“Women of the world, I call on you to stand with us. We’ve been deprived of the most basic human existence. We’ve lost our homes, our freedom and our privacy. Our lives as we knew them have been destroyed” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Saudi mega-projects follow the same script every time: flashy launch, global headlines, then delays, downsizing, or something completely different from what was promised. From The Line to Trojena to LIV Golf, it’s a decades-old pattern dating back before MBS. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Major tech companies including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms have blocked 100+ human rights accounts following orders by Saudi authorities. Read the Guardian's coverage here, featuring comments from ALQST's board member @maryamaldossari.bsky.social. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/m...

“Blocking these accounts would not protect public safety, it would project authoritarian power from scrutiny. X cannot hide behind vague references to ‘local legal requirements’ when those laws are routinely used to criminalise peaceful dissent.”

Instagram, X and others blocking Saudi dissidents’ accounts.“This is how authoritarian censorship travels: through legal notices, platform pressure and the attempted outsourcing of repression to global technology companies.” said Dr Maryam Aldossari. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/m...

Temperatures approaching 50°C. Shifts from 5am to 10pm. When the migrant worker quoted here collapsed, he was sent home to Nepal, where he was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. #football #climate #humanrights

‘Aramco is selling our sweat and blood’: workers in World Cup sponsor’s supply chain faced safety risks, report finds. Migrant workers injured in Saudi Arabia received no compensation, including one who says his legs were crushed. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

‘Sons of jailed Saudi scholars urge Cambridge to drop plans to train Riyadh staff’.Why is Cambridge considering training Saudi defence officials while scholars face execution for peaceful dissent? This is reputational laundering for an authoritarian state. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Israel’s security minister posted a video on social media showing dozens of men and women kneeling in rows with their foreheads to the ground and their hands zip-tied behind their backs, captioned: “Welcome to Israel.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Israeli nationalists chant ‘death to Arabs’ in violent Jerusalem Day march. They call for Palestinian villages to ‘burn’ as they storm through Muslim quarter of Old City. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Western media is once again selling its soul to the Saudi regime.Phillip Noyce is the latest to trade his reputation for "glossy propaganda." Saudi Arabia executed 243 people for drug offenses,now, they’ve commissioned a "heroic" tribute to that same enforcement. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Several people familiar with the situation said Riyadh received little warning and no opportunity to negotiate before a formal letter was delivered to Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi oil minister. “They knew this was coming, but some people are upset that they were not given a heads-up”

The coordinated backlash from pro-Israel voices against @owenjones.bsky.social and @zackpolanski.bsky.social says a lot… maybe it’s time to vote Green.

Here we go again, the usual suspects attacking Zack while recycling the same pro-Israel narratives and smears. Their credibility ran out long ago

“Starmer says Polanski ‘is not fit to lead a political party’ after Golders Green police criticism.” Rich coming from the worst, lowest-rated political leader we’ve had.

Family of ailing Iranian Nobel laureate say keeping her in jail is a death sentence. Narges Mohammadi denied medical leave from prison in spite of sharp decline in health and drastic weight loss, say lawyers. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Women in public life are facing growing and increasingly sophisticated forms of online violence, the UN has said, warning that “AI-assisted ‘virtual rape’ is now at the fingertips of perpetrators” www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

“Are you sure, or are they what you’re listening to?”

Iran’s wartime executions - Over the last six weeks, the Iranian regime has carried out a spate of executions of political prisoners. Iran’s wartime executions - podcast www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

“Saudi Arabia’s willingness to execute foreign migrants for nonviolent offences following trials that denied them basic due process reflects a profound disregard for their rights and lives.” www.hrw.org/news/2026/04...

Over more than two and a half years of war, Israeli attacks have destroyed most of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including networks that provided clean water and removed and treated sewage. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

This is the expected danger of assisted dying: Mother ends life at Swiss clinic four years after son’s death. 56, a physically healthy woman, died at the Pegasos clinic in Basel after struggling to cope with the death of her 23-year-old son. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Another project cancelled. As expected, the regime reaches for its usual alibi: regional instability, war, and geopolitics — the convenient excuse whenever grand promises collapse under their own weight. $200M gone, accountability nowhere. www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-a...

Two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old schoolboy, have been killed in the occupied West Bank after Israeli settlers opened fire near a school amid mounting assaults on education in the territory. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Man admits rape and religiously aggravated assault after court confrontation. Ashby, who wrongly believed the woman was Muslim, used Islamophobic slurs during the attack, calling her a “fucking Muslim bitch”. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Guards at Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman torture camp have admitted their colleagues use dogs to rape Palestinian captives there. novaramedia.com/2026/04/20/i...

Palestinian women, men and children have reported attacks, forced nudity, invasive and painful body cavity searches, Israelis exposing their genitals, including to minors, and threats of sexual violence. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

‘Will they kill us too?’ Murder of leading feminist has chilling effect on Iraq’s activists. Yanar Mohammed’s assassination comes amid a number of killings as fellow campaigners warn women’s rights are going backwards. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Including University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London, King’s College London, the University of Sheffield, the University of Leicester, the University of Nottingham, Cardiff Metropolitan University, MMU, Bristol and LSE:

British universities paid security firm to ‘spy’ on pro-Palestine students… Firm, has been paid at least 440,000 pounds ($594,000) by universities since 2022. www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/...

The impossible promise: are we witnessing the return of fascism? Some of today’s far right is openly violent and undemocratic – and even in its less extreme forms, far-right populism is a profound threat. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ap...

On Palestinian Prisoners Day we were at Downing St protesting @pscupdates.bsky.social @stwc.bsky.social

Today ⬇️

‘Everything is gone’. Israel is a terrorist state, now carrying out genocide in Lebanon, systematically destroying entire villages, rigging homes with explosives, and obliterating them in massive remote detonations. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

“When barbarism is normalised so completely, when the line between the permissible and the unthinkable is erased, it cannot simply be redrawn. What was once unsayable becomes routine; what was once unthinkable becomes policy.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is hitting reality hard. WSJ points to the Iran war, but the budget shortfalls and impractical plans were already obvious long before the conflict began. Grand promises meet hard facts. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Saudi Arabia told businesses not to send staff into Riyadh’s main financial zone after concerns that the area could be targeted in Iranian missile or drone attacks. www.semafor.com/article/04/0...

More than 1.1 million people, including nearly 400,000 children, have been forced to flee their homes by Israeli bombing and displacement. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Gulf Countries: Conflict, Hardships Leave Migrants in Limbo. “On one hand, migrants are working in fear. On the other, there is constant anxiety about losing jobs.” ‬⁩ www.hrw.org/news/2026/03...

Saudi Arabia executes prominent businessman over participation in 2011 Qatif protests. 'While the world’s attention is elsewhere, the crown prince is killing off his critics' www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-a...

Israeli warplanes struck a building in a southern suburb of Beirut. www.theguardian.com/world/video/...

The BBC taking Saudi money to produce soft focus stories about reform on women and the environment doesn’t just mislead, it launders the image of a state built on silencing dissent. Shame on the BBC for whitewashing regime crimes. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/m...

Saudi Arabia is urging the U.S. to continue attacks on Iran, an intelligence source says. “MBS has lost his bet, after investing heavily in Trump, his family, and administration, Saudi and Gulf views have been sidelined in favor of Benjamin Netanyahu.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

This is not new. This is the logic of elimination: 70+ years of settler attacks on Palestinian villages aimed at erasing a people, not just their homes. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“American bases in Saudi Arabia must be closed,” Maryam Aldossari, the spokeswoman for a Saudi opposition party in exile @The_NAAS , wrote on social media this week. “They exist only to protect Israel while putting our civilian lives at risk.” archive.ph/2026.03.17-0...

The same logic of ethnic cleansing used in Palestine is now being applied in Lebanon: Israel is deliberately targeting medical facilities in the south, say health workers. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

The Israeli closure of Al-Aqsa on Eid is a typical strategy to exploit security tensions, tighten restrictions, and further entrench control over Palestinian lives. www.theguardian.com/world/video/...

Eid Mubarak!

Today, Newcastle United supporters' group @nosauditoon.bsky.social are hosting an online discussion on women's rights in Saudi Arabia. It features Saudi academic and ALQST board member @maryamaldossari.bsky.social. Meeting link: meet.google.com/xgg-zedj-pcq