It’s not every day that those of us who work in human rights get to celebrate the big wins so allow me another post celebrating the overturning of @OfficialToomaj’s death sentence. Good summary here on the man and the campaign to #FreeToomaj‌ amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/06/22/m…

#China: In a clear case of transnational repression, the Chinese Embassy in Lisbon attempted to cancel an event launching Safeguard Defenders' latest report. Days later, fake X accounts circulated a false version of the event poster to mislead attendees: safeguarddefenders.com/en/bl…

This extreme social media ban will likely fail - the kids will find ways to bypass, as they’ve done in Australia. And then the UK government are going to come after VPNs. So if you think tools such as VPNs are a basic privacy good, prepare to fight hard for them.

Piccadilly Circus, London. Keir Starmer now demands state spyware on every mobile device, always watching the screen, scanning everything, looking for things the government disapproves of.

I will never, ever stop believing that liberal democracy and human rights are worth fighting for, and here's why. It is the easiest thing in the world to say that those people over there don't need human rights. It's so, so easy to do this. "They don't deserve it. They don't need it. They're happier without it. Society is better overall if they don't have it." Easy, easy, easy. But EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON in the entire world wants human rights for themselves and their children. Without exception. Every single person on earth wants justice if their loved one is murdered. Every single person on earth wants to be able to hold their government accountable if the government steals their home, wages, or land. Every single person on earth wants to be able to speak freely to other people about injustices they or their children have personally suffered. Those arguments you're hearing about why liberal democracy isn't all it was cracked up to be? It's all crap. It's steaming garbage repeated by people who believe that it will be other people, not themselves, who have to give up these rights. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is my lighthouse in a world increasingly shrouded in choking, blinding fog.

So we may very well have a situation where 16 & 17 yr olds can vote but they can’t have unlimited access to the internet. Insane & illiberal.

My brilliant friend @bbclysedoucet has won the Women’s Prize for non-fiction. I am bursting with pride and excitement! Her book ‘The Finest Hotel in Kabul’ is wonderful. share.google/aU9Uzr3R3auTrzS…

“Everyone pretended not to see because in that moment even looking too long could be dangerous.” Our latest letter from an Afghan woman. Powerful and devastating at once. indexoncensorship.org/2026/0…

Students must be able to protest. Academics must be able to lecture. Oxford University has a duty to protect both. In this case they have failed lamentably. We hope the lectures are reinstated. thetimes.com/uk/education/ar…

This would be such a disaster for journalists, their sources, anyone in contact with people living in authoritarian regimes and ultimately all of us who need - nay have a right to - tools that protect privacy. A massive loss for not enough gain

The political incompetence of the KMT is sometimes staggering. Casually dropping racist tropes about Jewish people is stunning for a political leader in any country in the third decade of the 21st-century.

Signal boss Meredith Whittaker has been talking to me about this - rejecting the idea of ‘scanning systems’ that purportedly detect nude images. Easily weaponised by governments, she says, for political speech and other content bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

“Those who claim to want to draw attention to Palestine sometimes produce the opposite effect — films disappear, debates no longer take place, and everyone retreats into silence.” 💯. The BDS movement is losing sight of how & where progress can happen. variety.com/2026/film/global…

A feminist bookshop in lovely Chengdu sounds so dreamy. Take me there theguardian.com/world/2026/j…

This man was banned because of his nationality and for no other reason. FIFA did nothing to help him, not even lodge a protest. Ugh bbc.co.uk/sport/football/art…

More bad news 👇The UK government's plans are putting everyone's privacy at risk. Protecting children online is essential, but we must not sacrifice our safe communications in the process: thetimes.com/article/0ab6794…

🚨 NEWS: UK Government set to force tech companies to restrict phones “for the children”. It’s likely to mean: 🔴 ID requirement for all devices (or child-locked phone without one) 🔴 government spyware in your pocket (aka client side scanning) 😱 thetimes.com/article/0ab6794…

#China: Yesterday was the 37th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, a day that must not be forgotten. Yet China continues its efforts to erase it. @JFSteinfeld examines how the authorities are suppressing memory of that day in China & abroad: indexoncensorship.org/2026/0…

On the 37th anniversary of Tiananmen, read this amazing piece by Yangyang Cheng for CBR, who read almost a dozen novels about Tiananmen to argue how the facts of history are getting distorted by fiction and diasporic imagination: chinabooksreview.com/2026/06…

RT @JohnSimpsonNews: 37 years ago the Chinese army killed large numbers of people in Beijing and elsewhere when it cracked down on student…

A beautiful piece from acclaimed writer Zhang Lijia and a surprising one too, reflecting on 37 years since Tiananmen Square Massacre indexoncensorship.org/2026/0…