“Happy birthday, Hugh Janus...er...”
@Nigel_Farage

Here’s the longer version
#NigelFarage > #HughJanus > #HugeAnus (via @benjamincohen)

This isn’t the first time #NigelFarage has been pranked

CALLER: I used to be an ardent remainer until something monumental happened that completely changed my view

FARAGE: What was that monumental thing, Mark?

MARK: I was kicked in the head by a horse!

The hunt is on for the world's biggest rabbit, stolen from its home in Worcestershire

The ten-year-old Darius, a 4ft 3in-long Continental Giant, was snatched from a rear garden.
@AFP u.afp.com/UQut #Darius

Darius may have been stolen to order by a rival rabbit breeder

He can command a £500 appearance fee at functions

He’s on a special diet & - without it - there are fears he may not survive

Darius looks a bit like this rabbit, only 170x bigger #FreeDarius

Wow! The missing rabbit has made it to the @nytimes

"He travelled across the UK for events alongside Ms. Edwards, who often appeared with him dressed as the cartoon character Jessica Rabbit. Darius was insured for $1.6 million 7 traveled with a bodyguard”
nytimes.com/2021/04/13/wor…

1/. "I will never see the world again"

In 2018 writer & journalist, Mehmet Altan, was sentenced to life-imprisonment in #Turkey on baseless terrorism charges

Tmw the European Court of Human Rights will pass judgment his conviction #FreeTurkeyMedia

3 May = #WorldPressFreedomDay

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1194297835195437056

2/. This cartoon👆is by the amazing @channeldraw

In previous years, to mark #WorldPressFreedomDay, @amnesty invited people to tweet their cartoons using the #FreeTurkeyMedia hashtag

Turkey is one of the world's biggest jailer of journalists. #WPFD21

3/. Some more #FreeTurkeyMedia cartoons👇

Why not submit one yourself?

Thanks to cartoonists @MartinRowson @jonesycartoons @atiqshahid2 @Banxcartoons @BellBelltoons @procartoonists @marshallcartoon @Schism_Schasm @iainoverton @CRNetInt @CartooningPeace

In this chilling 2013 interview, @BorisJohnson admits he’s not really bumbling

“I’m hard as nails” he says

He also tells us “a terrible truth about politics & human nature”

That you can “make a good case for any course of action.” #HerdImmunity #COVID19

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1276993242010173440

When the subject moves to ethics, @BorisJohnson becomes more guarded

Asked whether he believes one "can derive the ethics from the science" he avoids answering

Perhaps he’s aware that discussions of genomics can easily slip into the subject of eugenics.

I know!

Most of us switch-off at the mention of “genomics”, but it is crucial to understanding how the world is transforming & how “super forecasters” see the need for society to transform too

This thread👇offers a potted summary of just some of what is going on. #GenomeUK

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1310729079419736066

“144-page issue with magical souvenir magazine” @DailyMailUK

“Magical”?
“Souvenir”?
“144 pages”?
#PrincePhilip #dukeofedinburgh #RIPPrincePhilip

Only 16 pages in the Irish edition of the Daily Mail!

They cut 128 pages!
(pic via @CSBlenner)

“It’s a stretch to call him a feminist icon but...” @guardian
#dukeofedinburgh #PrincePhilip #RoyalFamily

1/. In non-#COVID19 times, today would have seen the start of the world's remotest film festival, in a refugee camp deep in the Sahara desert

#FiSahara has a special place in my heart

10 years ago, 6 days & 6 nights in the desert, changed my life forever

2/. I'd gone as journalist to cover the festival, but had been struck by how little the world knew about #WesternSahara

"As our convoy headed back across the empty desert, our thoughts were with people we'd left behind" I wrote in @Independent at the time independent.co.uk/arts-entertain…

3/. When I got back to London - the sand still in my hair - I handed in my notice

A month later, in May 2009, I became a full-time journalist, started planning for the #FiSahara Film Festival 2010 and - with a small but dedicated team - launched the Free Western Sahara Network.

100,000 volunteers

10 miles each

The Million Mile Beach Clean is launching today
⠀
This time lapse video shows how much plastic we found on a beach in just 2 hours in 2019.
#MillionMileBeachClean #MillionMileClean
#beachclean @SAS_London_ @sascampaigns

Before #COVID19 hit, it felt like the world was starting to wake up to the harm of plastics

But with the arrival of #coronavirus,
single use plastic is now seen as ‘safer’ & millions of masks & gloves are ending up in our oceans
@GelarehDarabi @AJEnglish

We cannot plead ignorance

We can no longer afford apathy

In the UK, each of us discards about 100kg of plastic per year, mostly in packaging

There’s a ‘trash vortex' / ‘plastic soup’ the size of Texas in the Pacific where there are 6 kilos of plastic for every kilo of plankton

1/. QUESTION: What’s the worst day of the year for dictators, despots & populist autocrats?

ANSWER: April 7

Tomorrow, @amnesty release our annual 2020/21 report covering the state of #HumanRights in 149 countries

JOURNALISTS: For a copy or to an interview👉 press@amnesty.org

“How's life in your country?"
"We can't complain"

This cartoon was about #Turkey but it also applies to:
#Myanmar
#China
#SaudiArabia
#NorthKorea
#Syria
#Egypt
#Turkmenistan
#Eritrea
#Yemen
#Uzbekistan
#CAR
#Vietnam
#Sudan
#Iraq
#Bahrain
#Belarus
#Bangladesh
#Laos
#Somalia etc.

“I don’t care if they respect me, so long as they fear me.” (Caligula)

At @amnesty we don’t respect dictators, autocrats & human rights abusers

We don’t fear them either

As we publish Annual Report, here’s a guide for dictators human on ‘how to respond’ amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

1/. EU Leaders @CharlesMichel & @vonderleyen are meeting #Turkey’s President Erdoğan today

This comes as it was revealed that the prosecutor in the trial of @amnesty’s honorary Turkey Chair, #TanerKilic, has requested that the court uphold his conviction ahvalnews.com/eu-turkey/eu-l…

2/. If the court upholds #TanerKilic’s conviction, he’ll be taken back to jail to serve the rest of his 6yr jail term

He’s already been behind bars for 1+ years

This despite the fact not a SHREAD of evidence has been produced of any criminal wrong doing.

3/. "We’re responsible not only for what we say but what we fail to say by staying silent"

In 2018 when #TanerKilic was in jail, @snowden joined 2m people to demand his release

They included @aiww @itspetergabriel @OfficialSting @BiancaJagger @DavidLammy

1/ SAGE minutes still redact names of attendees (including a scientific adviser)

But since July, it’s been the #JointBiosecurityCentre that shapes #COVID19 strategy

Run by Tom Hurd (MI6) then Clare Gardner (GCHQ), the #JBC hasn’t released ANY minutes or named ANY of its members

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1289185045236727814

2/. SAGE’s advice is fed to the secretive #JointBiosecurityCentre who often seem to ignore it

In Sept, SAGE’s call for a circuit-breaker lockdown was ignored

SAGE has been sidelined since the took over #COVID19 strategy

Why are It’s membership & it’s discussions kept secret?

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1316166161067921409

3/. The #JointBiosecurityCentre, was launched as a £9 billion directorate of @DHSCgovuk, on 1 June 2020

According to sources, there is no actual ‘centre’. Instead the #JBC is spread across Whitehall offices

There is much speculation as to its membership
researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-pol…

It is vital for @Peston to reveal who was his senior Downing St source that told him UK strategy was “allowing #COVID19 to spread through the population”

These were the identical words @BorisJohnson used in his #TakeItOnTheChin interview

It is in the public interest we know.

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1298294731445866498

Every virologist will tell you that herd immunity without a vaccine is - by definition - not a preventative measure

The govt knew this

The No.10 press office has never attempted to correct @Peston’s story & yet govt ministers claim that #HerdImmunity was never their “strategy”!

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1370281854067179521

Contrast No.10’s reaction to the @Peston story with their reaction to the @thetimes story that #Cummings had said the govt strategy was #HerdImmunity “& if that means some pensioners die, too bad”

They claimed it was “a defamatory fabrication”

No action for defamation was taken

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1241639089700569089

“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.

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1260571962415419398

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

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/790426923683946496

“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

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1270393412823535616

“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.

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!

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1265412894092648454

“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!

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1377023179424735232

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

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

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1370293224494010368

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”

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1263003161788403712

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

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1257754025027612673

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!

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

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1360220065317220358

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.

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

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1270484296009056256

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

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1255581752896167940

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

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1372465202306899969

“If you see me - shivering & dumbed with loss - stand by me, because grief needs a witness”

Tmw - on the anniversary of the UK’s late lockdown - take a moment to grieve

Put candle in your window & observe a minute’s silence at 8pm.
#CovidMemorialDay #DayOfReflection
#COVID19

https://twitter.com/CovidMemoryDay/status/1353018484469489664

It is important to remember that grief isn’t all about sorrow

You can only experience grief if you have experienced love

Indeed, grief is the collateral damage of love

The more deeply you have loved, the more painfully felt the grief #CovidMemorialDay #COVID19 #DayOfReflection

"To heal we must remember"

When @JoeBiden was elected, @CovidMemoryDay contacted his staffers

The first thing #Biden did on coming to office was hold a #COVIDMemorialDay

"I’d no idea how much I need that,” one man wrote
#DayOfReflection #COVID19 #Covid
amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

1/. At a time when many countries are starting to try & find ways of combating violence against women, #Turkey has just pulled out of #IstanbulConvention

This is the Convention on violence against women

Ironic that it is named after the city in #Turkey. theguardian.com/world/2021/mar…

2/. #Turkey’s withdrawal from the #IstanbulConvention is deeply worrying, coming at time when #COVID19 measures/lockdowns have led to a spike in reports of violence

Many women & girls trapped at home with their abusers or unable to easily access safety #VAWG #istanbulsoezlesmesi

https://twitter.com/annamblus/status/1373224083266150403

3/ Turkey’s withdrawal from the #IstanbulConvention will have disastrous consequences for millions of women & girls & to organizations providing vital support to survivors of sexual assault & domestic violence

#Turkey should reconsider this awful decision
amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

1/. 18 years ago as the bombs rained down on #Iraq as Operation Shock & Awe began, Eric Levy was in Baghdad in a power station

He'd gone to #Iraq with hundreds of human shields to try & stop an illegal war & to protect Iraqi civilians by staying in civilian infrastructure sites.

2/. Eric - now 92 - was one of about 80 human shields who stayed throughout the #IraqWar

"The war was illegal & immoral. We may have failed to stop the invasion, but by putting ourselves in harm’s way, we sent a clear message to the world"

That's courage
vice.com/en/article/kw5…

3/. In 2003, a convoy of 3 double- decker buses left London for Baghdad

On board were 50+ human shields; the first hundreds of Western
anti-war activists to travel to #Iraq

None knew what lay ahead

All of them knew that they might not be coming back. zcomm.org/zmagazine/the-…