Activists

Prague, Czech Republic – Youssef Moursi, a 25-year-old Egyptian university student and activist in Prague, has spent the last six months in pre-trial detention, accused of an arson attack in March against a Czech weapons factory with alleged ties to Israel.

Moursi is one of 11 people being charged with “terrorism” for the attack and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The case has echoes of legal battles in the United Kingdom, where Palestine Action activists have been sentenced under terrorism laws, and Germany, where five people accused of targeting a site linked to Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons maker, are on trial.

Moursi, a humanities student at Charles University, said in a statement to Al Jazeera that “a group of armed and masked policemen smashed down [my] front door”, two days after the alleged attack, in which he denies any involvement.

He spent the first three months of his detention in solitary confinement, according to his lawyer. Today, he is allowed one hour outside his cell and 20 minutes on the phone a day, with visits from friends and family every two weeks.

“[There] is the psychological front being waged against us, where [the police] deliberately try to break us by putting some of us in solitary confinement for months, denying us visits, blocking correspondence, or spreading fear,” Moursi said. “Putting people in custody and prolonging it time and time again without direct evidence, mainly based on a mix of inclinations, activism, racism, and an attempted blurring of freedom of speech, is unacceptable.”

Moursi and his lawyer, Pavel Cizinsky, believe he has been targeted because of his involvement in pro-Palestine activism in Prague.

Cizinsky said part of the evidence police have against Moursi is that on the day after the fire, he posted advice for pro-Palestinian activists on social media, should they be approached by officers. Cizinsky called this “ridiculous.”

“If you put into Google what to do when interviewed by the police, the first advice is wait for your lawyer. But if you say it as a pro-Palestinian activist, if you write it to your friends, then it’s reason against you that you are guilty,” Cizinsky said.

At the beginning of the investigation, Cizinsky said he faced pressure from the authorities not to take the case. As a result, he was not present during the initial interrogation and house raid on Moursi’s flat.

“It is clear that there is extraordinary attention to this investigation by the police, and really great resources dedicated to this case,” Cizinsky said. “But the fact that he is already five months in prison is surely a breach of law.”

Under Czech law, individuals held in pre-trial detention who have not been convicted must have their detention reviewed by a court every three months. Moursi’s detention has so far been reviewed twice, with the court deciding each time that he must stay in prison.

His detention will be reviewed again in early December, and the trial is expected to start within a year.

The fire broke out in the early hours of March 20 at LPP Holding, a Czech weapons factory in Pardubice, about 120km (75 miles) east of Prague.

No one was injured but police said the building was destroyed, with damage estimates reaching hundreds of millions of crowns, or at least four million euros.

A previously unknown pro-Palestinian group called The Earthquake Faction claimed responsibility and posted videos of the fire, saying it targeted LPP Holding for its cooperation with Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons company.

In 2023, LPP Holding and Elbit Systems announced a partnership to build drones in the Czech Republic. But on the day of the fire, an LPP Holding spokesperson told Czech media the collaboration never happened.

In the weeks following the attack, police launched a manhunt and arrested several foreign nationals including Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Polish and American citizens. Of the 10 other individuals accused, three are under house arrest in Poland and seven remain behind bars in the Czech Republic.

Over the past two years, Elbit Systems has become a primary target for pro-Palestine activists across Europe.

In June, a UK court convicted four imprisoned Palestine Action members of criminal damage with a “terrorist connection” after a raid on an Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol. In September last year, police in Poland arrested protesters at an arms fair for throwing red liquid over an Elbit Systems stand. This week, an elderly man in Germany was arrested after protesting against the Israeli weapons giant.

In Prague, the atmosphere for pro-Palestinian activists has grown increasingly tense.

A collective called Prague 4 Palestine Youth stopped organising demonstrations and charity events after police investigations into dozens of its members in the months following the arson attack.

Rue, a 25-year-old Czech activist who requested anonymity, said that friends of those detained in the arson case and fellow activists are being subjected to interrogations, house raids, and indefinite confiscations of their devices as the investigation continues.

Nine days after the fire, Rue said, “[The police] interrogated us, and then they took us back to [our] apartment where they did a search of the house. They kept us awake for more than 24 hours. I was having panic attacks for a week straight after it happened.”

After the interrogation and house search, Rue was told they were being treated as a witness to the arson attack. The police confiscated their phone and computer, which have not been returned.

Rue believes they were investigated because of their friendship with suspects in the arson case. They have visited two in prison; one is in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, Rue said.

“When it comes to the end of the visit, the tears come,” Rue added. “You’re free to go anywhere and do anything, and they go back to being in those four walls.”

The individuals detained in the Czech Republic could remain in prison for up to four years without being convicted, according to their lawyers.

Police confirmed they have arrested and charged suspects of several different nationalities and remanded them in custody.

“Given the gravity of the case and the ongoing investigation into terrorism-related offences, the supervising public prosecutor’s office has assumed exclusive authority to release information,” the police said.

Student groups call for the abolition of Greek life and punitive action in wake of fraternity assault allegations.

Protesters in the United States have shattered a glass door at Cornell University’s main administrative headquarters and spray-painted messages on the building’s walls as backlash continues following allegations about a 2024 gang rape at a local fraternity.

In the early hours of Monday, the glass panes on an entrance door for the building, Day Hall, were smashed, leaving shards strewn across the floor.

Activists, outraged at the school’s handling of the case, also graffitied nearby walls with slogans like “At Cornell rapists are protected protesters are expelled” and “Smash the patriarchy”.

The predawn incident came ahead of a rally demanding “justice for survivors” by student groups on Monday.

Cornell spokesperson Kyle Kimball said Monday that the university was investigating the vandalism.

“We understand the frustration and strong emotions being expressed across our community,” Kimball said. “Those concerns deserve to be heard, but damaging property is not the answer.”

Cornell, a prominent Ivy League university in the state of New York, has been at the centre of a national firestorm over sexual violence on US campuses, after an anonymous student, Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit last month alleging a gang rape at the fraternity Chi Phi.

Her complaint accuses seven former students of perpetrating “heinous criminal sexual acts” against her during a fraternity party on the night of October 19, 2024, after she says she was pressured to drink and take the drug ketamine.

The fraternity, Cornell University and others are named as co-defendants in the suit. Lawyers for two of the former students have rejected claims that they participated in sexual assault.

The case has elicited outcry over how sexual assault is handled on campuses across the country.

At Monday’s demonstration, students demanded an overhaul of the university’s sexual assault complaint process, the termination of certain school officials and stricter disciplinary action against alleged abusers.

In a statement to the student news outlet The Cornell Daily Sun, student organisers wrote that they were calling for the “abolition” of the Interfraternity Council system on campus and the “expulsion/revocation of degrees for all Chi Phi members involved in the rape”.

They also demanded that Cornell’s Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards be replaced by a “democratic disciplinary system”. Monday’s protest, they added, was designed to draw attention to the systemic failures that allow sexual violence to occur.

“We wanted to ensure that Day Hall, the centre of Cornell’s administrative function, was not able to continue business as usual,” the students told the campus paper.

The alleged crime at the fraternity, they wrote, was part of a “rampant pattern of sexual assault perpetrated by members of Greek life at Cornell University and hundreds of other academic institutions throughout the country”.

Under pressure by New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James, the university announced this week it would be appointing a law firm to conduct an independent internal review of how it initially handled the case.

A transcript, obtained by US media, shows that although no charges were filed, Doe told campus police at the time that she could “say with 100% confidence I was raped”.

Her lawsuit also alleges that Cornell “afforded” the accused fraternity members “the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays” to the school. Two were later expelled, and another two were suspended.

These protest-laden times couldn’t be more receptive to the stirring “Everybody to Kenmure Street,” which speaks to a moment when the machinery of institutional cruelty was ground to a halt by righteous neighborliness. Felipe Bustos Sierra’s immersive documentary about a consequential block party — one that happened in Glasgow, Scotland, in May 2021 — is not simply one of the year’s best films, but a potent reminder of where meaningful change begins.

On the morning in question, a dawn immigration raid initiated by the U.K. Home Office snatched two men from the diverse, tight-knit community of Kenmure Street, and the timing couldn’t have been more hostile: in front of a mosque on the first day of Eid. And yet, what reaction is more gratifying than residents of all stripes stepping outside to do something about it?

Word spread quickly, and soon a throng of smartphone-wielding citizens had surrounded the immigration enforcement van, which couldn’t move because one enterprising, early-arriving activist had slid underneath it. Soon, the police were there in force, but the dedication of the outraged, chanting crowd demanding the men’s release ensured this would be no ordinary standoff.

Sierra, a Scotland-based filmmaker born to Chilean exiles, whose previous film recounted the solidarity of Scottish factory workers against Chile’s dictatorship, primes us over the credits with an archival montage of his adopted country’s disputatious lineage, from suffragists and trade unionists to independence campaigners and Glaswegian schoolgirls advocating for their asylum-seeking classmates, all set to the serenading lilt of Lee Hazlewood’s classic 1966 ache “Your Sweet Love.”

But the tale of that Thursday’s spontaneous, viral resistance is narrated by its proud participants. Each is interviewed separately, looking directly at us to burnish the intimacy. We aren’t told their names — save human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, a key public figure that day — because it isn’t the point. Everyone’s observant, humor-filled testimony both individuates and connects them to each other. Over those hours, the many became one. They became witnesses unsatisfied with mere witnessing.

The interviewees who didn’t want to be filmed are played by actors, including executive producer Emma Thompson wedged between an undercarriage and pavement as the unidentified van protester. That this doesn’t play like jokey stunt casting speaks to the spirit of communal, all-hands-on-deck engagement. Who got under the van wasn’t important. That someone did was.

Sierra also contextualizes Kenmure Street within the long shadow of slavery, industry, imperialism and grassroots opposition. It’s a valuable history lesson in echoes and dignity, one of the film’s more moving illustrations of the legacy of demonstrating for what’s right.

As it happens, Sierra himself wasn’t there that day. He chose to stay at home, watch on the news, and — as someone here might, post-Minnesota — assume the worst. “Everybody to Kenmure Street” is the ultimate what-did-I-miss movie, a life-affirming corrective, his respectful curiosity and everyone’s cherished memories in singular harmony. Like Sierra, you’ll wish you’d been there, to experience the world made better by those who show up. This is the next best thing.

Tunis, Tunisia – For nine-year-old Yassar Naouar, visiting his father in prison has become an exercise in staying strong. He tries not to cry in front of Wael, fearing that seeing his son in tears would make an already painful situation harder for him. After leaving the prison, Yassar finds a corner where he can finally let the tears fall.

Hichem Naouar, Yassar’s grandfather, says the boy has changed since his father was detained. He now sleeps beside his mother after waking up screaming at night and his results at school have worsened. When Yassar told his mother that other children kept asking whether his father was a thief, she asked him what he thought.

“Never,” the nine-year-old replied.

Wael’s youngest child, four-year-old Sumud, is too young to understand why her father is in prison. Hichem says he took her to visit him. When she saw her father behind the glass, she leaned forward to embrace him, only to hit her head against the barrier.

Hichem spoke to Al Jazeera on Wednesday outside the Tunis Court of Appeal, where he had gone to follow the latest challenge to Wael’s detention. He repeatedly choked up as he described what he had seen during his most recent visit.

Wael was sitting with his hand against his cheek, his father said, his elbow trembling and his gaze fixed in the distance. He was struggling to see clearly and to keep water down without vomiting. He was dizzy and had difficulty controlling his left leg. Wael later told Hichem that other prisoners had said he sometimes wakes during the night calling out his youngest daughter’s name.

For his father, however, Wael’s story is also about the kind of person he has been. He recalled an incident during the Sumud land convoy in Libya in May, when armed men tried to kidnap another participant. Wael intervened, pulled the man away and helped him escape before returning to the men and telling them they could take him instead.

During the first Sumud flotilla, a female fell into the sea and was close to drowning. Wael immediately jumped in and rescued her.

“Wael’s strength is in the strength of his ideas and in his commitment to his people. Whenever he heard about any injustice against workers or employees, you would always find him at the forefront,” Hichem said.

The case and its wider fallout

Wael, 41, began a hunger strike on August 16 to protest his continued detention and was transferred to hospital as his condition deteriorated. He suspended his strike after 38 days following appeals from his lawyers and supporters, saying the decision did not mean abandoning his demands.

Four activists, Wael Naouar, Ghassan Henchiri, Ghassan Boughdiri and Nabil Channoufi, have been held since March following an investigation by Tunisia’s Economic and Financial Judicial Pole, a specialised body that handles financial and economic crimes. The investigation concerns alleged financial irregularities linked to fundraising for the Global Sumud Flotilla, an international campaign seeking to deliver aid to Gaza and challenge Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territory.

The state-owned TAP news agency, citing judicial sources, reported that investigators are examining the origin and use of funds collected for the flotilla and whether any were diverted for other purposes. The activists and their defence team have repeatedly denied wrongdoing and maintain their innocence. None of the four has been convicted.

For their lawyers, the issue is also why the men should remain in prison while the investigation continues.

Ghassan Ghribi, a member of the defence committee, described the latest extension of their pretrial detention as an “exception to the exception”, arguing that freedom should be the rule and detention the exception. The four-month extension was ordered on September 11 and the defence challenged the decision before the Court of Appeal in Tunis.

“The investigating judge spent six months on the case without carrying out any investigative work, other than questioning the activists,” Ghribi told Al Jazeera. He said the extension should be based on clear reasons and that the four men were being made to pay the price for what he described as a lack of investigative work.

The Court of Appeal rejected the challenge on Wednesday, leaving the quartet in pretrial detention for another four months while the investigation continues. Henchiri, Boughdiri and Channoufi remain on hunger strike.

Authorities have presented the case as a financial investigation into the handling of funds raised for the flotilla, rather than a prosecution linked to the men’s political or pro-Palestinian activities. The government has rejected accusations that the judiciary is being used to silence opponents, saying the judiciary is independent and that legal proceedings are conducted according to the law.

The fallout has also widened beyond the four men. Fourteen people detained after the September 19 protest calling for their release have since been placed in pretrial detention, lawyer Rafed Rabbeh confirmed to Al Jazeera on Friday. Among them is a 17-year-old who was brought before a juvenile judge. Tunisia’s Child Protection Code says priority should be given to preventive and educational measures and that pretrial detention should be avoided as much as possible for children.

Rabbeh said the detainees face several charges, including participating in a gathering allegedly intended to disturb public order and commit an offence, publicly attributing unlawful acts to a public official without proof, and making public statements deemed to damage the reputation of a person or official body. The charges are based on several provisions of Tunisia’s Penal Code.

The toll on those left behind

Speaking by phone from Gafsa, Ghassan Henchiri’s father, Sebti, said his son remains conscious but is visibly exhausted after being on hunger strike since September 9.

“According to what his sister told me after visiting him, he is still holding up. The fatigue is visible. He is exhausted, but he is still conscious,” Sebti said.

Ghassan has not been taken outside the prison for further medical examination of a head injury sustained during his detention in Israel, Sebti told Al Jazeera. Ghassan and his family have raised the issue with both the prison administration and investigating judge. They were promised that he would receive the necessary medical examinations, but that has not happened, Sebti said.

“It could be a superficial injury, but with the conditions in prison and the high temperatures, it has exhausted him,” he said.

Ghassan also has other health problems, including living with one kidney and suffering from back problems, Sebti said. He has developed a skin rash that keeps him from sleeping, but his request to see a dermatologist was rejected because the prison doctor did not consider it serious, Sebti said.

“I will remain steadfast, I will not give up my right and these malicious accusations are false,” Ghassan told his father.

“He is my son, my brother, my companion, my whole life,” Sebti said. “Ghassan is a man of integrity. I am not saying that because I am his father. Everyone knows that about him.”

Ghassan’s detention has also reshaped family life. He had been working at a high school and was recently engaged, Sebti said.

He described Ghassan’s political commitment as something rooted in the family. He has been involved in student activism and later trade unions since 1978, campaigning for freedom, the right to organise and a better, more dignified life for Tunisians. Ghassan grew up with those principles and was influenced by his father’s activism.

“This is what Ghassan was raised on and what influenced him,” Sebti said.

Human Rights Watch has also raised concerns over the use of financial and money-laundering investigations against civil society actors in Tunisia.

For the Naouar and Henchiri families, the impact of the detentions is being felt at home, in prison visits, anxious phone calls and children asking when their fathers will return.

Yassar still asks about his father and has told his grandfather he is ready to go on hunger strike too.

Asked where her father is, four-year-old Sumud answers: “Palestine. Prison”.