Archive for the ‘Human Rights’ Category
Ukrainians join Global Sumud Flotilla Mission to Gaza – Ukraine, Palestine, Occupation Is A Crime
Two Ukrainian volunteers are participating in the 2026 Global Sumud Flotilla Mission to Gaza.
They are Nina Potarska and Andrii Movchan, and the links to the media release announcing this participation and their biographical details can be found below.
Media: ukraine-solidarity.eu YouTube Facebook Instagram Mail: info@ukraine-solidarity.eu
ENSU Media statement
Ukrainians join Global Sumud Flotilla Mission to Gaza
Ukrainian volunteers in the Global Sumud Flotilla Mission to Gaza say their participation is a call for humanitarian access, international accountability and solidarity against occupation
Ukrainian volunteers in the Global Sumud Flotilla Mission to Gaza say their participation is a call for humanitarian access, international accountability and solidarity against occupation, reports the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine.
Two representatives of Ukrainian human rights activism have announced their participation in the international civilian mission to Gaza, joining volunteers from across the world in an effort to deliver humanitarian aid and challenge the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza.
Read the rest of this entry »Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism
A few days before the Hungarian general election held on April 12 2026 the USA Vice president JD Vance flew into Budapest campaigning for the far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán. Vance, a high-profile member of the Catholic Church, picked the wrong place to boost a close ally. The self-described hillbilly bombed in Budapest.
Orbán was also strongly backed by the far-right president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Hungary joins a growing list of countries where candidates closely aligned with the far-right twins Trump-Putin sink to a humiliating defeat.
Adam Novak explores the issues in the interview below published on the
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF) site:
Link :
Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism.
Among the fascinating details in the article below, we highlight two :
For Trump and Vance, it is the loss of the most useful ally within the European Council — the one who blocked collective decisions on Ukraine, including the 90-billion-euro loan to Kyiv that Orbán had vetoed. For Putin, it is the loss of the most accommodating European government on energy and sanctions. For European far-right parties, it is the signal that the model is not election-proof.
Vance delivered a speech on Christ and the Christian foundations of European civilisation before a comparatively secular Hungarian audience. He invoked workers’ rights without saying a word about the tech billionaires enriched under Trump. And he denounced Brussels bureaucrats for “making millions” whilst saying nothing of the oligarchy that Orbán himself built. The electoral effect of the visit is close to zero: Vance is little known in Hungary, and it was not Trump who came.
Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism.
After Orbán: Electoral Fractures and the Programmatic Void
The Hungarian legislative elections of 12 April 2026 brought to an end sixteen years of uninterrupted rule by Viktor Orbán. Péter Magyar’s Tisza (Respect and Freedom [Tisztelet és Szabadság]) party won a super-majority of 138 seats out of 199, inflicting on Fidesz a defeat explained by judicial scandals, saturation of the identitarian discourse, a generational fracture, and the concrete effects of the freeze on European funds.
Read the rest of this entry »Dishonesty of Many Campists About China – “Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States”
Dishonesty of Many Campists About China – Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States
Ashley Smith Comments :
The dishonesty and delusion of today’s campists about China is truly astonishing. In one publication, a couple of authors deny the mass repression and internment of Uyghurs. In another, two more embarrass themselves by celebrating the capitalist police state as a socialist democracy. How can this pass as Marxist analysis? How can anyone on the left take this seriously?
Ashley Smith facebook page
Brian Hioe writes :
Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States
Say Nothing About Human Rights
A RECENT ARTICLE by Paweł Wargan and Jason Hickel, published by the Progressive International, is adulatory about what it claims to be “whole-process democracy” in China. Nevertheless, interrogating the claims of the article finds that these claims to be in themselves contradictory.
“Whole-process democracy” is a term that apologists of the Chinese Communist Party have increasingly embraced in past years, as a term to describe what they claim to be the superiority of the Chinese party-state. Supposedly, rather than serving as a means of social control, the party-state serves to concentrate the democratic will as part of what is termed “whole-process democracy” or the “mass line.”
Of course, this claim is fanciful. Almost every single state under the sun claims that its political system is one that most perfectly embodies the democratic will of the people–and yet many of these states are, of course, authoritarian.
Wargan and Hickel gesture in grandiose fashion toward the usual claims about the wonders of Chinese modernization, while suggesting that it is because of the people’s participation in “whole-process democracy” that this resulted in a development process in which the people’s will was respected. But there is little, if anything, to suggest that this is true in China.
Read the rest of this entry »Alumina made in Aughinish, Limerick, is exported to smelters that sell aluminium to a trader supplying Russian arms manufacturers – Results of a Major Irish Times Investigation, March 24 2026 “Aughinish exposes a general trend in State attitude to Ukraine, Palestine, human rights …”
Evidence of Limerick-produced alumina entering Russian military supply chain ‘horrific and shocking’, says Labour party leader Ivana Bacik
Aughinish Alumina contributes to Russian war against Ukraine – Ivana Bacik, the Labour party leader, raised the issue in Dáil Éireann :
Link :
Inside the Supply Chain Funneling Irish Alumina to Russian Rockets – OCCRP
Yesterday Conor Gallagher in The Irish Times, working with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, revealed shocking details about the supply chain linked to the Aughinish Alumina plant in Limerick.
His report outlined how significant quantities of alumina from this facility are being exported to Russia, where they are being used to make aluminium, which is then sold to a trading company supplying over 100 Russian weapons manufacturers. It is deeply alarming to see that shipments of Irish alumina to Russia have increased significantly since Putin’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is horrific to see this. It is unconscionable that a plant operating in Ireland could be contributing to materials used in the destruction of so many communities and so much civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and can be used to kill children in Ukraine. This is appalling to see and I do welcome the Taoiseach’s commitment to review this report, but the question is clear: what urgent action will the Taoiseach take to ensure that no Irish-based industry or business is complicit in supporting Russia’s war machine?
Ivana Bacik; Aughinish Alumina plant aids brutal Russian invasion of UkraineIvana Bacik is right to insist that the Irish government must take “urgent action” on this issue – words and good intentions are not good enough.
In the letters page of the Irish Times (Friday May 27) Conor O’Neill – Head of Policy, Christian Aid Ireland; Chair, Irish Coalition for Business & Human Rights points out :
Aughinish exposes a general trend in State attitude to Ukraine, Palestine, human rights …
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A tribute to the outstanding journalist Ed Moloney, who passed away in New York Aged 77
Ed was a great friend and will be missed.
Condolences to Joan McKiernan, and all friends, colleagues, and comrades.
A reminder : Ed Moloney’s work on issues concerning child abuse in the six-county bit of Ireland which remain unsolved :
John Meehan October 20 2025
A Westminster Member of Parliament leaves the Tory party; joins racist far-right Reform outfit; Resist sinister threat to Immigrants and the Common Travel Area (CTA)in Ireland
Britain : A Westminster Member of Parliament leaves the Tory party and joins the far-right Reform outfit :
“Conservative MP Danny Kruger has defected to Reform UK, the first time a sitting Tory has joined the rightwing populist party led by Nigel Farage. The defection means Reform now has five MPs in parliament and is a big blow to Kemi Badenoch, Conservative leader, ahead of her party conference next month…..
With Reform leading UK opinion polls since the spring, Kruger’s defection will give further credibility to the party, as will his withering departing words aimed at the Tories. “The rule of our time in office was failure,” Kruger said at a press conference in London. “Bigger government, social decline, lower wages, higher taxes and less of what ordinary people actually wanted.” He added: “The Conservative party is over, over as a national party, over as the principal opposition to the left. “The flame is passing from one torch to another. The new torch is already alight, already brighter than the one it is replacing, held aloft in firm and confident hands.” – Financial Times Report.
These developments, which will continue, are encouraging the far-right in the 26 and 6 county bits of Ireland.
The Reform party leader Nigel Farage is already threatening to alter the Good Friday Agreement, and make it worse :
Speaking yesterday, Mr Farage said he wanted to remove human rights law from the peace accord to make it easier to deport illegal migrants.
Reform has signalled that if it gets into power in Britain the party will leave the European Convention on
Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act and pass the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill.The ECHR is incorporated into the 1998 Northern Ireland Act, which codified the Good Friday Agreement into law.
Mr Farage said that as prime minister he would, in time, be able to renegotiate the agreement.
“We are not far away from major civil disorder,” he told a press conference.
Source, John Manley, Irish News August 27 2025
The Fermanagh and Omagh District Council adopted a progressive policy in 2022 which is an excellent start :
Despite Common Travel Area “There is an Invisible Hard Border in Ireland That leads to Racial Discrimination”
Council Meeting – 5th July 2022
Fermanagh & Omagh District Council notes that the Common Travel Area (CTA) enables free
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movement within the island of Ireland. However, it excludes people of other nationalities, in
particular citizens of countries in Africa, Asia, and South America.
European Law might overrule bigoted British Supreme Court Anti-Transgender ruling in 6 County bit of Ireland – since Brexit, the north is different from Great Britain
Voters in the 6 County bit of Ireland rejected Brexit in the 2016 British State referendum by a large margin : 55 to 45 per cent. This was a unique political event – opposition to Brexit broke down the normal sectarian divide on an important constitutional development in the north of Ireland : Almost all nationalists voted against Brexit, and they were joined by a significant number of Unionist (perhaps ex-Unionist) voters.
Afterwards a decision was needed : would a new European Union (EU) – Britain border divide the 6 and 26 county bits of Ireland – or would a new border emerge, dividing the island of Great Britain from all of Ireland?
Everybody knew a new Brexit border could not be imposed on Ireland. The British government needed window-dressing for its Unionist allies : the “Windsor Framework” was unveiled with a walk-on part for the reluctant British monarch King Charles.
This rickety constitutional construction kicked a sleeping dog. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement. copperfastened an imperialist crime – the 1922 partition of Ireland. A promise that partition could be ended through an internal 6 county referendum is part of the GFA – but this was never meant to happen. The architects of the GFA reasoned, correctly in 1998, that an anti-partition majority in the north of Ireland was extremely unlikely. The Unionist Veto was safe. After Brexit, not any more.
The former Fine Gael leader and taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, is saying out loud what many people know is true but do not want to hear :
A Nigel Farage-led UK goverment could herald a united Ireland – Varadkar
Read the rest of this entry »County Meath Group Delivers 107th Vehicle to Ukraine for humanitarian use : Trim (Ireland) to Lviv (Ukraine)
This report, written by Tim O’Brien, comes from the Irish Times, May 16 2025
Meath-based Ukraine support group passes milestone of 100 vehicles delivered
‘Lviv is a very strange place now with almost no men, just women and young women tending the graves’
Link :
Meath Based Ukraine Support Group Delivers 107th Vehicle to Ukraine for humanitarian use
A Co Meath-based group has just returned from Ukraine where they delivered their 107th vehicle to the war-torn country for humanitarian use.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine the group has delivered four-wheel drive vehicles, ambulances, buses and vans, most of them filled with medical supplies.
The vehicles are used by the army mainly in ferrying injured soldiers and civilians to hospital from either the front line or from Russian drone attacks.
The latest convoy of vehicles left Trim on May 3rd with 16 vehicles and 31 drivers taking turns to drive through France, the Netherlands, Poland and on to Lviv in western Ukraine.
Volunteer driver David Duignan of Dunderry, who has been on a number of such trips said the experience was emotional, having visited a cemetery in Lviv where more than 1,000 new graves of Ukrainian soldiers, added since the war broke out, are accompanied by images of the young men who died.
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Tomás Ó Flatharta 