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A view of Ofer Prison located between Ramallah and Jerusalem as preparations for the release of Palestinian prisoners continue, on January 30, 2025. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) renewed its demand that international human rights organisations take effective decisions to hold Israeli occupation officials accountable for committing crimes against Palestinian prisoners who are subject to systematic torture in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.
The PPS said in a statement today that Israeli practices of repression against prisoners have escalated significantly recently in Ofer Prison, as an extension of the policy of repression and raids, which reached its peak during the genocidal war on Gaza.
The PPS revealed testimonies from prisoners which were obtained by their lawyers, specifically regarding the attack on prisoners on the evening of 16 February when the Israeli Metzada prison forces stormed several sections in Ofer Prison, using police dogs and stun grenades to intimidate detainees. They assaulted the prisoners, injuring dozens of them.
The PPS indicated that the Israeli prison administration uses the cold weather to torture the prisoners, by refusing to allow the entry of adequate clothes and appropriate covers.
prisoner D.P. said: “The repression that is carried out in prisoners’ rooms has lately escalated. The last attack took place last Saturday, when jailers assaulted prisoners, beating them and wreaking havoc on the contents of their rooms.” He added that such attacks happen every two to three days.
In another testimony, prisoner G.M., who suffers from an injury, said the Metzada unit assaulted him and broke his walker, which he uses to get to the medical clinic.
A number of injured detainees told their lawyers that they were suffering from constant pain due to the lack of treatment, in light of the policy of medical neglect and the severe cold.
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Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Israeli tanks gather outside of the occupied West Bank near Jenin, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025
ISRAEL’S defence minister said today troops would remain “for the coming year” in parts of the occupied West Bank.
This follows complaints by Hamas over the decision by Tel Aviv to halt the release of detainees promised under the ceasefire deal.
The Israelis have deepened their crackdown on the Palestinian territory since launching their military offensive on the northern West Bank on January 21 — two days after the ceasefire that paused the war in Gaza took hold. They then expanded it to include other nearby areas.
Israel says it is determined to stamp out resistance in the territory, but Palestinians view such raids as part of an effort to cement Israeli control over the territory, where three million Palestinians live under military rule.
The deadly raids have devastated urban areas and displaced tens of thousands.
People take part in a pro-Palestine march in central London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, July 6, 2024
THE BBC has been urged not to give in to “cynical” attacks on a documentary on the Israeli invasion of Gaza, which it has pulled from iPlayer after criticism of its child narrator’s father being a Hamas official.
Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone is narrated by 13-year-old Abdullah, whose father is deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza’s Hamas government.
Last week Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she would raise this with the BBC’s director-general and chairman, “particularly around the way in which they sourced the people who were featured in the programme.”
A petition signed by socialist Jews including film-maker Mike Leigh, comedian and writer Alexei Sayle and actor Miriam Margolyes calls on the BBC to resist “censorship.”
Friedrich Merz says he is eager to re-engage with international partners
Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting didn’t wait for the final results of his country’s election on Sunday to herald a new era in Europe.
Declaring the US indifferent to this continent’s fate, Friedrich Merz questioned the future of Nato and demanded Europe boost its own defences. Quickly.
This tone from the close US ally – and from Friedrich Merz who is known to be a passionate Atlanticist – would have been unimaginable even a couple of months ago.
It’s a seismic shift. That may read like hyperbole, but what we are now experiencing in terms of transatlantic relations is unprecedented in the 80 years since the end of World War Two.
Big European powers have been shocked to the core by the Trump administration, which suggests it could revoke the security guarantees to Europe in place since 1945.
“I would never have thought that I would have to say something like this in a TV show but, after Donald Trump’s remarks last week… it is clear that this government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” Friedrich Merz said during a post-election debate on Sunday.
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” he added.
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills had an exchange with U.S. President Donald Trump about transgender athletes during a meeting in Washington, D.C. on February 21, 2025. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The president threatened to cut off federal funding to the state for respecting the identities of trans student-athletes.
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills stood up to U.S. President Donald Trump at a Friday event in Washington, D.C. after the Republican threatened to cut off federal funding because the state allows transgender youth to participate in sports in line with their identities.
While at the podium, Trump asked if Maine’s governor was at the event. After Mills confirmed her presence, he asked if she will comply with his executive order intended to use his administration’s interpretation of Title IX—a federal law barring discrimination on the basis of sex at educational institutions that get federal funds—to block trans girls and women from competing as female athletes.
“You better do it, because you’re not gonna get any federal funding at all if you don’t,” Trump said to Mills—who replied that she would follow state and federal laws. She also told the president, “See you in court.”
TRUMP: The NCAA has complied immediately. That's good. But I understand Maine — is the governor of Maine here?
JANET MILLS: Yeah I'm here
TRUMP: Are you not gonna comply?
JM: I'm going to comply with state and federal law
Mills also released a statement vowing that “if the president attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of federal funding, my administration and the attorney general will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides. The state of Maine will not be intimidated by the president’s threats.”
Maine Morning Star reported Friday that the state’s attorney general, Aaron Frey, said in a statement that any attempt by Trump to cut federal funding over the issue “would be illegal and in direct violation of federal court orders.”
“Fortunately,” he said, “the rule of law still applies in this country, and I will do everything in my power to defend Maine’s laws and block efforts by the president to bully and threaten us.”
“It is disturbing that President Trump would use children as pawns in advancing his political agenda,” added Frey, who earlier this month joined other Democratic attorneys general in vowing to protect access to gender-affirming healthcare, another GOP target.
Donald Trump decrees forbidden terms denying sexual diversity
While the National Collegiate Athletic Association swiftly updated its policies to align with Trump’s order, the Maine Principals’ Association—which governs athletics for all public high schools and multiple private institutions in the state—confirmed earlier this month that it will continue allowing trans athletes to compete in girls’ sports. Mike Burnham, executive director of MPA’s Interscholastic Division, cited a 2021 update to state law.
Between 2013 and 2021, the association allowed kids to compete in a manner consistent with their gender identity as long as there were no safety concerns. An MPA committee assessed cases one by one, and there were 54 such cases during that period. Only four involved transgender girls.
In 2021, the Democratic-led Legislature added education-related protections for gender identity to [the] Maine Human Rights Act. Since then, the MPA has allowed students to compete with those of their identified gender.
The Friday exchange between Mills and Trump—whose administration is engaged in a sweeping effort to erase trans people—came after the result of a recent pole vaulting state championship for high schoolers and one Republican lawmaker’s Facebook post about it garnered national media attention.
State Rep. Laurel Libby (R-90) on Monday posted a pair of photos identifying one Greely High School pole vaulter as trans and put the teenager’s preferred name in quotation marks. She later toldMaine’s Total Coverage, “I think we have a responsibility to protect girls’ sports, to protect Maine girls, and to ensure that they have a level playing field.”
The outlet noted that state House Minority Leader Katrina Smith (R-62) “shared on her Instagram the names and email addresses of the Maine Department of Education commissioner, the state attorney general, and the executive director of the Maine Principals’ Association telling constituents to call on them to follow President Trump’s executive order.”
Libby—who on Friday made several more Facebook posts highlighting Trump’s threat to Mills and thanking the president—has faced strong backlash from Democratic lawmakers and various other critics for her initial post bullying the teenage athlete.
“We have been reminded this week of the importance of respecting the privacy of Maine kids, and the value in treating people of all ages with kindness and decency,” Rep. Ryan Fecteau (D-103), the first openly gay speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, wrote in a Friday opinion piece for the Bangor Daily News.
“To young people who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, know that I see you and I stand with you,” he said. “After the events of this week, I ask all my legislative colleagues to recommit to keeping kids out of the political fray. They deserve better. There is a time and place for policy debates. That time and place will never be a social media post attacking a student. Full stop.”
Later on Friday, the Trump administration sent a letter to Maine Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin announcing a federal investigation into the state agency and Maine School Administrative District #51, which includes Greely High School.
“Let me be clear: If Maine wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Education Department, it has to follow Title IX,” said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the federal level. “If it wants to forgo federal funds and continue to trample the rights of its young female athletes, that, too, is its choice.”
Responding in a lengthy statement, Mills said that “no president—Republican or Democrat—can withhold federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold.”
“Maine may one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his administration, but we won’t be the last,” warned Mills, a former district attorney and state attorney general. “Today, the president of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: Who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the president is neither a king nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it—and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so.”
“I imagine that the outcome of this politically directed investigation is all but predetermined,” she added, again pledging to fight Trump in court. “But do not be misled: This is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a president can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”
This post has been updated to include the Trump administration’s letter to the Maine Department of Education and the governor’s response.
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills responds to Donald Trump’s threats saying “See you in court”.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
