Ravil Mingazov was held for 14 years without charge in #Guantanamo, a horrendous injustice. Sent to the #UAE on diplomatic assurances he could rebuild his life, he was then imprisoned there, again without charge, for 6 years, and now faces deportation to #Russia, where he fears torture and an unsafe future. The EU and its Member States must call on the UAE for his inmediate release and resettlement to a safe third country, where he can reunite with his family.

MEPs never stop talking about press freedom. If you care about journalists you MUST ban the use of spyware against them. It's the least you can do. And yet on Tuesday, the first chance they got, a majority of MEPs voted to legalise spyware against journalists. Well done everyone!

With intensifying repression of trade unionists and pacifists in Belarus, and unjust suspicion, discrimination and denial of access to asylum to Belarusians in EU countries, Belarusians are damned if they stay and damned if they go. If we want to criticise we have to do better.

My point of order on Tuesday responding to false and defamatory statements from a French MEP about our #CloseGuantanamo event.

Mon rappel au règlement mardi répondant aux propos mensongers et diffamatoires d'un eurodéputé français sur notre événement #CloseGuantanamo.

Sickening. EU Commission president criminally giving Israel carte blanche for the spectacle of shocking violence it will now unleash against desperate civilians caged in Gaza, dressed up as "self-defence." Endorsing a massacre. Unforgiveable thuggery. She does not speak for us. https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1710568998197178680?t=my7HJkX4qQYId3iTC5oXwQ&s=19

Israel now directing the entire civilian population of the top half of Gaza to move to the other half, before a ground assault. Nearly the population of Dublin. In the next 24 hours.

You gave a blank cheque for this Ursula von der Leyen. You do not speak for us.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67096916

Powerful demonstration today in #SaintGilles our commune in Brussels. The working class of Belgium stands against colonial oppression & for liberation of Palestine. The people in power have abused it. We're building a better world. #FreePalestine #LongLiveGaza #StopGazaGenocide

After days of genocidal Israeli violence against defenceless Palestinians, as we make our way to Strasbourg for a plenary, the flag of Israel still flies on our Parliament building in Brussels, bringing disgrace on all of us. President Roberta Metsola, take this flag down!

How dare Ursula von der Leyen declare "Europe stands with Israel"?

She does not speak for me.

She does not speak for Ireland.

She does not speak for the citizens of Europe.

We stand for peace, international law and justice for the people of #Palestine.

It's time for her to go.

Another €1.5 billion in public money to be allocated to the European Defence Fund, to bankroll research and development by arms companies. The EU is militarising, all the while talking peace. But the last two weeks have shown just how unserious its commitment to peace really is.

A historic crime is unfolding in Gaza and the EU is in it up to its neck.

MEPs sit and watch the slaughter and cannot even find it within themselves to condemn it, calling it a "humanitarian crisis," as if it was caused by the weather. Who has caused this humanitarian crisis? Do we not know?

No calls for a ceasefire! Nothing about collective punishment! Voting down calls to end the blockade! Just mealy-mouthed complacency, "right to defend," and the abandonment of victims, most of them children.

The European Parliament has shown its colours. The EU will never live down the shame of today's resolution. #LongLivePalestine #LongLiveGaza

For years it was clear "disinfo" policy was an EU power grab, stifling public discourse and political disagreement. Now the mask is off. As it backs Israeli terror, the EU presses social media, which quash Palestinian voices, while paid-for Israeli propaganda pops up everywhere.

#SDG16, Sustainable Development Goal 16: promoting peaceful societies. There is no sustainable development without peace.

But by 2020, 2.5 times more people were displaced than in 2010. There had been a 50% increase in conflict.

How can we trust the European Commission to promote peace when Ursula von der Leyen has so brazenly enabled catastrophe in #Gaza?

Yesterday we urged the Council to call for - at minimum - the killing to stop in #Gaza, a #ceasefire. EU leaders have failed to do so.

The EU will not call for Israel to stop bombing the concentration camp it has created for 2 million Palestinians, but will express cowardly & insincere "concern" about the direct humanitarian consequences of that bombing. Instead of a ceasefire EU leaders want "humanitarian pauses" while supplies are dispensed to survivors, after which killing can recommence.

Like Parliament's position last week, this Council conclusion signals a green light for Israel to carry on. It is unforgiveable. A ceasefire - in line with UN demands - was the absolute minimum. This is worse than nothing. This will NEVER be forgotten. No return to business as usual. We, and millions more, will not give up this fight.

There will be no hiding behind "we did not know," when the time comes for European and American leaders to answer for their active role in the atrocities Israel is carrying out.

They know. It is a choice, not a blunder. The whole world can see. We will not forget.

I was honoured the weekend before last to be welcomed to Sweden to talk about militarism, war and European Union. The peace movement is Europe-wide and global, and will not be silent. My speech in Teater Tribunalen in Stockholm on October 28th. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHc-P2BIZ0s

The governments in the West may shield Israel, but the people everywhere see it for what it is. No, von der Leyen, we do not stand in "full solidarity" with a state that is murdering thousands of children as we speak. A new Middle East of peace and justice must and will be built. #CeasefireNOW

Israel has spent a month pounding Gaza into rubble and filling the streets with children's blood. With European and American weapons, and European and American support. Still von der Leyen cannot even say the word: "ceasefire." This isn't just Israel's genocide. It's Europe's too.

What I said at the Dublin rally last Saturday. Those in power want us to believe Irish neutrality is outdated, that we're letting the side down. What side? The one that says "we stand with Israel"? No shame in letting that side down.

There are billions now being spent on militarism that could be spent on the things that really make us safe, like housing and health and tackling climate change. Instead all those funds are ending up in the pockets of the military industrial complex. It's a sham!

We want ACTIVE neutrality. We want our government to go out and work for a peace resolution at the UN for a ceasefire. We want an arms embargo on Israel. We want to block US aircraft transiting our airports. No to war, no to EU militarism, no to Israeli terrorism. Long live Gaza.