65 Comments
User's avatar
Elizabeth Chandler's avatar

My apologies !! I first read that “we have abundant freedom to DISagree with Starmer . Hence my initial reply. “ Freedom” can be so selective , in who has it , and who is denied it . So much for Democracy ….. 🙄

Elizabeth Chandler's avatar

The Australian Prime Minister has been quoted as saying that he and UK PM Starmer are good friends . The question becomes , would PM Albanese be equally content to leave political prisoners ( those who dare to support Palestinians and abhor the violence against them , or any oppressed people ) to rot and die on a hunger strike while refusing them any basic human rights or access to legal defence ? Is his silence on these matters his idea of “loyalty to friends in power “ ??

Is basic humanity so alien to both leaders ?

Lena's avatar

"It is unlawful to advocate for international law" astonishing

David Elliott's avatar

You needed to add the reason for this loss of freedom or else your excellent article risks just becoming another piece of ‘noise’ in the clamor to acknowledge and resist this loss.

And by my reckoning that reason is Zionist - especially Israeli-Jewish - control and influence. And this is only growing.

Stevo's avatar

Media too busy fill the nations head with bull shit.

That's the sign on an undemocratic country.

Constance Albrecht's avatar

I had not heard of these hunger strikers. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Frances Kay's avatar

What a sorry state of affairs for we in the UK who believe in freedom of speech. Our supine MSM forgets that social media and excellent blogs like yours are telling us the truth, so we no longer have to believe a word they say. What a pity, when the Beeb used to be a trusted source of news!

Gill McCall's avatar

Reminds me of the Suffragettes, of the Irish Hunger Strikers including Bobby Sands who died with The Iron Lady Presiding;

and now we have that doyen of Human Rights, that forensic lawyer, the son of the tool-maker, the father of his own children… presiding of this travesty: and we have silence from the media.

Jonn Kelsey's avatar

Probably why they’ve got rid of trial by jury

F....'s avatar

Isn't it empire which has both state and the media under it's control?

Rafi Simonton's avatar

This is a HUGE ALERT! Is it the case they were accused of violating a law that wasn't a law when they were jailed?! Are ex post facto charges legal in the U.K.?

If so, wow--arrest dissidents on any pretext; jaywalking, glaring at a cop, wearing black, red, green--then once they're behind bars, pass laws making whatever they've done into something carrying serious prison time. That's behavior of a supposedly democratic government trying to convince us it isn't de facto fascism because of the rule of "law."

And if ex post facto laws are illegal, (as they are per the U.S. Constitution,) then every citizen of the U.K. should be outraged!!! You should be outraged in any case.

Michael Holloway's avatar

Thanks for this article.

'improved prison conditions' (end of the 9th paragraph) - pretty sure their demand was to be recognized as political prisoners.

Best,

Michael

Richard Wilding's avatar

'...None of this should be normal...'

But it is. Or, rather, it is being 'normalised'.

Like automated facial recognition cctv now proposed for every police force covering every high street in every city and town in Britain (to be integrated with commercial cctv security systems, to create a public-private partnership in permanent mass surveillance).

Like 'combat proven' Israeli intelligence gathering drones (which can be weaponised) being bought for UK law enforcement.

Like mandatory age verification to access pornography websites, because who can object to 'child protection'? (But which will allow certain government departments and police to track ALL browsing history; and why not, since the Big Tech social media corporations already do that automatically?)

Like handing control of all NHS patient data to PALANTIR? (Because PETER THIEL can be trusted, right?)

Like retroactively criminalising actions that were legal when undertaken...? REALLY? (Done and dusted; who objected?)

Kojo's avatar
Dec 4Edited

Well said about the Guardian. Imperial propaganda served with gossip rag bread and circus. Doesn't surprise me one bit that they refuse to publish the actual news about the hunger strike for human rights.They are too busy ranting about "Putin" and China being supposedly authoritarian. Because that is what Big Brother tells them to do.

Jim S's avatar

Thank You Jonathan

Markus's avatar

As a German!

People keep writing books and giving interviews, desperately trying to answer the old question: How could Germans not know about the Holocaust? Why didn’t they stop it? Why are they blamed forever?

But after 9/11, I realized something simple and unsettling:

we only “know” what the media decides we should know.

If they don’t show it, if they don’t report it, if they don’t repeat it — for most people, it simply never happened.

And suddenly the past becomes clearer.

We see how entire populations can be steered, distracted, or kept in the dark.

We understand how a society can fail to intervene in horrors carried out in its name.

Not because every individual is a monster,

but because the gatekeepers of information decide which realities are visible

and which ones stay buried.

Look around today and the pattern is still there:

Illegal wars justified with slogans,

the invasion of Iraq sold like a product,

uprisings in Palestine filtered through political convenience,

abuses in our own countries framed so they appear distant, accidental, or unavoidable.

We don’t live in an age of ignorance —

we live in an age where information is abundant,

but truth is curated.

That is how things happen.

Then, and now.

Elizabeth Chandler's avatar

The same can be said in Australia . “History “ during my Primary school days in the 1950s largely concerned the efforts of

British “explorers”, crossing the Blue Mountains and risking their lives ( or dying ) as they penetrated the arid interior.

Nothing , until relatively recently , about The Frontier Wars against the Indigenous inhabitants , or the routine massacres that occurred .

Such dedicated suppression over generations could well explain why the recent Referendum about a Voice to Parliament

by Australia’s First People failed , a damning comment on the indoctrination or ignorance of too many Australians .

HAP- Libertarian Socialism's avatar

For the same reason that FDRs decision to build concentration camps for Americans was not covered - except California where the local ACLU there opposed it but not other branches .

Along with his PROVIOKING of Japan into a attack - used several times by the U.S. state

It interfered with what the state wanted during its wars with press willing to support that. for the most part refusing to question their state or their government particularly during a war

IMHO and that of many revisionist writers

GreaterIsrahell's avatar

"But after 9/11, I realized something simple and unsettling:

we only “know” what the media decides we should know."

"You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism created the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrator."

- Alexadr Solzhenitsyn -

Since we are not allowed to forget the Holocaust™, you know exactly who Solzhenitsyn was refering to.

"The media's job is to tell the people what the government wants them to know, and even more importantly, to NOT tell them what the government DOESN'T want them to know.

- Gunnar Sønsteby -

Norwegian freedom fighter during WWII

Davina's avatar

And zionist jews own the media more and more every day, and it's not by accident but design.

User's avatar
Comment deleted
Dec 5
Comment deleted
GreaterIsrahell's avatar

ROFLMAO! You'll have to do better than that.

The fact is that the family that owns every central bank in the world including the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), owns Reuters, which in turn ownes the Associated Press(AP). Already now we're talking about more than 50% of printed media.

Of course, by now you know I'm talking about the Rothschild family.