#active campaign france

[dykesbat]

STAGNANT CAMPAIGN

Dr. Moath Abu Samra's campaign has been active for months. I've been posting it on this site since February and it's only meet 43% of it's goal!

This campaign is on number 85 on Operation Olive Branch's vetted fundraiser spreadsheet.

It is currently at $21,611 raised of its $50,000 goal. Please support this family. Every $10,000 will help a family member evacuate

EDIT: If you would like to donate a NOMAD e-sim to the family members still in Gaza so they can stay connected, please privately message the fundraiser organizer, Frances Silney-Bah.

[trans-axolotl]

today is international whores' day!

"On June 2nd, 1975, over 100 sex workers began an 8-day occupation at the Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon, France. They demanded the end of fines, stigma, police harassment, and the release of ten sex workers who had been imprisoned a few days earlier for soliciting. This occupation was initiated to call attention to the increasing violence against sex workers perpetrated by the French government. It was widely reported both nationally and internationally, receiving support from labor and feminist organizations alike. On June 10th, after 8 days of occupation, the police forcibly removed the women from the church, but their impact marked the start of an international movement." - History, IWD LA

today (and every day) is a good day to learn from sex workers about decriminalization, our activism, and how to support us.

check out the Sex Work Syllabus from the Support Ho(s)e Collective and donate to their ongoing mutual aid campaigns.

read Girls do what they have to do to survive by the Young Women's Empowerment Project.

Donate to SWOP Behind Bars to support incarcerated sex workers.

get involved in harm reduction and decrim activism in your local community.

support the sex workers in your life!!

[mariacallous]

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right French leader who espoused racist and antisemitic rhetoric and was convicted of Holocaust denial, has died at 96.

His death was announced on social media by Jordan Bardella, a leader of the party Le Pen founded. “Enlisted in the uniform of the French army in Indochina and Algeria, tribune of the people in the National Assembly and the European Parliament, he always served France, defended its identity and its sovereignty,” Bardella wrote.

Le Pen was born in 1928 in Brittany, France, and entered politics following activism as a student. In 1972, he founded the National Front party, a coalition of extremist groups that steadily accumulated support with its anti-immigrant agenda. Another co-founder had served in the Nazi Waffen-SS.

Le Pen ran unsuccessfully for president five times. In 2002, his penultimate campaign, he came in second to Jacques Chirac, advancing to a runoff but received less than one-fifth of the vote as the French mainstream united behind Chirac.

Through it all, Le Pen espoused racist and antisemitic rhetoric that landed him in legal trouble in France, where Holocaust denial is illegal. In 1987, he was convicted of denying the Holocaust after saying — and refusing to disavow saying — that the Nazi gas chambers were “just a detail” in history.

It was his first conviction but not his last, which came after he was charged in 2017 with inciting hatred over having said about a Jewish singer who criticized the National Front party, “Next time we willl put him in the oven.”

His daughter, Marine Le Pen, was elected the party’s leader in 2011, directly succeeding her father. She sought to moderate the image of the party, renamed National Rally, and denounced her father’s antisemitism.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was ejected from the party he founded in 2015 following the oven comments, sparking a divide among its supporters between those who favored his extremist rhetoric and those who preferred a more temperate approach.

Though he left the party, he did not exit the national stage, continuing to amass fines over his comments and ignite new controversies In 2018, he praised France’s World War II collaborationist government in a memoir. The Vichy government worked with the Nazis to round up Jews and send them to be murdered — the fate of more than 75,000 Jews living in France at the start of the war.

Under Marine Le Pen, who also ignited controversy by saying the French people should not be blamed for their part in the Holocaust, the party has continued to rise in influence. Last year, carried by a tide of anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe, it received a third of the vote in the first round of national elections. The younger Le Pen has focused on opposing immigration and the European Union, and has herself been charged with hate speech against Muslims.

[sayruq]

The Irish Senate just voted to impose sanctions on Israel

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign this evening welcomed the unanimous passing of a motion in the Seanad calling for robust actions by the Irish government to hold Apartheid Israel accountable for its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people. The motion, moved by the Civic Engagement Group Senators Frances Black, Lynne Ruane, Alice Mary Higgins and Eileen Flynn, is comprehensive and calls on the Irish government to, among other things: impose sanctions on Israel; enact the Occupied Territories Bill and the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill; to actively ensure no US weapons are being sent to Israel through Irish airspace; and to push for an international arms embargo on Israel. It can be read in full here.

[seekerofthesightlessway]

I keep thinking about Laila. I fear the worst for her. She should've been graduating high school and going to college, not this. Not scraping out a meager existence amongst the rubble and the corpses begging for change on the internet to buy food and medicine. I wish I still had my old blog so I could look at the conversations we had, I'm glad I got to know her. She was a sweetheart and very dear to me like a little sister. But I haven't heard from her in months. I would be worried sick whenever she went a day without messaging me, but she'd always be back the next day, telling me about the bombings and the blackouts. But the days turned into weeks turned into months and now I'm finally facing the fact that she might be gone. I feel like shit for not coming to that realization sooner. It's been a creeping thought in the back of my mind for a long time, but I've been denying it and making excuses that she might have lost her phone or her password or something. Sometimes I see the "recently active" light on her blog, but I see that on deactivated blogs sometimes too, who fucking knows with how shoddy tumblr's backend is. If anyone has heard from her, please let me know. Either way, not knowing for sure is hell. I can't even cry for her to mourn for her, I've just had a lump stuck in my throat on the verge of tears for days. But I can't abandon her. Even though she might be gone, her family might still be alive, and we still have an obligation to them. Her mother was pregnant and might have given birth already- can you imagine having to take care of a baby in Gaza? If you have anything at all to spare, even if it's only a dollar, please do. Laila's fundraiser has a higher percentage of it's goal met than some, but honestly, that doesn't really mean anything. Between border crossings becoming less common and the price of living skyrocketing, these campaigns become less of a fundraiser for a specific goal and more of a fund from which to withdraw money to pay for necessities, and the percentage of the goal met doesn't reflect the amount of money they actually have. I'd be surprised if they have even a thousand euros- and that's not as much as it sounds when diapers or loaves of bread can cost two hundred euros apiece. I don't know how to make a specific family stand out to catch the attention of tumblr users, and I don't even know if it's worth it to turn them and their misery into sideshow attractions stripped of their dignity for a hypothetical engagement gain. But if you're reading this, please do what you can to spread this fundraiser and donate to Laila's family. They still need us. Tagging for reach under the cut- lmk if you want to be removed

@pussyronin @britomartis @wotsukai @smoqueen @specialmouse @boobieteriat @pitbolshevik @hollowslantern @tamamita @apas-95 @paper-mario-wiki @marxism-transgenderism @sayruq @nabulsi @grox @omegaversereloaded @cryptotheism @komsomolka @11thsense @beetledrink @imlizy @b0tster @r0zeclawz @punkitt-is-here @3000s @feluka @dailyquests @afro-elf @nyancrimew @thatdiabolicalfeminist @neechees @berserkerjewel @catsgifsarefun @spaghettioverdose @deepspaceboytoy @rickybabyboy @ot3 @90-ghost @i-am-a-fish @vampiricvenus @tpwrtrmnky @tlirsgender @minmos @slimetony @sluttynurse @opencommunion @iregularlyevadetaxes @neptunerings @yekkes @tododeku-or-bust @hotvampireadjacent @dirhwangdaseul @meshugenist @bunniope @evillesbianvillain

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

In 2017 I interviewed Bernadette Wren, then head of psychology at the Tavistock Gids clinic, and asked what effect puberty blocking drugs have on the adolescent brain. Looking highly uncomfortable, she replied that the evidence so far was only anecdotal but that the clinic would study its patients “well into their adult lives so that we can see”.

Even back then, before whistleblowers had exposed the rush to medically transition children, it was alarming to hear that heavy-duty GnRH agonists such as triptorelin — used to treat advanced prostate cancer and “chemically castrate” sex offenders — were being prescribed to arrest puberty in hundreds of children as young as 11.

Moreover, they were being used “off-label” before any clinical trials. And the long-term study Wren promised never materialised: Gids (the Gender Identity Development Service) routinely lost touch with patients, and the 44 it did follow reported little long-term mental health improvement.

This shocking chapter in medical history, where the ideological objectives of trans rights campaigners trumped the welfare of disturbed children, is coming to an end worldwide. The decision by NHS England effectively to ban the prescription of puberty blockers comes after the Cass review noted these drugs could “permanently disrupt” brain development, reduce bone density and lock children into a regime of cross-sex hormones requiring life-long patienthood.

NHS England unites with other national health services including those in Finland, France, Sweden and, most notably, the Netherlands — where the “Dutch protocol”, a regime of early blockers then hormones, was devised in 1998 — in pulling back from prescribing them.

Even in the United States, where a toxic combination of extreme activism and medical capitalism has pushed child gender medicine to grotesque extremes, with double mastectomies performed on 14-year-old girls, there is some retrenchment.

Leaks from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the body which formulates guidance on “trans healthcare”, reveal doctors perplexed at how they should explain to an 11-year-old child that drugs will render them infertile. Crucially, liberal media such as The New York Times are now reporting grave medical misgivings about child transition, once dismissed as a culture-war issue for the Republican right.

Yet the question remains: how was this ever allowed to happen? For years, puberty blockers were cheerily billed as a mere “pause button”. In 2014, Dr Polly Carmichael, the last head of Gids before the Cass review ordered its closure, went on CBBC in a show called I Am Leo, saying of blockers: “The good thing is, if you stop the injections, it’s like pressing ‘start’ and the body carries on developing as it would if you hadn’t started.”

The BBC permitted her to make this unevidenced claim to an impressionable audience of six to 12-year-olds. Imagine hearing this as a developing girl, freaked out by your new breasts and periods. No wonder Gids referrals subsequently rocketed.

Carmichael failed to mention that she did not know if pressing “restart” on puberty is always medically possible — it is not — and in fact, almost every child Gids put on blockers went on to irreversible cross-sex hormones.

After years in a Peter Pan state while their peers developed, they understandably felt there was no way back and forged on with treatment. Yet if allowed to experience natural puberty, almost 85 per cent of gender dysphoria cases resolve themselves.

Nor did Carmichael tell CBBC kids that the blockers-hormones combination, if taken early enough, not only results in sterility but kills the libido so that a young person will never experience an orgasm.

At the 2020 judicial review brought by a former Tavistock clinician and Keira Bell, the brave young detransitioner rushed onto hormones by Gids, judges expressed astonishment at Gids’s lack of an evidence base.

Reporting on this issue for seven years, I too have been struck by a complete clinical incuriosity. Not only was data not collected, but those who queried treatments or pressed for evidence faced angry condemnation. Perhaps activists knew what research might find because one long-term Finnish study, recently reported in the BMJ, destroyed the myth used to justify blockers: that a child will commit suicide if denied them.

The Finns found that “gender-affirming care” does not make a dysphoric child less suicidal. Rather, such children had the same suicide risk as others with severe psychiatric issues. In other words, changing bodies does not fix troubled minds.

Yet even after NHS England’s announcement, activists refuse to heed the now-overwhelming evidence. In its response, Stonewall persists with the myth that puberty blockers “give a young person extra time to evaluate their next steps”.

Many questions remain unanswered: will private clinics still be permitted to prescribe puberty blockers; and is Scotland’s Sandyford child gender clinic still determined to close its ears to all evidence? Plus, we have few details on how the NHS’s new “holistic” treatment for gender-questioning children will operate when it opens next month.

This repellent experiment — in which girls who like trucks or little boys who dress as princesses, and who invariably grow up to be gay, are corralled inexorably down a road towards life-changing treatments — belongs in the book of medical disgraces. As do the cheerleaders who raised money for Mermaids and those who persecuted whistleblowers or damned journalists asking questions as transphobic.

In 50 years, chemically freezing the puberty of healthy children with troubled minds will be regarded with the same horrified fascination as lobotomies — which, never forget, won the Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz the 1949 Nobel prize.

--------------------

{Article source (behind paywall)}

[inqorporeal]

People here in the US looking at France and getting hopes up for a sea change need to realize that what happened there couldn't have happened without ranked-choice voting. More states are pushing for the shift to this more representative system, but every state dominated by conservatives is resisting because they know a truly representative vote will erode their hold on local and federal politics.

If you want ranked-choice voting to have a chance at being established in the US and leading to the actual progress you want, you need to get active. This has to be grassroots work because the people already in office don't want it. You have to start locally. Go to local council meetings, school board meetings, meet and greets with your alderman. Talk to people. Stick to a topic that's important to everyone, point out how their representatives at all levels don't actually care, and how a more representative system might help. If there's a chance to address the council, do the same thing. Get the idea in the heads of everyone present. Get it in the heads of anyone campaigning that this would be a good plank for their platform.

Oh yeah, and vote for someone other than the people who don't want representative democracy. You gotta do that too

[mindshelter]

donation match chain

match my recent donations in any number—whatever you are capable of! five dollars can go a long way if many pitch in. all fundraisers are vetted.

if you cannot donate, i have also linked their tumblr posts/accounts so that you may reblog their posts.

from this week (posted august 9, 2024):

donated USD25 to shaima and muhammad's fundraiser, organized on behalf of shaima's sister, wafaa, who has evacuated to egypt. they are currently only at USD33,565/USD80,000 of their goal! @brutaliakhoa is also holding a magikarp plush raffle for this fundraiser here.

€25 to @ahmedabuyamin ahmed's fundraiser to evacuate his wife and their children, currently at €47,645/€49,000! they are very close! his post is here.

CHF20 (swiss francs) to @eyadeyadsblog eyad's fundraiser, now at CHF10,070/CHF20,000! this one is moving pretty slowly, so it would be great to see momentum on this one! his post is here.

USD25 to @mohiy-gaza mohi, for himself and for six of his family members. this fundraiser has been active for about two months, and is currently at USD10,642/USD31,000 of its goal. his post is here. mohi is also wafaa's brother, whose campaign is linked next:

€20 to @wafaaresh wafaa's campaign, which is currently at €19,735/€100,000 of their overall goal.

CAD25 to @maria-gaza1 maria's campaign, which is still very low on funds despite being up for over a month. she is currently at CAD816/CAD30,000. her post is here.

USD25 to @aseelo680 aseel and her fundraiser. she is currently evacuating from a "humanitarian zone" and urgently needs funds; her campaign is at USD6,948/USD20,000, and could really use some momentum! user @ebenrosetaylor is holding an art raffle for aseel.

€25 to @azaxa lina, to evacuate her family and children. as of now she is at €30,808/€45,000 of her goal. lina's pinned post is here.

receipts are below, in order:

if you match, please share your receipts to keep the chain going!

[the-cimmerians]

Imane Khelif, you may remember, is an Algerian boxer, one of two to be attacked during the Olympics as cheaters, as transsexual women, as men, and even as violent criminals — all of which was completely false. The two of them, the other being Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan, were relentlessly demeaned, mocked, and threatened, based only on how each woman had been — retroactively — excluded from an international competition last year by the International Boxing Association. Famous anti-trans politicians and personalities piled on, with Donald Trump, JD Vance, Megyn Kelly, and JK Rowling being among the most recognizable. Possibly because Rowling singled out Khelif and not Lin, the harassment of Khelif was even worse than Lin faced, and many have been wondering when karma might finally land the author in court.

The answer is … not exactly soon, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. While in the process of winning gold under unprecedented pressure (as Lin did also), Khelif worked with a famous and well-regarded Paris lawyer, Nabil Boudi, to prepare a complaint about the harassment. It was filed on Friday, August 9, actually before the gold medal bout. Although many people in the English speaking world have misinterpreted this as a defamation lawsuit (Variety seems to have corrected the body of its article, but not its headline), in fact it’s a criminal complaint alleging “moral harassment,” and per Le Monde was filed with “the Paris correctional court's National Centre for Combating Online Hate.”

So what is ‘moral harassment’ and what’s next?

Moral harassment is a criminal charge that is typically of lesser severity, on a relative par with stalking laws in the United States. As with stalking, there are more and less serious versions and the penalties can vary, but the most serious can be penalized by up to three years in jail and a fine of up to 45,000 Euros. Most violations carry lesser penalties. It is generally defined as repeated acts that have the object or effect of injuring the rights or dignity of a person, harming their health, or impairing certain other specific activities (like the ability to perform one's job).

The Centre for Combating Online Hate is a subunit of the Central Office for Combating Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes (OCLCH) and a recent creation. It is empowered to investigate all acts of moral harassment (amongst other hate crimes and crimes against dignity) against persons within France’s borders, even visitors like Khelif and even when the online perpetrators are unknown or outside of France’s jurisdiction.

A number of prominent people within France participated in the harassment of Khelif, including Eric Zemmour, a far-right racist politician who most recently ran for the Parliament of the European Union with the “far-right Reconquête! party.” Yes, that “Reconquête!” means just what you think it does. Members of Rassemblement National also racked up millions of views for their sexist and cissexist tweets targeting Khelif. All of these figures, and more, could face a civil fine plus forced restitution (which would not prevent Khelif from also suing for defamation) or criminal penalties if prosecuted and convicted.

The scope of the investigation, however, is certain to include the tweets of Rowling and others outside France who participated in what the complaint labeled a campaign of harassment both “massive” and “coordinated.” Speaking to Le Monde, Boudi said,

“The investigation will have to determine who was behind this misogynistic, racist, and sexist campaign, as well as those who fueled this digital lynching.”

French prosecutors have authority to request documents and other evidence from foreign governments, but outside the EU they have no ability to require cooperation, only to request it. (Inside the EU their ability to require cooperation is limited, but not non-existent.) While other European countries often have hate speech and harassment laws that overlap with those of France, speech protections are stronger in the UK than in mainland Europe and even stronger in the US. Criminal prosecution of — just as an example — JK Rowling would be possible but more difficult than a French prosecution of Zemmour and his co-harassers. In the USA, prosecution is right out.

So why bother pursuing evidence against Rowling, Musk, Trump, and Vance?

OCLCH, the office under which the online centre is organized, has as part of its mission the support of victims in their attempt to access justice. As a result of this mandate combined with the scope of France’s law against moral harassment, the prosecution investigative service is empowered to gather evidence relating to the treatment of persons within its borders even when charges can’t be filed. The benefit here is that evidence collected by the government at the government’s expense can then be used by private parties in defamation lawsuits, allowing victims to collect monetary judgements even when the prosecutors choose not to indict or a person using the internet to harass someone in France is beyond the reach of French law.

Boudi, with a background in both criminal and human rights laws, undoubtedly knows this and how to exploit it. While his client has achieved fame in winning a gold medal, it’s unlikely she has the money to pursue defamation claims around the world (and against the world’s richest respondents). While many people in the US may find it shocking that sending a tweet can be made a criminal offense in Europe, the tools that this allows the French government to use to provide equal access to justice for rich and poor will likely be crucial in the certainly forthcoming Khelif lawsuits against Rowling and her ilk in the English speaking world.

Don’t expect that defamation lawsuit too soon, however. Boudi will undoubtedly be working closely with prosecutors to keep on top of all the evidence that they gather and will want to give them time to work before bringing the civil law to bear.

[nesiacha]

Revolutionaries with a Hard Fate after the end of the revolution

Gâteau, Saint-Just's friend, whose loss he never recovered from. He died in despair in 1815 during the Bourbon Restoration.

Marie Angélique Lequesne, widow of Ronsin, later divorced Turreau, who was also active in the revolution. She had a terrible marriage with him (Turreau betrayed the Ronsin couple twice, once while Ronsin was alive, pretending to be his friend and stabbed him in the back when Ronsin needed supportwhile he was being attacked as one of the representatives of the Hébertist faction during the period of the factional infighting. The second time by horribly mistreating Marie-Angélique after that he married her , even having her whipped). You will see in the links I’m sending. She also lost a son during her lifetime. It’s possible Turreau separated her from her sons’ custody. In fact, to punish her for their separation, he made her live in poverty during three years and she had to seek help from a judge to return to France. It’s likely that this poverty lasted until the end of her life, as her daughter, Alexandrine, died in misery and poverty (Alexandrine, who was also a victim of her father Turreau). Here are the posts: Letter from Turreau to Ronsin and the Complex and The Day a Judge Confronted Turreau for His Actions

Marie-Anne Babeuf, widow of Gracchus Babeuf, who had been her husband’s right hand. Before the revolution, she had already lost a daughter due to a boiling water accident. Gracchus never recovered from this loss. Then, under the Directory, their other daughter, Sophie, died of malnutrition caused by the high prices of rations (Gracchus wrote a letter of despair in prison, saying that people like Boissy d'Anglas had condemned his daughter: "I had a seven-year-old daughter; I soon received the heartbreaking news that she died from the murderous reduction of the two ounces of bread."). She was pregnant when her husband was arrested, and she walked miles with her son Emile to try to save him. She may have even tried to help him escape, according to certain letters. She continued to fight after her husband's execution and was repeatedly arrested by the police. But her son Camille went mad and committed suicide. As for her other son, Caius, he died in Vendôme during the foreign invasion of France at the age of 17. It’s possible that she even outlived her last son, Emile, as, despite being known as a militant with a strong character in adversity, and being arrested by the police under the Directory and Bonaparte, her death date is unknown. Some say she was still alive when her last son, Emile, died. She also saw many of her friends die under the mockery of justice, including Topino-Lebrun, executed under Bonaparte (see Topino Lebrun: A Revolutionary Jacobin Close to Gracchus Babeuf) or her friend René Vatar, who died in deportation (he had campaigned for her release when she was imprisoned).

Claude-Antoine Prieur, who lived his last years very painfully. He lost his beloved daughter and granddaughter. His friend Lazare Carnot died in exile, and Prieur’s friends Frilley and Monnet did not return his friendship. See the very good post ( and sad ) post by @aedesluminis on Prieur’s tragic end: https://www.tumblr.com/aedesluminis/758618574216724480/nigrit-i-dont-think-she-cared-much-about-the?source=share

Jean-Nicolas Pache. He withdrew from political life. He was close to his children, especially Sylvie Audouin (according to Mathilde Larrère, she was a fervent Hébertist and therefore supported her father ideas). He survived his daughter, who often visited him, while watching everything he had worked for collapse. I already talked about Sylvie here quickly here and her role during the revolution and the Directory with her husband Xavier Audouin ( https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/767044131014033408/very-mediocre-and-horrible-quote-from-buzot?source=share) . I really have to do a post about pache one day btw

Prieur de la Marne, who died in exile so poor that there was not enough money for his funeral.

Feel free to add because I know I've overlooked many and they all deserve more information

P.S: I hesitated to put Sophie Momoro in it after everything that happened in her life afterwards but if she died in poverty and had a failed marriage at least she was able to have her 3 children and her husband was not like Turreau ( here about some of the life of Sophie Momoro https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/758994396416016384/life-and-fate-of-sophie-momoro-n%C3%A9e-fournier-and?source=share). But she still have a sad end.

Sources:

Antoine Resche

Jean-Marc Schiappa

Claude Mazauric

Bloche

Mathilde Larrère

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Camille had his speech leading to the siege of the Bastille, Robespierre was in the estates general and a founder of the Jacobin Club and Marat had his newpaper.

I’m not entirely sure when/why Danton became so popular and influential?

TLDR: Danton gained his first notoriety through his position as president at the Cordelier district.

In Dévinir révolutionnaire dans Paris (2016) Haïm Burstin underlines that, indeed, ”Danton did not participate in the political campaign linked to the convening of the Estates General, nor in the drafting of the cahier of the third estate of his district, nor even in the first insurrectional exploits.” In Danton(1978) Norman Hampson similarily concludes that ”the record of [Danton’s] political activities in the first half of 1789 is a surprising blank.” In July 1789, things do however get going slightly. Both Burstin and Hampson cite the lawyer Christophe Lavaux who in his memoirs (1816) claimed to have seen Danton in the Cordelier District on July 13, basically being Desmoulins 2.0:

I saw my colleague, Danton, whom I had always known as a man of sound judgement, gentle character, modest and silent. What was my surprise at seeing him up on a table, declaiming wildly, calling the citizens to arms to repel 15,000 brigands gathered at Montmartre and an army of 30,000 poised to sack Paris and slaughter its inhabitants. Exhausted with fatigue, Danton calmed down and gave way to another fanatic I went up to him and asked what all the uproar was about; I spoke to him of the calm and security I had seen at Versailles. He replied that I had not understood anything, that the sovereign people had risen against despotism. ”Join us,” he said. “The throne is overturned and your old position is lost. Don’t forget that.”

Then in the night between July 15 and 16, two days after the storming of the Bastille, Danton famously led a company of National Guards from the Cordeliers to the Bastille, kidnapping Soulès, the new governor appointed by the Paris Commune, after he refused to let them in and taking him to the Cordeliers and the Hôtel de Ville where he was ordered released by Lafayette the following morning. Danton’s move was openly dismissed and disapproved of by the authorities but we might imagiene it still bought him some notority.

After this, Danton laid his focus on the Cordelier district of which he is elected president in September 1789, a post he kept up until January 1790. On December 11 1789 we find evidence of the notority he’s gained through this, as we on that day see the district offering a ”solemn testimonial to its beloved president in reply to those who dared to imagiene that he was touting for votes to prolong his presidency and had purchased the unanimous support of the district.” (cited in Hampson, page 36). The documentation of what exactly Danton said and did during this period is however still quite lacking. In his memoirs (1875), Antoine-Clair Thibaudeau claimed to in the evening of October 3 1789 have gone to the Cordelier district and seen Danton presiding ”with the decisiveness, agility and authority of a man who knows his power. He drove the assembly of the District towards his goal. It adopted a manifesto.” The manifesto in question was a fierce denunciation of the king’s decision to summon the Flanders Regiment to protect him at Versailles. In number 47 of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, Desmoulins claimed that Danton on the very same day ”sounded the tocsin at the Cordeliers. On Sunday (October 4) this immortal district posted its manifesto, and from that day on, formed the vanguard of the Parisian army, and would have marched to Versailles, if Mr. Crevecœur, its commander, had not slowed down this martial ardor.” (According to Hampson, the authors behind Révolutions de Paris wrote the same thing, but I can’t find the place he’s referring to).

After this, the Cordeliers concentrayed their fire on the municipal government in Paris, in particular Bailly and La Fayette. On December 26 1789 Danton led a deputation from the Cordeliers to the Commune to denounce Bailly for awarding commissions in the National Guard on his own authority and to allege that the commissions referred to Bailly as Monseigneur (My Lord) in letters. When Bailly showed him that these letters did in fact refer to him as Monsieur, Danton did however profess that he’d made a mistake. Then on January 22 and January 23 1790 he openly takes Marat under protection at the Cordeliers after La Fayette the same day had sent an army of 3000 men to arrest him, giving Marat time to escape. On March 17 an arrest warrant was issued against Danton himself for inciting the district to protect Marat in defiance of the law. In response, the next day 300 Cordeliers signed a petition on Danton’s behalf. The business was referred to the National Assembly that, in Hampson’s words, ”was at least becoming familiar with Danton’s name” and it ended up ruling in his favour.

Unfortunately for Danton, in May 1790 the districts were abolished and Paris divided into 48 sections instead, of which only active citizens could be apart of. The Cordelier district now reinvented itself as the Cordelier club, but it lacked any of the concreate political power the Cordelier district had had. As for Danton, according to L’école révolutionnaire des Cordeliers (2016) by Raymonde Monnier, ”if he has friends in Cordeliers and if they count him as one of their own, as Mathiez writes, his action at the club escapes examination.” Danton instead focused on trying to win municipal power, running for both mayor and procureur in 1790. In both instances be did however face massive losses. In September 1790 his section did however choose him as one of three representatives to serve on the new municipal council. All representatives did need to be endorsed by the sections as a whole, and there, Danton was the only one of 144 councillors to be rejected, by no less than 43 of 48 sections. Hampson writes the following about this, cementing that Danton at this point was somewhat famous:

This certainly indicated that he had acquired a Parisian reputation, but not one that looked like doing him any good. The election results showed that there was something special about Danton.

[coochiequeens]

TRAs "We're so oppressed and people say we're violent men" Also TRAs - set fire to a venue then send 300 to swarm a conference to intimidate women for talking about the full impact or gender ideology for both women and the TQ+ that are undergoing transition.

By Genevieve Gluck September 20, 2024

A private school in Lyon, France, had its electricity sabotaged on Thursday as trans activists attempted to have a conference critical of gender ideology cancelled. The event was later swarmed by 300 trans activists, who gathered outside of the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences (ISSEP) in opposition to the appearance of feminist activist Marguerite Stern, co-author of the book “Transmania.”

The conference, titled Comment L’idéologie Transgenre Détruit des Vies? (How Transgender Ideology Destroys Lives), sought to discuss the harms of both medical transitioning and the aggression of trans activism. But even before the event was set to officially begin, the venue – a private school founded by right-wing Member of Parliament Marion Maréchal-Le Pen – was targeted for sabotage.

At approximately 4:00 AM on the day the conference was to take place, an explosion occurred and a fire broke out in a room housing an electrical meter adjacent to the venue. As firefighters worked to extinguish the flames, 200 police officers were dispatched to the scene. The officers were present throughout the evening’s event in order to secure the safety of attendees.

While police are still investigating the cause of the fire, security camera footage caught one unidentified individual setting off an explosive device. The explosion set fire to the electrical meter of the adjacent building, resulting in a power outage for some local residents. This occurred while trans activists had been vandalizing the front of the institute with threatening slogans.

Vandalism on the ISSEP building’s front read: “Dirty TERF,” an acronym which stands for ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’ and is often used as a pejorative to harass or threaten violence against women who oppose gender identity ideology.

Some of the vandalism on the ISSEP building. Photo courtesy of Marguerite Stern.

Stern, formerly an active campaigner against femicide, decided to speak at ISSEP Thursday evening despite the damage to the institute and credible threats to her safety which were shared on social media. While the event took place, more trans activists gathered outside of the venue and complained of “transphobia” to local media.

“At the conference, I talked about how children are harmed by puberty blockers, and all the women who ‘transition’, especially the teenagers, and [detransitioners] who find that ‘transition’ destroyed their lives. But I also talked about the ‘TERFs’, the women who resist, because I believe that transgender ideology destroys their lives, too,” Stern told Reduxx.

“When we started the conference, we didn’t have electricity because the workers were still trying to turn the power back on. And this is not the first time a venue where I was scheduled to speak was vandalized. So what I was talking about was happening in front of our eyes,” Stern continued.

“I’m so upset about that fire and the impact on the people living there. Those people who set the fire just didn’t care about human lives,” she added. “They knew that children were sleeping in this building, and the fire could have been much worse if the firemen didn’t come to stop it. Can you imagine? Some children could have died.

Stern is no stranger to controversy and has been targeted by trans activists for several years.

Last April, when Stern was set to speak at a symposium in Nantes intended to raise awareness of the plight of Afghan and Iranian women, the event had to be postponed in response to violent threats made against her and the venue.

Stern has previously been ousted from her own organization in direct response to her concerns about transgender ideology. Les Collages Contre les Féminicides, a direct action campaign she launched in 2019, involved the creation of murals calling attention to violence against women and girls. In 2022, trans activists destroyed one such mural created in remembrance of the infant victims of shaken baby syndrome by an organization sympathetic to Stern, L’Amazone.

On International Women’s Day in 2021, Stern was pelted with eggs by trans activists in a coordinated and premeditated assault. She, along with members of L’Amazone and the Collective for the Abolition of Pornography and Prostitution (CAPP) had gathered to hold a demonstration at the Place de la République in Paris. The women soon found themselves swarmed and outnumbered by trans activists who called them “SWERFs,” meaning Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists, and shouted: “No feminism without whores.”

In May, Stern and another women’s rights advocate, Dora Moutot, had death threats chanted at them by a crowd of trans activists outside of Assas University where they had been invited to speak about the book they wrote together.

Demonstrators surrounded the entrance and shouted, “A TERF, a bullet, social justice,” at the two women as they were escorted by police. “They have no shame,” said Stern in footage depicting the scene. “How can they say that in front of police?” marveled Moutot.

Leading up to last night’s conference, Stern was mocked and threatened with violence on social media by trans activists, some of whom joked about hurling eggs at her for their own amusement.

A second protest organized by Jeune Garde, or the French arm of Antifa, which would have occurred at the entrance of ISSEP, was cancelled by order of the police. Stern explained that the police were aware that Jeune Garde protests are “always violent.”

Le Collectif Droit des Femmes 69 coordinated the protest with over a dozen various trans activist and so-called feminist organizations, among them: NousToutes Rhône, Solidaires Rhône, Ensemble ! 69, VIFFIL-SOS Femmes, PS du Rhône, Filactions, Les Ecologistes 69, SOS Homophobie, Jeune Garde, and le Planning Familial.

“As members of the Collectif Droits des Femmes 69, we cannot remain silent in the face of this conference,” the organization’s leaders announced in a press release. “Indeed, this event illustrates in every way what we are fighting: the crass transphobia of a part of the political and media class, increasingly uninhibited in France and elsewhere. Transphobes publicly spread their venom, legitimizing physical, psychological, institutional violence against our trans or non-binary siblings. The feminism we claim is inclusive, we stand up together and for everyone!”

Individual organizations also made public statements on social media vilifying Stern and calling on their supporters to denounce her.

“On Thursday, September 19, ISSEP, Marien Maréchal Lepen’s school, has invited Marguerite Stern to present her book ‘Transmania’. This book, which is nothing more than fiction that aims to demonize trans people and spread hatred, is not based on any scientific reality,” reads a statement produced by Solidaires Rhône. “In particular, it served as support for a transphobic bill aimed at banning the transitions of minors, in complicity with the extreme right.”

Since the publication of “Transmania” in April, which Stern co-authored with her colleague Dora Moutot, the two women’s rights activists have been denied speaking opportunities. For years, the two have faced ongoing threats of violence both online and via publicly posted signage, been publicly condemned by prominent politicians, and even had legal complaints made against them for “misgendering”.

Last year, one of the organizations involved in yesterday’s demonstration, SOS Homophobie, filed France’s first-ever “misgendering” discrimination suit against Moutot. The “Transmania” co-author was accused of “violently attacking” Nicolas ‘Marie’ Cau, mayor of the small town of Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes, by calling him a man.

[mapsontheweb]

Italy from 1796 to 1805

Cartes 1-4 & 6 : « Atlas de la révolution française », Beaurepaire & Marzagalli, Autrement, 2016

Carte 5 : « Atlas de l’empire napoléonien », Chappey & Gainot, Autrement, 2e éd., 2015

by cartesdhistoire

The incursion of Bonaparte's army into Italy in the spring of 1796 was primarily a diversion to relieve pressure on the Rhine front. However, its success quickly opened up new possibilities: French support and the activism of local patriots led to the establishment of sister republics. Over three years (1796-1799), known as the Triennio, the political landscape and institutions of the peninsula underwent significant changes. This period, marked by reforms and democratic achievements, as well as the involvement of individuals previously excluded from public affairs, is crucial for understanding how the Triennio influenced the attitudes of both elites and the general populace during and after the Napoleonic era.

However, the sister republics collapsed in the spring of 1799 in the face of the successes of the Austro-Russian armies of the Second Coalition and the armed uprisings of peasants incited by the clergy and angered by French abuses. Naples surrendered in June 1799, and the repression there was severe.

The political landscape of the peninsula was once again reshaped by France following the Second Italian Campaign, which began in 1800. The Cisalpine Republic, reinstated after the Battle of Marengo and expanded during the Peace of Lunéville, gave way to the Italian Republic in 1802, then became a kingdom in 1805. The kingdom's territory expanded to include Veneto and Istria (1805), the Marche region (1808), and South Tyrol (1810). Thanks to the Vice-President of the Italian Republic, Francesco Melzi d'Eril, the political efforts during these years resulted in the establishment of a modern state and significant reforms in administration, justice, and the military.

The Napoleonic experience helped to politically educate the Italian elites, providing them with a shared institutional and legal framework, as well as standardized administrative practices, which made the idea of unity feasible.

[gsirvitor]

1. Support our Veterans. 2. Support the politician who dodged draft 5 times and called soldiers killed in action "suckers" and "losers". You can only pick one.

I support our Veterans, I also understand that the statement you're quoting is a lie.

A White House email from a U.S. Marine Corps official proves a “bad weather call” was the reason for President Trump’s canceled visit to Aisne-Marne American cemetery in 2018; further evidence refuting Biden’s claim includes U.S. Navy records obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request — and even John Bolton's book.

Unequivocal denials came from virtually every official on the trip:

Zach Fuentes, former deputy to Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly: “I did not hear POTUS call anyone losers when I told him about the weather. Honestly, do you think General Kelly would have stood by and let ANYONE call fallen Marines losers?” (Breitbart, 9/7/20)

John Bolton, former National Security Advisor: “I didn't hear either of those comments or anything even resembling them. I was there at the point in time that morning when it was decided that he would not go Aisne-Marne cemetery. He decided not to do it because of John Kelly's recommendation. It was entirely a weather-related decision, and I thought the proper thing to do.” (Fox News, 9/4/20)

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House press secretary: “The Atlantic story on @realDonaldTrump is total BS. I was actually there and one of the people part of the discussion - this never happened … I am disgusted by this false attack.” (X, 9/3/20)

Hogan Gidley, former White House deputy press secretary: “These are disgusting, grotesque, reprehensible lies. I was there in Paris and the President never said those things … These weak, pathetic, cowardly background ‘sources’ do not have the courage or decency to put their names to these false accusations because they know how completely ludicrous they are. It's sickening that they would hide in the shadows to knowingly try and hurt the morale of our great military simply for an attack on a political opponent.” (X, 9/3/20)

Dan Scavino, White House deputy chief of staff for communications: “I was with POTUS in France, with Sarah, and have been at his side throughout it all. Complete lies by ‘anonymous sources’ that were ‘dropped’ just as he begins to campaign (and surge). A disgraceful attempt to smear POTUS, 60 days before the Presidential Election! Disgusting!!” (X, 9/3/20)

Jordan Karem, former personal aide to President Trump: “This is not even close to being factually accurate. Plain and simple, it just never happened.” (X, 9/3/20)

Johnny DeStefano, former counselor to President Trump: “I was on this trip. The Atlantic bit is not true. Period.” (X, 9/4/20)

Stephen Miller, former senior advisor to President Trump: “ A despicable lie ... The president deeply wanted to attend the memorial event in question and was deeply displeased by the bad weather call." (Washington Examiner, 9/3/20)

Derek Lyons, former staff secretary and counselor to President Trump: “I was with the President the morning after the scheduled visit. He was extremely disappointed that arrangements could not be made to get him to the site, and that the trip had been cancelled.” (X, 9/4/20)

Dan Walsh, former White House deputy chief of staff: “I can attest to the fact that there was a bad weather call in France, and that the helicopters were unable to safely make the flight.” (White House Press Briefing, 9/4/20)

First Lady Melania Trump: “@TheAtlantic story is not true. It has become a very dangerous time when anonymous sources are believed above all else, & no one knows their motivation. This is not journalism - It is activism. And it is a disservice to the people of our great nation.” (X, 9/4/20)

Jamie McCourt, former U.S. Ambassador to France and Monaco: “In my presence, POTUS has NEVER denigrated any member of the U.S. military or anyone in service to our country. And he certainly did not that day, either. Let me add, he was devastated to not be able to go to the cemetery at Belleau Wood. In fact, the next day, he attended and spoke at the ceremony in Suresnes in the pouring rain.” (Breitbart, 9/7/20)

Mick Mulvaney, former acting White House chief of staff: “These claims are simply outrageous. I never heard the President disparage our war dead or wounded. In fact, the exact opposite is true. I was with him at the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy. As we flew over the beaches by helicopter he was outwardly in awe of the accomplishments of the Allied Forces, and the sacrifices they paid.” (X, 9/4/20)

Trump very much respects the armed forces, and those who gave their lives for those who live today, now, this is not a day for politics, this is a day of Remembrance, respect.

Don your poppy and pay your respects to the fallen, and those who serve.

[mariacallous]

“Now, how long will this take? The Ukrainians behave like charlatans and we continue to pay,” reads a quote in French next to a picture of Taylor Swift on what looks like a promotional poster for an upcoming tour. “That is not right.”

“Every time the Ukrainians get money, everything goes wrong,” reads another quote in German next to a picture of Selena Gomez on what appears to be a page taken from a fashion magazine.

"It's just disappointing how the Ukrainians use our help,” a quote, also in German, reads next to a picture of Kim Kardashian speaking on stage. “Someone needs to stop this, seriously."

Though the images make it look like these quotes were said by Swift, Gomez, and Kardashian, they weren’t. They were the product of a pro-Russian network of fake Facebook and X accounts that created and disseminated an ad campaign suggesting that some of the most famous people in the world back Russia and detest Ukraine. Among the celebrities included are Beyoncé, Oprah, Gigi Hadid, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bieber, Shakira, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Cristiano Ronaldo. “Supporting Ukrainians is unacceptable,” reads a quote next to a photo of Oprah. “Their actions destroy lives and societies.”

The disinformation campaign, which was launched in November, reached at least 7.6 million people on Facebook alone, according to a database of the ads reviewed by WIRED and collected by Reset, a nonprofit that provides grants to those tackling disinformation. It’s still in progress, and two separate groups of disinformation researchers believe the campaign is run by a notorious Russian influence operation dubbed Doppelganger that has in the past been linked to the Kremlin. New information shared exclusively with WIRED suggests the campaign has links to Russia’s GRU military spy agency.

At the beginning of November, researchers at Reset discovered what they described as a “blitz campaign” by two networks of fake Facebook pages. Over the course of a week, the researchers saw at least 560 Facebook ads that feature images of celebrities alongside pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian quotes. While some of the ads reached only thousands of users, others spread far more widely. One featuring Cristiano Ronaldo reached over 115,000 people before it was deactivated. Alongside the image of Ronaldo was the quote “It's frustrating to see how the Ukrainians use our aid. Someone needs to stop this, seriously.”

Researchers at Reset believe that the campaign “exploits loopholes in Facebook’s ad verification and content moderation systems to foster hostility against Ukrainians and undermine EU support for Kyiv.” Including fake quotes from celebrities within images makes it harder for Facebook to spot a coordinated campaign, they added. The campaign, which specifically targeted people in France and Germany, also removed any links or additional text in the ads, making it harder for Meta to track it.

Doppelganger has been actively spreading disinformation on both Facebook and X for some time. The organization was unmasked in September 2022 by EU DisinfoLab, a nonprofit working to combat disinformation against the EU, but it had been operating since at least May 2022. The group used clones of media websites, including The Guardian and Bild, to spread disinformation, filling the fake sites with articles, videos, and polls designed to push pro-Kremlin talking points about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Facebook first announced action against Doppelganger in September 2022, and said it was removing pages and accounts associated with the campaign.

In June 2023, another campaign targeting major French websites including Le Parisien, 20 Minutes, Le Monde, and Le Figaro was exposed by the French government. “French Minister supports the murder of Russian soldiers in Ukraine,” read one fake headline on a page that looked like Le Monde during that campaign.

Despite being repeatedly found out, the operators of Doppelganger have managed to continue their work: They also created fake versions of Fox News and other news websites to seed chaos and confusion during the Israel-Hamas war.

While Doppelganger campaigns in the past have been linked to the Kremlin in some media reports, new information from researchers tracking the disinformation campaign shows a link to Russia’s GRU.

A network of bot accounts on X, which in the past have been used to push Doppelganger’s fake websites, has also been used to push people to websites with direct links to Russia’s military spy agency. “Doppelganger bots promoted two sites recently, which both have strong connections to GRU,” researchers at Antibot4Navalny, a Russian anti-disinformation research group that has been closely tracking Doppelganger activity on X, tell WIRED. The researchers did not want to be identified due to security concerns.

The first site promoted by the Doppelganger bots was ObservateurContinental.fr. The Whois data, a public record of information related to the registration of a website, for this site shows that it is connected to InfoRos, a news agency previously linked to the GRU that operates hundreds of websites to push Kremlin propaganda. InfoRos was first reported to be a front organization for GRU Unit 54777 by The Washington Post in 2018. At the time, the group was said to have been active as far back as 2014 to spread disinformation about Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The second site pushed by Doppelganger bots targeted Germans. In October 2022, an investigation by the German newspaper Die Welt found that the author of content on the EuroBRICS site was being paid directly by InfoRos, which is registered as the operator of the EuroBRICs website by the German domain registrar.

Many of the same images from Doppelganger’s campaign, along with others targeting an English-speaking audience, were also shared on X by the same network of bots that have previously shared links to the Doppelganger campaigns.

“We collected a whopping 75-plus fake quotes by celebrities from the US and EU, all massively posted recently by bots of Doppelganger, the pro-Kremlin influence campaign,” one of the researchers at Antibot4Navalny tells WIRED.

The campaign on X, which coincided with the Facebook campaign, used over 10,000 bot accounts, according to the researchers. In the space of one eight-hour period, the bots posted over 27,000 messages. At one point, the bot accounts were posting 120 messages every minute.

The posts on X are identical to those posted as ads on Facebook identified by Reset, except that some of these posts were in English. The X campaign also featured mocked-up versions of celebrities’ verified Instagram accounts, making it seem as if screenshots of celebrity Instagram accounts, using similar anti-Ukraine quotes, were being shared.

X did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED about the Doppelganger campaign. Since Elon Musk took control of the platform in October 2022, he has eliminated most of the company’s trust and safety team, and disinformation has flourished on the site, especially around breaking news events like the recent Israel-Hamas war.

One of Reset’s researchers, who did not want to be identified to protect their privacy, tells WIRED that, in recent days, researchers have seen Doppelganger’s celebrity-based campaign evolve. Some ads on Facebook now, like the ones on X, feature screenshots that appear to show verified Instagram accounts of the same celebrities, adding a further layer of authenticity to the campaign. In one case, a screenshot of a fake Instagram post from the entrepreneur Richard Branson suggests that he believes America was behind the Nord Stream explosion.

The researcher also found video ads that feature real footage of celebrities with fake audio dubbed over the top, which they say have been created with text-to-speech apps. The researchers at Reset were unable to identify which app was being used to automate the creation of the videos. One example reviewed by WIRED showed footage of German filmmaker Wim Wenders speaking in English about his own films, dubbed to make it appear as if he was speaking in French about how “the Ukrainians are ruined.” The ad was posted to Facebook on November 25 and was seen by up to 3,000 people before it was removed for failing to have the “required disclaimer,” according to Facebook’s ad library.

While Facebook has taken down the majority of the pages, some of them remain active, and the campaign shows glaring gaps in Meta’s ability to deal with disinformation on this scale.

Meta declined to respond on the record to WIRED’s request for comment about the campaign and the network of fake accounts created to disseminate the false ads. In a report from August, however, Meta acknowledged that Doppelganger was the “largest and most aggressively persistent covert influence operation from Russia that we’ve seen since 2017.”

The automated creation of accounts on Facebook is a well-known problem, and Meta has deployed a variety of artificial intelligence systems to combat efforts to mass-create fake pages and accounts. By its own admission, Facebook deletes millions, and sometimes billions, of fake pages every quarter, sometimes within minutes of their creation. Meta claims that around 5 percent of its monthly average users are fake, but outside experts say that figure is substantially higher.

While the Doppelganger group ran the campaign, the fake Facebook pages it used were purchased from an agency that specializes in creating massive networks of inauthentic pages on Facebook, according to Reset. They are still investigating who created these initial networks, but the researchers say this campaign was pushed out by two separate networks they identified containing 52,000 and 25,000 pages respectively. In October, Reset published a report identifying even larger networks of inauthentic Facebook pages, including one that had over 340,000 inauthentic pages. Despite having been identified publicly, these networks are still operating today.

With a number of major elections taking place in 2024, experts are again concerned about Meta’s ability to reign in disinformation.

“Meta’s sloppy product safety is a security liability for both Europe and the US as we approach next year’s elections,” Felix Kartte, EU director at Reset claims to WIRED. “Threat actors will continue exploiting loopholes in Facebook’s advertising systems to target deceptive and inflammatory content at millions of voters in the world’s biggest democracies.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

A French publisher who was arrested in London on terrorism charges has been awarded “substantial” damages by the Metropolitan police, as new figures reveal thousands of foreign nationals have been stopped at UK ports under anti-terror laws. Ernest Moret, 29, a foreign rights manager for Éditions la Fabrique, was detained at St Pancras station in April last year on his way to the London book fair. He was held under section 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and questioned by counter-terrorist officers about whether he had taken part in anti-government demonstrations in France and if he backed the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Moret’s mobile phone and laptop were also confiscated for several weeks, before being returned to him after police decided to take no further action. The police also admitted downloading Moret’s sim card before returning his phone.

[...]

The figures have deepened concerns that police are using counter-terrorism powers to target political activists. Kevin Blowe, campaigns coordinator at the police monitoring group Netpol, said the figures were “genuinely alarming”. He said: “We know these powers are used for purposes other than investigating terrorism, including the targeting of political activists visiting Britain. “The data does suggest that EU states are seeking the active help of British police to target their own citizens too, although state surveillance is so lacking in transparency and accountability that this is almost impossible to confirm. “Schedule 7 is discriminatory and draconian, it undermines civil rights and criminalises communities and political dissent. Like so many other counter-terrorism powers put in place a decade ago by the last Labour government, it is something that we would all be better off without.”