Independent Iranian journalist Hazamy detained in France amid crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices
Press TV – April 23, 2025
French security forces have arrested freelance reporter Shahin Hazamy as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices.
Media reports on Wednesday revealed that the dual Iranian-French national was detained in Paris for expressing support for Palestine.
French magazine Le Point confirmed through Hazamy’s lawyer that the arrest was based on accusations of “apologie du terrorisme,” a criminal charge under French law that pertains to supporting “terrorist acts.”
Hazamy was arrested on Tuesday at approximately 6:14 a.m. at his home in Paris and remains in temporary detention while the French judiciary investigates the case.
Reports said that Hazamy was violently arrested in front of his wife and two young children, aged 1 and 3.
Social media posts by Hazamy show his support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups, as well as photos taken during recent visits to Lebanon.
Hazamy had also expressed solidarity with Mahdieh Esfandiari, a detained Iranian academic living in Lyon, who has been held since early March under similar charges. Hazamy had actively campaigned for Esfandiari’s release from prison.
According to Le Point, Esfandiari’s posts on social media show that the pro-Palestinian advocate was a supporter of the Hamas resistance movement.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has criticized the arrests, demanding explanations and consular access.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said earlier in April that such detentions raise serious concerns about the rights of Iranian nationals in France.
The arrests come amid a crackdown in the US and other Western countries targeting scholars, students, and activists who oppose the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Pro-Palestinian human rights advocates say the arrests and deportation of activists are attacks aimed at terrorizing and silencing those who have courageously amplified Palestinian resistance and the call for freedom.
They say the repression of freedom of speech in the West will allow Israel to continue the genocide in Gaza.
At least 51,300 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and over 117,090 individuals injured in the Israeli genocide since October 7, 2023.
Syrian security forces detain Palestinian resistance leaders
The Cradle | April 22, 2025
Two top officials from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement in Syria have been detained by Syrian security forces.
Khaled Khaled, head of PIJ operations in Syria, and Yasser al-Zafari, head of the organizational committee, were arrested five days ago.
The Syria TV outlet acknowledged the arrests, yet Damascus has not commented officially on the matter.
The arrests come after reports that the US has issued a list of conditions that Syrian authorities must fulfill in exchange for relief from sanctions that were imposed by Washington on former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government.
These conditions include the destruction of any chemical weapons, cooperation on “counter-terrorism,” and ensuring foreign fighters are not granted top positions, according to Reuters.
Reuters also said that “one of the conditions was keeping Iran-backed Palestinian groups at a distance.”
The arrests coincide with Israel’s continued expansion of its occupation of southern Syria, and come after a visit to Damascus by US Congressman Cory Mills, who held talks with Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani.
“The president and the leadership have demonstrated their willingness to work with Israel as they seek to prevent Hashd al-Shaabi from transferring weapons from Iraq through Syria into Lebanon,” Mills said in an interview with the Jusoor outlet.
The PIJ’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades, released a statement about the arrests on 22 April.
Khaled and Zafari were detained “without any explanation for the reasons of their arrest, and in a manner which we would not have hoped to see from our brothers [in Syria],” the Quds Brigades statement reads.
“Day five has passed and you have two of our best cadres,” it said. “We in the Quds Brigades hope that our brothers in the Syrian government will release our brothers held by them.”
“At this time when we have been fighting the Zionist enemy continuously for more than a year and a half in the Gaza Strip without surrender, we hope to receive support and appreciation from our Arab brothers, not the opposite,” it added.
Under Bashar al-Assad’s government, Syria was a haven for Palestinian resistance factions, including the PIJ and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP–GC).
Days after the fall of Assad’s government, Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported that the new government in Syria ordered Palestinian resistance groups to dissolve all military formations in the country.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that toppled the former government, launched a wave of closures targeting Palestinian faction offices after entering Damascus in December 2024, according to The Cradle’s Palestine correspondent.
Offices belonging to Fatah al-Intifada, the Baath-aligned Al-Sa’iqa movement, and the PFLP–GC were shuttered, with their weapons, vehicles, and real estate seized.
Several Palestinian officials were detained and placed under house arrest.
Palestinian-British academic Makram Khoury-Machool detained in London
Al Mayadeen | April 22, 2025
British border authorities detained Palestinian-British academic Professor Makram Khoury-Machool on Friday evening upon his return from Paris to London, subjecting him to a four-hour interrogation under the UK’s 2019 “Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act.”
Devices seized, personal belongings searched
During the investigation, British police confiscated Professor Khoury-Machool’s mobile phone and personal laptop, thoroughly searching all his belongings, including identification and credit cards. No formal charges were presented, raising concerns over the basis and implications of the detention.
Authorities also took his fingerprints, captured multi-angle photographs, and collected DNA samples from inside his mouth.
No official clarification yet
UK border police indicated that they may contact Professor Khoury-Machool again within the next seven days. So far, no official statement has been issued to explain the reasons behind his detention or the content of the interrogation.
The incident occurred in the presence of his 8-year-old son, who witnessed the extended questioning and detention of his father until midnight on Good Friday.
Professor Khoury-Machool, who is of Palestinian origin, is a well-known intellectual and media figure. His recent public activity includes participation in a pro-Gaza demonstration in Paris on April 16, 2025, where he shared a photo of himself at the event via his X account.
Where have Europe’s pacifists gone – the ones who once opposed NATO?
By Sonja van den Ende | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 22, 2025
Where are they now—Europe’s pacifists? Why do they no longer gather in Belgium, in Brussels, NATO’s headquarters, where large demonstrations against the alliance once took place? These protests, led by pacifists, denounced NATO, war, militarization, and nuclear arms.
The Belgian newspaper Le Soir recently posed an intriguing question: Why have the pacifists vanished? “The arms race has begun,” the article argues. “Like its European neighbors, Belgium is preparing to significantly increase military spending this year—without facing any opposition.”
“We keep our word,” declares Francken, Belgium’s former Defense Minister. “Belgium will become a solidary ally with extra defense budgets for personnel, equipment, and infrastructure.” He claims the spending will also boost jobs and innovation. Belgium, after all, is a NATO founding member, alongside the Netherlands.
Some Belgian (former) pacifists have reacted sharply to the government’s plans: “Retirees must accept lower pensions, unemployment benefits are being slashed, the sick languish in poverty, nurses earn less and work longer for diminished pensions, hospitals lose subsidies—all to enrich that corrupt Zelensky gang in Kiev.” The same measures, they note, are being imposed in the Netherlands.
But as the article points out, criticizing NATO now invites ridicule. Or does it go further than mockery? Across Western Europe—Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany—and in the Baltic states and Poland, dissent is met with more than scorn. People are arrested, elections are overturned, and societies drift toward totalitarianism—or worse, a resurgence of militarism and fascism unseen since 1945.
Europeans once insisted America should not meddle in their affairs. But it’s too late for that. EU governments, radicalized by waning U.S. interest in Europe, have already been co-opted. They should have spoken up years ago, when it became clear Europe was being used to wage wars in distant lands its citizens barely knew. Instead, they absorbed refugees (often unwillingly) and fell under what some call American colonization.
Yet America wasn’t entirely wrong. In Munich last February, Vice President J.D. Vance called Europe a “totalitarian society,” singling out Germany. I can confirm his assessment was accurate—but it barely scratched the surface. The reality is far worse and deteriorating daily.
Consider these examples:
- A 16-year-old German girl was expelled from school by police for posting a pro-AfD TikTok video featuring the Smurfs (the right-wing party’s color is blue).
- An AfD politician was fined for stating that migrants commit more gang rapes than German citizens. (The court didn’t dispute her facts but ruled they incited hatred.)
Germany once had a robust pacifist movement. In the 1970s and 80s, activists—many from what is now the Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)—protested NATO and nuclear weapons. Today, those same Greens, led by Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, champion war and arms shipments.
Their party program declares Germany must lead Europe, offering a “global counterweight” to China and Russia. The anti-war, anti-NATO movement has been absorbed into a party now pushing for war—especially against Russia, as Baerbock’s rhetoric makes clear.
Or take a 2023 case where the EU’s High Representative expressed concern over “extrajudicial sentences against Serbs” who protested NATO in Kosovska Mitrovica. Kosovo’s Foreign Minister defended the arrests, claiming police had “clear evidence” the demonstrators participated in an “attack on NATO.”
So where have Europe’s pacifists gone—the ones who marched against war, militarization, and nuclear arms for decades? The Friedrich Naumann Foundation (banned in Russia) claims to have the answer. In an article, they declare: “The end of pacifism (as heard in a Bundestag debate) was historic. Hopefully, it marks the end of a moral and political error.”
Has pacifism become a “political mistake”? Millions who oppose war have been misled for years by their own politicians—like the Greens, who traded peace for militarism. The world is upside down, yet Europe’s docile masses seem content as their pensions fund weapons.
New Eastern Europe takes it further, arguing “Pacifism kills.” The outlet claims: “The problem isn’t pacifism itself, but its manipulation for purposes contrary to its ideals. While pacifist appeals to Russia (the aggressor) are justified, targeting Ukraine or both sides aids Moscow.”
In short: Pacifism helps Russia. The “hippies” of the 1960s live in a fantasy where peace is impossible, Russia is the villain, and Europe must defeat it. The campaign against pacifism mirrors the EU’s push for militarization.
Europe is silencing pacifists—and dissidents—just as pre-WWII Germany did under fascism. New laws are emerging. In Germany, the proposed CDU/CSU-SPD coalition plans to “fight lies,” per their “Culture and Media“ working group. If you “lie” by government standards—say, by advocating peace with Russia or denying its “aggression”—you risk jail, fines, or online erasure.
“The deliberate spread of false claims isn’t covered by free speech,” they assert.
Le Soir asked: Where are the pacifists? They’re still here—for now. But once Germany’s new government takes power, once the digital ID and CBDC (mandatory across Europe) launch this October, protests—online or in streets—will be surveilled. Small demonstrations in Germany and Amsterdam show resistance lingers. But soon, fear will silence them: fear for jobs, pensions, benefits, even children.
Because CBDC and Digital ID mean governments can monitor “fake news” and freeze dissenters’ funds. Europe is birthing the very totalitarianism it accuses Russia, China, or America of. Militarization, fascism’s revival—all while Europeans dread a war that isn’t theirs, yet one their leaders enable.
Columbia University Faces Backlash for Investigating Catholic Student Over Social Media Posts
By Ben Squires | Reclaim The Net | April 21, 2025
Columbia University is now facing allegations of targeting a student for voicing his religious beliefs online. Daniel DiMartino, a graduate student and outspoken Catholic, has come forward with claims that the university is subjecting him to an official investigation over his faith-based opinions shared on a podcast.
Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity (OIE), a department recently created as part of the university’s response to growing concerns over alleged antisemitic behavior on campus, contacted DiMartino in March with a notice accusing him of “conduct that could constitute discriminatory harassment.” The message offered no specifics.
After pressing for clarification and receiving none, DiMartino was summoned to a meeting with three officials from the OIE, who identified themselves as investigators. During the meeting, he was informed that multiple complaints had been filed against him. The officials claimed their purpose was not disciplinary, but to ensure the matter did not “escalate into a disciplinary outcome.” According to DiMartino, they described the investigation as being “for [his] own benefit.”
What followed was a presentation of screenshots from DiMartino’s social media accounts, featuring statements reflecting his Catholic convictions. Among the posts was one declaring, “God does not teach us that we can change our gender,” along with others defending politicians who support bans on gender-transition procedures for minors and questioning gender ideology in a conversation with a Catholic friar.
The university’s investigators also took issue with DiMartino’s appearance on a January episode of the Timcast podcast, where he suggested that immigrants with visible gang-related tattoos, including those involved in child trafficking, should undergo heightened scrutiny. Columbia officials reportedly considered this view discriminatory, but DiMartino maintains that it aligns with basic public safety principles.
“At the end of their presentation, I said, ‘I am totally open to at some point having said something I didn’t believe in … but in all the cases that you showed me, I absolutely stand by what I said,’” DiMartino recounted.
DiMartino challenged the premise: “If someone is offended, that’s not going to stop me from sharing what I believe. The overwhelming majority of people in this country agree with what I said … I just don’t believe men can become women and women can become men.”
He says he was further cautioned to reflect on the discussion before posting online again. When he responded, “Can you understand that this sounds threatening?” the conversation ended without a resolution.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit dedicated to defending free speech on college campuses, has since taken up DiMartino’s case. The organization has formally warned Columbia University against retaliating for what it describes as constitutionally protected expression.
“What this really amounts to is censorship through intimidation,” DiMartino said. “No student should be put through an inquisition for practicing their faith.”
Carnegie Endowment cancels Iran FM’s speech under ‘orchestrated pressure’ from Israel lobby: Report
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi
Press TV – April 21, 2025
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) cancels Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s keynote address at its 2025 Nuclear Policy Conference.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Iran Nuances reported that the cancellation on Monday followed an “orchestrated pressure” campaign from “Israeli-affiliated hawkish elements” and officials of former US presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Araghchi was scheduled to deliver a virtual address at the conference, which will bring together politicians, diplomats, and nuclear experts from around the world to discuss critical challenges in nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, disarmament, deterrence, energy, and security.
Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations confirmed in a statement that Araghchi’s speech has been canceled.
According to the mission, the cancellation occurred after the conference organizers decided to change the format of the Iranian foreign minister’s speech to a debate.
Expressing regret over the matter, the mission said that the full text of the now-canceled speech will be made available to the news media.
Facing Prison Time in Germany for Criticizing an Israeli Journalist: The Case of Hüseyin Dogru
By Alan MacLeod – MintPressNews – April 20, 2025
Amid a crackdown on pro-Palestine voices in Germany, a journalist regularly attacked as a Russian operative is facing up to three years in prison for defamation of an Israel-based journalist. Hüseyin Dogru, founder of red. media, has been charged with defamation for actions relating to a spat with Nicholas Potter, a German state-funded reporter working for the Israeli outlet, The Jerusalem Post.
In December, Potter, a self-styled counter-extremism expert, published a lengthy exposé in The Jerusalem Post, claiming that red. media, MintPress News, and The Grayzone were part of a network of far-left outlets promoting extremism and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Worse still, he strongly insinuated that all three were promoted and funded by the governments of Russia, Syria, and Iran.
The charges are false (see MintPress’ rebuttal here), and are particularly ironic, coming as they do from a journalist who is funded by the German Foreign Office. One who, amid a genocide, moved to Israel to work for an outlet headed by a former Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson.
Moreover, Potter himself arguably holds extreme views on the subject. Just weeks after attacking us for our journalism, he penned an article titled “Can Journalists Be Terrorists,” which attempted to justify many of Israel’s killings of Palestinian media workers.
Both red. and MintPress immediately highlighted much of this important context, and our content went viral.
From Viral Criticism to Criminal Charges
A sticker about Potter, based on a red. media graphic, was spotted in Berlin. The sticker took the outlet’s criticism of him, and plastered the phrase, “The German Hurensohn” — “The German Son of a Bitch” — over the top. That sticker is the centerpiece of the prosecution’s allegation of a coordinated “hate campaign” against Potter led by red. media. Potter claims that he has suffered harassment and threats to his life, and some have tried to link this back to red. media’s graphic.
The accusations provoked a storm of articles in German media, all supportive of Potter. Many echoed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s claims that red. media is a Russian government-controlled influence operation.
A red. media post criticizing journalist Nicholas Potter, left, appears as a modified sticker in Germany, right. Photo provided to MintPress
Dogru denies these allegations, although he was previously a key part of Red Fish, a platform financed by Ruptly, a Germany-based outlet partially funded by the Russian state-controlled network, RT. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dogru closed Red Fish and started his own independent outlet. He insists it has no connection to Russia and is dedicated to making revolutionary and educational content. He also denies having any information or involvement in producing anti-Potter stickers.
Germany Criminalized Palestinian Solidarity
Potter’s support for Israeli policies has certainly drawn the ire of many in the pro-Palestine movement in Germany. Yet he is far from alone. The German government has offered its full support to Israel and has gone so far as to ban pro-Palestine demonstrations and lock up countless activists, including Jewish people. The phrase “From the River to the Sea” has effectively been criminalized, with Berlin announcing that it would deny citizenship to anyone using it. New German citizenship laws require all applicants to sign what is, in effect, a loyalty oath to the State of Israel, declaring that it has a “right to exist.”
Berlin is currently deporting foreign residents for their participation in lawful protests supporting Palestinian rights. Dogru’s legal team has advised him that his wife and son could be deported as well.
Commentators have warned that, with these actions, Germany is lurching towards the authoritarian right. With the far-right AfD Party surging in the polls (a recent survey found they are now the most popular party in Germany), many inside the country are ringing the alarm bells.
“For decades, Germany has stuck with Israel and its narratives in the Middle East,” Dogru told MintPress, adding: “Since October 7, we see that the German government is violently repressing activists to make sure there are no voices in Germany critical of Israel. Activists here have paid a high price to make sure that they can protest.”
According to Dogru, this is a test case. Ultimately, the suppression of speech is not about Israel, but an attack on its own society.
Germany is preparing to assert itself as a leading military and political force in NATO and the EU. To do that, it must eliminate resistance — not just abroad, but at home. This isn’t driven by historical guilt or solidarity. It’s about silencing dissent and disciplining society. By targeting the most marginalized, the German state is disciplining its population — silencing opposition before it grows.”
The message from the German government is clear, Dogru claims: “fall in line, or be crushed.”
Trump Administration Targets $1.4B in Federal “Misinformation” Grants
NIH and State Dept. Order Crackdown on Speech-Policing Programs Funded Under Biden
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | April 19, 2025
It started, as so many federal science fair projects do, with a grant and a vague idea. The University of California, Irvine secured a $683,000 pot of taxpayer gold to study how social media “misinformation” affects vaccine acceptance among black and latino communities. Their plan was to track the followers of so-called “vaccine-hesitant influencers” and feed the data into a visualization tool.
That grant is now dead. Not because it failed, but because the broader disinformation-industrial complex is starting to crack under the weight of its own contradictions.
The UC Irvine project was just one tile in a mosaic of more than 800 federally funded efforts, totaling over $1.4 billion since 2017. All of it was earmarked to combat misinformation, disinformation, and whatever the marketing department decided to call lies [and unapproved views] this week. More than 600 of these contracts were approved during the Biden administration, and it turns out people started noticing that the government was quietly inserting itself into the content moderation business.
Enter Donald J. Trump, stage right, with his first-day executive order accusing the federal government of turning buzzwords like “malinformation” into permission slips for clamping down on speech. The Department of Justice was assigned to dig through the records and figure out just how far the thought policing went.
The public got a good look after The Free Press decided to play matchmaker between obscure federal records and actual journalism. That triggered a glorious round of internal audits, panicked reviews, and in some cases, the rapid self-destruction of programs that suddenly couldn’t remember what they were for.
NIH: From Health Science to Thought Control
The National Institutes of Health got caught mid-sprint. In response to press inquiries, the NIH not only canceled the UC Irvine grant but also torched a $22.4 million payout to UnidosUS, a group whose mission had somehow morphed from Latino advocacy into online speech policing. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya hit the panic button, sending out an “URGENT” internal email ordering a review of all research touching the sacred trinity of mis-dis-mal information.
An NIH spokesperson said the agency is now “taking action to terminate research funding that is not aligned” with updated policy priorities. In plain English, they finally read the Constitution and realized they might be setting it on fire.
The State Department’s Digital Hall Monitor Gets Benched
Meanwhile, the State Department has been busy putting its own houseplants on leave. Secretary Marco Rubio, now running Foggy Bottom like it’s a Senate hearing, has suspended dozens of staffers from the Global Engagement Center. He says the agency crossed the line into censorship, which is a bold claim until you look at the receipts. The Center has spent years telling Americans what is or isn’t true, always with the urgency of a substitute teacher discovering TikTok.
The department has begun attaching “no-cost amendments” to existing grants. That’s bureaucrat-speak for telling award recipients to sign a bunch of legal paperwork and swear they aren’t doing anything unconstitutional. A little late for that, but sure.
The Pentagon: Same Game, New Label
At the Pentagon, they’ve decided that the problem is just a branding issue. So the term “disinformation” has been retired in favor of the more patriotic-sounding “countering adversary propaganda and information operations.” A senior Defense Department official explained that the shift brings the program into alignment with the new White House directive. Which is the kind of sentence that usually ends with somebody testifying in front of Congress about data collection gone wrong.
None of this seems to affect Peraton, a defense contractor that holds a $979 million contract to identify threats in coordination with US Central Command. Peraton did not respond to The Free Press’ requests for comment, possibly because they were too busy deciding whether your aunt’s Facebook post counts as hostile influence activity.
Microsoft Broadens Always-Watching AI-Powered Recall Tool That Logs and Indexes User Activity
A built-in memory machine disguised as convenience, Recall quietly turns every moment at your keyboard into searchable history.
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | April 19, 2025
Microsoft’s renewed push to roll out Recall, an AI-powered feature in Windows 11 that automatically logs user activity every few seconds, is reigniting deep concerns among those focused on digital privacy and personal security.
Initially paused following a storm of backlash last year, Recall has quietly returned in a preview version of Windows 11 (Build 26100.3902), now available to select testers. The tool takes snapshots of a user’s screen at regular intervals and creates a searchable timeline of everything from app usage to websites visited and documents accessed. While Microsoft pitches this as a convenience tool, privacy advocates see a surveillance mechanism in disguise.
The company claims the tool is safe. It requires users to opt in and enroll in Windows Hello to access stored snapshots. Microsoft describes the feature as a way to “quickly find and get back to any app, website, image, or document just by describing its content.” Users, the company says, can pause recording and choose what is saved.
But these assurances fall flat for those warning about the broader consequences. The fact that Recall is opt-in does not prevent the exposure of data from people who never enabled it. If someone with Recall turned on receives a private photo, message, or sensitive document, it will be silently captured, analyzed, and indexed by the tool, regardless of the sender’s intent or privacy tools used.
The feature’s ability to store and catalog data so comprehensively opens up a host of legal, security, and ethical issues. Lawyers, governments, and spyware operators would gain an unprecedented level of access to a user’s digital life; not through brute force or phishing, but through a built-in tool that essentially creates a time-lapse of computer activity.
For those wary of the increasing creep of AI into daily computing, Recall has become a textbook case. Critics have framed it as part of a larger trend where companies inject AI features into existing platforms not to serve users, but to drive engagement, data collection, or lock-in.
From Ms. Rachel To Anti-War College Students: The End Of American Free Speech
By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | April 19, 2025
Working together with the most powerful government in the world, Zionist organizations are smearing and persecuting anyone who expresses sympathy with Palestinians, subjected to a genocide subsidized with their own tax dollars. From the media to academia, American free speech rights are being stripped.
Fulfilling an agenda laid out in a 33-page document named “Project Esther”, published in October of last year by the Heritage Foundation, the US government is teaming up with extremist elements of the Zionist Lobby to crush criticism of Israel.
From its recommendations to form a federal task force to combat alleged antisemitism, which is really just criticism of the Israeli government, to its strategy to tear down leading academic institutions, the plan is being followed.
The Heritage Foundation, most well-known for its “Project 2025”, is known to possess considerable influence on the Trump White House. Yet, despite its obvious influence and policy recommendations that are being followed, almost down to the letter, there has been little connection drawn between these think-tank documents and Donald Trump’s anti-free speech crusade.
It is evident, however, that the Democratic Party also presided over the greatest assault on academic freedom in American history, placing itself in line with the Zionist Lobby, which is why it makes sense that there is no incentive from Democrat-aligned media to give light to this topic. Although the situation has only grown more dire for free speech rights, particularly on college campuses, since the departure of former President Joe Biden.
Uncharted Waters
Under the Trump administration, it started to become clear with the detention of Mahmoud Khalil that we were entering uncharted waters. The mere fact that a Green-Card holder, accused of no crime, and who is married to an American citizen, was snatched in the night by plain-clothed ICE officers, who ferried him off from New York to Louisiana, was a tell-tale sign of things to come.
Thereafter, things only grew worse. Zionist student groups and racist extremist organizations have worked to put together lists of completely peaceful, law-abiding individuals who are set to be targeted by federal security agencies.
Claiming persecution themselves, these groups hide behind the cloak of being offended by anti-war protests, in order to work with the state to see their political opposition suppressed by force.
Yet, the crackdown has not been limited to students/former students. Instead, this campaign that aims to trample on the First Amendment rights as they are laid out in the US Constitution is beginning to empower pro-Israel extremists.
Weaponizing the claims of antisemitism and claiming that their targets are “Hamas supporters”, these organizations no longer are required to even present evidence for their allegations.
The Case of Ms. Rachel
This lack of any proof for the claims being made was no more evident than in the case of Ms. Rachel, a popular children’s entertainer.
A pro-Israel organization known as “Stopantisemitism” decided to accuse Ms. Rachel of spreading Hamas propaganda and requested the US government investigate whether she is receiving foreign funding.
Ms. Rachel has not commented on any of the political dynamics concerning the genocide in Gaza, yet has long expressed her sympathies for Palestinian children suffering in the Gaza Strip, as well as the Israeli Bibas family. There is nothing even remotely antisemitic about her posts on the topic, nor do they have anything to do with Hamas.
Yet, the US government appears to have reached the same point Israel has, where an accusation that someone is affiliated with Hamas needs no evidence to corroborate it before action is taken.
In Israel’s case, the action taken is the detention, torture, and/or murder of that individual, whereas in the United States, it can come in the form of detention or legal battles for now.
This assault on free speech is being carried out against media outlets also, using similar tactics of providing baseless claims regarding collaboration with Hamas, and even on behalf of Israeli citizens filing their cases in US courts to take down registered not-for-profit organizations.
Fired employees call for boycott of Microsoft over its role in Gaza genocide
Press TV – April 19, 2025
Two former Microsoft employees slammed the company for complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza and systematic apartheid in the West Bank, urging global boycotts against the tech giant.
Hossam Nasr, a software engineer, and Abdo Mohamed, a data scientist, who were both fired in 2024 for organizing a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza, called for severing Microsoft’s partnerships that support military operations.
According to Nasr, Microsoft provides cloud services, AI capabilities, translation, and data storage to the Israeli military, and “they use Microsoft translation services to translate the data they collect on Palestinians from Arabic to Hebrew.”
“Then they feed that into a pipeline of AI targeting systems that help determine where to bomb in Gaza and help Israel classify innocent Palestinians as terrorists,” he said, citing reports showing a 200-fold increase in Israel’s use of Microsoft’s AI tools between October 2023 and March 2024.
“Their usage of cloud storage increased to 13.6 petabytes,” he added.
“Microsoft Azure also hosts the target bank for the Israeli military,” he said, noting: “It hosts the civil registry of the Palestinian population.”
“These systems allow Israel to accelerate and exacerbate its genocide in Gaza to unforeseen levels,” he said.
Nasr pointed out that Microsoft staff became deeply embedded in Israeli military units, including Unit 8200, the notorious Israeli military intelligence branch.
“Microsoft employees become so embedded… that they become described as soldiers, acting as soldiers within those units,” he said.
“This kind of deep partnership allows Israel to automate and remove any sort of human element to the Palestinians,” he added. “It turns the mass murder of Palestinians into essentially a video game.”
Nasr said Microsoft’s technology is also used in the West Bank through applications such as Al-Munasik, which helps control Palestinian movement.
“Microsoft is enabling the apartheid system and the racial segregation system in the West Bank and the rest of Palestine,” he said.
He also criticized Microsoft’s employee donation program, saying, “They allow donations to illegal Israeli settlements and match them.”
“No Azure for Apartheid” campaign, which they co-founded, was inspired by earlier efforts at other tech companies.
“That campaign started as bombs were dropping on the heads of Palestinian children in Gaza in the wake of the Sheikh Jarrah events in 2021,” Nasr said, adding, “We took inspiration from our colleagues at Google and Amazon… to launch our own campaign at Microsoft in 2024.”
Nasr explained that the goal of their campaign was to sever Microsoft’s partnerships that support the Israeli regime’s forces brutal attacks against Gaza and the West Bank.
He insisted that holding meetings and writing letters did not have the necessary impact, and boycotting the company was the only way to stop its cooperation.
Nasr said that their campaign coordinated the April 4 protests during Microsoft’s 50th anniversary events.
“As soon as we became aware that Microsoft was planning a celebration… we made it clear that we will not allow Microsoft to celebrate while their hands are stained with Palestinian blood.”
“It is no longer sufficient to be in meetings with executives or writing emails,” Nasr highlighted.
“It is imperative for us… to stop materially contributing and materially partnering to the genocide of our brothers and sisters in Palestine,” he emphasized.
“We have made a huge dent in this Microsoft castle,” Nasr concluded. “I do believe that Microsoft’s reputation has never been more tarnished because of its complicity in genocide,” he said.
Nasr said losing his job or being deported from the US was a “cheap price to pay” compared to what Palestinians endure.
“A lot of the time I’m asked… Are you not scared of being fired? Of being deported?” he said. “And my response is always… Are you not scared of being complicit in the Holocaust of our time? Of what you’ll tell your children and grandchildren when they ask… Where were you when the genocide in Palestine and Gaza was happening?”
The Israel regime launched the campaign of genocide in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Since then, it has killed at least 51,065 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 116,505 others.
UK Government and Tony Blair Back AI-Powered Surveillance Push Including Digital ID and Facial Recognition
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | April 18, 2025
A new push is underway in the UK to promote AI-powered mass surveillance via a number of controversial technologies and tools.
The country’s government, former PM Tony Blair, the College of Policing (the professional body for police in England and Wales), as well as legacy media outlet The Times, and Axon, a surveillance company, have converged behind this latest effort.
Axon was the headline sponsor during The Times’ Crime and Justice Summit this week, organized to present the result of an inquiry launched a year ago by the newspaper under the title, “The Crime and Justice Commission,” meant to look into the future of policing and the criminal justice system.
The final report contains recommendations to introduce mandatory universal digital ID and online age verification, as well as expand the use of live facial recognition, AI, and data analytics.
Age verification and banning users under 16 from social media would be enforced through a universal digital ID system, which would also be used to create what the report refers to as a “single unique identifier from birth.”
And while “ethical dilemmas” around this are acknowledged, the document calls for a single digital case file for the justice system.
Live facial recognition, which is currently tested or used in limited areas, should be expanded across the UK, according to the report, which also urges for AI and data analytics to be more involved in policing and the criminal justice system.
And while civil liberties and privacy campaigner Big Brother Watch slammed what it calls “an obsession” with Orwellian AI-powered surveillance that “reeks of authoritarianism and would be a hammer blow to our civil liberties” – Tony Blair and several other high profile figures emerged as enthusiastic supporters of the recommendations.
According to Blair, digital ID is a necessity (he and his foundation push for the mandatory kind), as is live facial recognition deployment in “busy places like train stations and events.” The former PM wants AI to be used for “spotting crime patterns, guiding patrols, and streamlining decisions.”
UK Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood suggested that some of the recommendations would become law, while other supporters of the report include the Home Office, life peer in the House of Lords Baroness Longfield, Independent Victims’ Commissioner for London Claire Waxman, and the College of Policing.
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Precedents for Pizzagate
Marc Dutroux, Belgian pedophile, sadist, and serial killer with friends in high places
By Aedon Cassiel | Counter – Currents | December 23, 2016
To reiterate a point that should be clear to the more astute reader, my goal in this series (part 1, part 2) has not been to defend “Pizzagate” as such. My goal has been to defend the people who want to investigate it against specific accusations levied against them by people who think Pizzagate has revealed no intriguing information at all—for a specific reason, which I will be honing in and focusing on much more directly in this closing entry.
Whereas the mainstream critics of Pizzagate would have you believe that the dividing line is between paranoid conspiracy theorist followers of “fake news” and level-headed people who follow trustworthy news sources and rely on cold, hard reason to determine the truth, my goal has been to show that—whatever is or is not happening with Pizzagate itself—this framing of the issue is arrogant, insulting, and the product of extremely narrow tunnel vision. … continue
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