“I am definitely released. Solidarity will no longer be a crime!”

French farmer, @CedricHerrou, who offered food & shelter to asylum seekers, has been released

The court also quashed of the judgment condemning
@LoanTorondel for an ironic tweet on police practices in Calais. ImageImage
The recognition by one of France's highest courts that #SolidarityIsNotACrime is good, but across Europe & around the world, people are being arrested & criminalized for providing food, shelter, transport & basic acts of kindness to migrants & refugees. newsweek.com/you-can-now-go…
In 2016, I was in Calais as the bulldozers rolled into the Jungle

Five years on, brave humanitarian volunteers - from the Med to the Alps to the Arizona desert - show that camps can be demolished & tents torn down, but solidarity isn't so easily destroyed
“No one leaves home
Unless home is the mouth of a shark
No one puts their children in a boat
Unless the water is safer than the land” (Warsan Shire)

This #THREAD👇shows how & why EU govts have become complicit in the suffering of asylum-seekers in the med
Right-wing govts & their supportive media try to frame the world using fearmongering to weaponise prejudice creating 'narratives' which trap us in a populist prison of suspicion, anger & fear

But there's power in decency
In caring for others
In compassion

• • •

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More from @StefSimanowitz

31 Mar
“This is a report produced by a govt that would rather belittle the realities of institutional racism in this country than take steps to address it”

Truth bombs being dropped by @RunnymedeTrust’s
@kapoor_alba to @CliveMyrieBBC @bbc5live re #RacismReport
“The problem has been diagnosed, it has been given a name: it’s called institutional racism.”

More truth bombs on the #RacismReport, this time from
@BellRibeiroAddy

She tells @katierazz on #Newsnight “the denial of its existence is a complete whitewash”
This report into institutional racism - run by Tony Sewell who, 15 years ago, said he doesn't believe in #institutionalracism was designed to demoralise

Don’t be demoralised

These are their tactics

Tactics designed to get you to switch off the news & apply for an allotment. Image
Read 11 tweets
30 Mar
Blistering introductory monologue by @maitlis on standards in public life covering the #AcuriAffair #BorisJohnson #DavidCameron & #PritiPatel

The last time #Newsnight did such a
powerful opening was in May in the midst of the Barnard Castle scandal
“A great journalist puts into words the things people feel. They seek truth & speak truth & are never seduced by the gilded strumpet of power”
(E. Warner)

Following her monologue on Cummings, the govt complained to the BBC

Instead of backing @maitlis, the BBC issued an apology!
“What is spectacularly gutless is that these ministers have avoided @GMB , @Channel4News, @BBCNewsnight & anywhere they might get rough ride. That’s a dereliction of their duty as govt ministers. It’s completely shameful.” @piersmorgan

It’s a national scandal & nothing is done!
Read 9 tweets
29 Mar
1/. This week we bid goodbye to two human rights heroes

Ystdy, we learned of the sudden death of Prof Christof Heyns (62), a giant of intnl human rights law

Last weekend, Nawal El Saadawi (89), Egyptian feminist, writer & campaigner who fought against patriarchy & poverty, died
2/. “He was a deeply moral man. His life was one of consequence & meaning, in which he used his energy to turn human wrongs into human rights,” @UPTuks

His father, theologian Johan Heyns, who once described apartheid as a sin, was assassinated in 1994. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…
3/. "Feminism isn’t a Western invention. Feminism wasn’t invented by American women. It’s embedded in the culture & in the struggle of all women all over the world" #NawalElSaadawi to @krishgm in 2018 #MeToo #TimesUp #IstanbulConvention #WomensHistoryMonth
Read 4 tweets
24 Mar
Wow!

@MattHancock has announced that the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jenny Harries, will be the first chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency which will aim to plan, prevent & respond to health emergencies like pandemics

How is #JennyHarries still in a job
2/. Jenny Harries has been a handmaiden of the #HerdImmunityScandal

#HerdImmunity is an outcome, NEVER a “strategy”

On 12 March, the govt stopped community testing

On 26/3, #JennyHarries falsely claimed that community testing was "not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward”
3/. Stopping community testing - as the UK did on 12 March - would only make sense as a strategy if the UK’s strategy was to allow #COVID19 to spread through the population

Questioned by @Jeremy_Hunt, Jenny Harries changed her story to a claim of capacity issues. #JennyHarries
Read 17 tweets
23 Mar
1/. Some people just can't take criticism

Did you know that it's illegal to insult a leader in more than a dozen countries

In Poland, a journalist faces up to 3 years in prison for calling President Duda a "moron" in a Facebook post in November

Lighten up Duda, you d******d! Image
2/. Insulting leaders could land you in jail for 3yrs in #Venezuela, 4yrs in #Turkey, 5yrs in #Netherlands, 7yrs in #Bahrain & 15yrs in #Thailand

In #Spain, you can go to jail for insulting the King or the police as rapper @PabloHasel found to his cost
3/. In America, insulting Donald Trump became a national pastime

In Britain, Boris Johnson plays up his “loveable buffoon” image as he clowns around on zip wires & in hard hats

But whilst Trump & Johnson may be very different animals, they both fulfil a very similar function. Image
Read 4 tweets
22 Mar
1/. A year ago, at midnight on 23 March, Britain finally went into lockdown

On the same day, #FacultyAI proposed modelling for “targeted #HerdImmunity

Govt scientist, Edmunds claims late lockdown was an “error” & @neil_ferguson says it cost 20,000 lives
2/. But to lockdown earlier wasn’t an “error”

It was part of the govt’s nefarious strategy

They knew they would have to lock down & yet the govt didn’t even model for lockdown until mid-March

They used the unscientific idea of “behavioural fatigue” to delay lockdown by 3 weeks
3/. The PM claims he “stuck to the science like glue”

It isn’t true

Late lockdown wasn’t scientific

“Behavioural fatigue” wasn’t scientific

The #HerdImmunity strategy - allowing #COVID19 to spread - was deadly

Herd immunity is an outcome NEVER a strategy

But they knew this
Read 10 tweets

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