Human rights group Amnesty International has pointed out the danger to prison inmates from the US-Israel war of aggression and has called on Iran’s government to release any held without trial.

The US and some human rights groups claim Iran is holding tens of thousands of political prisoners. Difficulty in verifying this lies partly in US political motives for painting Iran as evil and partly in Iran’s unwillingness to release prisoners it considers to be agitators.

Amnesty wants those who have not been convicted to be released so they can seek shelter. In an announcement on its website, the group said:

Ongoing US and Israeli air strikes near prisons in Iran are placing prisoners – including children – at grave risk, Amnesty International said today, urging Iranian authorities to immediately release all those arbitrarily detained and grant humanitarian release to others imprisoned.

Air strikes near prisons and the targeting of security facilities where detainees are held are putting prisoners in danger of death or serious harm. Direct attacks on civilian objects such as prisons constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes.

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Alarmingly, the organisation said it had received reports prisoners were being transferred to unidentified locations:

Amnesty has received reports that some prisoners have been transferred to unidentified locations or areas close to potential military objectives, intensifying concerns for their safety. Authorities have also subjected some detainees to enforced disappearance and denied prisoners access to adequate food and water, including the failure of electronic cards used to purchase food and water from prison shops.

Those at risk include thousands detained following nationwide protests between December 2025 and January 2026, including protesters, human rights defenders, lawyers, medical workers, university students and members of ethnic and religious minorities. Others at risk include individuals serving long prison sentences and those sentenced to death.

According to informed sources, officials told prisoners held on politically motivated charges at facilities including Evin prison and Urumieh prison in early March that they would not be eligible for release, while prisoners convicted of ordinary crimes could receive temporary release.

Iran’s internet shutdown imposed since 28 February has severely restricted access to information about prison conditions, and the number of detention facilities affected by nearby explosions may be significantly higher.In a letter dated 3 March to the Head of the Judiciary, human rights defender Reza Khandan, arbitrarily detained in Evin prison, warned about the risks facing prisoners amid ongoing air strikes. Referring to the Israeli military’s air strikes on Evin prison on 23 June 2025, which Amnesty has called to be investigated as a war crime, he wrote that previous warnings from prisoners had been ignored before dozens of prisoners, staff, and family members were killed.

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Reza said:

It has now been four days since the US and Israeli attack on Iran, and today our warnings and reminders have not been effective. Thousands of unlawfully detained prisoners remain trapped in prisons under the threat of bombardment day and night, and many essential services to prisoners have been cut off. If immediate action is not taken to release prisoners and the horrific and criminal event of the 12-day war or worse and more severe than that occurs you must be held accountable before justice.

Amnesty continued:

According to informed sources, explosions from air strikes targeting buildings of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting near the Evin prison complex on 3 March were so powerful that prisoners feared the prison itself had been struck.

Following the Israeli military’s air strikes on Evin prison in June 2025, Iranian authorities transferred hundreds of prisoners to other facilities in Tehran province known for cruel and inhuman conditions, including Shahr-e Ray prison (Gharchak) and the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary, where prisoners have reported severe overcrowding and denial of medical care.

Iranian authorities have arbitrarily detained thousands of protesters and dissidents since nationwide protests erupted on 28 December 2025. Amnesty has documented widespread due process violations, including denial of access to lawyers from the time of arrest, the use of torture-tainted “confessions” and summary trials.

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On 28 February, the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran. According to Iranian state-affiliated media citing the Martyrs and Veterans Affairs Foundation, 1,230 people had been killed as of 5 March. On 4 March, an official from Iran’s Ministry of Health said at least 180 children had been killed since the attacks began.

The US-Israel attacks continue, often targeting schools and hospitals.

Featured image via the Canary

The latest paltry release of documents relating to Keir Starmer’s appointments of Epstein-pal Peter Mandelson has revealed – more accurately reconfirmed – two main facts.

First, Mandelson is greedy. After his ‘sacking’ as ambassador to the US, he demanded £547,000 in compensation – despite remaining on the payroll. Eventually he received £75k – still about £75k too much, to many observers.

Secondly and more significantly, the release again showed that Keir Starmer knew before appointing Mandelson that he had remained close to serial child-rapist and Israeli spy Jeffrey Epstein. Not only that – he was explicitly warned that appointing Mandelson was a major risk of ‘reputational’ damage. And went ahead anyway.

Went ahead with ‘weird‘ speed, to boot – according to Starmer’s own national security adviser.

‘Zionist without qualification‘ Starmer ignoring warnings to ‘weirdly rush’ to appoint a fellow Zionist who fanboyed an Israeli spy running a paedophile ring. Who’d ever have thought it.

Featured image via the Canary

Queen Camilla has sent a message to survivors of sexual abuse to mark International Women’s Day to address the ‘culture of silence’ around abuse. This striking message comes weeks after her disgraced brother-in-law Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested following revelations in the Epstein Files.

It has previously been reported that Camilla played a key role in sealing Andrew’s fate as she feared his ties to an elite sex ring might demolish her work in violence against women and girls. However, refusing to fully acknowledge the seriousness of the Epstein files and failing to use her influential platform to demand justice for the victims does not reflect well on someone who claims to advocate against violence toward women and girls.

Nevertheless, it appears Camilla is trying to repair the damage done to public trust. Although, her advocacy could go a lot further and potentially make an actual difference for victims and survivors of abuse inflicted by powerful men.

In her speech, Camilla said:

To every survivor of every kind of violence, many of whom have not been able to tell their stories or who have not been believed, please know that you are not alone. We stand with you and alongside you, today and every day, in solidarity, sorrow and sympathy.

We hope this is more than dishing out empty platitudes, which the Royal Family are renowned for.

🔴 Camilla sends message to mark International Women’s Day weeks after former prince’s arrest over Epstein ties

Read the full story below 🖇️https://t.co/qIqeYCcSs7 pic.twitter.com/FvSmYG36CY

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) March 11, 2026

If you truly care, use your pedestal, queen Camilla

The Epstein Files have revealed a deeply sinister and horrifying web of abuse against young girls inflicted by powerful men. A picture even surfaced of the disgraced ‘prince’ playing with a toddler, passing a ball shaped like a female breast. This has sparked terror across British society, especially women. As Camilla said in her speech, women often live in silence with their trauma as society does not actually protect the vulnerable. Instead, it only protects the powerful.

This has bred a culture of silence around the abuse that powerful men perpetrate. Grooming gangs rightly resulted in disgust and condemnation, with a dogged insistence that all involved be held to the full weight of the law. After all, we apparently care about our women and girls in Western society.

Why do investigations and society consistently fail to hold elite networks of powerful white men accountable?

Camilla SILENT when asked about Epstein’s victims.
She’s an “ambassador” for domestic abuse – empty pointless branding when she chooses silence….
“Never complain, never explain” ?? Silence isn’t dignity when Epstein’s victims are involved Camilla. pic.twitter.com/Z3DUkklkli

— Narinder Kaur (@narindertweets) February 4, 2026

Referring to her own experience of abuse, Camilla spoke to this silence in her speech, saying:

Every woman has a story. And these stories must be told. Because when we live in a culture of silence, we empower violence against women and girls. It is for this reason that, for 15 years, WOW has been sharing women’s experiences through their festivals, inspiring thousands of people across six continents to take action.

It should not be overlooked that authorities arrested Andrew on suspicion of misconduct in public office, not on suspicion of sexually abusing minors. If Camilla genuinely cared about victims, she would ensure that investigators fully examine all suspects tied to Epstein and hold them accountable for their actions.

However, that demand was notably absent from her speech.

Education: not accountability for suspected elite abusers

Instead, queen Camilla pointed to sexual abuse being ‘everyone’s problem’ stating that it is “unjust and untrue” to label this as a “woman problem”. She says that “this scourge” can be “eradicated for good” if all citizens take responsibility to tackle the root cause of rising misogyny and abuse amongst men and boys.

Pointing to schools and playgrounds, she says that boys:

should be taught to manage and to express their feelings healthily.

and:

all children must learn what constitutes consent – and what is assault.

Yet, the queen’s remarks appear to imply that men and boys who commit abuse lack guidance rather than responsibility. She does this by implying that men and boys who commit abuse have not learned the rules or how to regulate their emotions. This framing may deeply trigger many victims, because perpetrators often reinforce the ‘culture of silence’ by claiming they could not control their behaviour, while victims sometimes feel pressured to rationalise their trauma as something they must simply endure.

Once again, victims experience a deep sense of injustice, and society undermines women’s right to anger. To make matters worse, people place the burden on these victims to teach the next generation how not to repeat the abuses of the past. Ordinary people will have to fix the attitude problem in men and boys; powerful women clearly will do precious little.

This is why men put in so much effort to frame their domestic violence & sexual assaults as a loss of control. They don’t “lose control” with unsafe targets like cops, bosses, & other men who will kill them. Only safe targets then cry they’re animals who can’t control themselves. https://t.co/TgPFcpOr2G

— The Road Jess Travelled (@JessPected) May 12, 2025

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Excuses for men; par for the course for women and girls

Furthermore, this speech came after a meeting with Gisèle Pelicot, whose memoire of a decade of sexual abuse left queen Camilla ‘speechless’. Nonetheless, it’s striking that Pelicot chose to sacrifice her privacy and comfort where the queen holds back.

Pelicot showed tremendous courage in pursuing transparent justice against the web of abusers orchestrated by her husband. Contrary to the Queen, she didn’t choose to take preventative action through educating children to remedy her trauma, she pursued accountability for abusive men. Don’t get us wrong, education is critical, but so too is bringing offenders to justice.

We wrote:

However, the hypocrisy at play is difficult to ignore. Camilla has made little effort to centre the victims connected to the so-called Epstein files or to address the role powerful men played in perpetrating such traumatic abuse against young girls and women. Perhaps she will draw inspiration from the courage of Gisèle Pelicot and begin speaking truth to powerful men while prioritising the suffering of their victims.

After all, both cases involve networks of men who believed they had the right to do whatever they wanted to their victims. The case draws clear parallels with the thousands of pages connected to the Epstein network of elites, which included her brother-in-law, the disgraced former prince Andrew.

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We can only hope that Camilla, who has expressed concern about the silence surrounding violence against women and girls, goes further in her advocacy. Victims and survivors deserve to see justice, rather than being told once again that “he couldn’t help it”.

Featured image via the Canary

The US / Israeli attack on Iran has had serious knock-on effects across the region. There are also many global consequences. The spike in oil and gas prices is relatively predictable. But there’s also a very direct impact on global food prices.

Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting global fertiliser supply chains. And this in turn could lead to a surge in global food prices. Amanda Larsson is Global Big Ag project lead at Greenpeace Aotearoa. She said:

The crisis brought on by this illegal attack by the US and Israeli militaries reveals a systemic failure at the heart of our global food system.

Almost half of global food production now depends on synthetic fertilisers produced by a small number of fossil fuel and agrochemical giants, leaving families and farmers to pay the price the moment fragile supply chains break.

While the human cost of the conflict continues to mount, the geopolitical shock is hitting farmers at the peak of the spring application, threatening harvests across the Northern Hemisphere and knock-on effects on food prices.

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The solution to food sovereignty, independence, and local resilience is the same as that needed to solve the climate and biodiversity crises: ecological farming. By working with nature to fix nutrients naturally in the soil, farmers can break the cycle of chemical dependence, slash costs, protect our rivers from toxic run-off, and ensure healthy, affordable food for generations to come.

Governments must stop propping up this fragile corporate model and redirect financial support away from resource-heavy, industrial agriculture. Food security cannot be bought on a volatile global chemical market; it must be grown from the ground up through healthy soil and local resilience.

It is time to fund the transition to self-sufficient, ecological practices that serve communities, not billionaires.

Featured image via the Canary

Fascist Israeli security minister and would-be executer of Palestinian abductees Itamar Ben-Gvir has reportedly removed remaining constraints on Israeli settlers carrying guns in Jerusalem as part of his incitement to violence against indigenous Palestinians. But only Jewish Israelis, of course. Any Jewish residents can have a gun even if they have no experience or training. And just in case anyone was in doubt that the idea is to shoot Muslims, Ben-Gvir said the change is to:

[save] lives, especially during wartime and Ramadan.

What could possibly go wrong?

Ben-Gvir rumours

But where is Ben-Gvir? The racist horror has not been seen in a public setting for several days. Unfounded claims have since circulated on social media that his settler-colony home had been hit by an Iranian drone.

State-aligned ‘fact-checkers’ say the claims of his wounding or death are false.

And now, ‘his’ X account has released a video with the message:

I’m alive, blessed be the Lord. Go fuck yourselves.

אני חי ברוך השם. תתפוצצו pic.twitter.com/WcjAi9KPCQ

— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) March 10, 2026

However, the video raises more questions than it answers. Ben Gvir appears for only five seconds in total, split into three sections of only one or two seconds each. The audio also shows tell-tale modulation markers of artificially-constructed speech. It is embedded below so readers can select their preferred speed and more easily scrub back and forth:

A clip of the sections only showing Ben-Gvir:

So where is murderous ethno-fascist land-thief Itamar Ben-Gvir? Did the Iranians wound or kill him in retaliation for Israel’s murder of its leader Ali Khamenei?

Arming Zionist settlers is exactly what such a figure can be expected to do. After all, this is the same man who has been banned by multiple countries for his naked genocidal ambitions for Gaza. Famously, he said:

there are no uninvolved civilians in Gaza.

Featured image via the Canary

Labour MP Charlotte Nichols spoke in the House of Commons in opposition to the government’s planned cuts to jury trials. The government have insisted these cuts are essential for swifter justice for victims of rape. On the contrary, Nichols suggests they have pressured MPs to support the bill by implying that those who oppose it have either never experienced rape or simply do not care about victims.

This appears to have pressured Nichols into doing what no woman should be compelled to do: revealing her own experience of rape and its lasting trauma to the public, at the cost of her anonymity and privacy.

Consequently, Nichols’ courageous speech has struck a chord with many across the country. It also highlights how the current government don’t grasp the scale of sexual violence and abuse in British society. Many, many women have either experienced abuse or has supported a loved one through their own deep pain and trauma. It would be harder to find someone who hasn’t.

Therefore, it appears that Starmer’s government have used the very serious issue of rape and ineffective, underfunded justice as a cynical ploy to push through systemic cuts to the human rights of British citizens.

🚨 WATCH: Labour MP Charlotte Nichols reveals she was raped as an MP as she opposes the jury trial reforms

“I waited 1,088 days to go to court. We’ve been told [by the Government] that if we have concerns about this Bill, it’s because we’ve not been raped” pic.twitter.com/0mYy3T2Tk7

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) March 10, 2026

Labour MP: “I waited 1,088 days to go to court”

Nichols heartbreaking speech has run a ram rod through the cabinet’s argument that these ‘reforms’ are essential for rape victims. In fact, her speech underscores how the government is using the failings of a sluggish and ineffective justice system for rape survivors to push through harmful cuts. As she astutely pointed out, this can only work to turn victims’ experiences into a political weapon.

This will surely lead to inferences that there is an imbalance in our justice system between defendants and victims, which will simply breed more resentment amongst men towards women and girls. Subsequently, the government’s policy to cut juries further victimises women whilst taking human rights away from defendants.

Nichols said:

I have spoken before in this place about having PTSD as the result of being the victim of a crime, but I have never specified the nature of that crime and in doing so I am aware that I am waiving my right to anonymity and the personal consequences that come along with that.

I care profoundly about rape victims facing intolerable delays for their day in court. I know only too well what that feels like, as after being raped at an event that I attended in my capacity as a Member of Parliament, I waited 1,088 days to go to court.

Every single one of those days was agony, made worse by having a role in public life that meant that the mental health consequences of my trauma were played out in public, with the event that led to my eventual sectioning for my own safety still being something that I receive regular social media abuse from strangers about to this day.

Sometimes there are moments in the House of Commons that take your breath away.
An extraordinarily brave performance from Charlotte Nichols. https://t.co/A0CEfMh711

— Jonathan Pie (@JonathanPieNews) March 10, 2026

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Government being ‘deeply damaging’

Nichols then spoke to how the government’s actions are impacting survivors and defendants:

But here’s the kicker. In this debate, experiences like mine feel like they’ve been weaponised and are being used for rhetorical misdirection for what this Bill actually is. The violence against women and girls sector haven’t had the opportunity to come together to discuss it, and the Government’s framing and narrative has been to pit survivors and defendants against each other in a way I think is deeply damaging.

The Labour MP for Warrington North then exposed the harsh realities of clashing with the cabinet government on this matter, and “abusive” only begins to describe it:

We have been told that if we have concerns about this bill, it is because we have not been raped or because we don’t care enough for rape victims. The opposite is true in my case. It is because I have been raped that I’m as passionate as I am about what it means for a justice system to be truly victim focused. It is because I have endured every indignity that our broken criminal justice system could mete out that I care what kind of reform will actually deliver justice for survivors and victims of crime more widely.

Nichols finished by reminding us what had actually been promised by Labour but has yet to be delivered:

We promised in our manifesto specialist rape courts – this bill isn’t that.

Every word of what Charlotte Nichols said in her speech against restrictions to jury trials is bang on.

She spoke today for many victims who feel that their voices have been erased and their experiences instrumentalised.

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If you haven’t watched it, you must.

— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) March 10, 2026

Charlotte Nichols has spoken out in the past about the challenges facing people working in Westminster in reporting sexual assault in Parliament:

“These aren’t punishments that fit the crime.”

Labour MP Charlotte Nichols, who has been a victim of improper conduct in Westminster, says the system for reporting sexual assault in parliament needs to change.

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@charlotte2153 | @JPonPolitics pic.twitter.com/r1rOf95dsP

— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) June 1, 2023

Victims deserve better than being used as shields for a failing government

It must be said: Charlotte should never have had to bear her soul in this way. By choosing to do so, she showed that she has clear red lines she refuses to cross. In this case, she refused to allow anyone to weaponise the very real and traumatic experiences that women and girls endure.

It also underscores how little professionalism and decency exists in our cabinet government for them to bully women into compliance.

After all, survivors of rape and sexual violence gain nothing from framing justice in a way that makes men feel their rights are being restricted for women’s advantage.

Likewise, they should not have to watch powerful men use our trauma for their own abuse of power.

Featured image via X