TV News LIES

The conviction of two leaders of the Palestine solidarity movement, Chris Nineham, the vice-chair of the Stop the War Coalition, and Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, for breaching police conditions as organisers of a peaceful Palestine protest has been widely seen as a direct assault on the right to protest.

But it’s far from the only case of its kind. In fact state overreach is causing confusion in the UK court system, as it struggles to cope with hundreds of cases brought under the Public Order Act and anti-terrorism legislation.

The tsunami is the result of a wave of demonstrators being charged with offences linked to their participation in pro-Palestine protests since October 2023, compounded by the proscription of Palestine Action last year.

In some cases, courts are simply refusing to convict. A number of pro-Palestinian activists have been found not guilty, either fully or on key charges. Other cases have been dismissed or ruled unlawful.

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The firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who received widespread criticism for her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, was celebrated Thursday by the sexual predator’s surviving victims, who have long felt Bondi could be more transparent about their cases.

Marina Lacerda, one of the survivors, shared a news article about Bondi’s firing on her Instagram stories, writing, “WE KNEW IT WOULD COME DOWN TO THIS.”

She also shared a satirical reel from the Instagram account @mermaidmamamaggie that poked fun at all the names Bondi had redacted from the Epstein files.

“What? You’re firing me,” the comedian said in the reel, posing as Bondi talking to President Donald Trump. “But I’ve done everything you’ve asked, sir. I’ve ignored the facts, buried the evidence, and I even learned how to say ‘no comment’ in five different tones of panic.”

Amanda and Sky Roberts — the family of Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died by suicide last year — said in a statement to independent journalist Aaron Parnas that they hope Bondi “has the courage” to “do right by survivors.”

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An Israeli court has drawn criticism after closing an investigation into the death of a Palestinian teenager in custody, despite finding indications he had been starved prior to his death.

Walid Ahmad, a 17-year-old from the occupied West Bank, died in Israeli custody in March 2025, six months after he was detained for allegedly throwing stones, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Judge Ehud Kaplan ruled the case should be closed, stating there was no proven link between Ahmad’s deteriorating physical condition, such as severe weight loss and infection, and the immediate cause of his death. Details of the ruling emerged on Tuesday after a gag order was lifted.

Nadia Dakka, a human rights lawyer who has followed the case, criticised the decision as reflecting a narrow legal approach that fails to address the broader conditions contributing to detainees’ deaths.

Dakka said the ruling highlights the difficulty of establishing criminal responsibility in cases involving systemic abuse.

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Dear Leqaa,

Ramadan Kareem. I say it with a heavy heart, knowing these words reach you in a place that has tried to strip them of meaning.

It has now been one full year. One year since that dreadful night that marked the beginning of a brutal wave of arrests targeting protesters for nothing more than speaking the truth. Though we have never met in person, I have carried you with me every single day since Noor called me while I was detained in Jena, Louisiana, to tell me that you had been taken. I remember thinking: not again, not another one of us. From that moment, a piece of my heart has been tied to your struggle.

Leqaa, this is your second Ramadan in detention. I need to say that plainly, not as a detail but as a measure of what has been stolen from you. Ramadan is the sound of your mother’s voice calling you to iftar. It is the particular smell of food being prepared with love after a long day of fasting. It is the feeling of breaking bread with family, of praying together, of being held by community in the holiest time of the year.

But they denied you halal food in that facility. They denied you the basic dignity of practicing your faith. Last Ramadan you endured this, and now another has come and found you still caged, still waiting, still being told that your faith, like your grief, is something to be managed rather than honored.

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A Guardian analysis of government records has found that the vast majority – 77% – of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time in 2025 had no criminal conviction, exposing a stark gap between the Trump administration’s rhetoric and reality.

Within days of Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trotted out a phrase that his surrogates would come to use over and over again: “the worst of the worst.”

The term has become a shorthand justification for the administration’s unprecedented overhaul of immigration enforcement – a relentless campaign the administration claims is focused on arresting and deporting violent criminals.

However, a review of records obtained by the Guardian and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed against DHS, raises questions about those claims.

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Arab and Islamic countries jointly condemned remarks by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who suggested Israel had a biblical right to a vast swath of the Middle East.

Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and a fervent Israel supporter, was speaking on the podcast of Tucker Carlson.

In an episode released on Friday, Carlson pushed Huckabee on the meaning of a biblical verse sometimes interpreted as saying that Israel is entitled to the land between the Nile River in Egypt and the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq.

In response, Huckabee said: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

When pressed, however, he continued that Israel was “not asking to take all of that”, adding: “It was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement.”

The backlash widened sharply on Sunday as more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments – alongside three major regional organisations – issued a joint statement denouncing the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory”.

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