Tag: police state

Britain’s Descent Towards Civil War Is No Accident

Having lived in Australia for the past three years, I sense that this country is the least advanced down the road towards the multicultural dystopia confronting much of Europe.

That is not to say there is room for complacency: Australia has its own canaries in the coal mine, echoing trends observable across the Western world. Yet relative prosperity, firm immigration policies, a distinct welfare regime (mandatory health insurance, means tested pensions), a robust federal system, and above all a unique electoral framework of three-year cycles and compulsory voting all help, willy-nilly, to keep politicians on a short leash and broadly tethered to the popular will.

The greatest safeguard against social fracture and disintegration in Australia, however, is not institutional design but rather watching Britain implode in real time. Many Australians, still bound by ties of kinship and tradition to the old country, see in the United Kingdom both a cautionary tale and an anti-role model: a once-settled, relatively harmonious state busily teaching the world how to dismantle itself through the enthusiastic embrace of liberal dogma.

As an observer no longer resident in Britain, I am reluctant to pontificate on the fate of my homeland. Yet it is a sight to behold: an establishment seemingly bent on self-destruction, clinging to an incontinent immigration system and an almost devotional attachment to international and human rights laws that disadvantage its own citizens. The Epping hotel protests — complete with the Home Office’s recourse to legal appeals — illustrate the point. No doubt the legal complexities are real, as David McGrogan rightly pointed out in these pages, but such manoeuvres only pour petrol on an already combustible national mood.

One is left to wonder whether Britain’s Labour Party, now so hopelessly enthralled by socially progressive ideology, will ever rediscover the ability to represent anything resembling national sentiment — or whether it will, like the Conservatives, simply perfect the art of political self-evisceration.

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Nineteen killed in Nepal in ‘Gen Z’ protest over social media ban, corruption

At least 19 people in two cities died on Monday in Nepal’s worst unrest in decades, authorities said, as police in the capital fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters trying to storm parliament in anger at a social media shutdown and corruption.

Some of the protesters, most of them young, forced their way into the parliament complex in Kathmandu by breaking through a barricade, a local official said, setting fire to an ambulance and hurling objects at lines of riot police guarding the legislature.

“The police have been firing indiscriminately,” one protester told the ANI news agency. “(They) fired bullets which missed me but hit a friend who was standing behind me. He was hit in the hand.”

More than 100 people including 28 police personnel were receiving medical treatment for their injuries, police officer Shekhar Khanal told Reuters. Protesters were ferrying the injured to hospital on motorcycles.

A government decision last week to block access to several social media platforms, including Meta Platforms’ (META.O), opens new tab Facebook, has fuelled anger among the young. About 90% of Nepal’s 30 million people use the internet.

Officials said they imposed the ban because platforms had failed to register with authorities in a crackdown on misuse, including false social media accounts used to spread hate speech and fake news, and commit fraud.

Two of the 19 people were killed when protests in the eastern city of Itahari turned violent, police said.

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Retired UK Police Superintendent Investigated for “Dead-Naming” Trans Activist Online

A retired police superintendent in the UK says she was targeted by her former force after using the name “Fred” in reference to transgender activist Freda Wallace in several social media posts, a move that triggered a police visit to her home and a potential criminal investigation.

Cathy Larkman, who served for over three decades with South Wales Police, said the visit came after she made remarks online about Wallace, including posts on platform X that read, “Fred blocked me” and “Fred, put that drink down.”

The posts were part of an ongoing public conversation around strip-searching policies, where Larkman voiced opposition to allowing transgender women to conduct searches on female detainees.

Although Larkman wasn’t home when officers came to her door, she later learned the visit was related to allegations of “malicious communications.”

The complaint was her use of Wallace’s former name, a practice often referred to as “dead-naming” by gender activists.

A social media account titled SEEN Police Official Open Public Network confirmed a complaint had been filed.

According to The Telegraph, the individual believed to have made the report is Lynsay Watson, a transgender former police officer known for encouraging law enforcement to criminally pursue people who challenge gender ideology. Watson was dismissed from Leicestershire Police in 2023 for gross misconduct.

Larkman’s situation follows a similar incident involving Father Ted writer Graham Linehan, who was arrested by armed officers at Heathrow Airport days earlier over a series of posts.

Raising concerns about what she describes as growing ideological pressure within the policing system, Larkman accused the institution of serving activist agendas instead of the public interest. “The police service keeps demonstrating that it is ideologically captured from the top down. It is failing the public,” she said.

Britain’s free speech environment is deteriorating rapidly under the weight of expansive censorship laws, regulatory overreach, and state-sanctioned content control.

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Former Trump Cabinet Member Says Marijuana Rescheduling Would Help To ‘Destroy This Country’

Ben Carson, President Donald Trump’s former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), says a move to reschedule marijuana that the administration is actively considering would play into plots to “destroy this country.”

In an interview with Fox Business on Monday, Carson reiterated his opposition to cannabis reform as Trump weighs a proposal to transfer marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

Asked why he feels his “caution” against rescheduling could lead the administration to reject the reform, Carson said that “with a lot of things, it’s just a matter of common sense.”

“It’s a matter of putting the facts on the table and then making policy decisions based on what those facts are,” he said, pointing to a study he claims found a “dramatic increase in crime” in neighborhoods with cannabis dispensaries.

“It doesn’t take a great deal of intellect to recognize that when you put these substances into communities and you make them easy to obtain, you get a much worse result,” Carson said. “Also, people say, ‘Well, you know, when I was young, I smoked marijuana. It didn’t cause me to have a lot of problems.’ Recognize that the marijuana of the 60s and 70s was much less potent than the marijuana today.”

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‘Political Coup’: Turkish Opposition’s Istanbul HQ Seized By Police Amid Clashes

Istanbul is on edge and on the brink of more violence amid Erdogan’s ongoing crackdown on the country’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which on Sunday urged citizens and residents of Istanbul to take to the streets and gather after police set up barricades in areas around its Istanbul headquarters.

Authorities are blaming CHP officials for causing unrest while disrupting the public order, after hours of mayhem. The scene outside CHP Istanbul Provincial Headquarters was of tense police clashes with protesters, after which the court-appointed interim leader of CHP finally entered the party’s office under police protection.

Last Tuesday a top Turkish court annulled the results of the CHP’s 2023 Istanbul provincial congress, over alleged bribery that influenced delegate votes. This resulted in the court-ordered the dismissal of the board members elected at that congress.

The CHP has rejected the ruling and the bribery claims in particular, arguing that the court has no authority to override final decisions made at the party congress.

The court had named former CHP deputy chair Gürsel Tekin as interim provincial head, replacing Özgur Çelik. The CHP plans will hold an extraordinary congress on September 21, to reassert autonomy and fight back against what it says is a politically motivated persecution by Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

The state-backed targeting of CHP leadership, by the AKP-stacked courts (among law enforcement institutions and prosecutors as well), has only increased in the wake its widespread success in the 2024 local elections.

Clashes amid the fight to defend CHP HQ from police enforcing court ordered leadership change…

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New Artwork by British Street Artist Banksy Appears on the Wall of Royal Courts of Justice, in London – Is Immediately Covered Up, as Police Weigh Charges of ‘Criminal Damage’

The Met Police is doing the work of promoting the new Banksy.

For decades, the pseudonymous street artist Banksy, whose real identity remains unconfirmed, has thrived on controversy – and with his last mural artwork, things aren’t any different.

The new Banksy shows a judge hitting a fallen protester with his gavel, and was painted on the front wall of the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

The image was rapidly covered up by British officials.

Daily Mail reported:

“Security guards were seen patrolling in front of a screen concealing the mural now confirmed as being by the guerilla graffiti artist as his latest creation.

He shared an image of it on his Instagram page, after it was stenciled on an external wall of the Queen’s Building but swiftly hidden by large sheets of black plastic and two metal barriers.”

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Critical Update: Evangelical Leaders Raided and Jailed in South Korea Like in Mao’s China

South Korea Escalates Crackdown on Evangelical Leaders: From Billy Kim to Son Hyun-bo

SEOUL — South Korea’s Christian community is reeling from a rapid series of unprecedented state actions that many describe as a coordinated campaign of religious persecution. After prosecutors raided the home and ministry of Reverend Billy Kim — globally known as Billy Graham’s interpreter and longtime evangelical partner — a special prosecutor issued a summons for him. Only days later, authorities jailed Reverend Son Hyun-bo, senior pastor of Busan’s Saegero Church, on charges stemming from pastoral speech and online posts.

These moves come despite repeated warnings from President Donald Trump and his close allies, who have publicly voiced concern over mounting attacks on religious freedom in South Korea. Observers warn that the Lee Jae-myung government’s actions resemble authoritarian tactics designed to silence pro-American and conservative Christian voices.

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Texas attorney general wants students to pray in school – unless they’re Muslim

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general running for US Senate, has long believed in school prayer. Now, he’s prescribing precisely what type of prayer he wants the state’s 6 million public school students to recite.

“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” Paxton said in a statement on Tuesday, encouraging students to say “the Lord’s Prayer, as taught by Jesus Christ”.

The press release included the full text of the Lord’s Prayer as it is written in the King James version of the Bible, the latest example of Paxton and other Texas officials seeming to endorse Christianity over other faiths.

“Twisted, radical liberals want to erase Truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon, and erode the moral fabric of our society,” Paxton said. “Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”

Paxton’s statement was released as Senate Bill 11 went into effect across Texas; it’s a piece of Republican legislation allowing schools to set aside time for “prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts” during the school day. Critics have condemned the bill as an attempt to imbue a secular public education in the state with the practice of Christianity, in violation of the US constitution’s separation of church and state.

“They’re blowing right through separation of church and state,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

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A Dodge Charger EV Driver Got a Ticket for a Loud Exhaust

he Dodge Charger EV does not have an exhaust; it is an electric car. It may sometimes make noises like it does, but it doesn’t, and that can make it awkward when a police officer pulls you over for allegedly creating a public nuisance with a “super loud” muffler—just as one state trooper did to a Charger EV owner named Mike earlier this summer in Minnesota.

We got in touch with Mike, who posted part of the incident on Instagram. He told us that he was driving through Stillwater, a city that has a strict noise ordinance, with a group of car enthusiasts. He stopped at an intersection, “about eight cars deep,” and when the light turned green, he said the lead car “peeled away loud as hell.”

“I was left at the stoplight with a red light,” Mike told The Drive. “I looked to my left, and there was a state trooper across the street from me. He passed me and whipped a U-turn. Came up behind me as the light turned green and followed me into a gas station and lit me up. Initiated a traffic stop.”

“The trooper stepped up and immediately told me my car’s exhaust was way too loud and was disturbing the peace,” Mike continued. “I tried telling him it’s an EV and doesn’t have an exhaust or an engine, and he stated he’s not gonna argue with me.”

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The Surveillance Net Is Closing, But the Smart Ones Can See the Writing on the Wall

The privacy coin Zano just rallied nearly 70 percent in the last 30 days, lifting its market cap toward a quarter billion dollars and pushing daily trading volume close to three million. The spike isn’t about speculation alone. It reflects a shift underway as people begin to hedge against a tightening surveillance state.

The latest proof of financial control came just last month, when Tether froze $49.6 million in USDT at regulators’ request during a coordinated international crackdown. Regardless of the guilt or innocence of the targets, the lesson is obvious. These assets can be frozen in an instant, with no trial and no process, making them less a hedge against the state and more a compliant extension of it. 

Congress reinforced this fact with the GENIUS Act, a law that hard-wires surveillance into stablecoins by forcing issuers to operate under bank-style oversight, AML regimes, and reserve mandates. The fact that Democrats and Republicans both lined up behind it should tell you everything. In Washington, true bipartisan consensus only happens when war, debt, or control are on the line.

That same logic now extends to the streets. National Guard units are being deployed into American cities to “fight crime,” but the justification is always the same: safety over freedom. Deployments like this normalize militarization at home and make clear that the tools built for foreign wars are now being pointed inward. 

The grid doesn’t stop at the barrel of a gun either. It runs through data. Federal agencies have been caught buying location data from brokers like Venntel to track millions of Americans without warrants. The AT&T Hemisphere program continues to funnel call records to law enforcement, building a quiet dragnet with virtually no oversight. License plate readers vacuum up hundreds of millions of scans, with databases shared across jurisdictions and tapped for immigration enforcement. Flock Safety’s license-plate readers generated 1,400+ immigration-related searches in Denver and 113 million scans in a year in Austin, triggering local backlash over data-sharing and policy violations. This is mass movement tracking, normalized street by street. All of this happens without a vote, without consent, and in most cases without warrants.

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