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Anthony McIntyre  ⚑ As I tumbled out of bed this morning, sore after a different type of tumble while walking the dog last night through Wheaton Hall, I consoled myself with the fact that I had a bed to lie in. 

In Gaza where people used to have beds, thousands were murdered in them as they slept by Israeli bombs. Our aches and pains are inconsequential compared to lost limbs and lives.

There is a lot of solidarity activity taking place today and it is invigorating to know that Drogheda Stands With Palestine is, as always, determined to play its part. Unfortunately, aside from our West Street vigil in under two hours time, I will not make Dublin or any of the remaining events. I am not crying off with a sore hand. My wife is an American - yes, an immigrant - and because of that my daughter and son hold dual Irish-US citizenship. Resulting from that, a long standing arrangement for a Thanksgiving event has been put together for the weekend, with friends and family on the guest list. So for the sake of peace in the house where I usually have the last word - yes love - I will not be at today's major events in support of peace in Gaza.

The theme of solidarity weaving its way through today's activities, invites some reflection on the targeting of the group Palestine Action in the UK by the genocide enabling Starmer regime. The Starmer ban on Palestine Action to cite Jonathan Cook constitutes:

the first time in British history a civil-disobedience organisation has been declared a terrorist group, one now treated as on a par with al-Qaeda.

So what actually is this atrocious act of terrorism that many British pensioners are perpetrating? It amounts to little more than holding placards stating “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Consider that against the treatment of British born Israeli SS officers serving in the IDF who are free to roam the UK at will on return from perpetrating acts of genocide in Gaza. Has anybody yet been prosecuted for proclaiming they support Israel's actions in Gaza? Have such supporters of Israel ever been labelled terrorist by Starmer, who, as I have said repeatedly, openly endorsed the use of war crimes in Gaza in endorsing the Israeli intent to deprive the civilian population of electricity and water?

It is sometimes said that Starmer is what stands between democracy and the supposed fascism of Nigel Farage. Really? Gideon Levy, one of the most courageous journalists alive because he lives Tel Aviv but incessantly condemns the Israeli government for its crimes against humanity including genocide, said of the Zionism that Starmer supports:

The fascist resemblance between coalition and opposition is no accident. It is called Zionism. In 2025, you can no longer champion this national ideology without being a fascist or a militarist. It is now the essence of Zionism. Maybe it was that way from its start, and honesty requires that we admit that.
Netanyahu and Bennett, Ben-Gvir and Lapid are Zionists like almost all Israelis. When it comes to the land, they believe in Jewish supremacy and the lie of a Jewish and democratic state. Fascism is the inevitable consequence of this. It is no longer possible to be a Zionist and not a fascist.

Levy, given his circumstances, must feel like an authentic Nazi-averse Jew, living in a society surrounded by Nazis. 

Few of us may have heard of Justice Martin Chamberlain. He was the British judge that granted a judicial review of the decision to ban Palestine Action. That review began on Thursday and is being heard by a three judge panel. On Tuesday lawyers for the execrable Starmer government will resort to Closed Material Proceedings. This is a well established trick of deception resorted to by successive British governments when they seek to bamboozle the courts through the use of intelligence dossiers for the purposes of obtaining the ruling they seek. Many victims of British state violence in the North have found their quest for truth subverted by CMPs. Their usage has always been associated with dictatorships in Stalinist Russia or Latin American. As Western governments have acquired a more authoritarian character, they have increasingly articulated into the processes and mechanisms of their repressive state apparatuses, the practices of the totalitarian regimes. Significantly in a move described as highly irregular Judge Martin Chamberlain was not included in the panel hearing the judicial review. 

Jonathan Cook makes the point that:

this is not the first time Justice Chamberlain, who is noted for his independence, has been removed unexpectedly from a judicial review hearing in an Israel-related case. Earlier this year, he was replaced by two other judges after he granted a legal challenge to the government’s continuing sale of parts for F-35 jets to Israel, despite the fighter plane’s use in the killing of many tens of thousands of civilians and the destruction of more than 80 per cent of all buildings in Gaza.

As brazen as it is bleak, I feel it is incumbent on us to stand with the people threatened by the ban who include 'former senior military personnel, barristers, doctors, priests, Holocaust survivors, and a former adviser to King Charles.' Expressing support for Palestine Action is not a crime but an expression of opposition to genocide. 

In the unsweetened words of Jonathan Cook:

This already looks like a self-evident stitch-up to extricate Sir Keir Starmer and his ministers from the mess they have made of British terrorism laws – all so they can continue conspiring in Israel’s genocide.

While it is not yet illegal in this part of Ireland to express admiration for the banned group, for the record I support Palestine Action. And I will continue to support it from prison if ever jailed for my words. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Palestine Action

Open Letters ★ From Anne Applebaum. Recommended by Christy Walsh.

I wasn’t planning to write another article, given the rapid approach of Thanksgiving. But the leak to Bloomberg of Steve Witkoff’s phone conversation with Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy advisor, was so infuriating that I did write, again, about Trump’s disastrous envoy and his disastrous negotiation, for the Atlantic:
Pay attention to the dates, because the timing matters. Steve Witkoff spoke with Yuri Ushakov, a Russian official, on October 14. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on October 17. Trump had been hinting that he would offer to sell Tomahawks, long-range cruise missiles, to the Ukrainian army. But he did not.
Why not? Perhaps because Ushakov listened to Witkoff’s advice and persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin to call Trump on October 16. Witkoff, in other words, may have helped block that sale. And that would make Witkoff responsible for prolonging the war.

I know many believe they have an explanation, but actually we don’t know why Witkoff always sees the war from the point of view of the Russians, or why he always seeks to persuade Trump of their point of view as well.

Continue @ Open Letters.

Trump And Witkoff Are Prolonging The War

National Secular Society ★Written by Stephen Evans.


Every so often, a judgment comes along which resets the terms of a debate that has drifted on for decades. The UK Supreme Court's ruling in JR87, concerning a Belfast primary school's approach to religious education (RE) and collective worship, is one of them.

Its implications extend beyond Northern Ireland. They speak directly to long-ignored human rights concerns around the rest of the UK's collective worship laws – concerns ministers and legislators can't simply shrug off any longer.

At the centre of the case was a state school where RE followed a Christian-centric syllabus and collective worship was Bible-based, and a family who chose to challenge these long-standing arrangements in Northern Ireland. The family argued the arrangements were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Supreme Court found the school's setup breached Article 2 of Protocol 1 – the right to education, which includes respect for parents' convictions – read alongside Article 9's protections for freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. The Court agreed that what children experienced wasn't "objective, critical and pluralistic" education. It was, in fact, "indoctrination" – a curriculum designed by churches to encourage pupils to accept Christian belief as true and as the basis of morality.

And the Court did something crucial. It made clear that offering a parental right to withdraw their children from RE or collective worship is not an answer. Withdrawal places an "undue burden" on families and risks isolating children who really should expect equal treatment.

As in Northern Ireland, the law in both England and Wales still mandates a daily act of Christian collective worship in every state school. In Scotland, 'religious observance' is required. The only human rights safeguard is the parental right to withdraw – the very mechanism the Supreme Court has now deemed inadequate.

In practice, Ofsted hasn't monitored compliance in English schools for years, and some schools simply ignore the law because they recognise how hopelessly out of step it is with a diverse, largely nonreligious society. A bill being considered in the Scottish Parliament would make matters worse; it would make it harder for parents to withdraw their children.

The Supreme Court judgment must now force a reckoning. A state-mandated act of worship is hard to square with the Court's insistence that education must respect the full range of pupils' religious and philosophical convictions. You cannot simply patch over a discriminatory default by inviting families to opt out, with all the "undue burden" that brings.

The status quo was shaped to suit vested religious interests – and those interests still exert far too much influence over the education landscape.

The established Church retains privileged seats in the House of Lords, which bishops have used to resist even modest reforms to England's collective worship law. Meanwhile, faith school providers exert immense influence over local authorities, academy trusts, and the Department for Education. Their lobbying power ensures that policies continue to privilege religion.

This influence sustains a system in which state-funded schools can discriminate in their admissions and impose worship on children regardless of their own beliefs. It allows confessional RE to persist. And it encourages politicians to turn a blind eye to equality and human rights concerns, in fear of upsetting religious interests.

The Supreme Court's judgment exposes how inappropriate this settlement is. The law should be protecting children's freedom of belief, not the institutional privileges of religious bodies. Yet the defence of the status quo nearly always comes from institutions with a direct interest in maintaining it.

For years, legal commentators have affirmed that 'religion or belief' includes nonreligious worldviews. The Supreme Court's ruling reinforces this principle, effectively demanding that schools reflect a broad range of modern beliefs – religious and nonreligious – rather than privileging one religion.

Religious education requires serious reform to achieve this balance. Wales has already led the way on this. In England, the recent curriculum review perhaps provides a way forward to ensuring all children and young people have an equal entitlement to a "objective, critical and pluralistic" education about religions and worldviews.

Continue @ NSS.

The Supreme Court Has Spoken 🪶 Now Collective Worship Laws Must Go

Right Wing Watch 👀 Written by Peter Montgomery.


In yet another fundraising pitch in which President Donald Trump tells supporters that God saved him from an assassin’s bullet so Trump could save America, the president enlists supporters in his much-discussed desire to get into heaven.

“I want to try and get to heaven,” starts an email sent to supporters on Sunday. He describes being on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania and “feeling the hand of God tilt my head at the very last millisecond.”

“He didn’t save me for a participation trophy,” the email says. “He saved me because I have a date with Heaven and the only way I earn my place there is by finishing the mission He spared me for: saving America.”

The idea that Trump can only “earn” a place in heaven by successfully enacting his agenda as president is contrary to core Christian teachings about grace, faith, and salvation. But it seems to be a rhetorical advice he deploys to appear spiritually humble and appeal to his conservative Christian supporters.

It also suggests that if Trump can only succeed as president with a continuous flow of contributions, then sending him cash could actually be helping get him into heaven.

Continue @ Right Wing Watch.

Trump 🪶 Send Me Money So I Can Earn My Way Into Heaven

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 2984

Christy Walsh ✍ For over 25 years, people in the 6 counties were told that the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement created a new human-rights architecture, one with safeguards, oversight, and independent bodies capable of holding the State to account. At the centre of this architecture sits the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC), created to monitor discrimination, investigate abuses, and act whenever rights are threatened.

But in practice, the NIHRC has become something very different. It has evolved into a silent witness, a facilitator, of systemic discrimination against Nationalists. This article is an exposé of what it actually does behind closed doors; betrayal.

The Watchdog That Will Not Watch 

Under the GFA, the NIHRC’s legal duty is clear: monitor human-rights compliance, investigate abuses, and intervene when rights are at risk. In reality, the Commission routinely refuses to act even when presented with:

  • unlawful secret-evidence procedures
  • judicial decisions obtained through deceit,· prosecutorial misconduct
  • Department of Justice control over supposedly independent bodies
  • And discrimination affecting potentially thousands of Nationalists

The pattern is unmistakable. The NIHRC betrays those who believed in it

A Catalogue of Refusals

Over the last three years, the Commission was repeatedly presented with evidence of serious institutional wrongdoing affecting Nationalist families. Each time, the response was refusal, indifference, and silence.

1. Prosecutorial Misconduct Ignored

The Department of Justice refused to exercise its statutory power of referral of indelible evidence of prosecutorial misconduct to the Criminal Justice Inspectorate. The NIHRC was told. It washed its hands and refused to act.

2. Judgments Obtained by Deceit

Courts accepted that State agents misled the court. But because the deceit was “directed at the court, not the victim,” the courts treated it as non-actionable. The NIHRC raised no concern.

3. Unlawful Closed Material Procedures

In the Frizzell and Lundy cases, the High Court secretly imposed Closed Material Procedures (CMPs) without legal authority. Hundreds of Nationalist Legacy Families may be affected. This isn't just my analysis. KRW Law quantified 'scores if not hundreds of cases.' I told the NIHRC. They still refused to investigate. When the Commission won't act even when mainstream lawyers quantify the potential number of case affected, you have to ask: what would it take?

4. Victims’ Pensions Board (VPB) Capture by the DoJ

The VPB doesn't just 'rely' on the Department of Justice, it is the Department of Justice. The Board has zero independent staff. No offices. No control over its own files. DOJ civil servants prepare the case summaries. DOJ contracts the medical assessor. And when you challenge them? DOJ lawyers appear for the Board. You're fighting the DOJ judged by the DOJ, in a system run by the DOJ. The NIHRC knows this. It just won't say it out loud.

The Email That Exposed the Problem

On 24th November 2025, the NIHRC finally responded to a request to observe the VPB judicial review. Its reply: “We are not in a position to observe the hearing… We will consider the implications of any judgment when handed down.” 

This sentence reveals the real problem. The Commission is only watching after the court may have filtered, reframed, and sanitised the reality of the hearing—whether that judgment is legitimate or not. This is not monitoring. This is delegating oversight to the very institutions being monitored.

 

The Judgment Laundering Problem

 

The NIHRC’s (24 November 2025) practice of declining observation while stating that it will “consider the implications of any judgment” represents a structural departure from Paris Principles standards.  The Paris Principles are the international rules that say a human rights commission must be independent.  The NIHRC's own practices, refusing to observe hearings, only reading judgments, breach those rules.  It's not just failing; it's failing to meet the basic standard for its own existence.

 

The Commission’s model replaces independent monitoring with reliance on judicial summaries of proceedings, producing a four-stage cycle:

 

Stage 1: Unobserved hearings: Procedural dynamics that reveal inequality of arms occur without independent scrutiny.  Oral submissions, judicial questioning and institutional behaviour that may show structural bias remain undocumented except in the court’s own selective record.

 

Stage 2: Filtered records: Written judgments provide the court’s interpretation of proceedings, not a full transcript.  Judgments summarise and frame issues through judicial priorities, omitting exchanges that may reveal procedural imbalance.  This is normal legal practice but creates a filtered record.

 

Stage 3: Secondary reliance: NIHRC assessment focuses on the judgment rather than the underlying process.  Treating the judgment as the authoritative record prevents identification of avoided arguments, downplayed evidence or procedural disparities that may have arisen.

 

Stage 4: Circular validation: Because NIHRC commentary relies exclusively on judgments, judicial reasoning becomes the sole measure of human-rights compliance.  This eliminates external accountability and reinforces the perspectives of the institutions being monitored.

 

This is not oversight.  It is judgment laundering.  An oversight body that relies on judicial summaries becomes part of the system it is supposed to scrutinise.

 

Institutional Learning Through Suppression

 

This did not happen by accident. First, the system learned that it could rely on “transferred deceit”: wrongdoing directed at the court, not the victim, was treated as non-actionable. Then the Supreme Court confirmed this was “not a point of principle or practice of general public importance”. Think about that. The UK Supreme Court looked at prosecutorial misconduct and judgments obtained by deceit and said they weren't 'of public importance.' That's when the NIHRC should have roared. Instead, silence. And now we have secret hearings in criminal cases.

 

Next, institutions learned they could use unlawful secret hearings, because no one would intervene.  Finally, they learned they could capture the VPB entirely.

 

At every stage, the NIHRC watched, did nothing, and the system adapted.  It did not just fail to prevent discrimination — it facilitated the conditions in which discrimination could evolve.  That is not oversight.  That is institutional R&D for inequality. 


Internal Memos: The Smoking Gun

On 4 October 2006, an internal NIHRC memo, never intended for public view, revealed that the Commission held a “watching brief” over a wrongful-conviction case because it had concerns. Those concerns were never investigated. Never disclosed. Never acted on.

On 26 September 2008, another internal memo, the Commission became concerned the suppression of the same case might be exposed: “Damage limitations might be what we're facing here”.

The memos prove the Commission knew there were problems, chose institutional silence, and feared they might be exposed. The pattern remains unchanged today.

The Human Impact: Thousands of Nationalist Victims Exposed

This failure of oversight is not an abstract institutional problem. It has real human consequences. The VPB estimates about 50,000 people suffered conflict-related injuries. Nationalist victims with permanent conflict-related injuries caused by the state count in the thousands. The judicial review on 16 December 2025 will test whether this systemic bias can still be challenged, or if it has become permanent.


CMPs: Secret Justice, No Oversight 

When the High Court imposed unlawful CMPs in the Frizzell and Lundy cases, excluding families from key evidence they should have been entitled to, the NIHRC was informed.

Its response: No interest. No intervention. No observation.

Without external monitoring, secret hearings become unchallengeable.

The Result: A Human-Rights System that Works Only for the State


The NIHRC’s refusal to:


·       investigate,

·       intervene,

·       observe, or

·       monitor


means the entire human-rights architecture created by the Good Friday Agreement has been hollowed out.  Systemic discrimination becomes more embedded and harder to fix.  Nationalists are left with:

 

·       no oversight,

·       no watchdog,

·       no accountability mechanism,

·       and no institutional support when the State acts improperly.

 

This is not a failure of one case or one person.  This is structural, systemic, and deeply political.

 

What Comes Next

 

So what now? First, the NIHRC must attend the 16 December hearing, not to 'consider the judgment' later, but to fulfill its statutory duty of independent monitoring in real time. Second, the Commission must explain why it ignored prosecutorial misconduct, transferred deceit, CMPs and VPB capture. Third, we need to ask whether a body that has learned to be silent can ever learn to speak for us again. If not, it's time to ask what comes after the NIHRC, because the NIHRC is not fit for purpose.

The Commission's own practices are so far from the Paris Principles that international bodies like the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) and European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) might reconsider whether the NIHRC still deserves its 'A' status accreditation.

⏩ Christy Walsh was stitched up by the British Ministry of Defence in a no jury trial and spent many years in prison as a result.

NIHRC 🪶 Silent Witness To Systemic Discrimination Against Nationalists

Frankie Quinn with a poem from his expansive body of work. 

Heroin

Ghosts tiptoe through fields of upturned needles 
Avoid wounds injected nagging emptiness 
Fettered sockets priced blindness around reddened
 Sores vampires entice entry to where pain dissolves
 On a teaspoon, it spits lightning boiling through veins of
Ridding skulled torturer to unchartered sterile place
 Excited, money sweats on trembling palms
 Given by do-gooders on an altar growls rumble through
 Pitiless dealer with speed of hand magic happens
Tourniquet arrests blood on an endless carnival of pain
 Drops escape to hidden feet left unwrapped and vile
 At last sleep thumps at leaden lids numbness holds her 
Crushes her longing unrelenting terror what soul
 Should endure this childish cry while condemned mother
 Allows headlice to consume her.

⏩ Frankie Quinn is a former republican prisoner who is now a community activist. He is the author of Open Gates, a book of poetry.   

Heroin

A Digest of News ✊ from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 24-November-2025.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ Responses to Trump plan from Sloviansk residents, Ukrainian MP and Ukrainian and Russian media.
Kyiv corruption scandal.
Ukraine unions.
UN slams air raids.
Voices against war book launch.
Russian bribes: ‘what about Farage?’

News from the territories occupied by Russia

FSB targets Crimean Tatar father and son (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 21 November)

Melitopol man sentenced to 14 years for protesting and writing on social media (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 18 November)

Dangerously ill Crimean Tatar political prisoner denied life-saving medication (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 17 November)

News from the front and ‘peace’ negotiations

Ukrainian parliamentarian Kira Rudik’s response to Trump plan (CNN, 22 November)

Members of US Congress criticise Trump plan (Ukrainska Pravda, 22 November)

Steve Witkoff pushed pro-Ukraine officials out of White House (Kyiv Independent, 22 November)

A view from Kyiv: the latest on Trump’s 28-point plan (Kyiv Independent, 22 November)

Sloviansk residents who faced occupation before say: ‘Insane nonsense to hand Donbas over to Russia’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 21 November)

How a Russian operative used the American media on risible ‘peace deal’ (The Insider, 21 November)

Trump wants Russia to surrender its frozen assets (Meduza, 21 November)

Four years of ‘peace’ initiatives listed (Meduza, 20 November)

‘Outright capitulation’: responses to Trump’s new plan listed (Meduza, 20 November)

Rescue work: the heroic exploits of the Maul robot (Ukrainska Pravda, 17 November)

News from Ukraine

Notes on how to survive a war (Open Democracy, 21 November)

Trade unions fighting for Ukraine’s future (Open Democracy, 20 November)

‘I’ll die as a gay man’: LGBTQ+ rights in wartime (Open Democracy, 20 November)

This should have come much earlier: Ukrainian appeal court decision to free Viktor Sleptsov (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 18 November)

Mindichgate: Ukraine’s corruption scandal (Ukrainska Pravda, 18 November)

Soldiers’ democracy powers Ukrainian resistance (Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres, 15 November)

War-related news from Russia

Reports say pro-Ukrainian partisans set locomotive ablaze (Kyiv Independent, 23 November)

Revenge on Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol: two fake trials and massive sentences (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 20 November)

Fantasy maps and real losses: why a Russian military draftsman deserted (Mediazona, 20 November)

Patriarchy in education: Lessons in childbirth (Posle.Media, 19 November)

Reclaiming whiteness: in search of the ‘good Russians’ (The Russian Reader, 18 November)

Analysis and comment

Russian losses: Mediazona’s count updated (Mediazona, 21 November)

Russia refracted: attitudes to the war (Open Democracy, 21 November)

UN resolution on human rights in Crimea (Crimea Platform, 20 November)

One in ten rescued Ukrainian children sexually abused (Open Democracy, 20 November)

No place of refuge: Germany’s tougher migration policy hits Russian and Belarusian dissidents (The Insider, 19 November)

Yulii Daniel: civil responsibility vs unfreedom (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 15 Nov)

UN human rights chief ‘appalled’ by rise in long-range missile attacks (UN high commissioner for human rights, 19 November)

International solidarity

Global call: Ukraine must receive all it needs to win a just peace (petition, 22 November)

Nathan Gill jailed over Russian bribes: ‘What about Farage?’ (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 21 Nov)

Try Me For Treason: watch the livestream of this launch event for the book Voices Against Putin’s War, in London on 20 November (Ukraine Information Group)

Solidarity Collectives supports new fighters (Solidarity Collectives on facebook, 18 November)

2000 miles to Kharkiv: Ukraine Solidarity Campaign delivers aid to front lines (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 17 November)

Upcoming events

Wednesday 26 November, 6.0pm UK time: What should trade unions do for Ukraine? International public meeting Register here.

Saturday 6 December: Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Annual General Meeting

🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

We are also on twitter. Our aim is to circulate information in English that to the best of our knowledge is reliable. If you have something you think we should include, please send it to 2U022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.


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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 172

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