Last September Holyrood voted for sanctions against Israel due to the genocide in Gaza. This week the government was in England promoting arms dealers who sell products to Israel’s military.
The company that runs Scotland’s ageing nuclear power station wants to weaken safety standards to keep it running for at least four more years. But the nuclear safety watchdog has its doubts.
Posters appeared on social media purporting to be from the local authority, but they are fake.
An Egyptian journalist and political activist who was wanted by Interpol is due to appear in court in Edinburgh this week.
Abdulrahman Ezz is alleged to have caused a breach of the peace at Edinburgh Airport on 13 December 2018. He denies the charge.
Ezz is a journalist and political dissident who has opposed the Egyptian regime of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. In 2011 he was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison after an Egyptian court found him guilty of charges that he strenuously denies.
He is alleged to have incited violence and tortured detainees during riots following the 2013 military overthrow of Egypt’s former president, Mohamed Morsi.
Ezz has worked for several opposition media outlets including Rassd News Network, which was banned in Egypt. He has also written for Al Jazeera and Arabic 21.
In 2017 Ezz was detained in Berlin’s Schoenefeld Airport as a result of the Interpol warrant but was released by the German authorities after being questioned for several hours.
Hundreds of journalists have been imprisoned in Egypt following a military coup when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi – then army chief – ousted Morsi and launched a deadly crackdown against the deposed leader’s Islamist supporters.
In June 2017 Egyptian authorities renewed requests to Interpol to extradite 400 alleged “terrorists”. The list included several prominent reporters based in Qatar and Turkey.
Northern Irish company criticised for role in Egyptian juvenile courts
In 2015, Ahmed Mansour, a journalist for Al Jazeera, was stopped in Germany when officers acted on an Egyptian arrest warrant. After detaining him, German prosecutors decided to free him and not pursue his extradition to Egypt, where he was convicted in 2011 on torture charges he denies.
The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) plans to meet outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday in a show of support for Ezz.
According to SPSC, Ezz led his Cairo school out on strike in protest after the killing of 12-year old Mohammed Al Durrah on 30 September 2000 in Gaza. Ezz was aged 13 years old at the time.
“AbdulRahaman Ezz epitomises mass popular support among the Arab peoples for Palestinian freedom. The junta in Cairo has sentenced him to 55 years in prison for his political activities,” said SPSC’s Mick Napier.
“German police detained AbdulRahman on an Interpol warrant from Egypt and released him after ascertaining he was being accused of no more than political activism.”
He added: “He has learned that the Egyptian Ambassador in Germany pushed very hard for him to be arrested and returned to Egypt where, like many of his friends and thousands of others, he would face torture and probably death.
“An example of the bestial behaviour of the Egyptian security apparatus can be seen their grisly torturing to death of Cambridge student Giulio Regeni in 2016, a crime the UK government seems to be downplaying. The UK has a lucrative arms trade with the Egyptian military.”
A disproportionate number of children and young people growing up in care are dying prematurely, prompting calls for preventative action.
Lives are being lost because people are failing to get mental health support when they most urgently need it, a Ferret investigation has found.
Politicians and advocates call for action due to “serious concerns” that children are still being placed in “dangerous environments” when their families are homeless.
Scottish babies and toddlers are being put at risk due to unsafe sleeping conditions and a lack of basic necessities in homeless accommodation, it is claimed.
