1/. “I will continue with my hunger strike for as long as my health permits as it is the only way I see of to try to get the govt to bring Nazanin home”
2/. “When I heard about Richard Radcliffe’s hunger strike I went to meet him & was struck by his incredible courage. I went back several times & made a promise to him that I’d do all in my power to help end this terrible injustice”
6/. “Margaret Owen, aged 89, is on the 5th day of her hunger strike for #NazaninZaghariRatcliffe
“We must bring Nazanin back from Iran so she can be reunited with her husband & her little girl, Gabriella. Please let MPs & journalists know about my hunger strike.” #FreeNazanin
“I really wanted to go on much longer, but I’ve had to stop because of my health. But that doesn’t me I’m going to stop campaigning to bring Nazanin home.” #FreeNazanin
This photo shows Margaret Owen (89) breaking her hunger strike last night.
Nazanin recently described how a female prison guard would sit outside her cell & phone her own daughter, who was the same age Gabriella.
“I dreaded her shifts as I knew she would do that to torture me”.
Margaret Owen’s hunger strike shows the enduring power of this most ancient form of protest
Its eloquence lies in its ability to reconfigure the dynamic between the powerful & the powerless
"Today I broke my nearly 6 day hunger strike. Richard also urged me to do so. He doesn't want anyone to risk their health as he has. We will continue to use every means we can to get @trussliz & @BorisJohnson to secure freedom for Nazanin” @ElectionMargie
Julian Assange is scheduled to appear in a federal court in Saipan, a US commonwealth in the Pacific, where he’s expected to plead guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act & be sentenced to 5yrs
Given he’s already served this time, he should walk free
The public have a right to know what their govts do in their name
Julian #Assange’s prosecution represented a grave threat to press freedom, undermining the key role of journalists & publishers in scrutinizing govts misdeeds & creating a chilling effect
2/. From the start of the pandemic the govt had given #Palantir, a US spyware company with reported links to #CambridgeAnalytica, access to NHS health data
3/. Palantir worked on the NHS data store with #FacultyAI - a company with ties to Cummings
In 2020, @amnesty warned that Big Tech firms might use the COVID crisis to hoover up genomic data, obliterating the last frontier of privacy: our biological selves
1/. “It is the greatest mass-killing in recorded history; & it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch”
Arthur Koestler’s 1944 essay expressing frustration at the failure of the world to acknowledge Nazi atrocities resonates today wethescreamers.com
2/ “There are a few of us…yelling at you in newspapers…Now & then we reach your ear…But it only lasts a minute. You shake yourself like puppies who’ve got their fur wet; then the screen again descends & you walk on, protected by the dream-barrier which stifles all sound”
#Gaza
3/ Koestler notes maniacs lose contact with reality so “perhaps it’s we, the screamers, who react in a sound & healthy way to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter about in a screened fantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the facts”
“They got me!” Liz Truss tells far-right kingpin, Steve Bannon, before going on to explain that, to have effectively tackled “the deep state” that runs Britain & its institutions, she would have “needed a bigger bazooka”! #LizTruss #BritanniaUnchained
"I was just saying it like it is & that’s what people respect me for"(!)
Liz Truss’ compares her premiership to a one night stand & says she was just “fattening the pig” for slaughter & that she should have gaslit the public like Rishi Sunak is doing (!)
"I faced the most almighty backlash...from the usual suspects in the media” Liz Truss
“Truss's decline is simultaneously tragic & horrifying but the claim that the media conspired against her can't go unchallenged. There are front pages praising her to the rafters” @mrjamesob
2/. It’s clear that the bomb blasts in Kerman on the 4th anniversary of #Soleimani's assassination by the US, could lead to a quick ratcheting up of dangerous tensions
After Oct 7, the US sent two aircraft carrier groups to the region
3/. Three US soldiers were killed & two dozen injured in an unmanned aerial drone attack on US forces stationed in northeastern #Jordan near the Syrian border, President @JoeBiden said