Dr Iain Overton
@iainoverton
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⚔ Investigating war @aoav 📗 The Price of Paradise (suicide bombers) 📘 Gun Baby Gun (guns) ☞ PhD war-reporting ☞ @TheLancet ☞ @bylinetimes ☞ @soas @BirkbeckUoL
Joined June 2009
1/ 🌍 Excited to be leading the new MA in Investigative and Human Rights Journalism at @SOAS. This course is designed for those passionate about uncovering the truth and amplifying underrepresented voices. Here's what makes it unique 🧵👇.
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“I’ll expect you to feed me, bathe me, brush my hair, hold my hand, recognise me when I have ceased to recognise myself and be the last human touch I may feel before I die. But I do not think, at the same time, that you deserve a family life.”.
Today in Parliament we have laid an order to ban overseas care workers from bringing dependants. This is just one part of our plan to deliver the biggest-ever cut in migration 👇
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I have just had an anonymous threatening phone call from someone who I believe could be from UK Special Forces to 'watch my back'. So, if I do meet a tragic end in the next few weeks, can the police please check who called me on 18 October at 4.55 pm London time?.
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I am not sure any 14 year olds received furlough, Hamish darling.
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One of my students in Gaza - Aya Kafifa - has been killed with her family. She was part of a group of students living with disabilities learning how to use social media to tell their stories. I have no words.
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I was supposed to be part of a graduation ceremony in Gaza today for students living with disabilities completing a course on storytelling. The University now lies in rubble, the students are uncontactable and at least one of my fellow lecturers has lost 9 members of his family.
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Can you imagine if this was Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. The global outrage? It would be an image seared into your memories. But I bet for many of you, as this is Gaza, it's the first time you've seen this angle.
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This is not true and I run the charity whose data you are citing. Please delete.
Since Hamas launched this war, the Israeli Air Force has struck 22,000+ targets in the Gaza Strip. Even based on Hamas numbers passing off terrorists as civilians, that's less than 0.8 civilian deaths per airstrike. That's what world-leading precision looks like.
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What’s so arrogant about this tweet is that the main reason Mone was repeatedly reported on in the press was that she repeatedly lied to journalists- including me - about her relationship with PPE Medpro. And threatened to sue us for printing the truth.
My husband and I have been used as a scapegoat by the government for their own failings on PPE procurement. This new documentary will begin to tell the truth about this scandal. 🎥 Click here to watch:
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My father, a retired Colonel, the onetime head of a rotary club, a man who lives in an old vicarage in Kent, is the archetypal Conservative. The other day he told me he’s going to vote LibDem. He’s already cancelled his Telegraph subscription. Parties lose voters one at a time.
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I awake to hear that a dear friend in Gaza has lost his wife, his brother, his sister-in-law and his three nieces and nephews. Someone I’ve been working with for 8 months now on giving disabled children in Gaza an education, his family wiped out. I have no words.
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The names of the first three doctors to die fighting COVID-19 in the UK . Amged el-Hawrani.Adel el-Tayar.Habib Zaidi.
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When I first met Julian Assange he was wearing a bullet proof vest and, to be fair, I thought he was a bit paranoid. Then my offices where we were teaming up with Wikileaks were broken into three times. Now, with Julian facing life in prison, I know 100% it wasn’t paranoia.
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One moment stands out in my work with Julian Assange. That was when we found the US military order for an Apache helicopter to open fire on surrendering troops. That war crime never led to a conviction. Meanwhile Assange will likely die in prison. This is so far from justice.
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The Rwanda Media Commission has failed to give me a journalist visa to investigate the treatment of refugees there. I travelled to the capital, Kigali, but had to leave after a journalist visa was not issued. Given the UK wants to export refugees there, this does not bode well.
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Doing some work in a pub and there's a farmer couple next to me, up in London having attended the inheritance protest. He's been on the phone persuading someone not to include VAT if he pays in cash. He also just took out about £2000 in cash to pay for his beer.
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Today was the burial of Dr Thomas Oelmann in Gilroes Cemetery in Leicester. An NHS doctor, he died with Covid-19 after being admitted with a dissecting aortic aneurism. He was otherwise young and healthy. His name and passing have not been reported in the press.
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A year ago, I reported in @openDemocracy that Col Richard Kemp headed a UK charity funded by the IDF, and their promo material included the filmed killings of Palestinians. It was reported to the @ChtyCommission. A year on, they are still 'investigating'.
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The idea that Harry has put veterans lives at risk for saying he killed people in Afghanistan is ludicrous. There’s an entire library of war books written by ex SAS and even by MPs (Mercer etc) detailing killings. War is death.
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It's strange how Russia poses such a threat to the UK that it has led to the head of the British army calling to mobilise troops, but the idea that Russia was involved in any way at all over the Brexit referendum is complete nonsense.
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Queen’s footman freezes to death. An RAF airman who served as the late Queen’s personal footman and carried the coffin of Diana, Princess of Wales, died from hypothermia while homeless, a coroner’s court has heard. Malcolm Livingstone, 44, was left homeless while suffering from.
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@RishiSunak How can you 'block' claims that Rwanda isn't safe? In 2018, Rwandan police killed 13 refugees. The Supreme Court quoted your own government's 2021 claim that Rwanda had human rights issues. Last year, I was refused a journalist visa to investigate if Rwanda was, indeed, unsafe.
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@pritipatel @kateferguson4 Do you do no research before you write stuff like this?.It took me 3 seconds to find this:."A YouGov poll suggested only 10% of people believe deporting asylum seekers to the east African country is the best approach.".
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I write this not to make it all about me. I am not minded to pursue this beyond what it was - an angry call that was threatening. But I can't totally ignore a threat from someone who said he was with a group very good at killing people. This is my not ignoring it.
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Why does Johnny Mercer demand he cannot tell a judge about special operations in Afghanistan, but then expect Fred Thomas to detail his sensitive operations to the British public?.
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@MichelleMone As someone who, with @BylineTimes and @allthecitizens, exposed your connections to PPE Medpro - remember, you threatened to sue us for doing so - I object to the insinuation I’m a government spin-master. Is this your tactic now? Making it all a big conspiracy against you?.
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Catholics are the largest religious group in Northern Ireland for the first time since partition, the results of the latest census are expected to confirm.
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BBC Panorama reports on systemic government failure to provide PPE - Tory response: 'FAKE NEWS'. Daily Mail buys £1m of PPE in response to systemic government failure to provide PPE - Tory response: 'GREAT NEWS'.
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Ross Kempsell, now Lord Kempsell of Letchworth, formerly of Guido Fawkes. The very definition of nepotism, corrupted journalism & why the Lords needs reform. This noxious, awful appointment is - I hope - the thing that brings down this house of cads. Sorry, cards.
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Had to go to A&E unexpectedly. The resuscitation nurse was from the Republic of Ireland. The CT scan assistant from Italy. My ward nurse from Spain. Brexit is an insult to the people who helped prevent me from stopping breathing.
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@NatConTalk @DouglasKMurray When you say "mucked up", do you mean murdered six million European Jews, caused untold misery and invaded 22 countries?.
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It's official. The Daily Mail needs to go on lithium.
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My FOI to the Foreign Office asking for email correspondence around why the Russia Report was withheld from the public has been rejected on the grounds it was ‘vexatious’.
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@Telegraph I was refused a journalist visa to report on human rights in Rwanda. I think it was because I wanted to report on the killings of Congolese refugees, not some propagandist quip about interior design.
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I worked closely with Assange when editor of Bureau of Investigative Journalism on the Iraq War Logs. This claim absolutely false when it applies to that. We went to great lengths to redact names, protect identities. This is an assault on whistleblowing.
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A primary rule as a journalist is to protect your sources. For me, as for The Guardian, the BBC, Le Monde, Washington Post and Spiegel, Julian Assange was a valued source. The silence by some there on his incarceration and threatened deportation is a stain on our profession.
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I did visit Rwanda. Your government refused me a press pass because I wanted to investigate human rights there.
@iainoverton @ukhomeoffice @SuellaBraverman I would advice you to visit rwanda, it is the safest country on the world.
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Two weeks ago BBC reported Caroline Lucas was under investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for standards. Today Observer runs front page that Boris Johnson - the first time ever to happen to a PM - is under investigation by same body and the BBC web has nothing. Nothing.
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@MichelleMone @bbclaurak When @BylineTimes asked PPE Medpro about your links with the company, your co-director denied any and said "our media lawyer Eddie is cc’d in above in case we need to take action against you.". A media lawyer paid, no doubt, from the lucrative contract you won from government.
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The idea Dr Sarah Benn could be struck off the medical register after taking part in a Just Stop Oil demonstration is very worrying. Her right to exercise peaceful protest - even if it leads to arrest - has nothing to do with her capacity to carry out her duties as a Dr. 🧵
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@postlocal Well, let's be frank. If you found that person and fell in love with them and got married, the wedding itself would be awful. But the reception would be amazing.
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*BREAKING* .1/ Today I got confirmation that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found the UK Cabinet Office breached the Freedom of Information Act by failing to search former adviser Dominic Cummings’ private emails for information requested under the Act.
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This bloke’s dad owns GBNews. Take from that what you will.
The Grammy winner and former lead guitarist of the British folk rock band Mumford & Sons @MrWinMarshall reveals to Americans that people are being imprisoned in the UK and EU for politically incorrect social media posts. 🇺🇸🇬🇧
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As I write, Julian Assange is sitting in a UK cell on suicide watch. His crime? Handling leaked classified military documents. The same documents that I handled, the Guardian handled, the Washington Post, Le Monde, Spiegel. This is an assault on journalism. Plain and simple.
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This man is the trustee of a UK charity that funds the IDF. And he is a man who embeds with the IDF, a military accused of genocide. The charity commission has taken over a year to even engage with this concern.
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Julian Assange has been imprisoned by the British government for 1,251 days.
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Jesus man. You went from the BBC straight into a No 10 comms role. You don’t think they’d have asked you if you hadn't worn your own political bias so clearly on your sleeve? . Everyone knew about it. It was industry-wide known you were a hard Tory.
It remains one of the great mysteries of our age how Channel 4 news is not drowning under a sea of complaints to the watchdog Ofcom so flagrant is its political bias.
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@pritipatel Orwell wouldn't have dared write this because they'd have said he had taken Newspeak a little bit too far.
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So it goes. An account I was interested in regarding spreading fake information relating to Brexit - @gregory55046341 - has disappeared. So have many other accounts they followed and followed them back. Those nasty trolls have all been deleted now Brexit is done. They worked.
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A good friend of mine runs a refugee charity. He is an MBE, a retired Colonel, a veteran of the war in Iraq, a good man. Lee Anderson has nothing on him.
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Dan Wootton posting the '50 worst people in the UK today' on the same day that he is accused in court of allegedly 'catfishing' a colleague to get them to send him intimate pictures is pretty rich.
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So much under-reporting. So many lonely deaths. So much heartache in a graph.
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The alarms were handed out by the Night Stars programme, a Westminster City Council programme to "promote women's safety and reduce violence against women and girls". This is spun as a 'vile plot' to frighten the King's horses. As opposed to stopping sex offenders.
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The RAF has surveillance tape of Gaza from the day Israel killed British aid workers – but refuses to publish it. The MoD claims the tape is exempt from disclosure on security grounds.
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Toby Young gets a peerage. Here's a few of his very Lordship-worthy moments.
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This is untrue. All leaks from the Iraq logs were redacted. I know because Julian and I worked together to ensure this.
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Worth remembering that Boxing Day is only a big thing in Britain because it was the only day that the servants of the wealthy were allowed to visit their families, since they serving their masters today, Christmas Day. Ah. Those delightful traditions of class hierarchies.
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Years ago it was decreed it was an offence to campaign near a polling booth. People knew what impact this had on voters. Here Cummings explains how he swamped certain sections of the population with mass advertising. This is mechanised propaganda. Democracy's weak spot.
#DominicCummings says Vote Leave targeted 7 million people on Facebook with 1 and half billion ads in the last four days of the Referendum campaign (holding back most of their budget to do so)
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@FCDOGovUK How many civilians were killed in the airstrikes last night? I have asked the MOD but they have not yet said.
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1/5 🚨 Conservative Chairman Graham Brady caught in tax haven controversy 🏝️✈️ Brady received £19,000 in free trips to the Cayman Islands, seeking access to Foreign Office ministers for a senior Cayman official. #TaxHaven #GrahamBrady
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@EylonALevy This is an inappropriate comparison as @aoav.only records airstrikes that have at least 1 recorded casualty. There are many airstrikes without recorded casualties and these are included for Gaza but not for the other conflicts in the comparison below.
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Given the story today Keir Starmer owns a donkey field, worth noting that Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, the MP for South Dorset, is reported as owning 13,870 acres in Dorset, making him the largest landowner there after the National Trust.
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@NadineDorries @PaulBrandITV “Appalling minister”. Your understanding of your own brief was widely condemned. You did not even seem to know how C4 was funded.
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@David_Cameron When you say 'action' you mean, you've killed people to protect shipping lanes. Effectively you have deployed lethal force to stop what you frame as criminal activity. Isn't that a death penalty for non-lethal criminality imposed without jury and with no political debate?.
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@LeeAndersonMP_ @GBNEWS @SuellaBraverman 1. It is not a scoop if it is propaganda. 2. It is propaganda. 3. This is against OFCOM regulations. 4. For a very senior Tory MP and the Home Secretary to be flouting government-sanctioned regulations shows just how little respect both have for the law.
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@ThatAlexWoman A dogwhistle used for decades with one intention: to stoke nationalism and hatred. And if that sort of ugly politics is what you mean by being 'British', well - you don't represent me.
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@JimMFelton One is a flighty and petty character, with a love of tweed and an amphibian sliminess, desperate for attention and recognition. The other is Toad of Toad Hall.
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New: @AOAV's Voice Notes From Palestine.In 2023, I taught a group of students in Gaza living with disabilities how to tell their stories on social media. A year on, their University lies in ruins, they are all refugees and one of them is dead. This is their story.
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@thepainterflynn I am not. I have had a very high number of death threats over the years. But I feel it should be called out. I am not making a thing of it above a tweet.
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@itvpeston @SuellaBraverman @AnushkaAsthana @ITV When I asked the Home Office for details of the 300 + 'criminal gangs' that they claimed they had thwarted in trafficking people to the UK, they refused to give me any details as it would cost too much to collect that data. So, on this, where's the evidence?.
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It's wonderful Ncuti Gatwa is going to be the next Doctor Who. It's wonderful that he has an actual Doctorate of Philosophy. It's also important to note that Dr Gatwa is a refugee to the UK from Rwanda. The very country this country would send current refugees to.
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@LeeAndersonMP_ The Rwandan government refused me a journalist visa last year to report on the death of 13 refugees there. There are numerous reports of the press in Rwanda being silenced. Can you explain how the recent killings of 13 refugees by the Rwanda police is not a concern?.
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@Jacob_Rees_Mogg I detailed the Brexit lies that literally made us all poorer. You predicted a 20% cut in food, wine and clothing. We are so far from that political promise, yet you seem lacking in any humility to admit you were wrong. So damn wrong.
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@RishiSunak "No one should be barred from using basic services for their political views."
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@metpoliceuk Indefensible. Since the Magna Carta there has been a right for the just application of the law. Peaceful protest criminalised is un-British - the beginnings of something darker. An ur-fascism. As Charles is swearing to uphold the law, you seem to break it in his name.
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@LeeAndersonMP_ @Jesii_ca_M You'd have thought you'd have more sympathy, then, for refugees fleeing war.
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Question: has Johnny Mercer commented on this? He blocked me after I criticised him for not having any idea how many veterans were homeless after his office said they didn’t record this.
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An Israeli government spokesman is tweeting analysis of Israeli air strikes on Gaza that fundamentally misinterprets the data of @aoav - the charity I run. He has yet to take down his tweet. The data fails to note that my charity only records injurious air strikes, not all air.
Since Hamas launched this war, the Israeli Air Force has struck 22,000+ targets in the Gaza Strip. Even based on Hamas numbers passing off terrorists as civilians, that's less than 0.8 civilian deaths per airstrike. That's what world-leading precision looks like.
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@ByDonkeys Amazing work. Last year I was refused a journalist visa to report on the killing of 13 refugees there. This week, the Rwandan government appointed a general accused of killing refugees in 1994 to a ministerial post.
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@Botanygeek Learning Mandarin in Taiwan and stood next to someone on a bus. They said something, smiled and got off. I memorised what they said and, happy, told it to my teacher. She looked horrified. I pressed her. Turns out it was: "Fucking red-haired dickhead, get out my way.".
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If an election were held tomorrow, 42% of British voters would vote for the Labour party. 25% would vote Conservative. When asked whether the two parties are “in touch with ordinary people”, Labour’s net rating stands at +7%, while the Tories’ is -53%. According to YouGov, 44%.
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@Independent Pretty sure there is a word for the exchange of money based upon the movement of vulnerable people against their will across borders.
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The silence from some British journalists who worked closely with Julian Assange is deafening. First they’ll come for the whistleblowers. Then the facilitators. Then the journalists. You know who you are. Speak up.
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@DrEliDavid Dr David, this data is from my charity and it has been misinterpreted. We only record injurious airstrikes captured by English language media, and so the comparison does not stand with Syria. I have asked the original poster to delete.
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@mexicola25 You didn't listen to the conversation, Andy and what was said. I won't go into details here. Please don't offer an opinion when you weren't the one being threatened and the details therein.
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@ByDonkeys Why Rwanda’s Refusal to Let Me Report on its Treatment of Refugees Should be a Warning Call to the UK.For @BylineTimes .
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I’ve been tweeting about Julian Assange. In part because I worked with him. In part because it’s a clear human rights abuse. He’s a political prisoner in a country that claims its above such things. And because what’s happening him to him could happen to all journalists.
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Can you imagine if a close advisor of the Prime Minister spent three years in Iran and nobody knew what they did there? People’d be calling for an inquiry. But Dominic Cummings spent three years in Russia and he’s got the keys to power and that’s fine because, you know, Brexit.🤔.
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@grantshapps "The era of the peace dividend is over". You do know we were involved in bloody and unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Can you explain how British soldiers killed in Helmand or in Basra were at all beneficiaries of this so-called era of the peace dividend?.
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@NoContextBrits Daylight robbery indeed. On a completely different subject, I'd like to know more about why his dad, Paul Goldstein, suddenly found himself paying £13m of debt from his company. I wonder what the tax position of that is.
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