gaza finally ends, whether that is because Israel obliterates all of its regional opposition and exterminates countless other civilians in its way, or Israel is militarily shattered, the UN should be disbanded as was the League of Nations. It is a failed project just as that which preceded it.
Something new must take over from it.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specialising in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle and it is republished with permission.
Regional student journalists at the University of the South Pacific have condemned the Samoan Prime Minister’s ban on the Samoa Observer newspaper, branding it as a “deliberate and systemic attempt to restrict public scrutiny”.
The Journalism Students’ Association (JSA) at USP said in a statement today it was “deeply
concerned” about Samoan Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt’s ban on the Samoa Observer from his press conferences and his directive that cabinet ministers avoid responding to the newspaper’s questions.
“The recently imposed suspension signals not merely a rebuke of one newspaper, but a more deliberate and systemic attempt to restrict robust public scrutiny,” the statement said.
“The JSA is especially concerned that these attacks are eroding youth confidence in the [journalism] profession.” Image: JSA logo“It raises serious concerns about citizens’ right to information, as well as the erosion of transparency, accountability, and public trust.”
“We also note reports of physical confrontations involving journalists outside the Prime Minister’s residence, which are deeply troubling. This is an alarming trend and signals a reverse, if not decline in media rights and freedom of speech, unless it is dealt with immediately,” the JSA said.
“With its long-standing dedication to reporting on governance, human rights, and social
accountability issues, the ban on the Samoa Observer strikes at the heart of public discourse and places journalists in a precarious position.
Not an isolated case
“It risks undermining their ability to report freely and without the fear of reprisal.”
Sadly, said the JSA statement, this was not an isolated case.
“Earlier this year, the JAWS president Lagi Keresoma faced defamation charges under Samoa’s libel laws over an article about a former police officer’s appeal to the Head of State.
“Samoa’s steep decline in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index further highlights the ongoing challenges confronting Samoan media.”
JAWS’ recent statement highlighting government attempts to control press conferences through a proposed guide, further added to the growing pattern of restrictions on press freedom in Samoa.
“These recent incidents, coupled with the exclusion of the Samoa Observer, send a chilling
warning to Samoan journalists and establish a dangerous precedent for media subservience at the highest levels,” said JSA.
“Journalists must be able to perform their work safely, without intimidation or assault,
as they carry out their responsibilities to the public. These incidents raise serious
questions about the treatment of media professionals and respect for journalistic work.
“As a journalism student association with many of our journalists and alumni working in
the region, we are committed to empowering the next generation of journalists.
“The JSA is especially concerned that these attacks are eroding youth confidence in the
profession.
“We believe strongly in defending a space where young people can enter a field that is critical to democratic accountability, public oversight, and civic engagement.”
Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) 
