I didn’t say you denied the Holocaust. I said you implied that it is the first example of European antisemitism.

I agree with a lot of this but this bit is a non-sequitur:

One thing many people don’t realize is that the Zionist colonial project was in motion long before WWII, as far back as the late 1800s.

Political zionism did get started in the late 1800s, as a proposed solution to the centuries of pogroms, expulsions and discrimination against Jews in Europe. Prior to the horrors of WWII, most Jews considered it literal heresy. It was the Holocaust that convinced many that Zionism was their only option, not least because most of the free world closed its borders to Jews fleeing the Holocaust and its aftermath. There was nowhere else to go.

This is a very useful short piece by a Jewish anti-zionist, pleading with the pro-Palestinian movement to take more care with their understanding of history: Zionism, Antisemitism and the Left Today

The Palestinians are paying the price for Europe’s crimes. The problem cannot be solved by denying that those crimes ever happened.

Statutory rape does not exist as an offence in English law. The offence is sexual contact with a minor.

The age of consent is 16 but 18 if the older party is in a position of responsibility (like a teacher). So whether or not she had unlawful sexual contact with the second boy would depend on how that law was interpreted, as well as when the first contact took place.

I’m used to that having full articles

Quite a lot of communities ban posting of full articles, including this one:

Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post.

Helluva headline given the story is about tied labour.

The event is called the Madrid Open.

It doesn’t matter? This incident was doubly antisemitic, preventing someone from protesting because they are Jewish, and assuming that pro-Palestinian protesters would attack them simply because they were Jewish (ie equating Jewishness with support for Israel and criticism of Israel with antisemitism).

Yes, he’s a provocateur. So what? If the copper had said it was because they wanted to keep the two groups of protesters apart (as they routinely do, or are supposed to do), that would be fine. But he decided to be racist about it instead.

What high profile court case?

Oh, please! Streisand the fuck out of it. Plenty of people have done what he did without ever being forced to acknowledge it was rape. Keep this story going for the sake of everyone, everywhere.

This is an easy statement to make but context matters. In this case, he was not named by the media but had they not covered the story, he would never have been charged because it suited the political establishment to do nothing at all.

Higgins alleged she was raped by a colleague in an exclusive 2021 television interview with the Network Ten’s “The Project” program, which also raised questions about the official response by ministers and political staffers in the aftermath of the alleged assault.

After the interview aired, Lehrmann was charged with sexual intercourse without consent, but the trial was abandoned in 2022 due to juror misconduct and not revived due to fears about Higgins’ mental health.

The legal system didn’t deal with it, as per fucking usual. He decided that he would use that fact to prove he was innocent, giving the court an opportunity to explain very carefully why he is quite clearly guilty.

This was a huge political scandal. It’s not reasonable to declare that the media should not have reported it.

It was known that the software was shitty and buggy before it was foisted on the Post Office, having been rejected by DWP (and the Post Office right up until they were given no choice). It was Blair’s decision, he didn’t want to upset Fujitsu or discourage investment from Japan.

Short and long versions of a report into that on the JFSA website.

Pressure from govt to pretend that it worked, and to make the business profitable for privatisation, caused this inhuman clusterfuck.

Your point only makes sense if you believe that Rudy Guede was telling the truth. It’s possible but she was acquitted so you probably shouldn’t libel her here.

You don’t have to be an Italian for that advice to be good.

It’s always the police who write up what you say, then they ask you to sign it. They wrote up what she said and she signed it. The following day she wrote a long letter saying that she didn’t think it was true because she’s been under duress. That is why the conviction for slander has been quoshed and this new trial is now happening.

She may well have ‘retrieved’ a false memory because the police were haranguing her about some texts with Lumumba but it was a lot more than her mentioning his name in passing. She signed two confessions saying that she had been in another room of the house while Lumumba murdered Meredith. Those confessions are considered inadmissible. This trial is about whether she did, in fact, slander him or whether it was entirely due to police pressure.

Did you read the article this thread is about?

Why do you think she accused Rudy Guede? No one has ever said she accused him.

She’s appealing a conviction for slandering him. Her grounds for appeal are that the police bullied the confession out of her.

He spent two weeks in jail and had to abandon his business and his hometown because of it.

When investigators looked at all the communication on Knox’s phone, they found a text that she says was a response to Lumumba, telling him that she would see him later and that she hoped he had a nice evening. Kox accused investigators of confusing and coercing her during the interrogation, with them allegedly insisting to her that the text was instead confirmation of a plan to meet with Lumumba later. Knox now maintains that she was forced to recall a false memory that she and Lumumba were both at the apartment the night that Kercher died, when, she says, that was not the case.

Lumumba was arrested and held for two weeks, based on the comments Knox made while in custody. Eventually, a man who had been drinking at the bar came forward, saying that Lumumba was there all night and that they had talked, giving Lumumba an alibi. Lumumba, who is Congolese, was released once the alibi put him at his bar at the time the crime took place.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/186077-where-is-patrick-lumumba-now-the-bar-owner-was-implicated-by-amanda-knox

If his story is true, his DNA would be found all over the place. His story being: they were making out, he didn’t flush the toilet, he fought off the attackers, and he tried to help Meredith before getting scared and running away.

I’m offering the kindest explanation for Knox falsely accusing a Black man. The other is that she saw a Black man at the scene.