Starmer and Mahmood’s attack on protest is naked genocide collaboration
Onaquietday Editorial: UK’s Labour government enshrining Theocracy – religious apartheid – in UK
UK’s new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced that she will introduce laws further attacking and eroding the right to protest to enshrine Zionism into UK law. Institutionalized religious segregation and discrimination is a political system known as Theocracy.
Ministers are to give police new powers to target repeated protests, aimed particularly at cracking down on demonstrations connected to Gaza, the Home Office has said.
The announcement, made the morning after almost 500 people were arrested in London for expressing support for Palestine Action, a proscribed organisation, could allow police to order regular protests to take place at a different site.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will also look at all anti-protest laws, with the possibility that powers to ban some protests outright could be strengthened.
…
If a protest has caused what a Home Office statement called “repeated disorder” at the same site for repeated weeks, police would be able to order the organisers to move it elsewhere, with anyone who fails to obey risking arrest.
Mahmood, the statement added, would “also review existing legislation to ensure that powers are sufficient and being consistently applied”, including police powers to ban some protests completely.
…
The powers appear to be aimed at both mass pro-Gaza demonstrations, which took place in London and some other cities over a period of weeks, and those held to support Palestine Action.
On Saturday, police arrested about 500 people at the latest such protest. It took place despite ministers, including Keir Starmer, asking that it be postponed following this week’s deadly attack on a synagogue in Manchester.
Mahmood indicated that this was directly connected to the proposed extra powers, saying: “It’s been clear to me in conversations in the last couple of days that there is a gap in the law and there is an inconsistency of practice.”
She continued: “I’ll be taking measures immediately to put that right, and I will be reviewing our wider protest legislation as well to make sure the arrangements we have can meet the scale of the challenge that we face, which is protecting the right to protest, but ensuring that our communities can go about their daily business without feeling intimidated, and also that public order can be maintained.”
…
Workers shut down Italy again in solidarity with Palestine
Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Hundreds of thousands joined a new general strike across Italy, in solidarity with the people of Gaza and the Global Sumud Flotilla.
Hundreds of thousands of people have again taken to the streets of Italy in response to a general strike call originally launched by the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) and later joined by some of the country’s largest trade union confederations. As they blocked ports, highways, and industrial zones, protesters delivered a resounding rejection of Giorgia Meloni’s government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, demanding an immediate end to the attacks and the release of activists kidnapped from the Global Sumud Flotilla.
“Tens of thousands of people took to the streets for the general strike in support of Palestine: this is a huge success,” Giuliano Granato of the left party Potere al Popolo reported from one of the marches. “It shows that there is a majority in the country that is fighting for Palestine and doing what our government has not dared to do for two years.”
Read more: Arab grassroots decry Israel’s flagrant overseas “piracy” against Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters
The strike came just days after Israeli forces assaulted dozens of vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, detaining activists, including several Italians. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other officials failed to act decisively for their protection or release. Instead, they implied Israel had acted with measure and tried to shift the blame on the flotilla for continuing its humanitarian mission despite threats. The government’s attempt to present itself as “sovereignist” fell apart in the face of these events. “This is not a government of sovereignists. This is a government that bows down and prostrates itself before Israel,” Granato said.
In several cities, demonstrators faced heavy police repression. In Padua, more than 10,000 protesters occupying the industrial zone were attacked with water cannons and tear gas. “The march stayed united and we are continuing the blockade,” one participant said. “We want an end to complicity. We want a free Palestine.”
Protesters in Bologna and Naples also pushed through police lines to occupy strategic points. In Naples, at least 50,000 people seized part of the port despite heavy policing. In Bologna, 150,000 blocked major roads. “This is the response of the people to Israel expanding the war, to the government repressing us, to those who want to divide us into good and bad,” Potere al Popolo’s Bologna chapter wrote. “Let’s center our priorities around those who keep this country going every day, with precarious lives, low wages, and insecure jobs. Instead of rearmament and alliances with Israel, let’s lay down arms and raise salaries!”
Read more: Latin America condemns interception of Global Sumud Flotilla and detention of activists by Israel
Union leaders echoed the calls. Maurizio Landini, head of the confederation CGIL, stated: “There are no rights, there is no dignity without peace. True security does not mean increasing spending on weapons, but investing in public health, education, employment, and the redistribution of wealth.”
The strike raised demands for a full arms embargo on Israel, the severing of all ties with the occupation authorities, and an immediate end to the genocide. And there is no end in sight for the mobilization – those who joined the strike are already preparing for Saturday’s national demonstration in Rome, where they will again assert their solidarity and determination to see a free Palestine.
Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
US gave $3M in Gaza food aid, contradicting Trump’s $60M claim: Report
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed the US provided $60 million in food aid to Gaza, but The Washington Post in a report published Saturday said only $3 million has been disbursed so far, Anadolu reports.
Citing State Department officials, the report said $30 million had been allocated from the US International Disaster Assistance fund to support food aid in Gaza through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US- and Israeli-backed aid group. Of that total, just 10% – around $3 million – has been delivered.
Critics have described GHF aid sites in Gaza as “death traps,” with the UN reporting that Israeli forces have killed over 1,300 Palestinians seeking food at its distribution points since late May. As Gaza teeters on the brink of famine under the ongoing Israeli blockade, its Health Ministry said Saturday that the total death toll from hunger has risen to 169, including 93 children, since Oct. 7, 2023.
READ: Trump’s special envoy to enter Gaza on Friday to inspect food distribution sites: White House
According to the WaPo report, State Department spokesperson confirmed that $30 million had been allocated from the department’s International Disaster Assistance fund but declined to address Trump’s comments, which he made during public appearances over the past week.
“We gave $60 million a couple of weeks ago,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “Nobody said anything about it. Nobody said thank you.”
The newspaper also cited a report on internal briefings by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s aides to congressional committees, saying Israel had agreed to match $30 million from the US. The Israeli government has not confirmed this, and the State Department declined to comment.
Witkoff visited an aid center in southern Gaza on Friday operated by the GHF. He said the aim was to give President Donald Trump “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.”
READ: Gaza government says most of 36 aid trucks looted amid security chaos
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
