Human Rights

A digital register of land ownership in the West Bank is seen as an escalation of Israel’s occupation.

Occupied East Jerusalem, Palestine – A controversial Israeli plan to digitally register property ownership in the occupied West Bank is a “dangerous colonial occupation step that represents a direct assault on the historical and legal rights of the Palestinian people to their land and property”, the Palestinian Land Authority has said.

The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate and the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) have urged Palestinians in the West Bank not to engage with any Israeli “entities, committees, platforms, or procedures” of lands and property.

Israel reportedly launched the online “Land Registry and Settlement of Rights” platform on which it plans to “update” property ownership in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday this week.

The Jerusalem Governorate and the CRRC have called on the international community, the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and all international human rights and legal institutions to “take their urgent responsibilities to stop these illegal procedures and hold the occupying state accountable for its continuous violations against the Palestinian people, their land, and their resources”, they said.

Moayad Shaaban, head of the CRRC, which is part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the move reveals “the occupation’s transition from traditional policies of field control to digital and administrative colonial engineering aimed at imposing permanent legal realities on the occupied Palestinian territory”.

‘Annexation’ by land registry

In May 2025, the Israeli Security Cabinet launched a new, aggressive land settlement process throughout the West Bank, with the aim of “completing the legal and administrative annexation of the occupied territories through fully registering the lands under Israeli authority”, the Jerusalem Governorate said.

Then, in July 2025, Israel’s parliament approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank. The move was first tabled in 2024 by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in an illegal Israeli settlement.

On February 15, 2026, the permanent acquisition and registration of approximately 58 percent of Area C – the part of the West Bank over which Israel exerts total control – began.

Under that decision, Palestinian land registration in the Israeli “Tabu” – the land registry extract – began for the first time since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967. It is a final measure that will be difficult to challenge in Israeli courts, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported in February.

With the onset of land settlement, the Israeli Land Registry unit will take over the regulation and registration of land ownership in Area C. It also has the power to issue sales permits and to collect fees. Israel aims to complete the full settlement of 15 percent of the West Bank by the end of 2030.

Some 700,000 Israeli settlers already live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as illegal settlement has expanded under the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Rights groups say settlement approvals, along with rising settler violence against Palestinian communities, have accelerated since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

A woman has lost a court battle after she claimed that “water is a natural resource and a universal human right” having been refused a glass of tap water by the Hotel Sassongher in Corvara

A hotel has won a legal fight with a tourist who asked for a glass of water.

In the UK, the right to ask for a glass of water from certain establishments is enshrined in the law. Restaurants that serve alcohol are legally required to provide free tap water to paying customers, although they may charge for the glass or service.

The same cannot be said for other countries.

In Italy, the land’s highest court has just ruled that a five-star Dolomites hotel acted lawfully when it refused to provide tap water to a tourist.

Way back in 2019, the woman, from Rome, asked for a glass of H2O, only to be told that she couldn’t have one and that she’d have to make do with a £6 bottle of mineral water instead.

What followed was a legal fight that has run on until this week. Eventually settled in the Italian Supreme Court, the tourist claimed that “water is a natural resource and a universal human right”.

However, such arguments failed, with the five-star Hotel Sassongher in Corvara eventually victorious and the tourist’s request for £2,300 in compensation for emotional distress and economic damage dismissed.

Silvio Belardi, the lawyer representing the hotel, told the Corriere Alto Adige newspaper that the court held that “there is no obligation to supply tap water”.

According to the lawyer, the case had been rejected first by a court in Rome, then by an appeals court and now the Court of Cassation.

The Roman had argued that her consumer rights had been violated. She compared the denial of tap water to a hotel not putting sheets on a bed or soap in the bathroom.

“The woman claimed she had suffered damage, including financial and moral harm. This was rejected for lack of evidence,” Mr Belardi told the BBC.

Supreme Court judges dismissed her claim, eventually ruling that Italian laws and regulations do not require venues to provide tap water to guests. It is up to individual establishments whether they decide to do so.

“We also argued that if a person wanted running water, they could easily get that in the hotel – just not at the restaurant,” the lawyer added

European countries where free tap water is legally required

France: Requires restaurants to provide a carafe of water with every meal at no extra charge.

Spain: Passed a law in 2022 requiring bars and restaurants to offer unpackaged drinking water for free.

Lithuania: Restaurants must give guests tap water if they ask for it.

What about the EYU as a whole?

The EU as a whole has passed no laws requiring establishments to provide free tap water, although that could change soon. The EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, approved by the EU Council, encourages member states to ensure restaurants, bars, cafés, and catering services provide tap water for free or for a minimal service fee, with rules set to take effect in August this year.

The first flight carrying around 300 Ghanaians evacuated from South Africa following anti-immigrant tensions and reported attacks on foreign nationals has arrived in Accra. Authorities welcomed returnees with reintegration support and transport assistance.

The Trump administration has sought to pressure international officials who scrutinise reported abuses by Israeli forces.

The United States government has returned UN human rights expert Francesca Albanese to a list of sanctioned individuals after a judge had granted a temporary injunction against the designation.

On Wednesday, an update appeared on the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) website, indicating that Albanese had been added to the agency’s list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), without offering further details.

Albanese serves as the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, and her criticism of Israeli policies has made her a target under US President Donald Trump.

In July 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement announcing sanctions against Albanese, accusing her of “lawfare” and “biased and malicious activities” against Israel.

He also cited her recommendation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, which it ultimately did in November 2024.

The announcement was one in a series of actions the Trump administration has taken against critics it sees as hostile to US and Israeli interests.

The sanctions barred Albanese from entering the US and froze her assets in the country. They also prevented any US-based entity from doing business with her.

Albanese, an Italian citizen, has close ties to the US: Her daughter is a US citizen, and the family maintains a residence in the country.

In February, members of Albanese’s family filed a lawsuit on her behalf, stating that the sanctions had disrupted her life, even preventing her from accessing her bank account.

The lawsuit also accused the Trump administration of trying to intimidate those who speak out against Israeli rights abuses.

Albanese has been vocal in her assessment that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a view echoed by leading human rights experts around the world. More than 75,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on the Strip.

Albanese is not alone in facing economic penalties for her work. Since taking office for a second term, Trump is estimated to have issued sanctions against nine ICC judges, as well as prosecutors for the court.

The judges and prosecutors were reportedly involved in probes into abuses by US and Israeli forces.

Legal experts have condemned the sanctions as an assault on international law and an effort to shield the US and its allies from scrutiny.

On May 13, US District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W Bush, ruled in favour of the Albanese family’s lawsuit, granting a temporary injunction against the sanctions.

Leon found that the Trump administration had used the penalties to curtail Albanese’s constitutionally protected speech. He also stated that Albanese could not be blamed for the ICC’s actions.

“It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions,” Leon wrote. “They are nothing more than her opinion.”

As a result of the ruling, Albanese was removed from the sanctions list this month.

But the Trump administration appealed Leon’s order. It also said it would restore her to the sanctions list as soon as it was able, though it is unclear what prompted Wednesday’s change.

Indonesian authorities have shut down several screenings of a new documentary about alleged human rights abuses in Papua, including Indigenous land seizures. Al Jazeera’s Jessica Washington explains the controversy.

Caracas, May 26, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Attorney General Larry Devoe announced on Monday a formal investigation into recent unrest at the Barinas Judicial Detention Center (INJUBA). 

The prison began to make headlines last week when inmates seized control of the facility to denounce ill-treatment and physical abuse from authorities. The investigation followed the dismissal of prison director Elvis Macuare Guerrero, who had held the post for less than a week before the revolt.

“The Attorney General’s Office announces the launch of a criminal investigation into the events that took place on May 24, 2026, at INJUBA, where inmates staged a protest,” read the official statement. The investigation will focus on accusations of “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” allegedly carried out by security personnel inside the facility.

The probe followed dramatic scenes in which prisoners climbed onto the roof, burned mattresses, and held up banners demanding an end to what they described as a regime of terror. 

According to testimonies gathered by local journalists on the ground, the inmates accused prison authorities of recurring violence and torture, including systematic beatings and forced “ice-cold baths with electric currents.”

The riot was sparked after guards reportedly confiscated belongings and subjected a group of prisoners to violent searches.

In response to the unrest, authorities transferred over 100 female inmates out of the Barinas facility to reduce tensions. On Tuesday, General Giuseppe Cacioppo, head of the Barinas governorship security office, told press that the situation at INJUBA was calm and under control, with a further 818 male prisoners transferred to other penitentiary centers throughout the country.

Rodríguez raises judicial reform priorities

The Barinas inmate unrest coincided with the Venezuelan government announcing the impending release of hundreds of prisoners. On Friday, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced that 500 prisoners would be liberated “in the coming hours.” 

Three officers from the former Metropolitan Police were among those already confirmed free. Héctor Rovaín, Erasmo Bolívar, and Luis Molina were serving 30-year sentences for their involvement in the violence leading up to the brief 2002 coup against then-president Hugo Chávez. They had been arrested in 2003 and convicted in 2009.

According to official figures provided by the presidency, since the February approval of the Amnesty Law, a total of 8,740 people have received amnesty. Of these, 8,426 were still facing trial or under probation-type measures and had their cases dropped.

However, the government announcements have also drawn criticism. The Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón (JEP) NGO cautioned that “this type of public pronouncement [announcing more releases] generates enormous expectations,” warning that any failure to comply would represent a “new and cruel affront to human dignity.”

Rodríguez explained that the latest freed individuals had their cases and sentences reviewed through a “different mechanism,” evaluated via the Commission for Judicial Revolution and the Program for Peace and Democratic Coexistence, as opposed to the Amnesty Law.

During a televised working session on Saturday, the acting president framed the ongoing releases and the investigation into the Barinas prison riot as part of a broader transformation of the penal system. She likewise enacted a reform to the Organic Law of the Supreme Court (TSJ), expanding the number of magistrates from 20 to 32.

Rodríguez acknowledged prison overcrowding as one of the main issues plaguing the Venezuelan penitentiary system. She claimed that, according to official statistics, 68% of the incarcerated population in Venezuela comes from the poorest economic strata and vowed to advance judicial reforms that tackle the “criminalization of poverty.”

The Venezuelan leader went on to announce the beginning of the National Consultation for Penal Justice Reform on June 1. The public consultation aims to address what she identified as the “three great challenges” of the current system: procedural delays, judicial corruption, and the criminalization of poverty.

Rodríguez went on to denounce the “partisan and political” manipulation of the justice system.

The commission tasked with the consultation, headed by Attorney General Devoe, will hold meetings with academics, NGOs, judicial system workers, and other relevant actors.

Venezuela’s justice system came under the spotlight recently with the case of Victor Quero, who had an amnesty request denied despite having died in state custody months earlier. Authorities did not inform his mother, Carmen Navas, who continued to visit the prison in search of information. Navas passed away days after her son’s death was publicly acknowledged. The Attorney General opened an investigation into the case.

In recent years, human rights NGOs and prisoner relatives have denounced systematic due process violations and poor incarceration conditions.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Australian Federal Police have not made any arrests but say inquiries are ongoing.

A group of 19 women and children with alleged links to ISIL (ISIS) has returned to Australia, with the government warning that anyone found to have engaged in criminal activity will be prosecuted.

The six women and 13 children arrived from a Syrian refugee camp on Tuesday, with one group landing in Sydney and the other in Melbourne.

It is the second cohort of Australian women and children to return from Syria this month. Responding to criticism over their arrival, the Australian government said it had not assisted them in any capacity.

“These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation,” Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said.

Australian women began travelling to Syria to marry members of ISIL in 2012, with some allegedly taken against their will.

At the height of its power in 2015, ISIL controlled territory across Syria and Iraq roughly equivalent in size to the United Kingdom.

Australian Federal Police did not arrest any members of the group upon their arrival but said that investigations were ongoing.

The group’s return has sparked anger in some sections of Australian society.

According to local media, a large police presence was deployed at Melbourne airport, where a scuffle reportedly broke out as the group of women and children was escorted out through a side entrance.

Australia is one of several Western countries that have shown reluctance to repatriate citizens who travelled to the Middle East to join ISIL about a decade ago.

Both France and the UK have expressed opposition to allowing former ISIL members to return.

In 2022, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said that France’s failure to repatriate children born to French nationals in Syria violated their right to life and exposed them to inhumane treatment.

Meanwhile, the UK stripped British national Shamima Begum of her citizenship in 2019 on national security grounds.

In February, the Australian government issued a temporary exclusion order against a woman in Syria, preventing her from returning home.

Her child, who was not barred from returning, chose to stay with her.

The order prevents the woman from returning to Australia until February 2028, and her family is currently challenging the decision.

Afzal Ashraf, a visiting fellow at Loughborough University specialising in international relations and security, said the risk posed by people returning from countries including Syria needs to be viewed proportionately.

“There will be some security challenges, because people like this are likely to suffer from issues such as PTSD,” Ashraf told Al Jazeera.

“The fact of the matter is that there are security challenges in Australia and other countries, but statistically speaking, the return of these nationals doesn’t increase that risk very much, while the threat to life from terrorism is far lower than the threat posed by road accidents, for example.”

“That said, these threats can be reduced by providing comprehensive mental health support for returnees and ensuring they are reintegrated into society in a positive way, with follow-up programmes to address any dangerous ideas they may have adopted,” Ashraf said.

“It’s worth remembering that ISIL has killed far more Muslims than Westerners.”

Earlier this month, four women and 13 children arrived in Australia from Syria. Three of the women were arrested upon arrival.

A new report warns that Britain is undergoing a “deeply troubling transformation” in how it treats political protest as climate activists and pro-Palestine campaigners increasingly face lengthy prison sentences, sweeping legal restrictions and months in jail before trial.

The report, Britain’s Political Prisoners, copublished by researchers at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London and the campaign group Defend Our Juries, said the UK has “witnessed an increase in anti-protest powers granted to the police and the courts through legislation” that has “created a significantly more repressive legal terrain for activists engaging in civil disobedience and direct action”.

It traces the shift from crackdowns on protests by Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil to more recent prosecutions linked to Palestine solidarity actions, including campaigns targeting British factories operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.

The report, released on Tuesday, found that a combination of new laws, broader police powers and increasingly punitive court tactics has reshaped Britain’s protest landscape since 2019.

The United Kingdom has witnessed numerous mass protests and direct actions by activists to pressure the government to stop selling arms to Israel during its genocidal war on Gaza, in which more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 40,000 women, children and elderly.

So what does Britain’s shifting stance on protests mean for civil rights, and what’s behind the legal clampdown on climate and pro-Palestine protests?

How Britain’s legal system has changed since 2019

The report painted a stark picture of how Britain’s legal system has changed in response to climate and pro-Palestine direct action campaigns through a mix of new laws, expanded police powers and what campaigners describe as increasingly punitive court tactics. What this means for protesters is longer jail sentences, stricter bail conditions and harsher treatment in the courts than was once typical for acts of civil disobedience, according to the report.

At the centre of that shift are two major laws introduced after waves of demonstrations by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, two environmental groups that employ nonviolent civil disobedience tactics to pressure governments to address the climate crisis.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 transformed the old common law offence of “public nuisance” into a formal criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. This means actions that seriously disrupt the public – such as blocking roads, stopping traffic or shutting down infrastructure – can now lead to far more severe criminal penalties than before because the offence was never previously codified into legislation. Campaigners said the law has given prosecutors a powerful new tool to pursue long prison sentences against protesters.

The Public Order Act 2023 introduced a series of protest-specific offences in May of that year, largely in response to climate protests by groups including Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion, whose actions included blocking motorways, occupying oil terminals and targeting infrastructure projects in an attempt to pressure the government to halt new oil and gas extraction.

Such offences under the act included “locking on”, in which protesters attach themselves to roads, buildings, vehicles or each other using chains, glue or other devices to make removal difficult. The law also criminalised tunnelling, a tactic used by some activists to delay infrastructure projects, and introduced offences for disrupting major transport networks, oil terminals and other nationally important infrastructure. 

The legislation also significantly widened police powers whereby officers may now place restrictions on even one-person protests if they are deemed disruptive. Police were also granted powers to carry out stop-and-search operations in designated protest zones without needing reasonable suspicion that someone has committed an offence – a significant expansion of police authority criticised by civil liberties groups.

But the report argued the crackdown extends beyond parliament and into the courts.

One of its central findings is the growing use of civil injunctions and contempt of court proceedings against activists.

Oil companies, arms manufacturers, councils and universities have increasingly obtained court orders banning protests near their sites, the report said.

The report identified contempt of court as the most common route to imprisonment among the 249 protest-related cases it analysed. Contempt of court usually refers to someone disobeying a judge’s order or behaving in a way the court says interferes with justice. In protest cases, it has increasingly been used against activists who ignore injunctions or refuse to follow restrictions imposed during trials.

Because contempt proceedings are handled directly by judges rather than juries, campaigners argued they allow courts to imprison protesters more quickly and with fewer legal safeguards.

Researchers also highlighted what campaigners described as the “gagging” of defendants. Judges have increasingly stopped protesters from mentioning climate concerns, Gaza, international law or their political motivations in front of juries.

Courts have often argued that juries should focus only on whether a defendant broke the law, not on the political or moral reasons behind their actions. Critics said those restrictions prevent activists from fully explaining why they protested in the first place.

Campaigners also said the legal shift reflects a broader political change, driven in part by corporate lobbying under successive Conservative governments and continuing under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government. They argued that peaceful protest is increasingly being criminalised to protect corporate interests, regardless of wider ethical concerns about the supply of arms to Israel during its war on Gaza or opposing fossil fuel projects linked to the climate crisis.

Perhaps most controversially, the report pointed to the growing use of lengthy pretrial detention. That means protesters being held in prison before they have been convicted of any crime.

According to the findings, many activists spend months on remand awaiting trial while some Palestine Action defendants have been held for more than a year before their cases are heard in court.

In 60 percent of the cases studied, the final sentence handed down was shorter than the time defendants had already spent in custody awaiting trial.

Are lobbyists influencing the crackdown?

Tim Crosland, director of Defend Our Juries, said the findings challenge Britain’s claims of ensuring democratic protections.

“This report strips away the illusion that Britain remains committed to democratic principles,” Crosland said.

“It reveals that peaceful protesters are being jailed in ever-increasing numbers under pressure from the oil and arms industries, the Israeli government and their lobbyists.”

The report pointed to what it described as growing political and corporate pressure behind Britain’s crackdown on protest movements.

Researchers cited reports that parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act may have originated in proposals from the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. According to the investigative news site Open Democracy, Policy Exchange has previously received funding from ExxonMobil. The think tank had earlier published a report titled Extremism Rebellion, which called for new laws targeting Extinction Rebellion activists.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the links between the think tank and the legislation.

The report further alleged that British officials came under pressure from both Elbit Systems and the Israeli government to take a tougher approach towards Palestine Action protests targeting Elbit’s UK factories.

According to correspondence quoted by the researchers, the British government said in 2022 that it had “expressed our support in recognising the attacks and boycott on Elbit UK”. The report said the issue was later raised directly with then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab during a visit to Israel, where he reportedly “declared that the British government is committed to stopping the attacks”.

Zoe Blackler, founding director of the London events space Kairos, said: “In the face of this clampdown on the right to peaceful protest, we need to come together in solidarity and defiance.”

Which are the cases at the centre of Britain’s protest crackdown?

The report traced Britain’s hardening response to the protests through a series of landmark cases involving climate activists and Palestine solidarity campaigners, many of whom received lengthy prison sentences or spent months behind bars before trial.

Among the most high-profile is the case of the Whole Truth Five, a group of Just Stop Oil activists jailed in July 2024 over a Zoom call discussing plans to disrupt the M25 motorway. The five were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and initially sentenced to between four and five years in prison.

The report described the case as one of the clearest examples of the tougher approach now being taken towards protest movements. Campaigners argued the sentences were extraordinary because the activists were punished largely for planning disruptive action rather than carrying it out. Prosecutors relied on conspiracy laws, which allow people to be charged for agreeing to commit an offence even if the planned action never ultimately happens.

Four Palestine Action activists were also sentenced to between 23 and 27 months for conspiring to damage an Israeli-linked arms factory in Wales. Meanwhile, four Just Stop Oil activists received prison terms of up to 30 months over plans to disrupt Manchester Airport despite never reaching the site. A fifth defendant, Noah Crane, spent almost a year in jail on remand before later being acquitted.

Another major case involved the Filton 24, Palestine Action activists prosecuted after a protest at an Elbit Systems factory in Bristol. Some defendants were held on remand for up to 18 months before trial.

After several activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary charges, most were eventually granted bail.

The report said the case raises “serious concerns” that prosecutors used unusually serious charges to justify holding defendants in prison for long periods before trial.

The report also highlighted the Brize Norton Five, activists accused of spray-painting air force planes in protest against Britain’s military links to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. According to the report, the group has remained on remand since August and is not expected to stand trial until 2027, meaning some could spend close to two years in jail before a verdict is reached.

Other cases revealed the growing use of judicial “gagging orders”.

During the retrial of the Filton 6, a separate trial from the Filton 24, the judge barred defendants from mentioning Gaza, Elbit’s role in supplying weapons to Israel and their political motivations for protesting. Critics argued such restrictions make it harder for juries to hear the broader context behind direct action campaigns.

In another case, three Insulate Britain activists were imprisoned for contempt of court after defying a judge’s order not to mention the “climate crisis” or “fuel poverty” before a jury.

Despite the legal restrictions, several juries continued to acquit activists. The report pointed to acquittals involving Just Stop Oil protesters, Extinction Rebellion activists and a hung jury in the first Filton 6 trial as evidence that some jurors remained unconvinced by the increasingly aggressive prosecution of protest movements.

Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK CEO, told Al Jazeera that “the right to protest is being eroded before our eyes.”

“We’re seeing a worrying shift where the state is using remand, sweeping injunctions and contempt proceedings to lock people up or silence them before they’ve even stood trial.

“The broader legal implications here are concerning. It’s not just about one group of activists; it’s about a systemic attempt to shut down dissent, something we’ve been ringing the alarm on for a long time.

“By replacing the presumption of liberty with preemptive legal intimidation, it creates a chilling effect, undermines the rule of law and flies in the face of basic human rights.”

Baltimore, United States – Muslim Americans are grieving after two gunmen last week opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three people.

But at the annual conference for the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) in Baltimore, community leaders stressed the urgency of turning the sorrow into action.

Nearly 25,000 people turned out for the annual event, held on Saturday and Sunday. Speakers addressed the recent shooting, pointing to the courage of the three victims as examples for the broader community in a time of heightened Islamophobia.

“We owe them more than condolences. We owe them resolve,” said Lena Masri, a lawyer at the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

She explained how the victims — a security officer, a caretaker and a neighbour — sacrificed their lives to save others. The security officer, Amin Abdullah, exchanged fire with the shooters, while the other two victims, Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad, rushed to help and called for emergency services.

“They protected the physical space of our community: the masjid [mosque], the school, the children, the teachers, the worshippers,” Masri explained.

“Our responsibility is to protect the civic space of our community: the right to worship, the right to speak, the right to organise, the right to defend Palestine, the right to build institutions.”

That was the recurring theme of the conference: that the Muslim American community cannot afford to be passive and must draw on its strength to push back against bigotry and hate.

Speakers emphasised voting, organising and donating to community institutions and candidates who align with Muslim Americans. They also underscored the need to hold officials accountable and push for an end to Israel’s atrocities in Palestine.

“We owe Gaza more than grief. We owe Gaza advocacy that cannot be intimidated into silence,” Masri said.

Islamophobia and Palestinians’ dehumanisation

Symbols of Palestine could be seen everywhere at the conference, from bags emblazoned with watermelons and flags to keffiyeh-patterned scarves, shirts and water bottles.

At a bazaar featuring dozens of vendors, conference-goers left messages of solidarity on a tent that will be sent to Gaza by the charity Life for Relief and Development (LIFE).

In speeches and on panels, advocates drew a link between anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States and Israel’s abuses in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

Some of the loudest promoters of Islamophobia in the US are also staunch Israel supporters, among them right-wing commentator Laura Loomer and Congressman Randy Fine.

Both Loomer and Fine are allies of US President Donald Trump, whose administration has unleashed a crackdown to deport critics of Israel who live in the US but are not citizens.

Altaf Husain, a professor at the Howard University School of Social Work, said anti-Palestinian voices are trying to “scare” Muslims as a means of silencing criticism of Israel.

“They want to shut this down, so it’s a direct connection,” Husain told Al Jazeera.

He said the large turnout at the ICNA conference shows that the community is not intimidated and will not back down.

In the response to the shooting in San Diego, Husain pointed out that the community raised more than $3.5m for the victims’ families and moved to bolster security around Muslim institutions.

Layers of security

Saad Kazmi, the president of ICNA, said the organisation relied on three layers of protection to secure this weekend’s event: its own security guards, an outside firm and local law enforcement agencies in Baltimore.

While there is anxiety in the community over the rise of Islamophobia and Trump’s immigration crackdown, he said Muslim Americans must take matters into their own hands and work with “sensible” people across the political spectrum to defeat hate.

“We are very thankful that we live in a country that is ruled by the Constitution and law,” Kazmi told Al Jazeera.

Kazmi added that the shooting in San Diego only added to the community’s determination to assert and protect its rights. The Islamic centre in the city, he noted, did not shut down after the attack.

“If anything came out of this, it is that there are more attendees to the masjid, more people who believe that the way forward is to strengthen ourselves, strengthen our community and march on,” Kazmi said.

After the shooting, Loomer doubled down on her anti-Muslim rhetoric, calling on immigration authorities to target the Islamic Center of San Diego.

She also called for the deportation of all Muslims from the US, describing them as an “invasive species”. But few Republicans disavowed Loomer, who maintains close ties to the White House.

Rather, more than 60 Congress members have joined the Sharia-Free America Caucus since it was established in December. CAIR has designated the caucus a hate group.

At the state level, governors and local legislators have disparaged Islam while also pushing to penalise Palestinian rights activism.

Texas and Florida, for example, have labelled CAIR a “terrorist” group, while implementing measures against “Sharia law” that critics consider anti-Muslim dog whistles.

Rights under attack

In March, after CAIR sued Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over its “terrorist” designation, a federal court blocked the label from being imposed.

In his ruling, Judge Mark Walker wrote that DeSantis’s executive order (EO) targets the Muslim community as a whole.

“It should be lost on no one that Defendant’s EO targets one of America’s largest Muslim civil rights organizations for indirect suppression of speech. But, as we all know, it is easy for those in power to target minority groups with little pushback,” Walker wrote.

“Sadly, history teaches that it is often minority religious groups who find themselves in the crosshairs.”

On Saturday, several panels praised the US legal system and the laws that protect freedom of religion and speech. But the panellists argued that human rights do not defend themselves; people must step up to protect them.

“You’ve got to imagine rights are a territory, and you have to occupy that territory. If you do not actively occupy that territory, that territory will be taken from you. And that is exactly what has been happening,” Tom Facchine, an imam from New Jersey, said.

Last year, Palestinian immigrant Leqaa Kordia found her rights in jeopardy when immigration agents knocked on her door and detained her over her activism against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

Kordia spent more than a year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention before an immigration judge ordered her to be released in March.

But Kordia — who is still fighting deportation — told ICNA conference attendees on Saturday that she has no regrets, encouraging them to remain politically active and engaged.

“Speaking up, it comes with a cost … It cost me my health, my life, literally my freedom, and I’m living in uncertainty that tomorrow I’m going to be here, or I’m going to be deported,” she said.

“It comes with a cost, but it’s worth it. It’s worth it because silence, it costs even way more than speaking.”

A mile from the Manhattan jail where convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in 2019, an unassuming Tribeca gallery at 101 Reade Street has been transformed into a physical archive of the disgraced financier’s many cases.

More than 3.5 million pages of law enforcement documents published by the United States Department of Justice have been printed, bound and stacked across 3,437 volumes to line the walls of a room from floor to ceiling.

The exhibition, titled “The Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room”, was organised by the Institute for Primary Facts, a nonprofit that says it focuses on transparency and anti-corruption initiatives.

Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2017 before hanging himself in his New York jail cell a month later, denying victims a chance at justice. The “reading room” is an attempt to shed light on the many cases connected to Epstein that never went to trial.

The shelves hold documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, alongside timelines, handwritten visitor notes, and a memorial space dedicated to survivors and victims.

Since opening two weeks ago, the gallery has drawn a steady stream of visitors, including survivors of a string of offences linked to Epstein.

Lara Blume McGee, who was only 17 when she was abused by Epstein, visited the reading room last week.

“I found something brutally human in the Trump-Epstein reading room,” Blume McGee told Al Jazeera. “Proof that our lives mattered enough to be gathered, cataloged, and finally seen.”

She described entering the room as walking into a “paper city”, with three and a half million pages on display, a sight that hit her “like a physical blow”. What she remembers most vividly is the silence.

“The silence was thick with memory,” she said. “Row after row, each bound volume a life, a name, a day that should never have happened if the US government had acted when he was reported to the FBI in 1996.”

The overwhelming scale of the archive is intentional. Organisers say the physicality of the documents forces visitors to confront not only the extent of Epstein’s crimes, but also the number of lives affected by them.

Thousands of victims have been identified in connection with Epstein’s abuse network. One of the most prominent survivors, Virginia Giuffre, died by suicide in April 2025.

David Garrett, a co-founder of the exhibition, said the project was built around survivors from the outset.

“We are centred around the victims and survivors more than anything,” Garrett said. “The biggest thing is transparency and accountability.”

Garrett described the exhibition as part of a broader effort to create “real-life pop-up museums” aimed at generating public pressure around corruption and institutional failure.

“Our goal is how can we drive public outrage in order to put pressure on Congress and the Department of Justice to get full and real transparency and hopefully eventually accountability,” he said.

The process of assembling the archive was itself chaotic. Garrett said organisers downloaded the files from the Department of Justice in March, believing they had received properly redacted documents. Only after printing the collection did they discover that many survivors’ names remained visible in the files.

“What seems to have happened is the Department of Justice modified its search function instead of actually redacting the names,” Garrett said. “The names of survivors were left unredacted while the names of witnesses and co-conspirators were hidden. They brazenly broke the law.”

Finding a venue also proved difficult. Garrett said several locations backed out after initially agreeing to host the exhibit, fearing controversy or retaliation. The Tribeca gallery ultimately became the fifth venue that organisers approached.

Despite these challenges, survivors and advocates quickly embraced the project.

On Tuesday, the gallery became the site of a 24-hour livestream reading of the files led by survivors, advocates and supporters.

Dani Bensky, an Epstein survivor, opened the broadcast Monday afternoon, standing at a podium inside the dimly lit gallery with one of the thick white volumes in her hands.

Her reading marked the beginning of a continuous public recitation of excerpts from the files – an attempt, organisers said, to ensure the documents are not quietly buried again.

Throughout the gallery, visitors have left flowers, handwritten notes, and messages of grief and anger.

Garrett recalled one woman who spent hours walking silently through the space before telling organisers she was herself a survivor of sexual abuse.

“She said this helped her realise that she felt seen,” Garrett said. “That meant a lot to us.”

For Blume McGee, that feeling of visibility carries both relief and frustration.

“For years we were told to be quiet, to accept settlements, to move on,” she told Al Jazeera. “Seeing our truths preserved in a public archive felt like a long-overdue acknowledgment of our pain, our abuse and our reality.”

But she warned that documentation alone is not justice.

“This exhibition gives real hope because the record is now undeniable,” Blume McGee said. “Finally, there is action: documentation, visibility, proof. But those same files map systemic failure — how many doors stayed shut, how many people escaped scrutiny.”

“Visibility without consequence only prolongs the wound,” she added. “We need both: the files on the table and the government to act — investigate, prosecute, reform — so that being ‘finally seen’ becomes finally safe.”

Convictions handed down amid an intensified crackdown by Bahraini authorities on individuals accused of having ties to Tehran.

Bahrain has sentenced nine people to life in prison for carrying out what authorities describe as “hostile and terrorist acts” in cooperation with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Two other defendants were also jailed for three years each after being convicted of collaborating with the IRGC in what prosecutors described as “terrorist and espionage” activities, state media reported on Sunday.

The convictions were handed down during an intensified crackdown by Bahraini authorities on individuals accused of ties to Tehran. The crackdown followed a wave of Iranian strikes on Bahrain after the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February. Iran began striking all of its Gulf neighbours in response, saying it was targeting American interests, including military bases.

Prosecutors said some of the defendants photographed vital and strategic sites in Bahrain on behalf of the IRGC. Others were accused of facilitating the transfer of funds from Iran to Bahrain, including through cryptocurrency transactions, to finance the operations. Authorities also alleged that individuals inside the country were recruited to support some of the plans.

Bahrain began arresting individuals allegedly linked to Iran in March, shortly after the conflict began.

Earlier this month, authorities detained a further 41 people.

Less than two weeks later, more than 60 people were stripped of their citizenship for allegedly supporting Iranian attacks on Bahrain and “colluding with foreign entities”.

The London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy described the move as “dangerous” and said it constituted a clear violation of international law.

Other Gulf states have also arrested individuals accused of cooperating with Iran. Last month, the United Arab Emirates said it had dismantled a group allegedly planning to carry out what officials described as “terrorist acts”.

Bahrain is home to a large Shia population. Many of its members have long accused the authorities of political and economic marginalisation. The government denies discriminating against Shia citizens, accusing Iran of fuelling unrest in the country.

Mohammad Abu Mallouh, ​Alaa Zaqlan and their child, Osama, killed in the attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp, medics say.

An Israeli air raid on a home in Gaza has killed three members of a family, including a six-month-old child, medical workers said, as Israel continues to violate the “ceasefire” brokered by the United States last year.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza said it received the bodies of a couple and their young child in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Medics identified those killed in the attack on an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp as Mohammad Abu Mallouh, his wife Alaa Zaqlan, and their child Osama, the Reuters news agency reported.

Medical workers said about 10 people were wounded in the attack.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Since the “ceasefire” came into effect in October, Israel has continued with its near-daily attacks across the besieged Palestinian territory, which Gaza health authorities say have killed nearly 900 people.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said Israeli bombing began on Sunday as Palestinians were fleeing following forced displacement orders. He said many people ran while carrying personal belongings, including mattresses.

Separately, Israeli forces continued demolishing homes and civilian infrastructure in eastern Gaza on Sunday behind Israel’s so-called “Yellow Line”, referring to Israeli-designated military zones and buffer areas inside the enclave, he said.

Israeli jets also carried out air raids on Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday, causing extensive damage near a hospital, Mahmoud said.

Earlier this month, the Gaza Government Media Office said it had documented at least 2,400 Israeli violations in the first six months of the ceasefire, including more than 1,100 air raids and at least 921 shootings targeting civilians.

More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023. Israeli officials acknowledged the data was broadly accurate in January, after casting doubt on their credibility for two years.

On Saturday, five police officers and a 13-year-old boy were killed in an Israeli attack.

Talks between Israel and Hamas aimed at reaching a permanent end to the war have stalled, with both sides accusing each other of violating the ceasefire. Israel says Hamas’s refusal to disarm is a key obstacle, while the Palestinian group says negotiations have been paused due to continued violations and restrictions on aid entering Gaza.

Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch said the territory’s humanitarian infrastructure remained in peril, more than six months after the start of the ceasefire.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 3,111 people since March 2, with 9,432 injured, according to Lebanese Health Ministry.

A new opinion poll in the US suggests that 60 percent of Americans now oppose President Donald Trump’s war on Iran.

141 UN member states voted in support of the ICJ’s finding climate change is an ‘existential threat’.

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has voted to support a landmark ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found states have a legal responsibility to act to prevent the climate crisis from worsening.

More than two-thirds of UN member states, 141, voted in favour of the resolution on Wednesday, with eight voting no and 28 abstaining.

Ralph Regenvanu, the minister for climate change from Vanuatu, which championed the case, described the vote as a victory for “communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis”.

“Today the international community affirmed that climate change is not only a political and economic challenge, but a matter of law, justice, and human rights,” Regenvanu said in a statement.

“For vulnerable countries like Vanuatu, this resolution is deeply significant because it confirms that no State is above its obligations to protect people, future generations, and our planet.”

The historic ruling from The Hague-based court in July last year found that states have a legal obligation to act on the “existential threat” of climate change.

The case was the biggest ever to be considered by the ICJ’s 15 judges, who reviewed tens of thousands of pages of written submissions and heard two weeks of oral arguments before delivering their verdict.

The case came to the court at the request of the UNGA after a resolution led by Vanuatu was adopted by consensus in March 2023.

Wednesday’s vote, by contrast, attracted a number of objections, with Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen voting no.

Al Jazeera reported in February that the US had sent a diplomatic cable urging UN member states not to support the resolution.

“We are strongly urging Vanuatu to immediately withdraw its draft resolution and cease attempting to wield the Court’s Advisory Opinion as a basis for creating an avenue to pursue any misguided claims of international legal obligations,” a copy of the cable seen by Al Jazeera stated.

Wesley Morgan, a fellow with the Climate Council, an Australian nonprofit, said the vote confirmed states had a legal duty to act on climate change.

“This landmark resolution is a massive victory for Vanuatu and the Pacific leaders who have spent decades fighting for survival on the frontlines of the climate crisis and a warning for Australian governments,” Morgan said in a statement.

“For far too long, fossil fuel heavyweights have treated climate action as a political choice, but the UN General Assembly has now confirmed it is a binding legal duty,” he added.

Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz has announced a cabinet reshuffle and other measures as protests demanding his resignation continue. Paz said the government wants to build a collaborative government with broader participation from social and economic groups.

A few weeks ago, Argentine journalist Martín Caparrós recalled at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Spanish newspaper El País that Venezuela, in 1964, was the first place in the world to abolish the death penalty. These were the times of Marshal Juan Crisóstomo Falcón, and the word “federation” had become the epitome of the supposed solution to all the nation’s ills in a young, devastated, and empty republic.

Although this was true on paper, in practice we had Antonio Guzmán Blanco, trained in the federalist ranks and who became the supreme leader of the Liberal Cause, decreeing in 1872 the execution by firing squad of his former ally, the caudillo Matías Salazar. In less than a decade, this declaration of principles had been easily overturned by one of its promoters.

The self-proclaimed revolutions continued to undermine national life until Cipriano Castro and his crony Juan Vicente Gómez defeated them all and proclaimed the restoration of liberal principles. “New men, new ideals, new procedures,” declared the man who moved the presidential office from the Yellow House to Miraflores Palace. But, having consolidated his regime and enjoying his days for vanity and festive revelry, in 1907, amidst delirium and a display of brute force, he ordered the execution of his great opponent, General Antonio Paredes, once the Army frustrated a supposed new revolution.

After sending him to the firing squad, Castro did not remain in power for long. At the end of 1908, Gómez toppled him with a palace coup, justifying the murder of Paredes as the reason his former crony was never allowed to enter Venezuela again.

The Gómez regime (1908-1935) was cruel. It tortured and imprisoned its opponents. However, he was careful to avoid such incidents. He defeated them in prisons and in the military fray to maintain his sepulchral order. It wasn’t until the next military dictatorship in the 1950s that news emerged of what we might call summary executions of members of the Acción Democrática resistance and union leaders. Thus, Leonardo Ruiz Pineda, Antonio Pinto Salinas, and Luis Hurtado remained in the collective memory when neighborhoods were named after them. The tortures inflicted by the fearsome Seguridad Nacional or the days spent in the Guasina concentration camp became literature or anecdotes in a historical thread woven by this type of political violence.

Perhaps the great Venezuelan tragedy has not only been the repetition of violence, but the inability to fully transform its tragedies into republican memory.

Later, the great unifying word was Democracy. Under this system, the country had achieved greater pluralism, freedoms, and social development. That said, excesses were committed during the counterinsurgency campaign, and thus, among others, the names of Alberto Lovera and Jorge Rodríguez Sr. remained, cases that were openly denounced in the media and for which some form of justice was sought.

In the 1980s, we witnessed the extrajudicial killings known as the “false positives” of the El Amparo Massacre and the repressive chaos of El Caracazo, a moment when the system should have been more deeply confronted with its errors and adopted more profound forms of reparation. Although political violence did not disappear with democracy, it had ceased to be accepted as a natural aspect of public life. The problem was that many of its wounds were poorly healed, if at all, and festered into resentment.

The return of horror

The 1999 Constitution was born with the idea of ​​refounding the Republic and making it “Bolivarian.” Initially, this meant defeating corruption, building a “participatory democracy,” and erasing all traces of what they began to call the “Fourth Republic.” This refounding ultimately meant reusing and multiplying the evils of the past and waging a systematic battle against democratic resistance.

The cruelty quickly became apparent: the impunity and flippant treatment of the April 11 murders; the shootings in Plaza Altamira in December of that same year; the political assassination of the controversial prosecutor Danilo Anderson and the subsequent witch hunt; the exponential increase in repression in 2014, 2017 and 2019, and the widespread fear following July 28, 2024. This cruelty is replete with numerous new stories of deaths under the indifference or custody of the State, from Franklin Brito to Fernando Albán, Raúl Baduel, Rodolfo González “El Aviador”,  the extrajudicial executions, and the cases we still don’t know about.

The ordeal Carmen Navas endured to learn about her son, Víctor Hugo Quero, and the cruelty with which his death was concealed have shaken Venezuelan society, which sees mothers as its embodiment of grief and national outrage, and which finds in women its greatest source of peaceful resistance.

As an old folk song, collected by Aquiles Nazoa and sung by Simón Díaz in his second volume of Tonadas (1976): “Little girl who embroiders the white cloth, little girl who weaves on your loom, embroider for me the map of Venezuela and a little handkerchief to cry with.” Perhaps the great Venezuelan tragedy has not only been the repetition of violence, but the inability to fully transform its tragedies into republican memory.

Every time pain becomes merely an anecdote or a slogan, the country remains haunted by the same monsters and ghosts. But, just as we have had this tradition of assassination and political cruelty, which today are multiplied in family tragedy and shared horror, on each occasion Venezuelans have been deeply moved by injustice, and this has led us to mobilize to transform darkness into brighter moments for our republic. May the future be not only bright, but much more lasting.

The daughter of mosque security guard Amin Abdullah is remembering him as the “absolute best dad in the world.” Family and community members gathered Tuesday to honour Abdullah, who was killed while confronting gunmen during the attack on a San Diego mosque.

The plot has thickened. After having him removed from the Industry and National Production Ministry, sacking his trophy wife from government and keeping him in unpublicized captivity for three months, the Rodriguez administration completed a spectacular U-turn on Alex Saab. Madurismo’s shady financier and fixer is once again in US custody, two years after Maduro and the Rodríguez siblings celebrated his return through a prisoner swap brokered with the Biden administration.

Alex Saab became the centerpiece of a years-long propaganda campaign: billboards across the country hailed Venezuela’s heroic diplomat, leftwing influencers denounced the arrest of the man supposedly helping the nation overcome the siege of US sanctions, and embassies circulated the #FreeAlexSaab dossier among allied activists and journalists. 

The long-awaited extradition of Saab is evidently not the result of the Rodríguez siblings suddenly discovering he is a Colombian criminal, as the official Saime statement describes him, but rather part of Delcy’s cooperation with Washington DC whose agents were reportedly involved in his arrest in Caracas. New York prosecutors have recovered a key witness in the US vs Maduro et al case, whose next hearing is in six weeks, and will now use a close associate of both the DEA and the presidential couple against Nicolás and Cilia.

We’ll see what happens with Alex Saab’s new stint in the US. Developments might come sooner from the other Saab: Tarek William.

A new scapegoat?

Carmen Navas passed away on Sunday, a day after the conversation about Alex Saab and Delcy’s quagmire resurfaced. We’ve covered Navas and Victor Hugo Quero Navas, her 15-month search for information about an arrested son who dissolved into the cauldron of violence and injustice that emerged from the horrid events of 2024. Navas perished ten days after the State finally admitted her son had been dead for long. The pro-democracy movement is in shock. International media and foreign politicians are also reacting to the tragedy as well. There’s ample willingness to keep highlighting the responsibility of Venezuelan officials, so don’t expect pressure over the Quero case and other desaparecidos to wane anytime soon.

Enter Delcy Rodríguez, whose role in the Quero story is far less inconspicuous than official statements suggest. The Prisons Ministry admitted Quero was dead only because Delcy gave the green light. The Ombudsman’s Office agreed to take Carmen Navas’ testimony because Delcy deemed it acceptable. Now that the 82-year-old mother has finally succumbed to this blatant episode of administrative evil, the ball is in Delcy’s court. Not just to manage another wave of widespread indignation, but to go further in the narrative that the Rodríguez siblings can make chavismo move on from the so-called excesos e ineficiencias of their predecessors.

Jorge Rodriguez has introduced the regime’s idea of a clean break with the past, the mantra of the most ambitious transitional justice projects of the late 20^th century. With that damning “get over it, forgive us, and come home” line, Jorge hoped the public could forget the last 26 years without nothing in return, not human rights trials, not a power-alternation agreement with political rivals.

Prosecutor Tarek reportedly vowed to make prisoner Tareck suffer during the scandal investigations: “You’re dead. The country hates you today, but I will make sure the whole universe hates you too.”

Unable or unwilling to go anywhere near that, the regime’s best bet would be to go against the most disposable elements of the coalition: those who combine public contempt with overt involvement in repression, and who now appear to be losing influence while their human rights dossiers grow thicker by the day.

Under the current circumstances, former Prosecutor General Tarek William Saab looks like an ideal scapegoat. Parallel developments are not helping him. 

El Aissami’s strange return

April marked the beginning of the trial of 63 individuals targeted in the 2023–2024 crackdown against Tareck El Aissami’s political clan. 

Without the January 3 events, the PDVSA-crypto case would be business as usual, perhaps a hefty sentence after a few remote hearings, perhaps no trial at all. But in 2026 Venezuela, hearings involving El Aissami, his US-sanctioned frontman Samark López, and PSUV figures like Hugbel Roa have become opportunities to expose the torture they endured and explain why they believe chavismo turned against them three years ago. 

Last week, TalCual obtained a court statement from former lawmaker Hugbel Roa. He claimed Tarek William Saab had him arrested in retaliation for a parliamentary inquiry into the dealings of Saab’s brother in Anzoátegui, reportedly a major PDVSA contractor in the region. Roa also accused Saab of judicial meddling to shield his brother, and said police assaulted both him and his wife at the behest of Tarek William Saab and prosecutor Farik Mora, who allegedly tried to force him into recording a confession about a fabricated coup conspiracy involving Leopoldo López. 

In a separate hearing on May 8, former vice president and oil czar Tarek El Aissami tried to implicate an entire chain of command responsible for the torture and cruel treatment he suffered, including spending eight months in a windowless room with a powerful floodlight turned on 24/7. El Aissami accused former DGCIM chiefs Iván Hernández Dala and Alejandro Marcano Tabata, along with prosecutors including Tarek William Saab and Farik Mora. He also claimed Saab buried corruption cases involving members of his inner circle, and personally threatened to link El Aissami to the killing of Venezuelan rapper Canserbero—a cold case Saab miraculously solved when Maduro needed an electoral boost ahead of the 2024 election.

Saab saw this coming and will use every card he holds. It’s hard to think of anyone with more sensitive information on the regime and their leaders than Tarek William Saab.

Prosecutor Tarek reportedly vowed to make prisoner Tareck suffer during the scandal investigations: “You’re dead. The country hates you today, but I will make sure the whole universe hates you too.” 

Saab’s behavior has also been a recurrent theme in the anti-chavista camp recently. Joel Garcia, a prominent lawyer for political prisoners, claimed he had direct knowledge of Saab filming dissidents being tortured and sending the footage to Nicolás Maduro. Former presidential candidate Freddy Superlano claimed the only reading material available in the infamous El Rodeo I prison consisted of Saab’s poetry books. La Gran Aldea also recounted a night in which Superlano and fellow political prisoners Biagio Pillieri and Perkins Rocha—the latter still under house arrest—were simultaneously taken to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, where a deranged Saab personally pressured them to reveal the whereabouts of María Corina Machado and the vote tallies from the July 2024 election. 

Our last Political Risk Report was clear on this matter. If Delcy Rodríguez moves to charge Tarek William Saab, “it will signal something far deeper than a single prosecution: a purge serious enough to make everyone wonder whether this is a first step toward removing a far more dangerous piece from the Jenga tower. But it will not be easy.”

Saab saw this coming and will use every card he holds. It’s hard to think of anyone with more sensitive information on the regime and their leaders than Tarek William Saab. 

Roa’s court statement said Saab retains influence through his old influence among clerks and prosecutors. He even expressed having faith in Larry Devoe, Saab’s successor and an old ally of Delcy Rodriguez. Maybe the first move will come from him, as a first big demonstration that the Ministerio Público is his to govern, and to imprint Delcy’s own brand of justice.Saab’s case is shaping up to be a defining test of Delcy’s willingness—and ability—to push forward the transformation of the regime, confront the old guard, make a few sexy headlines abroad, and neutralize the potential spoilers of her rule. If she decides to go ahead, few cases better illustrate the Prosecutor’s Office’s connivance and negligence under Saab’s eight-year tenure than the Quero case. The legal record, and the trail left by Carmen Navas’ search, could hardly be more convenient.

Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia all withdrew in protest against Israel’s participation in the midst of its war on Gaza.

As the Eurovision Song Contest took to the stage for the Saturday night final in Vienna, thousands protested outside against Israel’s inclusion, and five countries boycotted the event over the genocidal war on Gaza.

Protesters marched through the Austrian capital to highlight what critics described as a double standard. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) organisers refused to exclude Israel, despite banning Russia following its invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

Eurovision, which attracted 166 million viewers last year, is seeing the largest boycott in its 70-year history.

Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia all withdrew because of Israel’s inclusion, with some of their national broadcasters refusing to air the show.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has emerged as one of Israel’s strongest critics in Europe, said on Friday that the decision puts Spain on “the right side of history”.

Last month, more than 1,000 artists called on fans to boycott Eurovision in an open letter against Israel’s participation. Among the artists were outspoken critics of Israel, Macklemore and Paloma Faith. Macklemore has released songs protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Double standards

On Monday, Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard denounced the EBU for allowing Israel to participate.

“The failure of the European Broadcasting Union to suspend Israel from Eurovision, as it did with Russia, is an act of cowardice and an illustration of blatant double standards when it comes to Israel,” she said.

Reporting from Vienna, Al Jazeera’s Charlie Angela said 2,000 demonstrators gathered in the city earlier on Saturday to protest against Israel’s participation.

Angela reported that protesters accused the competition of normalising Israel’s actions in Gaza, adding that Eurovision was “bending over backwards” to justify including Israel while excluding Russia.

Russia has faced a widespread cultural boycott following the Ukraine invasion. It is banned from international football tournaments, and FIFA and UEFA have excluded Russian domestic teams from all competitions, including the Champions League.

The winner of Eurovision will be selected by both a professional jury and TV viewers voting for their favourite act.

Austria won the competition last year, with Israel second.

The Israeli government was later accused of unfairly influencing voting. New rules have since been introduced.

British capital sees heightened security as right wing rally takes place at the same time as Nakba Day march.

Tens of thousands of people are marching through central London in two separate protests – one pro-Palestine demonstration a day after Nakba Day, and the other, a far-right rally staged by Tommy Robinson.

Police in the British capital deployed 4,000 officers, including reinforcements from ⁠outside the city, on Saturday and pledged “the most assertive possible use of our powers” in what they called their biggest public order operation in years.

Armoured vehicles, horses, dogs, drones and helicopters were also deployed to manage the separate protest marches, the UK Metropolitan Police said.

By 1200 GMT, shortly after both marches started, police said they had made 11 arrests for a range of offences. They had earlier forecast ⁠turnout of at least 80,000 – about 50,000 at Robinson’s “Unite the Kingdom” march, and 30,000 more expected to go to the Nakba Day rally.

Authorities had imposed various conditions on the two rallies over their routes and timings, in a bid to keep rival attendees apart.

Prosecutors were told to consider whether certain protest placards or chants may amount to offences and stir up aggression during the rallies.

“This is not about restricting free speech,” said the Crown Prosecution Service’s director, Stephen Parkinson. “It is about preventing hate crime and protecting the public, particularly at a time of heightened tensions.”

The police force, which estimates its operation will cost 4.5 million pounds ($6m), warned in a statement that it would adopt “a zero-tolerance approach”. That includes, for the first time, making organisers legally responsible for ensuring invited speakers do not break hate speech laws.

The British government earlier blocked 11 foreign nationals from entering the country for the “Unite the Kingdom” rally. Right-wing figures claiming to have been barred include Polish politician Dominik Tarczynski, Belgian politician Filip Dewinter, Colombian-American anti-Islam commentator Valentina Gomez and Dutch activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek.

On the eve of demonstrations, Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned: “Anyone who sets out to wreak havoc on our streets, to intimidate or threaten anyone … can expect to face the full force of the law.”

Starmer – facing intense pressure within his ruling Labour party to quit after far-right Reform UK scored huge wins in local elections last week – accused the organisers of Saturday’s far-right rally of “peddling hatred and division”.

Last September, far-right activist Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – drew about 110,000 people into central London for a similar rally proclaiming “national unity, free speech and Christian values”.

X owner Elon Musk addressed that event, which shocked many in the UK for its scale, directness, and clashes between participants and police, which injured dozens of officers.

Meanwhile, the Stand Up to Racism group has combined its antifascism march with the pro-Palestine event to mark Nakba Day, held annually on March 15 to commemorate the 1948 mass expulsion of Palestinians from their land during the establishment of the state of Israel.

The Met said live facial recognition would be used for the first time to police the protests.

On International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, Al Jazeera’s @avawarrinerr explains what it means for people who object to fighting in wars today and what happens when they do.