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Turkish police fired tear gas to disperse revellers at a banned gay Pride parade in central Istanbul on Saturday.

Police in riot gear pushed and dragged people who had been gathering to take part in the LGBTQ2 event in a side street off the city’s central Istiklal Avenue.

Some people were dressed up, others waived rainbow flags. Some 20 people, including a photo journalist, were detained, according to media reports.

Turkish authorities have repeatedly banned Pride events in recent years. Before then, thousands of people used to take part in the parade in the streets of Istanbul.

This year local authorities said they had banned the parade due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Turkey has long been a candidate to join the European Union but its accession process has been languishing for years as tensions flare over a variety of issues including human rights.

On Thursday, a majority of European Union leaders vowed to continue combating discrimination of the LGBTQ2 community in a joint letter amid a standoff with Hungary, whose parliament last week approved a bill that bans the distribution of material in schools deemed to promote homosexuality or gender change.

Turkish police fire tear gas to break up banned Istanbul Pride march

June 26th 20216,711 Retweets11,524 Likes

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The Icelandic newspaper Stundin reports that a key witness in the US prosecution of Julian Assange has admitted in an interview with the outlet that he fabricated critical accusations in the indictment against the WikiLeaks founder.

“A major witness in the United States’ Department of Justice case against Julian Assange has admitted to fabricating key accusations in the indictment against the Wikileaks founder,” Stundin reports. “The witness, who has a documented history with sociopathy and has received several convictions for sexual abuse of minors and wide-ranging financial fraud, made the admission in a newly published interview in Stundin where he also confessed to having continued his crime spree whilst working with the Department of Justice and FBI and receiving a promise of immunity from prosecution.”

This major witness would be Iceland’s Sigurdur “Sigi” Thordarson, a paid FBI informant who after his short-lived association with WikiLeaks has been found guilty of sexually abusing nine boys as well as embezzlement, fraud, and theft in his home country. A court-appointed psychologist has found him to be a sociopath.

Continue reading “Assange Prosecution Relied On False Testimony From A Diagnosed Sociopath And Convicted Pedophile”

Every new climate pledge is an attempt to distract people from the failed ones it replaces.

By George Monbiot, 22nd June 2021

Every week, governments’ headline announcements save the planet, and every week their small print unsaves it.

Continue reading “Absolute Zero: The UK’s climate progress, by George Monbiot”

By Federación Plataforma Trans via kaosenlared.net translation TheFreeOnline

Trans groups and families outraged by the law that the PSOE wants to impose. The groups continue to ask that the PSOE not be invited to pride if it persists in its intention to impose a draft law that mutilates the proposed Integral Trans Law.

The request of more than 80 LGTBI groups not to invite the PSOE to Pride because of its veto to the processing of the Trans Law in Congress and to continue blocking it in the Government, has made the PSOE rush to want to impose a text of law that leaves no one happy.

Continue reading “Spanish state: Trans Groups and families Outraged by Law the PSOE govt wants to impose Eng /Esp”