Bill Shields 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Breaking: Today's mass arrests of peaceful protesters in Trafalgar Square under UK terrorism law are yet another blow to civil liberties in this country - and made all the more outrageous by the Metropolitan Police's own U-turn. The High Court ruled in February that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful. The Met rightly said it would stop making arrests. It has now gone back to its old, failed policy - mass arrests of people holding pieces of card, including today an elderly woman with walking sticks. This is not policing. This is the state criminalising dissent. Take action now with thousands of other Amnesty International supporters and sign the petition to end all prosecutions against these peaceful protesters. amn.st/6015B60qQv

UAE’s🇦🇪 Mishal Kanoo: We DON’T RETALIATE against Iran because we don’t want the Iranian people to remember us as an ATTACKER! @afshinrattansi: You can see from Iran’s point of view, and I think it’s widely accepted that the UAE hosting United States bases, even though the UAE, like Saudi Arabia, has said on no account can they be used for attacks on Iran… Still creates a situation where hosting those bases makes GCC countries targets when the United States is involved in military operations. @MishalKanoo: “If I accept that premise, and I do, then I should also extend the same logic to Azerbaijan, which has Israeli bases, and to Turkey, which has American bases. There was a hit on Azerbaijan, of course, and then they said it was a mistake. The same thing happened with Turkey — “sorry, it’s a mistake” — and that was a NATO country after all. The reason why the IRGC is attacking our part of the world is because they perceive us to be an easy target — someone who is not going to retaliate. And we’re not going to retaliate, not because we can’t, but because there’s a difference between not wanting to retaliate and being unable to. They know that if you attack Turkey, you are dealing with a proper army and a capable military. Turkey has been actively involved in conflicts and skirmishes in Syria, Iraq, and Azerbaijan. It’s a frightening prospect for them because of both capability and proximity — Turkey has the military strength to project force directly into Iran. Azerbaijan is similar. It may not be viewed as a major military superpower, but there are approximately 15 million Azeris living in Iran. If Azerbaijan were to respond to an attack by moving in, Iran would face a significant internal and external challenge. This is why, in the eyes of the IRGC, we are seen as the easier target — and why they keep hitting us. The argument that this is simply because of American bases doesn’t fully hold. Yes, the bases are there — but what about American ships, frigates, and other assets? Why aren’t they being targeted in the same way? Why is it primarily our region, where there is little to no retaliatory trajectory from our side? It’s because we know that, ultimately, they will remain our neighbours. We do not have an issue with the Iranian population, and we don’t want to create one for the future. When the current rulers eventually move on and new leadership emerges, we don’t want to have a history where we were the aggressors.” -One of the UAE’s🇦🇪 most prominent businessmen @MishalKanoo, Chairman of the @KanooGroup_UAE, and one of Gulf Business’s Top 100 Powerful Arabs 2025. Watch the full interview in the quoted post below👇