EU targets platforms that refuse to censor free speech – Telegram founder
RT | December 6, 2025
The EU is unfairly targeting social media platforms that allow dissenting or critical speech, Telegram founder Pavel Durov has said.
He was responding to a 2024 post by Elon Musk, the owner of X, who claimed that the European Commission had offered the platform a secret deal to avoid fines in return for censoring certain statements. The EU fined X €120 million ($140 million) the day before.
According to Durov, the EU imposes strict and unrealistic rules on tech companies as a way to punish those that do not comply with quiet censorship demands.
“The EU imposes impossible rules so it can punish tech firms that refuse to silently censor free speech,” Durov wrote on X on Saturday.
He also referred to his detention in France last year, which he called politically motivated. He claimed that during that time, the head of France’s DGSE asked him to “ban conservative voices in Romania” ahead of an election, an allegation French officials denied. He also said intelligence agents offered help with his case if Telegram quietly removed channels tied to Moldova’s election.
Durov repeated both claims in his recent post, describing the case as “a baseless criminal investigation” followed by pressure to censor speech in Romania and Moldova.
Later on Saturday, Durov wrote: “The EU exclusively targets platforms that host inconvenient or dissenting speech (Telegram, X, TikTok…). Platforms that algorithmically silence people are left largely untouched, despite far more serious illegal content issues.”
Last year Elon Musk said the European Commission offered X “an illegal secret deal” to quietly censor content. “If we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not,” he wrote.
On Friday, European Commission spokesperson Tom Rainier said the EU fined X €120 million for violating the Digital Services Act. He claimed the fine was unrelated to censorship and was the first enforcement under the law. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized the move on X, calling it “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.”
Durov and Musk have both faced pressure from EU regulators under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in 2023. The law requires platforms to remove illegal content quickly, though critics say it can be used to suppress lawful expression.
New law lets Berlin police install spyware in private homes
Critics warn the new rules could be misused, enabling overreach and deep intrusion into personal privacy
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images
RT | December 6, 2025
Berlin officers will be allowed to secretly enter private homes to install spyware, after the German House of Representatives approved a sweeping change to the city’s police law.
Backed by the governing CDU-SPD coalition and opposition AfD, the law gives police broad new powers over both physical and digital surveillance.
The new law allows authorities to secretly enter a suspect’s home to install spyware if remote access isn’t possible. This marks the first time Berlin’s law enforcement can legally carry out such physical break-ins for digital surveillance. The updated rules also permit hacking phones and computers to monitor communication. Police can now turn on bodycams inside private homes if they believe someone is in serious danger.
Passed on Thursday, the law also expands surveillance in public areas. Authorities can now collect phone data from everyone in a location, scan license plates, and counter drones. They may use facial and voice recognition to identify people from surveillance images. Real police data can also be used to train AI. Critics say this risks misuse and intrudes on private life.
Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) has defended the move. “With the biggest reform of the Berlin Police Law in decades, we are creating a significant plus for the protection of Berliners,” she said. “We are giving law enforcement better tools to fight terrorism and organized crime,” she added.
Berlin has seen a rise in crime. In 2024, police recorded over 539,000 offences — more than the year before. Violent crimes like assault and domestic violence also increased. Officials say there is a growing problem with crimes involving young people and migrants, especially in large cities. More than half of all crimes still go unsolved.
Opposition to the law has grown since its passage. During the debate, Green Party MP Vasili Franco said the law felt like a wish list for a state with excessive control over its citizens. Civil rights groups called the expanded use of AI and facial recognition “a massive attack on civil liberties.”
The campaign alliance NoASOG also strongly criticized the reform, stating, “What is being sold as security policy is in reality the establishment of an authoritarian surveillance state.”
Australia’s Top Censor Warns of Surveillance While Hypocritically Expanding It
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | December 3, 2025
At a press conference that could have been a comedy sketch idea, Australia’s “eSafety” Commissioner Julie Inman Grant and Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek stood before the cameras and solemnly warned the nation about the perils of surveillance. Not from government programs or sweeping digital mandates, but from smart cars and connected devices.
The irony was not lost on anyone paying attention.
Both Grant and Plibersek are enthusiastic backers of the country’s new online age verification law, the so-called Social Media Minimum Age Bill 2024, a law that has done more to expand digital surveillance than any gadget in a Toyota.
The legislation bans under-16s from social media and requires users to prove their age through “assurance” systems that often involve facial scans, ID uploads, and data analysis so invasive it would make a marketing executive blush.
But on the same day she cautioned the public about the dangers of “connected” cars sharing sensitive information with third parties, Grant’s agency was publishing rules that literally require social media platforms to share sensitive data with third parties.
During the press conference, Grant complained that “it’s disappointing” YouTube and other platforms hadn’t yet released their guidance on how they’ll implement verification.
She announced that eSafety will begin issuing “gathering information notices” on December 10, demanding details from companies about how they plan to comply once her expanded powers take effect.
She also warned that some of the smaller apps users are migrating to may soon “become age-restricted social media platforms.”
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) explains that compliance under this law can involve “age estimation” using facial analysis, “age inference” through data modeling of user activity, or “age verification” with government ID.
All three options amount to building a surveillance apparatus around everyday users. Facial recognition, voice modeling, behavioral tracking; pick your poison.
Most platforms outsource this work to private firms, which means that the same sensitive data the law claims to protect is immediately handed to a commercial intermediary.
Meta, for example, relies on Yoti, a third-party ID verification company. Others use firms like Au10tix, which famously left troves of ID scans exposed online for over a year.
The law includes what politicians like to call “strong privacy safeguards.” Platforms must only collect the data necessary for verification, must destroy it once it’s used, and must never reuse it for other purposes.
It’s the same promise every company makes before it gets hacked or “inadvertently” leaks user data.
Even small dating apps that claimed to delete verification selfies “immediately after completion” managed to leak those same selfies. In every case, the breach followed the same pattern: grand assurances, then exposure.
Julie Inman Grant calls it protecting the public. Tanya Plibersek calls it social responsibility. The rest of us might call it what it actually is: institutionalized data collection, dressed in the language of child safety.
Israel moves to extend army service to 36 months
The Cradle | December 5, 2025
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on 5 December a plan to extend mandatory military service to 36 months.
The move raises the current service terms from 30–32 months to a full 36 months and marks a significant shift in how Tel Aviv intends to staff its army at a time of deep political rupture and growing pressure on its northern front.
The ministers said the extension would add “10,000 service days per year” and could delay the discharge of soldiers scheduled to complete their service in 2026.
Katz’s office said the government will cut roughly 30,000 reserve duty positions and rely instead on longer compulsory service to fill the gaps.
The move also comes as the government promotes legislation to exempt the ultra-Orthodox, known as the Haredim, from the draft, while expecting regular soldiers to make up for the shrinking reserve force.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid condemned the arrangement as “a budget of corruption and draft-dodging.”
The adjustment is included in a significantly expanded 2026 defense budget. According to the prime minister’s office and statements issued by Katz, the budget now stands at $34.72 billion, up from an earlier draft of $27.90 billion.
Katz said the government will “reinforce the IDF and … reduce the burden on reservists,” though the plan effectively shifts that burden onto conscripts who will now serve an extra year. Smotrich said the overall increase compared with 2023 reached $14.57 billion.
The manpower strain has sharpened in recent months. Israeli Brigadier General Shai Tayeb told lawmakers that the army is currently short 12,000 recruits, including 7,000 combat soldiers, and warned that troop levels are projected to decline even further by early 2027.
Tayeb told the Knesset that Israel “needs to expand the base of those serving” and is preparing for three-year service terms and 70 days of annual reserve duty within five years.
Israel has even begun turning to foreign mercenaries to fill its ranks, with losses from campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, rising dropout rates, and growing reluctance among reservists to return to service, the army is left to face what officials describe as a “huge shortage” of capable fighters.
US warns Europe of ‘civilizational erasure’
RT | December 5, 2025
Europe is facing potential “civilizational erasure” as the continent’s policymakers encourage censorship, crack down on political opponents, and turn a blind eye to mass immigration, the new National Security Strategy released by the administration of US President Donald Trump warns.
The landmark and strongly worded document released on Friday says that while the EU is showing worrying signs of economic decline, its cultural and political unraveling poses an even greater threat.
The strategy cites EU-backed immigration policies, suppression of political opposition, curbs on speech, collapsing birthrates, and “loss of national identities and self-confidence,” warning that Europe could become “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”
The document argues that many European governments are “doubling down on their present path,” while the US wants Europe “to remain European” and abandon “regulatory suffocation” – an apparent reference to America’s stand-off with the EU over its strict digital market guidelines, which Washington claims discriminate against US-based tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta.
One of Washington’s key goals is “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” the paper adds.
Trump’s strategy notes that the rise of “patriotic European parties” offers “cause for great optimism,” in a reference to growing bloc-wide support for right-wing Euroskeptic parties calling for strict immigration limits.
The document proclaims that “the era of mass migration is over.” It argues that large inflows have strained resources, increased violence, and weakened social cohesion, adding that Washington is seeking a world in which sovereign states “work together to stop rather than manage” migration flows.
The strategy also comes amid Trump’s push to convince European NATO members to spend more on defense. At one point, he threatened not to defend “delinquent” countries in an attack if they fail to meet his demands. At a summit earlier this year, the bloc endorsed a new plan to move toward combined defense-related spending of up to 5% of GDP, far above NATO’s longstanding 2% benchmark.
EU Fines X $140 Million Amid Free Speech Clash
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | December 5, 2025
The European Union pulled the trigger on Elon Musk’s social media platform X. On Friday, Brussels fined X a massive $140 million for what it described as “transparency failures” under its censorship law, the Digital Services Act. In plain terms, the EU is angry that X is not policing speech the way it wants.
Of course, officials insist the penalty is not about censorship. It is about “accountability.” Yet every part of the fine print points to the same thing: a government demanding more control over what people say and see online.
The European Commission called X’s blue check system “deceptive” because Musk turned what used to be a verification badge into a paid feature anyone can buy. In the eyes of Brussels, that is chaos, a marketplace where speech is treated like a right, not a licensed activity.
Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, summed up the mood. “Deceiving users with blue check marks, obscuring information on ads, and shutting out researchers have no place online in the E.U.,” she said. “We are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”
European regulators also accuse X of not sharing advertising data and refusing to give researchers access to its user information. The law says platforms must open up to “independent research.” In reality, that means academics and NGOs, often with pro-censorship political affiliations, getting privileged access to social data, exactly the kind of surveillance the DSA claims to prevent.
Officials call this “transparency.” It is a transparency that flows one way, upward, toward the state. Musk’s decision not to hand over user data now counts as a punishable offense.
When asked to explain how they calculated the €120 million penalty, the Commission offered a masterpiece of vagueness about “proportionality” and “the nature of the infringements.” The only clear metric seems to be how defiant a company is about following orders.
From Washington, the outrage came fast. “The EU should be supporting free speech, not attacking American companies over garbage,” said Vice President JD Vance. Musk responded with his usual brevity: “Much appreciated.”
In the same breath that Brussels punished X, it closed an investigation into TikTok without a fine. TikTok, after all, promised to “cooperate” and adjust its design. “If you comply with our rules, you don’t get a fine,” Virkkunen told reporters.
That sentence could serve as the EU’s motto. Compliance equals peace. Free speech costs money.
The European Union has moved beyond suggesting rules for online speech and is now issuing orders. American social media platforms are facing a steady increase in censorship demands from Brussels, framed as “transparency” and “safety” obligations.
Each new regulation adds another layer of political oversight, turning what used to be private platforms into instruments of European policy.
The DSA sits at the center of this system. The law forces companies like Meta, Google, and X to remove “harmful” content, grant access to internal data, and submit regular reports on how they handle information deemed risky by regulators.
None of these terms have clear definitions, which gives officials the freedom to decide what speech is acceptable after the fact. In effect, the EU has built a structure that allows censorship by procedure rather than decree.
US companies are learning that “transparency” now means constant surveillance from European regulators and activist groups. The enforcement process rewards compliance, not innovation. Platforms that fail to align with the EU’s preferred moderation standards face public scolding and multi-million-dollar fines. Those who comply end up filtering speech to avoid further punishment.
This has turned into a quiet export of European political culture. The EU’s rhetoric about “accountability” and “responsibility” conceals a growing ambition to shape global online discourse.
Macron’s Proposed Seal of Truth Meets a Wall of Criticism
Macron’s seal of reliability may prove less about journalism and more about obedience
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | December 4, 2025
Emmanuel Macron thinks the Republic needs a quality seal for reality. The French president recently proposed creating an official “reliability label” for news outlets, modeled on Reporters Without Borders’ Journalism Trust Initiative. He insists it is not censorship. It is a “democratic duty.”
“It is about making our young people understand, encouraging them, motivating them to turn toward press outlets, whether in physical, printed form or digital,” Macron said, as though the French youth were a flock that had wandered into the dangerous fields of the internet and needed shepherding back to Le Monde.
The proposal, presented during a discussion with readers of the Ebra press group, called for a label for outlets that follow ethical standards, validated by “peers and third-party experts.”
The government, he said, would not decide who qualifies. It would only “encourage” such standards. But in France, the words “encourage” and “government” often mean something closer to “mandatory, eventually.”
The model is RSF’s Journalism Trust Initiative, which already certifies media that meet certain requirements. Certified outlets supposedly even get algorithmic advantages on platforms like Bing.
Macron wants a French version, claiming it would bring “international recognition of the professionalism of our journalists and the rigour of our editorial teams.”
Translated from technocrat to plain French: good media will rise to the top, bad media will sink to the digital basement.
This, Macron says, will help fight “disinformation.” The country has heard that promise before. Each new attempt to fight misinformation seems to end up tightening control over information itself.
The idea landed with the subtlety of a brick through a newsroom window.
On BFMTV, Parliamentary Party Leader of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen called it “unworthy,” said the proposal was “extremely dangerous,” accusing Macron of wanting “to master information.”
Bruno Retailleau, leader of Les Républicains, said “no government has the right to filter the media or dictate the truth.”
The Mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, said the president had “crossed a fundamental line.” Even some journalists balked at being graded by a system endorsed by the state.
Macron denied everything. “There is not going to be a state label, and even less a ‘ministry of truth,’” said government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon after the cabinet meeting.
Macron repeated that “it is not the state that should verify” the truth, since “otherwise it becomes a dictatorship.”
So far, the reassurance has not worked. The term “Ministry of Truth” is now glued to the project in every headline, thanks in part to a viral editorial by Pascal Praud on CNews, who accused the president of “wanting to impose a single narrative.”
In a remarkable act of irony, the Élysée responded to critics on X by posting a video labeled “warning, false information.”
The president’s communications team, while denying the existence of a Ministry of Truth, had just produced something that looked exactly like one.
The post set off another round of outrage.
Jordan Bardella, President of the National Rally, said Macron’s proposal was “the reflex of a man who has lost power and seeks to maintain it by controlling information.”
The label plan is part of Macron’s wider campaign against disinformation. He has floated legal changes to allow “false information” to be blocked online more quickly and has repeatedly called for tighter regulation of social media, describing the current state of the internet as “the Wild West.”
It is not hard to see why the issue obsesses him. Macron and his wife have been the targets of online rumors for years.
For a president who sees himself as a technocratic reformer, the swamp of digital conspiracy has become both a personal irritant and a political threat.
Macron insists that only a system of certified journalism can protect the public from manipulation. The trouble is, the public does not want the government or anyone tied to it certifying which journalists to trust.
Reporters Without Borders may be an NGO, but any system announced by the president and promoted as a matter of “democratic duty” will carry the scent of state authority.
Once the government endorses a “trust” label, those without it become, by definition, untrustworthy.
Electoral Coup: CNE Councilor Denounces Serious Irregularities in Honduras
teleSUR – December 2, 2025
Marlon Ochoa, a member of Honduras’ National Electoral Council (CNE), denounced serious irregularities on Tuesday following the general elections held on November 30. He highlighted biometric failures, the withholding of 16,708 tally sheets, the complete lack of processing of physical tally sheets, and the lack of public access to the results.
Ochoa emphasized that the information provided by the TREP (Preliminary Electoral Results Transmission) system “lacks certainty and consistency,” something that Honduran citizens “have been able to verify.” He stated that the country is facing an election with “terrible technological results, profound inconsistencies, and irregularities,” evidenced by the lack of public access to the preliminary results on December 2.
During a session of the National Electoral Council (CNE) that extended until 3:00 AM this Tuesday, the company ASD verbally reported that 16,708 closing tally sheets had been withheld and not released to the public. These are broken down as follows: 3,880 presidential tally sheets, 6,387 for members of parliament, and 6,441 for municipal corporations.
The council member explained in a social media post that, across the country’s 7,669 transmission centers, the Preliminary Results Transmission System (TREP) has experienced inconsistencies in assigning votes. He illustrated that, when transcribing a tally sheet, the system can display the image of one polling station but assign the votes to a different one without the transcriber noticing.
In addition, the results publication website has been down, and there has been no official explanation for the outage, despite requests for information from the companies involved.
On the other hand, Ochoa opposed the decision, made by a majority in the National Electoral Council (CNE), to grant privileged access to the results dissemination rooms only to media outlets and political parties starting at 7:00 AM. The council member insists that the results dissemination website should be activated for the entire population, in accordance with the law and the approved guidelines.
Furthermore, he criticized the fact that as of 1:15 PM (local time) on December 2nd, none of the physical closing tally sheets returned from the polling stations had been processed, which he described as a “highly irregular act” that sows “doubts and uncertainty” about electoral transparency.
The presidential candidate for the LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada, denounced on Monday night an “electoral scheme” that allowed for the falsification of results with inflated tally sheets after the elimination of biometric validation in the elections.
Moncada presented a compelling technical analysis, highlighting the responsibility of the two-party system in an electoral fraud scheme. The candidate revealed that the “elimination of biometric verification of tally sheets was approved” by the National Electoral Council (CNE) “the night before the elections.” This controversial decision, according to Moncada, “enables the inclusion of inflated tally sheets, especially at the presidential level.”
Moncada’s technical team has identified 2,859 tally sheets without biometric verification, representing 25.35 percent of the total. These tally sheets, with an average of 217 votes each, present extreme cases with up to 100 additional votes beyond the legitimate ones.
The National Party accounts for 1,588 of these tally sheets, totaling 326,285 irregular votes, while the Liberal Party has 1,041 tally sheets without biometric verification, equivalent to 217,193 irregular votes.
Moncada stated: “We are going to demand during this 30-day period of the final general count that these tally sheets be reviewed, and we are going to make use of legal resources.”
The Terrifying Case of Natalie Strecker
By Craig Murray | December 2, 2025
I am confident that over 2 million people in the UK have shared thoughts on the Genocide in Gaza that are stronger than anything Natalie Strecker has expressed.
I am quite certain that I am one of those 2 million.
Yet Natalie Strecker, an avowed pacifist and mother of young children, today faces up to ten years in prison under the Terrorism Act when the verdict in her case comes in.
Strecker is charged with eliciting support for Hamas and Hezbollah, based on 8 tweets, cherry-picked by police and prosecutors from an astounding 51,000 tweets she sent, mainly from the Jersey Palestine Solidarity Committee account.
The tweets were rather rattled off in court and referred to occasionally again in whole and in part. There may be minor inaccuracies not affecting sense, but this is the best reconstruction of those tweets that I can make (they were not displayed to the public):
“People will be individually resisting: otherwise we would be asking them to submit to genocide on their knees”
“Solidarity with the people of Lebanon and Hezbollah has the right to resist in international law, I remind you the occupier does not, and are legally obligated to try to prevent Genocide.”
“Solidarity with the resistance. In the same way that the reistance fought the Nazis in Europe, we must support the fight against the Nazis of our generation”.
“Resistance is their legal right under moral and international law. If you don’t want resistance, then don’t create the circumstances which require it. Solidarity with the Resistance.”
“This nonsense our nation has descended into, where one side is committing genocide, and the other is proscribed for fighting it. I believe Hezbollah may be Palestine’s last hope”.
“Hamas the resistance did not break out of their concentration camp to attack Jews as Jews. We can debate whether armed resistance is legitimate. Of course there should be no attacks on civilians.”
“I am sick of the MSM propaganda about “Hamas-run health ministry figures”. Hamas is the government in Gaza. Every health ministry in the world is run by its government.”
“Are you awake? So it is down to ordinary people like you an me to end it. We must take our power back. Join me in solidarity with the people of Lebanon and Palestine. Solidarity with the Resistance.”
That is it. The prosecution case is that these tweets, both collectively and individually, amount to an invitation of support for Hamas and Hezbollah resulting in up to ten years in jail in Jersey, or 14 years in jail on the UK mainland.
The prosecution explicitly stated, and the judge notably intervened to make sure that everybody understood, that it is the offence of supporting terrorism to state that the Palestinians have the right to armed resistance in international law.
Judge John Saunders interrupted the prosecution to ask whether they were saying that he would be guilty of support for terrorism if, in a lecture, he told an international law class that Palestinians have the right to armed resistance in international law.
After some kerfuffle when faced with such an awkward question, the prosecution replied that yes, it could be the offence to tell law students that.
I should point out, at risk of dying in jail, that the Palestinians are beyond doubt an occupied people in international law, and equally beyond doubt an occupied people have the right of armed resistance.
To state that the Palestinians have the right of armed resistance in international law is not in the least controversial as a statement of law. A few Zionist nutters would try to differ, but 95% of international lawyers on this planet would agree.
I assume by perfectly logical extension that this means the prosecution must believe it is a terrorist crime in UK law, for example, to quote UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43, which:
2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle;
3. Reaffirms the inalienable right of the Namibian people, the Palestinian people and all peoples under foreign and colonial domination to self-determination, national independence, territorial integrity, national unity and sovereignty without outside interference;
It is also worth stating that on Friday the prosecution stated, in these precise words, that “Resistance is synonymous with Hamas and Hezbollah” and that any support for, or justification of, Palestinian resistance is support for a proscribed organisation.
To repeat, there are millions of people in the UK who have stated stronger things than the tweets above. Including me. And, as the defence pointed out repeatedly, just eight tweets had been found after hundreds of hours of police time, and found amidst tens of thousands of other tweets on the Middle East, hundreds of which specifically urge non-violence.
So why are the police doing this to Natalie? Why did six armed police storm her apartment and rouse her young family at 7am a year ago, seizing all her electronics and papers, arresting her in front of her children and not allowing her to have a pee without leaving the bathroom door open so she could be observed?
This is where the story gets very dark indeed.
This is not a local Jersey initiative.
The prosecution is directed from London and Alison Morgan KC, senior Treasury counsel (UK government lawyer) is seated beside the local prosecuting counsel, openly puppeteering him every step of the way.
So why has the UK government chosen Jersey to prosecute a local pacifist mother whose statements provide possibly the weakest case of support for terrorism that has ever been heard in any court in the western world?
The answer is that here in Jersey there is no jury.
Facing this charge on the UK mainland Natalie would have a jury, and there is not a jury in the UK that would not throw this self-evidently vindictive nonsense out in 5 minutes.
Why is it worth the time and expense for Whitehall to send Alison Morgan KC here to direct a weak case against somebody who is obviously not a terrorist?
The plain answer is that this is a pilot for what they can get away with on the mainland when they abolish juries in such trials, as “Justice Secretary” David Lammy has announced that they will indeed do.
In Jersey the system is inherited from the Normans. The judge sits with two “jurats” or lay magistrates. They determine innocence or guilt. These come from a pool of 12 permanent jurats. In practice these are retired professionals and frequently have strong connections to the financial services industry.
What the jurats emphatically are not is Natalie Strecker’s working class peers of a kind who would be represented on a jury. I strongly recommend this brief article on the corruption of Jersey society by a man who was for 11 years the Government of Jersey’s economic adviser.
The judge, Sir John Saunders, seems a decent old stick in a headmasterly sort of way. He has told the court that “Mrs Strecker’s good character is not in doubt”. On Friday he stated that this was “A very difficult and in many ways a very sad case for the court to deal with. But I have to construe it according to strict legal principles”.
In the Palestine Action proscription case, as I reported, counsel for the UK government openly stated “We do not deny that the law is draconian. It is supposed to be”. In the mass arrests of decent people over Palestine Action, people have understood what a dreadfully authoritarian law the proscription regime is.
An intelligent observer cannot sit in Judge Saunders’ courtroom without realising that he thinks this is a dreadful law, but accepts that it is his job to enforce it. He reminds me of the caricature of the lugubrious headmaster stating “This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you”.
In effect, Alison Morgan and the UK government are attempting through this prosecution to make even the most basic expression of support for Palestine a serious criminal offence. Remember that a terrorism conviction destroys your life – it almost certainly brings loss of employment, debanking and severe travel restrictions.
The International Court of Justice has decided that Israel has a real case to answer on Genocide, and most experts believe that Israel is committing Genocide. In Natalie’s correct image, the UK government is trying to make it a terrorist offence to say anything other than that the Palestinians should quietly submit to Genocide on their knees.
The danger is that the hubris of lay magistrates will lead the jurats to try cleverly to construe Natalie’s comments as support for terrorism in line with the government’s wishes. Natalie has, however, one defence in Jersey not available in mainland UK – here in Jersey the prosecution has to show intent: that she intended to cause support for terrorist organisations.
The prosecution has also relied on the extremely wide definition of support adopted in UK terrorist cases, that “support of” merely means “expression of agreement with”.
In defending the tweet about Hamas-run health ministry figures, Natalie Strecker’s counsel Luke Sette countered this rather well when he said: “there is no offence of causing people to think less badly of Hamas”
I confess however I am slightly puzzled that I have not heard the defence argue that the prosecution positions are grossly disproportionate violations of freedom of expression in terms of Article X of the European Convention of Human Rights.
I would have thought, for example, that was the natural thing to say in response to the prosecution’s contention that it would be a crime for a law lecturer to tell his class that the Palestinian people had the right of armed resistance in international law.
The verdict was decided yesterday afternoon between the judge and jurats. It will be presented in full written judgment in an hour’s time.
This is a truly horrifying case for Natalie, who cannot afford to lose her job with a Jersey government agency and most certainly does not wish to be jailed away from her children. I pinch myself to be sure that this is all really happening.
It is a truly horrifying case in terms of what the Starmer government intends to do on the mainland in further criminalising support for Palestine.
I do not support Hamas nor Hezbollah, being opposed to theocracy. But for it to be illegal to discuss the Genocide in Gaza and the role of these two organisations, unless you do it absolutely without either context or nuance, is Orwellian.
Western dissent is also a victim of the Zionist Genocide.
Could the French government be linked to political terror?
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 29, 2025
Behind the scenes of European politics, France is going through a phase in which its aura as a “democratic model” seems increasingly distant from reality. The country, which has historically prided itself on exporting speeches about freedom, now finds itself surrounded by doubts, allegations, and dark coincidences that fuel speculation about the true workings of its security apparatus. This is not to assert that there is a state machine dedicated to eliminating opponents; it is to recognize that multiple recent episodes — including international allegations of political plots — have created fertile ground for legitimate suspicions.
Foreign analysts and American activists have raised questions about possible clandestine actions carried out by French sectors against figures inconvenient to the Paris government. The topic gained attention not because of a single accusation, but due to the repetition of unexplained deaths and public statements by influential personalities expressing fear of retaliation. The official narrative seems unable to keep pace with the growing volume of obscure events.
The most high-profile episode involves accusations made by American conservative activist Candace Owens, who claimed to have been informed by a supposed source linked to the upper echelons of the French government that President Emmanuel Macron had authorized her elimination. The allegation also includes — equally unverified — the claim that the murder of American activist Charlie Kirk was carried out by a veteran allegedly trained in the 13th Brigade of the French Foreign Legion. Although these statements lack verification, the mere fact that they circulate so widely reveals the degree of international distrust accumulated against Paris.
The controversy grew when Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, described the suspicions raised by Owens as “plausible,” noting that Kirk had been a fierce critic of French measures against digital platforms and advocates of freedom of expression. Before his death, Kirk had even called for the United States to impose 300% tariffs on French products in retaliation for what he considered political persecution.
These allegations, even if unproven, do not arise in a vacuum. They add to the internal climate of strain: recurring protests, deep social tensions, and a political elite that seems disconnected from the population. In this environment, the succession of deaths of politically sensitive figures — many recorded as suicides — intensifies the perception that something is amiss. Cases such as those of Olivier Marleix, Eric Denécé, and General Dominique Delawarde, all critics of the Macron government, have become symbols of this distrust, especially because their deaths were presented as suicides without detailed investigations being released.
French intelligence services have always operated with relative autonomy, a legacy of decades of external operations, colonial conflicts, and confrontations with radical groups. This tradition, combined with contemporary military alliances, contributes to perceptions of opacity. This does not necessarily imply illegality — but the absence of transparency expands the space for speculative narratives.
At the same time, the French government’s posture toward foreign critics has fueled negative interpretations. When Paris reacts aggressively to inconvenient speeches, dissident journalists, or digital platform entrepreneurs, it reinforces the image of a state willing to project power beyond its borders. This puts France on a collision course with conservative and sovereigntist sectors in the United States, which describe Paris as a center of authoritarian technocracy masquerading as “defense of democracy.”
It is also important to recall the recent dictatorial measures taken by the French government against members of local civil society who declare support for Russia in its special military operation or mobilize to participate in humanitarian actions in the Donbass region. Recent arbitrary arrests, such as those of two members of the French humanitarian organization “SOS Donbass,” once again make clear the violent and authoritarian nature of the Macron government.
In the end, the central question is not to prove the existence of clandestine operations — something that would require independent investigations and broad transparency, which are currently absent. The crucial point is that France faces a credibility crisis. When a government loses the ability to persuade, any coincidence becomes suspicious, any death becomes scandal, any accusation finds an audience. Moreover, internal dictatorial measures against dissidents further reinforce distrust regarding the government’s actions.
If Paris intends to regain its legitimacy, it will need to go beyond mere denial of accusations: it must rebuild trust, explain what remains obscure, and abandon the posture of moral superiority that no longer convinces, inside or outside Europe. None of this will be possible as long as Paris remains under the control of representatives of the European liberal elites.
How the Covid Inquiry Protected the Establishment
By Trish Dennis | Brownstone Institute | November 28, 2025
After four years, hundreds of witnesses, and nearly £200 million in costs, the UK Covid Inquiry has reached the one conclusion many expected: a carefully footnoted act of self-exoneration. It assiduously avoids asking the only question that truly matters: were lockdowns ever justified, did they even work, and at what overall cost to society?
The Inquiry outlines failure in the abstract but never in the human. It catalogues errors, weak decision-making structures, muddled communications, and damaged trust, but only permits examination of those failings that do not disturb the central orthodoxy.
It repeats the familiar refrain of “Too little, too late,” yet anyone paying attention knows the opposite was true. It was too much, too soon, and with no concern for the collateral damage. The government liked to speak of an “abundance of caution,” but no such caution was exercised to prevent catastrophic societal harm. There was no attempt to undertake even a basic assessment of proportionality or foreseeable impact.
Even those who approached the Inquiry with modest expectations have been startled by how far it fell below them. As former Leader of the UK House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg recently observed, “I never had very high hopes for the Covid Inquiry… but I didn’t think it would be this bad.” Nearly £192 million has already been spent, largely enriching lawyers and consultants, to produce 17 recommendations that amount, in his words, to “statements of the obvious or utter banality.”
Two of those recommendations relate to Northern Ireland: one proposing the appointment of a Chief Medical Officer, the other an amendment to the ministerial code to “ensure confidentiality.” Neither insight required hundreds of witnesses or years of hearings. Another recommendation, that devolved administrations should have a seat at COBRA, reveals, he argues, “a naiveté of the judiciary that doesn’t understand how this country is governed.”
Rees-Mogg’s wider criticism goes to the heart of the Inquiry’s failures, as it confuses activity with accountability. Its hundreds of pages record bureaucratic process while ignoring substance. The same modeling errors that drove early panic are recycled without reflection; the Swedish experience is dismissed, and the Great Barrington Declaration receives a single passing mention, as if it were an eccentric sideshow. The report’s underlying message never wavers: lockdowns were right, dissent was wrong, and next time the government should act faster and with fewer restraints.
He also highlights its constitutional incoherence. It laments the lack of “democratic oversight,” yet condemns political hesitation as weakness. It complains that ministers acted too slowly, while elsewhere chastising them for bowing to public pressure. The result, he says, is “schizophrenic in its approach to accountability.” Behind the legal polish lies an authoritarian instinct, the belief that bureaucrats and scientists know best, and that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted with their own judgment.
The conclusions could have been drafted before the first witness entered the room:
- Lockdowns were necessary.
- Modelling was solid.
- Critics misunderstood.
- The establishment acted wisely.
It is the kind of verdict that only the British establishment could deliver about the British establishment.
The Inquiry treats the question of whether lockdowns worked as if the very question were indecent. It leans heavily on modeling to claim that thousands of deaths could have been avoided with earlier restrictions, modeling that is now widely recognised as inflated, brittle, and detached from real-world outcomes. It repeats that easing restrictions happened “despite high risk,” yet fails to note that infection curves were already bending before the first lockdown began.
Here Baroness Hallett makes her headline claim that “23,000 lives could have been saved” if lockdowns had been imposed earlier. That number does not come from a broad evidence base, but from a single modelling paper written by the same scientist who, days later, broke lockdown to visit his mistress because he did not believe his own advice or modeling figures. Treating Neil Ferguson’s paper as gospel truth is not fact-finding. It is narrative protection.
Even Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s most influential adviser in early 2020, has accused the Inquiry of constructing what he calls a “fake history.” In a detailed post on X, he claimed it suppressed key evidence, ignored junior staff who were present at pivotal meetings, and omitted internal discussions about a proposed “chickenpox-party” infection strategy. He argued that the Inquiry avoided witnesses whose evidence would contradict its preferred story, and he dismissed the “23,000 lives” figure as politically spun rather than empirically credible. Whatever one thinks of Cummings, these are serious allegations from the heart of government, and the Inquiry shows little interest in addressing them.
It quietly concedes that surveillance was limited, urgency lacking, and spread poorly understood. These admissions undermine the very certainty with which it endorses lockdowns. Yet instead of re-examining its assumptions, the Inquiry sidesteps them. To avoid reconsidering lockdowns is to avoid the very heart of the matter, and that is exactly what it does.
During 2020 and 2021, fear was deployed and amplified to secure compliance. Masks were maintained “as a reminder.” Official documents advised that face coverings could serve not only as source control but as a “visible signal” and “reminder of COVID-19 risks,” a behavioural cue of constant danger.
The harms of lockdown are too numerous for a single list, but they include:
- an explosion in mental health and anxiety disorders, especially in children and young adults
- a surge in cancers, heart disease, and deaths of despair
- developmental regressions in children
- the collapse of small businesses and family livelihoods
- profound social atomisation and damage to relationships
- the erosion of trust in public institutions
The Inquiry brushes over these truths. Its recommendations focus on “impact assessments for vulnerable groups” and “clearer communication of rules,” bureaucratic language utterly inadequate to address the scale of the damage.
It also avoids the economic reckoning. Pandemic policy added 20 percent of GDP to the national debt in just two years, a cost already passed to children not yet old enough to read. That debt will impoverish their lives and shorten life expectancy, since wealth and longevity are closely linked.
Whenever Sweden is mentioned, a predictable chorus appears to explain away its success: better healthcare, smaller households, lower population density. Yet it is also true that Sweden resisted panic, trusted its citizens, kept schools open, and achieved outcomes better than or comparable to ours. The Inquiry refers vaguely to “international differences” but avoids the one comparison that most threatens its narrative. If Sweden shows that a lighter-touch approach could work, the entire moral architecture of Britain’s pandemic response collapses, and that is a question the Inquiry dares not ask.
The establishment will never conclude that the establishment failed, so the Inquiry performs a delicate dance:
- Coordination was poor, but no one is responsible.
- Communications were confusing, but the policies were sound.
- Governance was weak, but the decisions were right.
- Inequalities worsened, but that tells us nothing about strategy.
It acknowledges everything except the possibility that the strategy itself was wrong. Its logic is circular: lockdowns worked because the Inquiry says they worked; modeling was reliable because those who relied on it insist it was; fear was justified because it was used; Sweden must be dismissed because it challenges the story.
At times, reading the report feels like wandering into the Humpty Dumpty chapter of Through the Looking-Glass, where words mean whatever authority decides they mean. Evidence becomes “established” because the establishment declares it so.
A serious, intellectually honest Inquiry would have asked:
- Did lockdowns save more lives than they harmed?
- Why was worst-case modeling treated as fact?
- Why were dissenting voices sidelined?
- How did fear become a tool of governance?
- Why did children bear so much of the cost?
- Why was Sweden’s success dismissed?
- How will future generations bear the debt?
- How can trust in institutions be rebuilt?
Instead, the Inquiry offers administrative tweaks, clearer rules, broader committees, and better coordination that studiously avoid the moral and scientific questions. An Inquiry that evades its central task is not an inquiry at all, but an act of institutional self-preservation.
Perhaps we should not be surprised. Institutions rarely indict themselves. But the cost of this evasion will be paid for decades, not by those who designed the strategy, but by those who must live with its consequences: higher debt, diminished trust, educational loss, social fracture, and a political culture that has learned all the wrong lessons.
The Covid Inquiry calls itself a search for truth, but the British establishment will never allow something as inconvenient as truth to interfere with its instinct for self-preservation.
Trish Dennis is a lawyer, writer, and mother of five based in Northern Ireland. Her work explores how lockdowns, institutional failures, and social divides during Covid reshaped her worldview, faith, and understanding of freedom. On her Substack, Trish writes to record the real costs of pandemic policies, honour the courage of those who spoke out, and search for meaning in a changed world. You can find her at trishdennis.substack.com.
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From the Archives
How the occupied mentality syndrome works
Saudi Arabia on the American chessboard – Part 3
By B. J. Sabri | American Herald Tribune | June 27, 2016
Read part 2: “The occupied mentality Syndrome“
Previously I argued whether Saudi Arabia’s repeated involvements in U.S. interventions and wars stem from free national will or in response to a specific condition. For starters, in Saudi Arabia there is no national will. In Saudi Arabia, the national will is the will of the Al Saud clan. Still, when a major Arab state allies itself with a superpower that committed unspeakable crimes against humanity in almost every Arab country, then something is wrong. This fact alone should compel us to examine the U.S.-Saudi relation for one exceptional reason. As a result of the U.S.-Saudi wars, hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia have lost their lives. Millions became displaced in their own homelands. And millions more rendered refugees.
Attributing the Saudi policies to the bonds of “partnership” with the U.S. is frivolous. There are no bonds between these two thugs except those of business, military deals, secret plots, and wars. Proving this point, bonds such as these have no space for the American and Saudi peoples to share significant cultural or societal exchanges. If partnership is not the reason for the Saudi contribution to the U.S. strategy of empire and imperialism, then another reason must exist.
This leads to three possibilities. … continue
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