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Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said the European Union should immediately begin dialogue with Moscow after a Russian attack drone hit a residential apartment block in the city of Galați, Romania.

Oman is one of the most important mediators between Washington and Tehran. So why did Donald Trump threaten the sultanate with a military strike?

The draft memorandum includes unrestricted Hormuz shipping, Iran removing mines within 30 days and US sanctions waivers on Iranian oil, with nuclear talks to follow.

IRGC kills two Kurds who were in hiding, say rights groups Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have killed two Kurdish activists in the west of the country who went into hiding following anti-government protests in January, two rights groups said on Friday. Iranian media confirmed the incident, which took place on Thursday, but said that the men were armed, had been instigators of "riots", and were killed by security forces when they opened fire from their hideout in the western province of Kermanshah. Brothers Meisam Visi and Mojtaba Visi, adherents of the Yarsan faith, had been living in hiding after the January protests, the Norway-based Hengaw rights group said. The Yarsan faith is a fusion of other religions and beliefs that dates back to the 15th century. The brothers were shot dead by IRGC forces who surrounded their hideout early on Thursday in a village in the Dalahu district of the province and opened fire "without warning", Hengaw added. The France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network published a similar report, saying the pair had gone into hiding because of "fear of arrest". But the Tasnim news agency described them as "two of the main instigators of the January riots in the Kermanshah region", and said they had opened fire on security forces. "The security forces, acting within their legal mandate and in self-defence, returned fire, resulting in the deaths of the two armed terrorists," it added. Reporting by AFP

Deep-strike units of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces hit the Volgograd oil refinery owned by Lukoil, one of Russia's largest energy companies, on the night of 28-29 May.

The Shenzhou-21 astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after staying in Tiangong space station for more than 200 days, establishing the record for longest on-orbit stay by a Chinese crew. The trio touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region at around 8.11pm aboard the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Their stay was extended by one month after their probe was used in an emergency mission for the previous crew to return home last...

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 29 May that Russia is preparing a new large-scale strike against Ukraine.

A Russian drone that was part of an overnight attack on Ukraine crashed into an apartment building in eastern Romania, injuring two people, Romanian authorities said Friday. In response to the crash in the city of Galati, NATO member Romania asked the alliance for a faster transfer of anti-drone capabilities to its military, the Foreign Ministry said, calling the drone's flight a serious violation of international law.

The ​United States threatened Thursday to target ally Oman if it helped impose a tolling system in the key Strait of Hormuz, warning of sanctions against all parties involved in such actions. The United States and Iran also accused each other of violating an ongoing truce following an exchange of fire, three months after the Middle East war began with a wave of US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic. The latest exchange was the most serious since Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire in April. The two countries have been locked in weeks-long indirect talks through mediators to bring the conflict to an end, so far to no avail. For more, FRANCE 24’s François Picard is joined by Dr. H. A. Hellyer, senior fellow in Geopolitics, International Security, and Middle East Studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London.

The former Hungarian prime minister calls on the Hungarian government to avoid taking any steps toward a pro-war Europe

Higher proportion of pro-Palestine than Labour candidates won at local elections Submitted by Imran Mulla on Fri, 05/29/2026 - 12:26 Candidates with a pro-Palestine platform were more likely to win seats than candidates for any major party besides Reform, according to data shared exclusively with MEE Protesters take part in a march in central London on 11 October 2025 organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (AFP) Off Pro- Palestine candidates were more likely to win their seat than candidates from any major party besides Reform at the recent local elections in England, Middle East Eye can reveal. New data shared exclusively with MEE indicates that opposition to British cooperation with Israel remains a salient political issue and is a predictor for electoral success in many areas in England. At the 7 May local elections, candidates who signed the “Pledge for Palestine”, created by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), won 27 percent of the seats they contested, while Reform candidates won 30 percent. Labour candidates trailed behind on 22 percent, with the Lib Dems just one point behind on 21. More than 1,600 candidates signed the PSC pledge, which committed them to use their position to support Palestinian rights if they are elected. .push({}); They pledged to "take all appropriate steps to" uphold "the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people", and support "efforts to prevent, and ensure accountability for, Israel’s crimes of genocide, military occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid". The pledge also promised to "ensure my council is not complicit in and does not help to normalise Israel’s violations of international law, including through the council divesting pensions and any other funds it administers from complicit companies and through its procurement policies". The pledge was signed by more than 1,000 Green candidates, more than 200 Labour candidates, more than 200 independents and local parties, as well as some Liberal Democrat and Conservative candidates. Pro-Palestine coalition condemns Starmer for suggesting ban on marches Read More » Seats with large young and student populations, and significant ethnic minority and Muslim populations, were especially likely to see candidates stand on a pro-Palestine platform. In Hackney in London, 31 Green candidates made the PSC pledge, including Zoe Garbett, the party’s mayoral candidate who was successfully elected. The Greens won a majority of seats on Hackney Council, ending up with 42 out of 57. Elsewhere in London, in Haringey the Greens surged to 28 council seats, comfortably overtaking Labour and coming very close to achieving overall control. Twenty-six of the Green candidates had signed the pledge. In Bradford and Birmingham, numerous independents and Greens who signed the pledge won their seats. Palestine an issue for residents Jeanine Hourani, a member of Palestinian Youth Movement Britain, one of the Vote Palestine coalition partners, said: “The victories of the Vote Palestine campaign show decisively that Palestine is indeed a local issue for residents across the country. In the months leading up to election day, 16 local campaigns were launched, spending thousands of hours canvassing and organising dozens of local action days.” Hourani added: “The results demonstrate how indispensable grassroots community organising is to the Palestine movement, but also serve as a caution to elected officials. Pledge signatories collectively outperformed almost every political party, and their successes will only grow as we look towards the 2029 general election.” Green councillor Asma Alam, who won her seat in the Burnage ward in Manchester, said: "I made the pledge because it is the bare minimum. If councils have power over pensions, procurement and public money, then Palestine is absolutely a local government issue.” How the smear campaign targeting the Green Party and Muslim voters failed Read More » Alam added: "Greater Manchester has the largest local government pension fund in England, worth over £31bn. Campaigners have identified nearly £905m in investments linked to companies complicit in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. We cannot pass motions, say the right things, and then carry on as normal. "For me, this is simple: I will not take a council pension while that pension is tied to Palestinian suffering. Divestment is not symbolic. It is about refusing to let public money bankroll injustice." In January, the Labour government's Communities Secretary Steve Reed warned Labour-administered councils that they could be sued for boycotting Israeli businesses. Reed pointed local councils to government guidance published in 2016 that prohibits procurement boycotts against Israeli firms and firms that trade with Israel. In the past two years, multiple local authorities have voted to boycott companies complicit in Israeli war crimes or that arm Israel or benefit from its occupation of Palestinian territory. And the pension funds of numerous councils - including Islington, Lewisham, Wandsworth and Caerphilly - have excluded companies on the United Nations' list of businesses involved in the occupied Palestinian territories. The prominent pollster Sir John Curtis noted after the local elections that the Greens had inflicted far more damage on the Labour vote than Reform. UK Politics News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Fri, 05/29/2026 - 12:26 Update Date Override 0

Trump's war on Iran is a Suez moment - but not in the way you might think Submitted by Dan Glazebrook on Thu, 05/28/2026 - 12:11 The US is using its failed war on Iran to monopolise global energy and prop up the dollar - just as Britain used Suez to build the offshore financial system that replaced its empire Vessels anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off the port city of Khasab, Oman, on 17 May 2026 (AFP) Off With its failure to defeat Iran or force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the US war on Iran has been labelled a " strategy of desperation ", a " historic blunder " and a " strategic defeat ". A recent Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery concluded that the damage to US military assets in the region has been "far larger than publicly acknowledged by the US government or previously reported". The war has revealed the limits of US firepower for all the world to see, with neoconservative thinker Robert Kagan even describing it as an Iranian checkmate of the US, and others calling it "America's Suez moment". Such talk, however, misreads what is happening – both Trump 's aims in the conflict and the significance of the original Suez crisis in the first place. In 1956, a British-French-Israeli conspiracy to occupy Egypt and overthrow its leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was thwarted by a combination of Egyptian arms, US financial pressure and Soviet nuclear brinkmanship. With its weakness exposed, Britain began the process of formal political decolonisation the following year. .push({}); The game was up for the British Empire. But a new game was afoot. In his history of offshore finance, Treasure Islands , Nicholas Shaxson notes of this period that "there is a financial side to this story which almost nobody knows about, for out of the dust and fire of Suez something new emerged in London, which would eventually grow to replace the old empire, and raise the City of London to even greater financial glories". By the mid-1950s, the costs of direct colonial rule were starting to outweigh the revenues it was bringing in. Britain's military spending, due to its colonial commitments, "has broken our backs", as then-Prime Minister Harold Macmillan put it, with conscription in particular a huge drain on resources. The big danger of withdrawal, however, was that anti-colonial movements would reclaim their land and resources. What Britain sought was to hand over – or at least share – responsibility for the repression necessary to avoid this outcome; a role it largely succeeded in ultimately passing on to the US, the Gulf monarchies and other handpicked military rulers across the former empire. Just like Britain after Suez, the US is reconsolidating its imperial domination through a systemic transformation of the global financial order At the same time, this new, streamlined "burden-sharing" form of imperialism allowed Britain to cut its expenses while adding new revenue streams through a reboot of the City of London. With the UK government introducing tighter restrictions on international sterling trade, London's merchant banks simply shifted to lending in dollars. And with an incredible sleight of hand, these dollar transactions were deemed, for regulatory purposes, not to be taking place in the UK. But as they were obviously not taking place in any other jurisdiction, no other state was able to regulate the new market, either. The result was a bankster's paradise of speculation, loans and investments free from any regulatory oversight, which became known as the "euromarket". According to Shaxson, "it was at this point" – within months of Suez – "that the modern offshore system really began… Britain's formal empire gave way to something more subtle... At the moment of its apparent destruction, the British empire began to rise from the dead." It was, says economic historian Gary Burn, "the most monumental financial innovation since the banknote". Over the decade that followed, the euromarket spread out from London to a string of island territories that Britain had clung on to, creating a global network of tax havens – from the Channel Islands to the Caribbean to the Pacific atolls – that are still draining the Global South today , to the tune of trillions of dollars , much of which is then channelled back to London . .push({}); London had found a way not only to maintain its financial dominance but to render the colonial world system far more profitable than it had been at the height of empire. A new empire Like Britain in 1956, the US may be facing military humiliation – but it too is creating a new form of financial domination in the process. The war on Iran, as commentator Richard Medhurst has pointed out, is part of a broader war to monopolise global energy supplies, and a transformation of the US into what he calls a "pirate state". An armed takeover of the world's oil and gas supplies is under way – most blatantly with the US takeover of Venezuelan oil in January of this year, but also involving a global war against the Russian oil industry. The US and its allies have, in recent months, seized tankers in the Caribbean, the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, as well as refineries and export hubs, disabling 40 percent of Russia's export capacity. Suez was the death knell for the British empire. Hormuz may do the same for the US Read More » Meanwhile, Trump's naval blockade has crippled Iran's exports, while Iran's own blockade and attacks on Gulf energy installations have cut off Gulf energy exports. As a result, the world is increasingly being forced to turn to the US for oil and gas, paid for in dollars. The plan is to create a global dependence on US energy, thereby propping up the declining dollar and reversing the long-term trend towards de-dollarisation. And it requires neither the capitulation nor the downfall of the Iranian state to achieve it; the blockade is already achieving its desired results, with US fuel exports at a record high . Just like Britain after Suez, the US is reconsolidating its imperial domination through a systemic transformation of the global financial order. Yet the new dollar domination being crafted by Trump today is deeply unstable. The wars required to sustain it escalate tensions with everyone, including allies, and effectively amount to an energy blockade of China . Karl Marx warned that the methods used by the ruling class to overcome their crises ultimately pave the way "for more extensive and more destructive crises" and diminish "the means whereby crises are prevented". .push({}); This is exactly what Trump is doing today, with the ultimate crisis – world war – the increasingly real risk of this desperate gamble. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. War on Iran Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0

Israel’s Netanyahu orders army to seize 70 percent of Gaza Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered the army to occupy 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, in the latest violation of the October ceasefire. “At this point, we are fully in control of 60 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said during a conference hosted by the pre-military Ein Prat leadership academy. “My directive is to get to… 70 percent,” he added. When audience members shouted in support of full Israeli control over Gaza, Netanyahu replied: “We’re going in order. First 70 percent… we’ll start with that.” His comments came a day after Defence Minister Israel Katz reiterated Israel’s intention to advance a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza through what he described as a “voluntary emigration” scheme. Read more: Israel’s Netanyahu orders army to seize 70 percent of Gaza An Israeli army tank moves along the fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip on 21 October 2025 (AFP/Jack Guez)

The United States and Iran have reached ⁠an agreement to extend ​a ceasefire, allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and lift a US blockade and some sanctions on Iran, sources told Reuters, but the deal has not been finalised. An agreement would represent a big step towards ending a ​war that has pushed the world towards an energy crisis, though the underlying dispute over Iran's nuclear programme would only be thrashed out in talks over subsequent weeks.

Israel pounded south Lebanon with deadly strikes and widened its offensive with the first raid near Beirut in weeks where authorities said a woman and two children were killed despite a ceasefire. The attack near the capital came after heavy strikes on south Lebanon that authorities said had killed at least 14 people, including three children. The escalation comes as Lebanon and Israel prepare for talks between military delegations at the Pentagon on Friday, and for US-brokered talks early next week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he had ordered the country's military to take control of 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, in defiance of the terms of a fragile ceasefire that took effect in October. Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israeli forces were to pull back behind a so-called "yellow line", a demarcation between the area under Hamas control and that held by the Israeli army. FRANCE 24's Noga Tarnopolsky reports from Jerusalem.

Israel’s Netanyahu orders army to seize 70 percent of Gaza Submitted by MEE staff on Fri, 05/29/2026 - 10:14 In the latest ceasefire violation, Israel is set to deepen occupation of Gaza as defence minister reiterates plans for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians An Israeli army tank moves along the fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip on 21 October 2025 (AFP/Jack Guez) Off Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered the army to occupy 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, in the latest violation of the October ceasefire. “At this point, we are fully in control of 60 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said during a conference hosted by the pre-military Ein Prat leadership academy. “My directive is to get to… 70 percent,” he added. When audience members shouted in support of full Israeli control over Gaza, Netanyahu replied: “We’re going in order. First 70 percent… we’ll start with that.” His comments came a day after Defence Minister Israel Katz reiterated Israel’s intention to advance a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza through what he described as a “voluntary emigration” scheme. .push({}); “Everything at the right time and in the right manner,” Katz said. Israel and Hamas signed a US-backed ceasefire agreement in October aimed at ending the two-year genocide in Gaza. The deal explicitly stated that “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza” and that “no one will be forced to leave” the territory. It also froze the military positions held by both sides at the time of the agreement, pending later phases that envisioned further Israeli withdrawals from Gaza. At the time the ceasefire came into effect, Israeli forces controlled around 53 percent of Gaza, including large areas in the north, south and east of the enclave. .push({}); Since then, the Israeli military has expanded its control to roughly 60 percent of the territory. A further expansion to 70 percent would confine Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians to just 109 square kilometres of land. 3,000 ceasefire violations Israel has also been accused of violating multiple other terms of the ceasefire agreement during the more than seven months since it took effect. According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israeli violations have exceeded 3,000 breaches. Israeli forces have continued near-daily air strikes and shootings targeting Palestinians, killing more than 922 people since the ceasefire began, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Unicef said at least 229 of those killed were children. Full list of Israel's ceasefire violations in Gaza, seven months on Read More » Overall, Israeli attacks have killed at least 72,800 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. Thousands more remain trapped under rubble and are presumed dead. The strikes intensified this week during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces killed 16 Palestinians between Tuesday and Wednesday alone Israel has also failed to implement key provisions of the agreement relating to humanitarian aid. The ceasefire deal stipulated the entry of up to 600 aid trucks per day carrying food, fuel, medical supplies, shelter materials and commercial goods into Gaza. According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, the daily average since the agreement took effect has been just over 200 trucks. .push({}); Aid agencies say the restricted flow of assistance has left Gaza’s humanitarian crisis largely unresolved, with severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel and shelter continuing across the enclave. Hamas on Thursday warned that the ceasefire agreement in Gaza is at risk of collapse due to Israel’s ongoing violations. Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

The United States and Iran appear to have the draft text of an agreement to extend their ceasefire for 60 days and provide a framework to negotiate longer-term peace. But there have been conflicting reports from sources in Washington and Tehran about what might be covered in the initial agreement – and what is off the table. FRANCE 24’s correspondent Reza Sayah tells us more about what Iranian officials have been saying.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had directed Israel's military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70% of the Palestinian territory, where the population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast. Israel effectively controls an estimated 64% of the tiny coastal ​Strip, bombarded to ‌ruins by Israel's two-year military assault that followed the 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel. FRANCE 24's International Affairs Editor Kethevane Gorjestani tells us more.

On average, 11 children killed or wounded every day in past week in Lebanon An average of 11 children have been killed or wounded every 24 hours in Lebanon, as Israel expanded attacks across the country in spite of a ceasefire being in place. Heavy Israeli ⁠strikes hit towns and villages in southern Lebanon overnight on Wednesday and into Thursday, after Israel declared new swathes of Lebanon "a combat zone". On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Suspensions, arrests, dissolutions: Tunisia intensifies its crackdown on NGOs Submitted by Matteo Garavoglia on Fri, 05/29/2026 - 10:18 Authorities are increasingly using judicial means to shut down civil society organisations in their assault on freedoms A Tunisian lawyer wearing a red armband as a sign of protest walks past the courthouse in Tunis on 19 May 2026, during a rally by lawyers against the president and the regression in freedoms (Fethi Belaid/AFP) Off In recent weeks, small gatherings have become an increasingly common sight outside Tunis ’s Court of First Instance. Some demonstrators call for the protection of freedoms in the country, while others are protesting against administrative suspensions they consider unjust. All point to a shrinking civic space that many activists and observers fear is becoming permanent. Over the past two years, dozens of non-governmental organisations in the Maghreb country have been suspended for 30 days and threatened with dissolution by court order. In the last couple of months, two major groups were targeted: the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), the oldest human rights organisation in Africa and a member of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for its role in the country’s democratic transition, and Lawyers Without Borders (ASF), whose headquarters are in Belgium. The same fate also struck the Al Khatt foundation, owner of the investigative media Inkyfada. The independent outlet was first suspended for one month and is now facing dissolution proceedings, with a hearing scheduled for Monday. “It all started in October 2025 with a sudden, one-month suspension designed to silence our publications,” Inkyfada’s editorial director, Manel Lassoued, told Middle East Eye. .push({}); “But we didn't stop. We kept working and appealed the decision, trusting in our fundamental right to a defence and an impartial justice system.” The Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, Aswat Nissa, Nawaat, the International Commission of Jurists and the World Organisation Against Torture are other organisations that received court-ordered suspensions, in the context of progressive weakening of the political and civil gains achieved after the 2011 uprising that followed President Kais Saied’s power grab five years ago. On 25 July 2021, Saied dissolved the government, froze parliament and began ruling in what rights groups have described as an increasingly authoritarian manner. He later introduced a new constitution that expanded presidential powers while increasing pressure on intermediary institutions such as the Supreme Judicial Council, which has effectively been stripped of its powers. This institutional overhaul has been accompanied by a campaign of arrests and administrative harassment targeting civil society groups working on a wide range of fields, from human rights and migration to corruption and social justice. Around 600 are reported to be under investigation. While authorities say they are combating suspicious foreign funding and protecting national interests, rights groups including Amnesty International have called the justification an “excuse” to intimidate NGOs and further restrict civic spaces. .push({}); ‘Erase the entire political system’ According to Amnesty, what began as intimidation, arbitrary restrictions, asset freezes and politically motivated prosecutions of staff has now escalated into efforts to use the judiciary to shut down NGOs altogether. Under Decree-Law No 88 regulating associations, organisations typically face a three-step process: first an administrative warning, then a temporary suspension, and finally dissolution. Several organisations have already reached the final stage of the process, including Inkyfada and Mnemty, a Tunis-based anti-racism association whose founder, Saadia Mosbah, has been in detention for two years and was recently sentenced to eight years in prison on financial misconduct charges. ‘This is even more insidious than simply banning activities, because it aims to spread fear and create a reflex of self-censorship’ - Sihem Bensedrine, journalist and former head of the Truth and Dignity Commission “The entire institutional framework inherited from the democratic transition has been targeted,” Lamine Benghazi, head of advocacy for the Euro-Mediterranean region at ASF, told MEE. “But it is not only about institutions: these authorities want to erase the entire political system. They are trying to erase an entire political ecosystem - one that includes the media, associations and trade unions.” The suspension of the LTDH in April sparked considerable outrage, with hundreds gathering in the capital along Avenue Bourguiba to protest against the decision. The organisation was among the few still granted access to Tunisian prisons, where dozens of dissidents, journalists and political opponents are detained. “We consider the suspension to be a political decision disguised as a judicial one as it comes within a context of restricting civic space and targeting independent organisations that are fighting for human rights in Tunisia,” LTDH president Bassem Trifi told Amnesty International. “Beyond targeting human rights organisations, human rights and freedoms are being severely undermined, especially the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.” Tunisians protest against President Kais Saied and his government, demanding the release of all opposition members, in Tunis on 16 May 2026 (Fethi Belaid/AFP) .push({}); Among the protesters was Sihem Bensedrine, a prominent figure in Tunisian civil society. The journalist chaired the Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD), the body tasked after the 2011 uprising with investigating crimes committed under former presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, as well as during the protests that led to the latter’s fall in 2011. Arrested in August 2024 on charges of falsifying the IVD’s final report, Bensedrine was released in February 2025 after a prolonged hunger strike. She still bears the physical and psychological scars of what she considers an unjust detention, while preparing to face new trials linked to her work with the IVD. “They are using new repressive techniques: they do not directly shut down associations, they suspend them,” she told MEE. “And this is even more insidious than simply banning activities, because it aims to spread fear and create a reflex of self-censorship.” Bensedrine has been politically active since the Bourguiba era and has experienced multiple periods of detention. However, authoritarianism has reached new heights under Saied, she said. “I had the feeling that, for the current regime, imprisoning people who are considered troublesome has become a kind of royal lettre de cachet: they lock you up and you never get out,” she told MEE. “I felt that I could remain there for a very long time. At a certain point I told myself: ‘No, I cannot accept this any more.’ There was absolutely no reason for me to be in prison,” she added. Erosion of media freedoms While Bensedrine was being prosecuted, a wave of arrests also targeted figures from civil society and the media, including Sonia Dahmani, a lawyer and well-known television commentator, and Mourad Zeghidi, a columnist and radio commentator. In both cases, authorities applied Decree-Law 54 of 2022, which the Tunisian government has used to prosecute alleged cases of “false information” deemed harmful to public security. Their arrests became emblematic of the government’s growing use of the judiciary to silence critical voices. ‘What we are witnessing in Tunisia is no longer just a shift in attitude; it is a systematic, structural crackdown on independent media and civil society’ - Manel Lassoued, Inkyfada’s editorial director Dahmani was released in November 2025 after a year and a half in detention but was again sentenced to two years in prison earlier this week, a decision against which she has appealed. Zeghidi remains in prison, facing additional charges such as money laundering and corruption, which his lawyers consider unfounded and politically motivated. According to the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Tunisia has dropped to 137th place out of 180 countries, down from 129 the previous year. “This decline reflects a deeper trend that RSF has been systematically documenting,” Oussama Bouagila, RSF’s regional advocacy officer and deputy bureau chief for North Africa, told MEE. “RSF recorded 39 prosecutions against journalists based on laws unrelated to journalism. President Saied has repeatedly called on public media to align themselves with what he describes as a war of national liberation.” Tunisia: Families of political detainees form collective to unite opposition to Saied Read More » After the 2011 revolution, Tunisia experienced a significant opening in the media sector, Bouagila noted. However, this momentum was abruptly interrupted by the events of July 2021 and the subsequent concentration of power in Saied’s hands, he said. The case of Inkyfada is among the most emblematic of this crackdown. Widely known in Tunisia and abroad for its investigations into Tunisian politics and society - including reports on the abuses targeting the sub-Saharan migrant community after Saied described them as a demographic threat - the outlet represents a rare free space for thousands of readers. “Looking ahead to 1 June, let us be clear: we have by no means broken the law or the norms of civil society work in Tunisia. We have done everything by the book, including the consistent declaration of all foreign funding. We expect nothing less than justice,” the outlet’s editorial director told MEE. “What we are witnessing in Tunisia is no longer just a shift in attitude; it is a systematic, structural crackdown on independent media and civil society,” Lassoued added. Inside Tunisia Tunis News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Are we witnessing a 21st century homeland crusade? Submitted by Amina Shareef on Wed, 05/27/2026 - 09:26 Emboldened by the language of national security, a far-right vigilante politics is emerging in the West, its rise in parallel with military campaigns against Muslim populations abroad Marchers at the Unite the Kingdom rally dressed in medieval Crusader costumes are pictured in London on 16 May 2026 (Toby Shepheard/AFP) Off A stream of speakers crossed the stage. “Islam is our real enemy .” We must “ remove Islam from every single place of authority”. “This is a religious war . It’s Jesus Christ versus Satan.” British men must “ get fight ready , because a fight is coming to this country”. Each address was met with cheers. Some in the crowd carried large wooden crosses. Others wore shirts bearing the face of Christ or slogans such as “Jesus is Lord” and “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. Some chanted “Christ is King”. Several attendees even arrived dressed as medieval crusaders: mock chainmail, red-cross tunics, and imitation armour. This was the scene at the Unite the Kingdom rally in London on 16 May, organised by the far-right agitator Tommy Robinson. His real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon . Elsewhere in the city, another gathering was taking place: a commemoration of the Nakba , the violent displacement of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948. .push({}); The relationship between these two events has largely escaped political commentary - not simply because the far-right rally was deliberately organised on a day of mourning and remembrance for Palestinians, but because the juxtaposition exposes something many would rather leave unspoken: the connection between the struggle to remove Muslims from the holy land, and the struggle to remove Muslims from Europe itself. The politics on display at the Unite the Kingdom rally was not merely Christian nationalism or culture-war theatre clothed in religious symbolism. It reflected the persistence of a homeland crusade unfolding alongside the decades-long campaigns waged against Muslim populations abroad. Civilisational logic The "war on terror", launched by the United States and its allies after the attacks of 11 September 2001, is usually understood as a global military and security campaign against terrorism. Yet from its inception, it also carried a civilisational logic: one that framed conflict through the categories of Islam and Christendom. While Islam, Muslims and Muslim societies became the principal targets of the war, far less attention has been paid to the Christian political imagination that shaped its language, assumptions and moral world. In political commentary, the "war on terror" is often described as a “clash of civilisations” between Islam and the West. What frequently remains unstated, however, is that the West continues to imagine itself as the heir to Christendom. From Nakba to fascist parades: How Britain's far right threatens Muslims and Jews Read More » Samuel P Huntington, the architect of the “clash of civilisations” thesis, made this explicit in the 1990s. He portrayed future global conflict as the continuation of a centuries-long struggle between Islam and the Christian West: from the rise of Islam and the Crusades to modern forms of military, political and cultural domination. Nor was this framing confined to academic theory. Political and military officials routinely invoked the language of crusade and jihad in the early years of the "war on terror". Former US President George W Bush described the campaign as a “crusade”. British Conservative MP Sir Teddy Taylor used the same term . Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, referred to bin Laden as a “modern Saladin” , invoking the Muslim commander who fought the Crusaders. Former Pentagon official William G Boykin called for “ warriors of God’s kingdom ”, declaring: “We are a nation of believers.” In such rhetoric, the West is imagined not merely as a geopolitical alliance, but as Christendom in contemporary form. This civilisational logic extended beyond military intervention into an ideological project aimed at reshaping Islam itself. Islam was increasingly presented not only as the source of extremism, but as fundamentally incompatible with “western values”. Alongside invasions and occupations came sustained efforts to depoliticise and secularise Islam: to cultivate a “moderate Islam” compatible with liberal political norms, and to marginalise forms of Islamic politics that resisted western geopolitical dominance. .push({}); Particular attention focused on Islamism, or political Islam: movements that challenged the Eurocentric order imposed across much of the Muslim world after the collapse of the Ottoman sultanate. The reforms that followed displaced Islam from political authority and established liberalism as the dominant ideological framework of Muslim societies. Political Islam emerged, in part, as a response to that transformation. Domestic front Yet the "war on terror" was never confined to battlefields abroad. By the early 2010s, it had developed a domestic front across western societies through the growing focus on so-called “home-grown extremism” . Counter-extremism policy became central to this shift. Muslims - whether citizens, migrants, refugees, or residents - were increasingly constructed as potential threats from within. In practice, visible expressions of Muslim identity became objects of suspicion: hijab, mosque attendance, political activism, and religious conservatism. At the same time, the wider public was encouraged to internalise the logic of surveillance itself. Citizens were urged to monitor, identify and report signs of “radicalisation” within Muslim communities. Ordinary civic life increasingly became an extension of the security apparatus. Emboldened by years of securitisation, the far right increasingly sees itself not as marginal, but as carrying out a historic duty From this perspective, the far right’s portrayal of Islam as a civilisational threat did not emerge in isolation. It was cultivated through the official discourses of the war on terror, which normalised the idea that Muslims constituted a latent danger within the nation. Furthermore, the far-right vigilante who imagines himself as the defender of the homeland has a clear precursor in the citizen-subject produced by counter-extremism policy: the citizen encouraged to police Muslim life in the name of national security. To borrow from Michel Foucault , state security power did not remain confined to institutions. It circulated outward into society itself, where it could reappear in vigilante form. Far-right mobilisation, then, should not be understood as an aberration external to mainstream politics. It is produced through the very political and security frameworks from which it claims to defend the nation. Even the far right’s “great replacement” theory mirrors the civilisational logic of the "war on terror". The imagined threat of “Eurabia” - a Europe supposedly overwhelmed by Muslim migration, governed by Islamic law, fragmented into “no-go zones” and marked by minarets instead of church steeples - is framed not simply as demographic change, but as the displacement of Christianity and “western civilisation” itself. What far-right discourse deceitfully calls “demographic jihad” - Muslim migration and higher birth rates - is cast as an existential struggle for the survival of Christendom. Historical echoes It is therefore unsurprising that far-right movements increasingly adopt crusader symbolism openly. Before being banned from Facebook, Britain First used the slogan “The New Crusade Begins” alongside medieval crusader imagery and the battle cry “Deus vult” - “God wills it”. The Christchurch attacker, Brenton Tarrant, framed his massacre as part of a centuries-long war between Islam and Europe. Anders Behring Breivik filled his manifesto with crusader imagery and Biblical references. Organisations such as the English Defence League and Pegida have similarly made Christian symbolism central to their political identity. Unite the Kingdom: Hateful theatre of niqab ‘unveiling’ feeds far-right fantasies Read More » The San Diego mosque attack, carried out by shooters who framed their actions as part of a “ New Crusade ”, illustrates how crusading narratives continue to animate contemporary far-right extremism. Far-right politics, then, is not simply nationalism with Christian aesthetics attached to it. It is the domestic front of a broader civilisational struggle: a homeland crusade waged in parallel with military and political campaigns against Muslim populations abroad. History makes this easier to recognise. The medieval Crusades were not fought only in Jerusalem. Crusading violence also unfolded within Europe itself against Muslims, Jews, pagans and Christian heretics. The Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula formed part of the same historical process: the purification of Christian territory through expulsion, conquest and forced conversion. The danger posed by this modern homeland crusade is not theoretical. As violence escalates across the Middle East - from the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank , and the confrontation with Iran - its domestic counterpart also threatens escalation. Its ambitions are already visible: deportations , denationalisation, expanded surveillance , restrictions on Muslim political expressio n, and bans targeting hijab, halal practices and mosques. Emboldened by years of securitisation and legitimised through mainstream political discourse , the far right increasingly sees itself not as marginal, but as carrying out a historic duty. .push({}); Recent developments in Britain - from the electoral rise of Reform UK to the far-right violence that followed the 2024 Southport stabbings - suggest this trajectory is no longer confined to the fringes. What may emerge is not simply sporadic racist violence, but a vigilante politics authorised by the language of national security itself: a domestic inquisition carried out in the name of defending civilisation, the nation, and Christendom. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. British Muslims How the far right are turning the war on terror into a homeland crusade Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0

Polish President Karol Nawrocki will seek to strip Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland's highest decoration following Zelenskyy's decision to name an elite Ukrainian Special Operations Forces unit after the Heroes of the UPA. [UPA, or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, was a nationalist paramilitary organisation that fought for Ukrainian independence during and after World War II, primarily against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – ed.]

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