The US has violated its own constitutional freedoms by forcing its NATO ally France to arrest Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, American investor David Sacks has suggested.
Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, Sacks slammed the detention of Durov at a Paris airport, reportedly on charges related to his alleged complicity in fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, and promoting terrorism.
In an apparent nod to the rumored US role in the arrest, Sacks wrote: “Using allied countries to circumvent First Amendment protections is the new Rendition.” The US Constitution expressly protects freedom of speech and makes no distinction between citizens and people from other countries.
In April, Sacks denounced a US law that would ban the video-sharing platform TikTok if its China-based developer ByteDance refused to sell it within 12 months. At the time, the investor suggested that after the crackdown on TikTok, Telegram, X and the video platform Rumble could end up in Washington’s crosshairs.
Meanwhile, the French move to arrest Durov was also criticized by Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk, who launched the hashtag #FreePavel, suggesting that the pressure on freedom of speech could worsen. “POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme,” he quipped. He also agreed with a user who wondered if X could be the next to come under fire.
In an interview with conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson which was released several months ago, Durov recalled that he had been getting “too much attention” from US law enforcement agencies while he was in the country. He said that while he was not under any legal scrutiny, he had to regularly deal with US authorities eager to get more insight into how Telegram worked.
The tech entrepreneur also claimed that law enforcement had attempted to recruit one of his employees to install a backdoor in the messenger that would allow them, or any other government, to spy on Telegram users.
Pavel Durov’s arrest is part of a broader crackdown on truth-seekers and freedom of speech in the West. According to Hong Kong-based political analyst Angelo Giuliano, Western elites are attempting to exert total control over the media narrative, as he explained to Sputnik.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested shortly after landing at Bourget airport near Paris late on Saturday and taken into custody by the French authorities.
“There is actually an oppression of journalists and freedom of speech in the West and especially in the EU,” Angelo Giuliano, a Hong Kong-based political and financial analyst, told Sputnik, commenting on Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest in France.
Giuliano also pointed to the FBI’s raid on the home of Scott Ritter, a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer, and mentioned that late Chilean-American journalist Gonzalo Lira died while in Ukrainian custody.
The analyst also drew attention to the arrest of independent journalist Richard Medhurst by British police on August 15 at London’s Heathrow Airport. The journalist known for his critical coverage of the US, British and Israeli role in the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza, was arrested under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act (2000).
When it comes to Durov, the Telegram founder is accused of allegedly enabling criminal activities through insufficient moderation of the platform, the French press claims, adding that he faces up to 20 years behind bars.
In his April interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, Durov suggested that he is a target for Western intelligence services. He said that US cybersecurity officials previously attempted to create a backdoor in his app. Durov stressed that such a backdoor would enable tighter government control over social media platforms.
“I wouldn’t be surprised that they would try to get their hands on Telegram, to strike a deal with Telegram saying, well, we release you, you give us a price and maybe we can buy you,” Giuliano said, presuming that the arrest serves as a sort of “bargaining chip.”
Freedom of speech has become very “inconvenient” for the West, according to the pundit: “What they say clearly at the EU is that they need to control the narrative, because that’s everything. The narrative you control controls the mind of the people.”
Giuliano noted that just three years ago, Durov became a French citizen, indicating that the Telegram founder was in good standing with the French government. In 2023, French media reported that Paris had chosen “an exceptional and highly political procedure” to grant Durov citizenship.
This abrupt shift in the French authorities’ stance has raised questions, Giuliano pointed out.
The pundit suggests that Durov’s arrest rings alarm bells for people like Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk: “Keep in mind that Elon Musk hasn’t actually complied with EU regulation, and in reality he would be de facto also another target.”
The arrest of the Telegram CEO is “really a red flag overall for journalists and for whoever is actually spilling the truth, inconvenient truth,” Giuliano concluded.
Russia must demand the immediate release of Telegram founder Pavel Durov who has been reportedly detained in France, Deputy Speaker of the Russian State Duma Vladislav Davankov has said.
According to French media, the 39-year-old dual Russian-French national was detained on Saturday at the Paris-Le Bourget airport. The French authorities reportedly believe that the lax moderation rules and encryption technology had allowed the widespread use of the Telegram messager by criminals.
Writing on Telegram in the early hours of Sunday, Davankov defended Durov’s record. “Hardly anyone else has done more for the development of digital services in Russia and the world,” he argued.
“We need to get him out of there. I have urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to appeal to the French authorities to release Pavel Durov from custody,” the politician wrote on Telegram. “His arrest could be politically motivated and used to gain access to personal information of Telegram users. We cannot allow this.”
In case Paris refuses to release Durov, “everything must be done to transport him to the UAE or Russia – if he agrees, of course,” the politician said.
He dismissed the allegations against Durov, saying that illicit activity can be found on all messaging platforms. “But nobody arrests or jails their owners. And it shouldn’t happen this time.”
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday that the Russian Embassy in Paris was working on a response to the situation with Durov.
Durov was born in St. Petersburg. In 2006, he founded the social media platform VK, often described as ‘Russia’s Facebook.’ In 2013, he launched Telegram, which currently has more than 950 million monthly active users.
Durov left Russia in the mid 2010s and has mostly lived in the UAE. He became a French national in 2021.
Once again, Labor characterised its foes as ‘conspiracy theorists’, ‘cranks,’ ‘kooks’ and ‘far right extremists’ rather than engaging in rational debate
The Australian Government has voted down a bill to establish a Covid Commission of Inquiry, which would have essentially the same powers and independence as a Royal Commission.
The billwas supported by a small coalition of senators from minor parties and the Opposition (conservative), but was rejected by the Labor Party(left-wing) in a vote today.
To date, Australia has had plenty of Covid inquiries, but none with teeth.
The siloing of inquiries to deal only with states and territory and federal governments on an individual basis has allowed for a lot of finger pointing with very limited accountability.
The scope of the federal Covid Inquiry excludes the policies of state and territory governments, which enacted vaccine mandates, lockdowns and inter-state border restrictions, leading politicians and media to call it “toothless.”
In turn, states and territories have focused on how well they implemented policies heavily influenced by the Federal Government and national advisory bodies without actually considering whether the policies were any good.
The patchwork nature of these inquiries allows the Federal Government to blame states and territories for implementing the harshest measures, and the states and territory governments pass the buck to the federal agencies and departments for influencing them to do so.
Another problem with inquiries to date is that federal, state and territory governments have played hide the ball with important documentation and data required to properly assess their performance. As yet, no Australian government has released the health advice that draconian measures were based upon.
A Royal Commission or similar, taking the entire Covid response – at federal, state and territory levels – and with aggressive powers to command access to information that governments don’t want to release, would be required for real accountability.
The only ways to bring this about are for the executive to call a Royal Commission, or for the Senate to call a Commission of Inquiry.
However, despite the recommendation of the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 in 2022 that a Royal Commission into Australia’s Covid response be established, the Labor Government has resisted calls to do so.
The Committee, led by senior Labor Party member Katy Gallagher (now Minister for Finance, for Women and for the Public Service) criticised the then Liberal Government’s lack of transparency and accountability around pandemic decision making by the National Cabinet.
Emergency law making had “challenged the Australian Parliament’s capacity to provide meaningful scrutiny of proposed laws, particularly in identifying and addressing the impact of emergency powers on the rights of individuals,” the Committee stated in its recommendations.
Leader of the Opposition at the time, Anthony Albanese, sort of promised a Covid Royal Commission. But after being elected to government in May 2022, Prime Minister Albanese has resolutely dodged the issue, throwing his support behind the limited federal inquiry instead.
The bill, prepared by Senator Matt Canavan (Liberal), was co-sponsored by Senators Malcolm Roberts (One Nation), Alex Antic (Liberal), Gerard Rennick (Liberal), Ralph Babet (United Australia Party) and Matt O’Sullivan (Liberal), all of whom have been vocal critics of Australia’s pandemic response.
During speaking time, senators who sponsored the bill argued that a Covid Commission of Inquiry is needed so that Australia can finally move on from Covid with a good plan in place for future pandemics. A proper inquiry would get to the bottom of what went wrong (and what went right) to restore trust in public health, they said.
Senator Roberts also said that in light of the fact that multiple U.S. states are now suing Pfizer for misleading about its Covid vaccine, if an inquiry found that Pfizer was indeed guilty of fraudulent behaviour, this could shift the financial burden of injuries and deaths associated with Pfizer’s product from Australian tax payers to the pharmaceutical giant.
Australian tax payers have coughed up more than $20 million on compensation for Covid vaccine injuries, but they will have to pay a lot more if a Covid vaccine injury class action is successful. The action, which was filed in the Federal Court last year, has enrolled over 1,500 injured Australians (or families of the deceased).
However, only ten senators supported the bill when it went to a vote in Parliament today. The bill was supported by the above mentioned senators (with the exception of Senator Antic, who is on leave), some members of the Coalition, One Nation, and independent Senator David Pocock.
Despite Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John stating that his party supports the establishment of a “frank” and “transparent” inquiry with the powers of a Royal Commission, the Greens abstained from the vote. Labor voted against the bill.
An inquiry into proposed terms of reference for a Covid Royal Commission has already been conducted, which will prove helpful in the event that either a Royal Commission or a Commission of Inquiry into Australia’s Covid response are eventually established.
Nonetheless, such efforts will face stiff opposition from the Albanese Government, if Labor Senator Tim Ayres’ speech in Parliament today is representative of his party’s position.
In speaking time before the vote, Senator Ayres said that the Government did not support the bill because “there’s already a public inquiry,” before launching into an astonishing diatribe of ad hominem attacks on the senators who proposed the bill.
Senator Ayres used the term ‘conspiracy theories’ or ‘conspiracy theorist’ more than twenty times, likened the efforts of senators to bring about a thorough Covid inquiry to movements motivated by “anti-semitism,” and called these same senators “cranks,” and the “nastiest, extreme, kooky elements of politics.”
Senator Rennick called Senator Ayres’ speech “disgusting,” stating, “all we’re recommending today and supporting is that we have a thorough inquiry.”
In a statement after the vote, Senator Canavan said that more disheartening than Australia’s damaging pandemic response was “the response to the response.”
“Those Australians hurt during Covid deserve to have the accountability of proper public hearings, the publication of all the health advice and an open, transparent attempt to recognise mistakes as well as put in processes to prevent such things ever happening again.
“Why can’t the Government accept that if it is given immense power to lock people in their homes and force people out of work, that there should be an equal and corresponding obligation for them to be accountable to the people hurt by their decisions?”
Senator Babet took to X to express his dissatisfaction with the outcome, calling the decision of the Senate “weak.”
“Is it too much for Australians to ask for governments and the bureaucrats advising them to be held to account for the advice and actions they took during the pandemic?”
The founder of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, has been detained after he arrived in Paris on a private jet, local broadcaster LCI has reported.
Durov, who obtained a French passport in 2021, was arrested at Paris-Le Bourget Airport at around 8pm local time, the outlet said on Saturday.
His jet arrived in the French capital from Azerbaijan. The 39-year-old had been accompanied by a woman and his bodyguard, it added.
According to LCI, the French authorities issued an arrest warrant for the tech entrepreneur as part of a preliminary investigation. Paris believes that Telegram’s insufficient moderation, its encryption tools and alleged lack of cooperation with police could make Durov complicit of in drug trafficking, pedophilia offenses and fraud, it said.
Broadcaster TF1 claimed that Durov is going to appear before a judge tonight. He could be facing up to 20 years in prison, it added.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced he would back Republican candidate Donald Trump and end his independent run for president, but only in swing US states.
The son of Senator Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy first tried to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination last April. Faced with obstruction within the party, he announced a third-party bid last October.
“Many months ago I promised the American people I would withdraw from the race if I became a spoiler,” Kennedy said on Friday afternoon. “In my heart, I no longer believe I have a realistic path to electoral victory.”
Kennedy said that three major issues led him to leave the Democrats: “free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on our children.” Trump, he explained, has “adopted these issues as his own to the point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration.”
The party two of his grandfathers helped build has become “the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big money,” Kennedy said.
He also accused the US government – led by Democrats on both occasions – of staging a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and rejecting a peace plan in 2019, pushing Kiev into a conflict with Moscow that, according to Kennedy, has cost over 600,000 Ukrainian lives so far.
“Ukraine is a victim of this war, and it’s a victim of the West,” he said.
Kennedy also criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for not having won “a single delegate” during the 2020 race, avoiding interviews, and not having a policy platform but a campaign focused entirely on opposing Trump.
Democrats have filed lawsuits to keep Kennedy off the ballot in many states, forcing his campaign to spend millions on ballot access challenges, according to NBC News.
In practical terms, Kennedy explained, he would be removing his name from the ballot in swing states while continuing to run in solidly “red” or “blue” states so his supporters can still cast a ballot without “harming or helping” anyone. His campaign has reportedly already filed petitions to that effect in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today suspended his campaign for president of the United States as an independent, telling the media he no longer saw a path forward to victory “in the face of relentless censorship.”
Kennedy said that following discussions with former President Donald Trump, he has agreed to join forces with Trump in a unity party, which will allow the two to work together on “existential issues,” including ending the war on Ukraine, censorship and the childhood chronic disease epidemic.
“I believe I have a moral obligation to use this opportunity to save millions of children,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy, founder and chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense — whose campaign defied the odds by gathering more than 1 million signatures in a drive to get on the ballot in all 50 states — said he will remain on the ballot except in a handful of battleground states.
Kennedy delivered a scathing rebuke to the Democratic Party and the DNC, which he said “dragged us into court, state after state after state” in a campaign of “legal warfare” to keep him off the ballot.
He promised that if Trump is elected, in addition to ending chronic disease in children, he will work with Trump to clean up corrupt agencies and the “corrupt food system.”
Kennedy said he reached out to the Harris campaign in an attempt to engage them on issues he believes are critical to the country’s future, but the campaign didn’t respond.
Calling it a difficult choice to join the Trump campaign Kennedy said, “I have the certainty that this is what I’m meant to do. … Ultimately the only thing that will save our country and our children is if we choose to love our kids more than we hate each other.”
Kennedy launched his campaign on April 20, 2023, with a nearly two-hour speech in Boston, during which he vowed to reduce chronic disease in children.
He reminded the audience of the obligation America’s leaders have to protect children — from toxic pesticides, from dangerous pharmaceuticals and from the “corrupt merger of state and corporate power” that robs future generations of their health and of their ability to achieve financial security.
On Oct. 9, 2023, Kennedy said he would no longer challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president, announcing that he instead would run for president as an independent.
He told a crowd in Philadelphia that most Americans are tired of divisive politics and that they agree more than they disagree when it comes to issues like the environment, education and the economy.
“We agree that we want a clean environment and wholesome communities for our kids,” Kennedy said.
He accused both parties of being beholden to corporate donors.
In Germany, the current authorities seem willing to dramatically depart from what have until now been Western democratic traditions, where law enforcement must have a crime to investigate, and a warrant to do so before it engages in searches and surveillance.
However, the government in Berlin plans to allow the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) the legal right to enter homes secretly (including for the purpose of installing spyware on people’s phones and computers.) In addition, BKA would be given the power to, also secretly, search homes.
The draft, seen by the German press, was cooked up at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and was explained by a spokesman as a needed reform of the BKA law in order to prevent “the dangers of international terrorism” and chose to single out “Islamist terrorism” as an example.
The promise here is that the BKA would use the new rights only to fight what they choose to consider terrorist activity, along with “a high bar” in place determining which case qualifies for this kind of treatment.
Judging by the statement of the same spokesman, German law enforcement now clearly doesn’t have “appropriate powers” to tackle the problem, hence the necessity to reform the law.
As for any details that would further clarify the situation, the Interior Ministry would not provide them as the planned reform is “still at a very early stage of internal government coordination.”
Among the early critics of this is the German Journalists’ Association, whose chairman Mika Beuster said that “secret break-ins are reminiscent of the methods of police states, not of liberal democracies.”
Meanwhile, such a shift in the way terrorist threat is investigated has the opposition – notably the rising Alternative for Germany (AfD), suspect that this will be used as yet another tool to go after political opponents.
And now, the draft amendment of the law, also coming from her office, is dismissed by AfD MP Beatrix Von Storch as appearing to use the fight against terrorism as the pretext – “and the reason is more likely to be that she intends to further intimidate and monitor citizens and, last but not least, to persecute any government critics.”
The Verkhovna Rada parliament of Ukraine has adopted in the final reading a bill that allows the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to be banned in the country.
The Kiev regime’s newly-adopted bill banning the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) conforms with the “globalist agenda” pursued by the West, ex-US Army psychological warfare officer Scott Bennett told Sputnik.
“The globalist EU, American agenda has always been to establish an atheistic government in Ukraine, and this is one of their strategies for doing so,” he emphasized.
This strategy involves outlawing religious institutions to prevent individuals from engaging in religious worship and specifically targeting churches, according to the former analyst from the State Department’s counterterrorism division.
“The Ukrainian leadership is using the tactic of a political witch-hunt and attempting to brand religious orthodoxy as somehow a Russian intelligence secret military operation,” he added.
On August 20, the Verkhovna Rada approved the final reading of a bill that bans the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) nationwide. The bill garnered 265 votes in favor, surpassing the 226 votes needed for passage. The law is scheduled to take effect in 30 days.
After such a “devastatingly stupid” move to reject its Orthodox Christian heritage, there is a great probability that Ukraine will “descend into complete moral disintegration, madness and immorality,” according to the psyop veteran. The only way for the country to avoid such a disastrous scenario would be to “build a political-social-military momentum to push out of Ukraine this NATO-led… impregnation of religious death into the society,” he maintained.
The law’s passage confirms the “absolute corruption of the Ukrainian parliament,” he said, recalling that Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May and so he can no longer ratify acts of parliament.
In closing, Ukraine adopting a bill outlawing the Ukrainian orthodox church opens the door for Russia to be the religious salvation-defender… and redefine Russia as country that is rising up to preserve the Ukrainian peoples right to worship God in the orthodox religious manner they have been practicing for hundreds of years,” Scott Bennet concluded.
Czech intelligence services must investigate the country’s Orthodox churches for signs of Russian influence, the head of the EU state’s Senate Security Committee, Pavel Fischer, has reportedly demanded.
The politician claimed the republic’s current legislation does not allow the state to respond to security threats caused by abuse of churches, implying that institutions such as the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in the Czech Republic and the Czech Orthodox Church could be influenced by Moscow to act against the interests of the republic. He insisted that new laws are required to provide authorities with the necessary powers.
“Freedom of religion and association must not be abused for illegitimate influence by a hostile foreign state,” Fischer was quoted as saying by the Ceske Noviny news outlet.
He also called on the Ministry of Culture to review whether the two churches are operating in accordance with the law and the conditions of their registration, arguing that their operations should be shut down if they are found to be in violation.
As noted by Ceske Noviny, the ministry had already conducted a review of the churches after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 and found no grounds to withdraw their registration.
Nevertheless, Fischer has insisted that the Czech branch of the ROC has direct ties with the Russian government. He also suggested that the Czech Orthodox Church, despite being independent, has come under growing influence of figures supposedly connected to the Russian security services since 2014.
The politician has also called on the Czech Interior Ministry to ensure that the police are focused on uncovering and investigating possible criminal activity by members of the two churches.
Ukrainian MPs passed a law on Tuesday that outright bans the operation of the ROC and all affiliated religious institutions in the country. It also provides grounds for the closure of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the largest Orthodox church in the country, unless it proves that it has cut ties with Moscow.
The UOC, which had already declared full autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate in 2022, now has nine months to comply with the new legislation.
Russia has condemned the new Ukrainian law, describing it as a “powerful blow against the whole of Orthodoxy.”
Independent Journalist Richard Medhurst was arrested in the UK on Thursday under the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000, according to a video he posted Monday on X recounting the experience.
“On Thursday, as I landed in London’s Heathrow airport, I was immediately escorted off the plane by six police officers who were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft. They arrested me – not detained – they arrested me under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 and accused me of allegedly ‘expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization’ but wouldn’t explain what this meant,” Medhurst says in the video.
Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 has a clause that was added in 2019 that made it illegal to “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization” if “in doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organization.”
Medhurst’s reporting has focused heavily on the Israeli-Gaza war and has spoken out against funding Ukraine. He also posted about the very act that he was arrested for.
“The fascist ‘terrorism act’ being used to hold activists without charge or trial because they tried to stop actual terrorism and genocide by the IDF,” Medhurst posted the same day he was arrested. Medhurst was referring to Palestinian activists who have been detained recently under the Terrorism Act.
Medhurst says he was then handcuffed and transferred to a police station where he was searched and his electronic devices seized.
“I was placed in solitary confinement, in a cold cell that smelled like urine. There was barely any light and the bed, if you can even call it a bed, was simply a small concrete ledge with a paper-thin mattress. The cell had no windows, no heating, no toilet paper. I was recorded 24/7 with audio and video, even when going to the toilet. I had to eat food with a piece of cardboard you’re supposed to fold in two in order to scoop up the meal,” Medhurst said, describing the conditions he was held in.
He was then held for nearly 24 hours without being allowed to contact his family and his attempts to speak to a solicitor (UK legal advisor) were hindered and possibly monitored.
“The police said that I have the right to inform someone that I’m locked up. So I said okay, I want to call my family, then they go ‘Well, your calls are withheld due to the nature of the alleged offense’ I tried to ask well, what’s the point of a right if you can just randomly withdraw it? Why tell me that I have this right at all? And one of them said something along the lines of ‘Well, it’s not an absolute right, it can be waived,’” Medhurst described.
“For many hours, no one in the world knew what had happened to me or where I was. Only the police could call a solicitor for me. I had to ask four or five different guards for several hours before I finally received a call. Some of my solicitor’s calls did not get through or were not answered. One of the calls -my solicitor was told- would be monitored, and so they simply refused to take it. I asked to speak to the solicitor afterwards when that happened but I was not allowed to.”
“In total, I spent almost 24 hours in detention. At no point whatsoever was I allowed to speak to a family member or friend. After waiting 15 hours, I was finally interviewed by two detectives,” Medhurst says the interview lasted 60 to 90 minutes.
Medhurst emphasized that he denies all accusations by the police, noting that his parents held Nobel Peace Prizes for their work as UN peacekeepers and he “categorically and unequivocally” condemns terrorism.
“Those like myself, who are speaking up and reporting on the situation in Palestine are being targeted. I had booked my ticket to London on the same day and yet an entire team of police were mobilized to arrest and question me. This is why I felt this was a preplanned, coordinated arrest. Many people have been detained in Great Britain because of their journalism, sometimes under the Terrorism Act, sometimes not. I think of Julian Assange, Craig Murray, Kit Klarenberg, David Miranda, Vanessa Beeley. As far as I am aware, I am the only journalist, however, to have been arrested and held for up to 24 hours under section 12 of the Terrorism Act.”
Medhurst said that he now feels he has a “muzzle” put on him, and does not know if he will be charged with the crime he was arrested for or if he will be put in jail in a few months, something that makes his work more difficult. “I simply do not know if or how I can work at all during the next month.
Former UN weapons inspector and geopolitical analyst Scott Ritter, whose house was raided by the United States FBI earlier this month for alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registry Act, called the arrest “political persecution” designed to “hamper [Medhurst’s] important work as a journalist.”
“Freedom of the press, freedom of speech really are under attack. The state is cracking down and escalating to try and stop people from speaking out against our government’s complicity in genocide, please do not just stand with me, but with the others who are still inside,” Medhurst concluded.
UK authorities have not commented on Medhurst’s arrest. His website currently displays an error page but it is not clear if Medhurst removed it voluntarily, at the direction of UK authorities, or if the site was taken down by service providers. Sputnik has reached out to Medhurst for clarification and will update this space if he replies.
In yet another instance of censorship targeting alternative media outlets, Instagram has blocked the page of The Cradle, a journalist-driven news website covering West Asia.
Owned by Meta Platforms Inc., formerly Facebook Inc., Instagram claimed the page was “disabled” for not “following our community guidelines,” without specifying which guidelines were violated.
The Cradle’s social media team was informed that they “cannot request another review of the decision,” effectively making the suspension indefinite.
“No one can see or find your account and you can’t use it. All your information will be permanently deleted,” the message added.
A senior member of The Cradle team took to social media to condemn the censorship.
“This, my friends, is what happens when you amplify the voice of the resistance,” wrote the journalist, referring to the “permanent Meta ban.”
“We are proud of our work and its overwhelming reach, and none of it was in vain. Returning to Meta seems impossible at the moment, but please stay with us on X, Telegram, and YouTube.”
The Cradle has extensively covered Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, highlighting both the regime’s war crimes and the complicity of Western states.
Its social media presence and following have also grown over the past year amid the war on Gaza.
According to rights groups, social media giants, particularly Meta-owned platforms, have engaged in systemic, global censorship of pro-Palestinian content since the genocidal war began last year.
At least three of Meta’s most senior leaders are believed to have close ties to Israel, including Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Guy Rosen, who also served in the Israeli military’s Unit 8200.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO, and Sheryl Sandberg, a Meta board member, have also been involved in pushing Israeli propaganda, including the discredited “Hamas October 7 mass rape” hoax, Paul Biggar, a New York-based software engineer and founder of Tech for Palestine, told the Press TV website in a May interview.
In October last year, days after the genocidal war on Gaza was launched, Meta removed the largest Palestinian news page, Quds News Network, on Facebook.
In February, Meta removed the English-language accounts belonging to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Instagram.
It came on the day when the Leader said the genocide in Gaza was a tragedy for the entire humanity.
Press TV has also faced multiple bans on various social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and X, for its pro-resistance coverage, both before and after Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.
US universities have imposed “police state” rules to avoid a repeat of campus protests against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, with students and faculties warning of the chilling effect they would have on free speech.
Reports indicate that as summer break ends, university administrations across the United States are imposing tougher measures to avoid a new wave of campus protests, which led to nationwide police crackdowns on campuses last semester.
Large protest encampments set up last semester eventually ended after a nationwide police crackdown on campuses in different US universities led to more than 3,100 arrests.
Scores of students faced criminal charges and disciplinary measures, and several schools scaled back graduation ceremonies for protesting against the Israeli war which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians so far.
Columbia University students, who were at the vanguard of the movement, may encounter the most changes.
The university president, Minouche Shafik, resigned this week in the wake of criticism for her handling of the protests, but not before overseeing the installation of fencing around the lawns of the school’s quad – the heart of campus life and the site of large protest encampments.
According to the Wall Street Journal, university administrators are also considering bringing in “peace officers” with the authority to arrest students – something Columbia’s current 290 security personnel cannot do.
In an email sent to students last month, the administration also announced a “color-coded campus status” system, with varying levels of access restrictions “based upon the potential disruption to our academic mission and/or campus operations.”
To further confront protesting students, some universities have banned the use of “event tents, tables, walls, outdoor displays, inflatables, freestanding signs, huts, sculptures, booths, facilities, flashing or rotating lights, illuminated signs, or similar objects and structures.”
Students say despite new draconian rules the pro-Palestine rallies will continue as long as Israeli atrocities go on in occupied Palestinian lands.
“The war is still there … nothing has changed in Palestine,” said Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a sociology PhD student who participated in the Columbia University students’ campus protests.
He said universities’ efforts to quash the protests when students return from summer vacation will fail.
“It’s going to be more of a police state than it was, but I don’t think that means no one’s going to do anything,” the graduate student pointed out.
Human rights advocates and student activists as well as university faculty members have sounded the alarm about the new policies, warning that the restrictions in addition to endangering free speech, run counter to educational institutions’ mission to foster debate, risk deepening tensions on campuses, and – in the case of public universities – may run foul of schools’ constitutional obligations.
Last week, the American Association of University Professors issued a statement condemning the harsh anti-protesting rules at universities.
The tougher new rules “impose severe limits on speech and assembly that discourage or shut down freedom of expression”, wrote the group, which represents more than 44,000 faculty members nationwide.
“Those who care about higher education and democracy should be alarmed.”
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
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The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
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