Supporters of the current government of Israel also support the murder of children.
No matter whether the Palestinian youth who was killed had committed any crime of his own – and there’s no proof shown here – he should have received medical attention but was instead shot and allowed to bleed to death.
This is just beyond anything…
The kid is just lying there, not a threat, & is then shot & killed at point blank range, an act that was then applauded by a crowd of racist zionist lunatics.
Meanwhile, settlers kill Palestinians, burn crops, steal homes & walk free! https://t.co/mgMv7uwkBB
If that is the culture of Israel, then Israel is barbaric.
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Do Israeli armed forces murder children? Well, here’s Muhammad Tamimi. His two-year-old life was ended after a member of the Israel Defence Forces raided his village and shot this defenceless toddler in the head.
There’s a meme going the rounds on the social media about the British Broadcasting Corporation.
It says when one person says it’s raining and another says it is sunny, it isn’t the BBC’s job to present a balance of the two viewpoints; the BBC’s job is to look out the window and see which of them is right.
Let’s apply this to a complaint made by the far-right, Israeli-government-supporting Board of Deputies of British Jews, that made a complaint to the BBC about this Newsnight sequence in which the attack on the refugee campaign in the Palestinian city of Jenin by the Israel Defence Force was questioned:
🔥 WOW 🔥
This is massive. First time I've seen a BBC newsreader actually challenge the narrative on apartheid Israel!
Respect to @AnjanaGadgil. She will almost certainly now lose her job because the CAA, the Board of Deputies will take legal action. pic.twitter.com/jN6Gbl3Cnz
(I have no idea why Jimmy Hill’s face kept appearing in the clip; presumably it’s a comment by whoever made it about the veracity of Mr Bennett’s claims.)
The Board of Deputies made a complaint, which you can read below. And below that, you can find evidence refuting its claim:
Watch this clip from 2017 of the IDF shooting an unarmed Palestinian teen during the March of Return protests and then laugh having done it. They seem to be enjoying killing very much indeed, calling their unarmed victim a ‘son of a whore!’ https://t.co/KPftRsTCC5
Only last month, an IDF trooper shot two-year-old toddler Muhammad Tamimi in the head, in what is believed to have been a deliberate act of aggression against the child:
Images from my friend Bilal Tamimi after leaving the hospital. And the two-year-old in the hospital.
It therefore seems unsupportable that the Board of Deputies of British Jews can claim that it is “disgraceful” to say the IDF forces seem happy to kill children. The evidence is there, for all to see.
Sadly, it seems the BBC has not looked out of the window to check what the weather is actually doing.
“I am pleased that the BBC have apologised for the clearly unacceptable language which was used in their interview with Naftali Bennett. Having written to the Director General on this matter today, I appreciate the Corporation’s speedy response.”
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) July 5, 2023
In fairness, the BBC apology said the line of questioning was appropriate – it was just the language that was used that caused offence.
But that was enough for the Board of Deputies to crow about it.
Considering the way both organisations have responded to this incident, perhaps the BBC should look into the subject more deeply.
Perhaps Panorama could run a film examining the number of children the IDF have murdered and the frequency of these killings, alongside the after-the-event excuses for them, with analysis of whether the claims of the Israeli government actually stand up to scrutiny.
This Writer has a feeling the results would be illuminating – but I don’t think the BBC, under its shrinking-violet director general Tim Davie, would have the nerve.
For now, it seems the best advice possible for both parties in this dispute is to say that, if the Board of Deputies doesn’t want to see reports saying Israeli armed forces murder children…
Perhaps it should call on the Israeli armed forces to stop murdering children.
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Hard to believe: as Israeli troops murder more Palestinians, the UK government is trying to remove our right to protest against the occupation of Palestine.
This is one instance in which the timing of an event is tragic.
Israel has launched a large-scale military operation against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, killing at least eight people, including three children, and wounding more than 50 others according to the Palestinian Health Ministry pic.twitter.com/RqK4bVVOT3
The Israeli government always says it is defending that country when it launches these attacks – but This Writer finds it hard to believe when these operations always seem to take place on Palestinian soil (for an obvious example). These anti-terrorist operations never seem to happen in Tel Aviv – do they?
Consider also:
Palestinians are occupied. They have the legal right in international law to resist their occupation.
Israel is the occupier. It has no legal right to use force against Palestinians' struggle for self-determination.
The reference to Russia and Ukraine is timely. Russian troops are known to have treated Ukrainians in invaded territory in ways that are more or less universally considered abhorrent, yet Israelis apparently avoid assessment by the same yardstick when they attack and kill Palestinians, including children.
And on the day when the latest Israeli atrocity comes to light, MPs in the UK were being asked to support that country by banning local authorities from campaigning against it, boycotting its goods or sanctioning it.
The wording of the legislation tries to obscure this by saying it’s about stopping councils pursuing their own foreign policy agendas but the upshot will be that local democracy will be overridden by a central government diktat ordering councils to support a country that has invaded a neighbour and is slowly destroying it.
Critics say the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill is inconsistent with longstanding UK foreign policy towards the Occupied Palestinian Territories because it specifically names them, along with Israel and the occupied Golan Heights (Syria), as places for which the Bill’s provisions must apply.
This undermines longstanding UK government policy that calls for an end to Israel’s military occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In other words, councils that follow a boycott, divestment and sanctions policy against Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories are in fact in line with UK government policy.
The situation is worsened by the fact that the Bill makes provision for its restrictions to be lifted with regard to particular countries, with Russia and Belarus as named examples.
That didn’t stop the usual useful idiots from standing up to support Israel:
"I can assure him that when BDS is used as an argument for the.. isolation of the worlds only Jewish state, not only will I speak out but I have spoken out"
Lisa Nandy rejecting the Palestinians own call for sanctions against their occupiers & oppressors. pic.twitter.com/5ETxSnKRb4
Mr Corbyn spoke about events in Jenin during the debate:
Corbyn: "Today, in Jenin, as an example of the occupation, there are 14,000 people in a refugee camp that is less than 0.4 square km… the IDF says its not targeting civilians. Its impossible to use any kind of weaponry against the popualtion there without targeting civilians" pic.twitter.com/dweHbZfsgo
The BDS movement is a non-violent and peaceful response to an illegal occupation, I will not be supporting this bill. My contribution to the chamber this evening: pic.twitter.com/ahQQgwQ8Hj
(In fairness, it seems other good points have been made in the debate – such as the possibility that the Bill will attract animosity towards Jewish members of the community, under the pretense that they represent the one nation that appears to be exempt from any criticism at all.)
The result of the vote (which has not taken place at the time of writing) will be revealing – although possibly not in the way some MPs hope.
It will show us which of them think it is okay to undermine UK democracy to support invading murderers. We should use that information to remove those MPs at the next election.
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Daniel Morgan: two years after an independent inquiry that found ‘institutional corruption’ by the Metropolitan Police, that organisation has again been found to have failed investigations into his death.
If you’d prefer to watch a video of this article (featuring me and Crunchie the cat), here it is:
If officers of the Metropolitan Police have found documents relating to the murder of Daniel Morgan, that should have been disclosed to the inquiry into the way the police handled that murder, then the inquiry should be reopened, shouldn’t it?
The whole business is extremely suspicious.
If you’re not aware of the circumstances of the UK’s most-investigated murder: Mr Morgan’s body was found in a south London car park in 1987, an axe buried in his head. He had been investigating police corruption.
To date, no fewer than five investigations have been conducted into the murder. Nobody has been convicted.
In 2013, then-Home Secretary Theresa May launched an independent inquiry to examine “police involvement in Daniel Morgan’s murder, the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice, and the failure to confront that corruption”.
It also looked into “the incidence of connections between private investigators, police officers and journalists at the News of the World and other parts of the media, and alleged corruption involved in the linkages between them”.
When the inquiry panel tried to publish its report in May 2021, then-Home Secretary Priti Patel tried to interfere, saying she needed to see it and may need to censor any part of it that she could claim might affect national security or human rights obligations.
She had no right to do so. The panel objected in the strongest possible terms and Patel had to back down. The report was published in full on June 15 that year.
And now it seems its findings may be false.
In January this year, 60 documents, comprising 166 pages of material, were found in a filing cabinet at New Scotland Yard, that the Met is asking us to believe has been locked for many years. Is that credible?
An assessment into the significance of the documents and any potential impact they may have was started in February and, it seems, concluded this week.
It found that 95 pages of material (37 documents) have been initially identified that would have been disclosed under a protocol agreed with the panel – and a further 71 pages (23 documents) that would have been provided to a subsequent inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS).
The Met’s press release is very specific about the meaning of the discovery: “Our assessment is that there are no evidential documents that relate to criminal investigations into the murder.”
What about documents that relate to “police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder”? What about any relating to police connections with private investigators and journalists, and corruption between them?
What about documents relating to other wrong-doing, that has not been suggested previously?
The Met’s press release says it will make any material that should have been disclosed to the Panel available to the family of Daniel Morgan and to Baroness Nuala O’Loan, who chaired the independent inquiry.
But shouldn’t it make all the new material available, so the family and Baroness O’Loan can make up their own minds?
You see, that report, published in June 2021, may have been incomplete or based on false information, but it did make several points very clearly:
The Met’s first objective in its approach to the inquiry was to “protect itself” for failing to acknowledge its many failings since Daniel Morgan’s murder in 1987.
Its handling of the investigation into Morgan’s death was “institutionally corrupt” and placed concerns about its reputation above its duty to investigate the murder properly.
The Met deliberately misled the public and Morgan’s grieving family.
It delayed handing over vital documents to the inquiry panel, thereby hindering its own work. An investigation that was not expected to take long ended up being stretched out over eight years.
Then-Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick – along with her successors after she was promoted – was responsible for refusing to provide access to this information and never provided a reasonable explanation.
So you can see that the Metropolitan Police are not to be trusted in this matter – under any circumstances.
Nor is any politician after Priti Patel’s attempt to interfere.
So let’s have all – and I mean all – the new information handed over to the family and the inquiry which should be reconvened to allow full reconsideration of all the evidence in the light of this discovery.
And one more thing:
Are there any more filing cabinets sitting around Scotland Yard that have been locked since time immemorial? You never know – we may yet find out what happened to Lord Lucan, or learn the identity of Jack the Ripper.</strong
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UK prime minister Rishi Sunak was under pressure over the murder of Zara Aleena in Ilford – so one of his mouthpieces rushed in to claim there was no political element to the case.
Ms Aleena was murdered by Jordan McSweeney, who had been wrongly assessed as a “medium risk” offender, when in fact the violent, woman-hating racist should have been classed “high risk” and recalled to prison after missing probation appointments.
A Ministry of Justice review has found that probation officers were under mounting pressure at the time of McSweeney’s assessment, with staffing shortages and an increasingly-heavy workload.
These are both symptoms of government funding cuts – and, indeed, during PMQs, Keir Starmer raised a “botched, then reversed” attempt to privatise the service, and a decade of underinvestment.
And Ms Aleena’s family’s spokeswoman, her aunt Faraz Naz, made it perfectly clear that “Government bears responsibility too, it is not just the probation service. They have blood on their hands.”
But Tory MP Andrew Bowie, discussing the case on the BBC’s Politics Live, falsely claimed this had not been said – after trying to say that the failings of the Probation Service were not political:
Of course they were.
They were the result of political decisions to starve the service of staff and resources.
A Conservative MP was responsible. But once again, it seems, we are not likely to see anybody take responsibility.
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Murdered by the police: This Site put out the infographic above after the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens. Now a damning report has confirmed that criminals and sexual predators are being allowed into police services across England and Wales. But are we seeing a change in attitude that means these creatures will no longer be protected?
Criminals and sexual predators who should never have been allowed through the vetting process are now acting as police officers in England and Wales, according to a damning report.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) announced the finding after a review of eight police services in the wake of the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a Metropolitan Police officer.
Of 725 sample cases closely examined in the review, there were concerns about 131 officers cleared to serve in police forces – but the watchdog said the true total could be much higher.
The authors questioned 11,000 officers and staff – and of the women who responded, “an alarming number alleged appalling behaviour by male colleagues”, raising concerns about risks to people outside the police.
“Almost without exception, they’d been on the receiving end of behaviour which absolutely has no place in the modern workplace,” [Inspector of Constabulary and report author Matt Parr] added.
The report adds: “We found a culture where misogyny, sexism and predatory behaviour towards female police officers and staff and members of the public still exists.”
In the first part of this interview, Transport Secretary Mark Harper said every police force must review their recruitment and disciplinary process:
But the government is currently trying to recruit 20,000 new police officers – and has been since late 2019. Considering the difficulty it is having, can there be any faith that corners aren’t being cut and more “bad apples” are being allowed in?
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Brace yourself, because this won’t be easy to watch or read.
Last night (September 29), on Late Night Mash, comedian Shaparak (Shappi) Khorsandi delivered an impassioned attack on the so-called morality police in her homeland of Iran.
These are people who murder women for failing to cover their hair completely. Watch:
For more context on this, here’s another comedian from Iran, Omid Djalili:
2/. Ghazale Chelavi, a 32 year old mountaineer shot in the head in Amol city after chanting “we are all Masha Amini” pic.twitter.com/mIQB6bnAn5
6/. Use hashtag #Mahsa_Amini not #Masha her name was MAHSA. A real chance to get awareness out about this urgent issue. Tho it’s Iran 🇮🇷 it’s not just a Middle Eastern issue it’s a global human rights issue so like @yungblud & @DUALIPA feel free to share your own posts & thoughts
Bear in mind that he said 41 people had died four days ago. By yesterday that death toll had more than doubled:
Protests continue in a number of cities across Iran over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the so-called ‘morality’ police. 83 people including children have been killed. ‘Morality’ seems to mean what clothes you wear, not how you treat kids and young women.
Thousands of Iranians are protesting – and risking their lives to do so – but people across the world are taking action as well.
Here in the UK, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was imprisoned in Iran for six years, cut her hair in a gesture of solidarity with women in and from Iran who have thrown away their hijabs to do the same:
"For my mother, for my daughter, for the fear of solitary confinement, for the women of my country, for freedom." https://t.co/NKittaZeLL
What a remarkable image. The daughter of Minoo Majidi–a mother of two who was killed by the Iranian regime while protesting for #MahsaAmini–stands at her mother's gravesite. She is defiantly unveiled, and in her left hand she holds the hair she cut from her head. pic.twitter.com/QPqHGk4MDy
n memory of Mahsa Amini 🖤 I wrote her name with my Fixie bike in Farsi using Persian Script. Her death, on September 16, 2022, at the hands of Iran's "morality" police, has sparked nationwide anti-government protest. #MahsaAmini#مهسا_امینی#FixieGPSArtByKubapic.twitter.com/TaJEBq3Drh
Iranian National Football(soccer) team wears all black to cover their country's colors in protest of the death of Mahsa Amini. pic.twitter.com/eicXK2pcJU
If people in Iran are risking their lives to make a stand against this, then people elsewhere can certainly do something in solidarity.
Will you? Or do you think it’s all right because it isn’t happening to you?
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Shireen Abu Aqleh: it’s hard to see the justification for killing someone with the word “PRESS” emblazoned across their jacket.
The death of Shireen Abu Aqleh has been referred to the International Criminal Court as part of an investigation into whether Israeli security forces have been targeting Palestinian journalists in violation of humanitarian law:
The case originally submitted in April by Bindmans had focused on four Palestinian journalists wearing press helmets and vests, two of whom were maimed and two shot dead. It also covers alleged attacks on Gaza media infrastructure in May 2021.
Lawyers from Bindmans and Doughty Street Chambers announced the addition of the death on 11 May of Abu Aqleh to the existing claim at a press conference in London.
They said the case was vital owing to the repeated failure of the Israeli security forces to investigate such incidents and the inability of Palestinian reporters to secure reparations in Israeli domestic courts.
There will also be issues of jurisdiction… Israel itself is not a party to the ICC, raising issues of enforcement of any eventual ruling.
Why isn’t it? Why does Israel get away with this kind of unaccountability?
This comment from one of the solicitors involved is extremely telling:
Tayab Ali, the Bindmans solicitor in the case, said “evidence was not lacking, but the political will”, adding “Israel in the past has been gifted immunity”.
He said: “Israel has enjoyed a devastating impunity against accountability for the actions of its armed forces, and has repeatedly demonstrated that it is a bad faith investigator. It has not managed to hold anyone to account for the tens of Palestinian journalists that have been killed or maimed so far”.
The Palestinian Authority announced the results of an investigation into Abu Aqleh’s death, saying that it revealed Israeli forces deliberately shot and killed the reporter.
Israel’s defence minister, Benny Gantz, said, “Any claim that the IDF intentionally harmed journalists or noncombatants is a blatant lie.”
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Misguided: it seems Ali Harbi Ali murdered Sir David Amess because the MP had voted in favour of airstrikes on Syria – that had hardly any effect.
Ali Harbi Ali, the murderer of Sir David Amess, said the killing was a terrorist act of revenge because the late Southend MP voted for airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria.
Although, considering the fact that Ali was radicalised in 2019, This Writer wouldn’t have put it past him to have been motivated by the airstrikes against IS in Syria the previous year – when no Parliamentary vote took place at all. There’s nothing rational about these people.
But then, there was very little about the vote to bomb Syria that was rational, either.
For examples:
None of the arguments in their favour – by David Cameron or Labour turncoat Hilary Benn – made any sense. As opponents argued, previous interventions in Iraq and Libya had destabilised those nations, making them a home to terrorists – exactly the opposite of what we were told would happen. Innocents would be killed in huge numbers – even if we knew where the terrorists were hiding, it would probably be behind children or the sick, in schools or hospitals (as we had previously experienced). Dropping bombs on Syria would increase the outflow of refugees. Our bombing would have as little effect as that of the other countries. And when bombing Syria was previously debated in Parliament, it was against President Assad, and therefore on the same side as the terrorists, and if we had gone through with it, Daesh/IS would have controlled most of Syria by the time the 2015 vote took place; how could anyone possibly argue that the current plan would have a better result?
The BBC was so keen to make the UK public support the airstrikes that it lied about a demonstration against them, saying that a violent hard-left hate mob made a show of intimidation outside Labour MP Stella Creasy’s home in an attempt to bully her and other MPs against supporting the strikes – when in fact, a peaceful demonstration filed past her Walthamstow office at a time when nobody was there.
The BBC was also among a media coalition that tried to make the airstrikes Jeremy Corbyn’s responsibility after he allowed Labour MPs to have a free vote. The media mob wanted people to think Mr Corbyn had given his MPs free rein to support the Conservatives, when in fact he had put all the responsibility onto them; the blood would be on their hands, not his (he voted against airstrikes).
Then-prime minister David Cameron exhorted his MPs not to “sit on their hands” and side with Jeremy Corbyn and others he labelled “a bunch of terrorist sympathisers” – as usual, taking a leaf from the Nazi propaganda playbook. As Hermann Goering put it: “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders… All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
Collateral damage caused by the bombings was huge. You may remember the image of a boy called Omran, sitting in an ambulance covered in blood, his face registering shock after he wiped it and his hand came away covered in blood. Hilary ‘Bomber’ Benn, who spoke eloquently in support of the airstrikes in December 2015, had nothing to say when challenged about it.
And the attacks caused huge numbers of people to become refugees – many of whom arrived in the UK to be greeted with sympathy by Tory and Labour MPs who had voted to cause their predicament.
Most pertinent to Ali Harbi Ali, though, is the fact that the airstrikes had little or no effect on IS. By February 19, 2016 – more than two and a half months after the December 2, 2015, vote – the total number of IS casualties achieved by the UK was seven.
Sure, IS was defeated in Syria and was driven out of that country in 2019 – but it seems likely to This Writer that this had more to do with the undemocratic decision to take further action in 2018, when MPs were not given a vote.
So this terrorist probably committed his murder on the basis of a misunderstanding about a massive Parliamentary mistake.
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Heavy-handed: after the Met Police said it would be illegal to stage a socially-distanced vigil under lockdown conditions, organised by Reclaim These Street, an impromptu event happened instead – leading to heavy criticism of the same force for the brutal way it was seen to put down protesters.
Decisions by the Metropolitan Police that discouraged organisers from holding a vigil for Sarah Everard were against the law, according to High Court judges.
Police statements that Covid-19 regulations at the time meant holding the vigil would be unlawful, and had a “chilling” effect, contributing to the decision to cancel the vigil (an impromptu event was then put down by police with what some have described as brutal force).
None of the force’s decisions was in accordance with the law; evidence showed that the force failed to perform its legal duty to consider whether the claimants might have a reasonable excuse for holding the gathering, or to conduct the fact-specific proportionality assessment required in order to perform that duty.
That’s a victory for justice. But the High Court had previously refused to declare that any ban on outdoor gatherings under the coronavirus regulations at the time was “subject to the right to protest” – or to declare that an alleged force policy of “prohibiting all protests, irrespective of the specific circumstances” was unlawful.
And Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services concluded the police “acted appropriately” when dealing with the event.
So this raises an obvious question:
Are the High Court and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary fit for purpose if they can’t make a simple ruling in favour of the law?
In a ruling today (March 11), Lord Justice Warby and Mr Justice Holgate found that the Metropolitan Police breached the rights of Jessica Leigh, Anna Birley, Henna Shah and Jamie Klingler to freedom of speech and assembly, and did not assess the potential risk to public health:
Reclaim These Streets (RTS) proposed a socially-distanced vigil for the 33-year-old, who was murdered by former Met officer Wayne Couzens, near to where she went missing in Clapham, south London, in March last year.
The four women who founded RTS and planned the vigil brought a legal challenge against the force over its handling of the event, which was also intended to be a protest about violence against women.
They withdrew from organising the vigil after being told by the force they would face fines of £10,000 each and possible prosecution if the event went ahead, and a spontaneous vigil and protest took place instead.
The policing of the spontaneous vigil that took place drew criticism from across the political spectrum after women were handcuffed on the ground and led away by officers.
Summarising the decision, Lord Justice Warby said:
“The relevant decisions of the (Met) were to make statements at meetings, in letters, and in a press statement, to the effect that the Covid-19 regulations in force at the time meant that holding the vigil would be unlawful.
“Those statements interfered with the claimants’ rights because each had a ‘chilling effect’ and made at least some causal contribution to the decision to cancel the vigil.
“None of the (force’s) decisions was in accordance with the law; the evidence showed that the (force) failed to perform its legal duty to consider whether the claimants might have a reasonable excuse for holding the gathering, or to conduct the fact-specific proportionality assessment required in order to perform that duty.”
If Lord Justice Warby and Mr Justice Holgate could see this evidence and act upon it, there’s no reason other High Court judges could not do the same – and certainly no reason Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary – which should specialise in the law as it applies to the police – couldn’t.
Why did they make the wrong call, then?
And what will be done to correct what are clearly faults in the attitude of the people who made the wrong decisions?
It costs a fortune to take a case to the High Court; these organisations have a duty to the public to get their decisions right first time.
Sadly, experience suggests to This Writer that the usual action will be taken: nothing at all.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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