In Duisburg, leaflets containing quotations from the Qur’an are currently turning up in several letterboxes. Among other things, they state that non-believers will be “punished by Allah in the fires of Hell”. The police have filed a complaint against the sender of the leaflet – because the imprint was missing. The police confirmed this to Apollo News. The leaflet opens with the words: “Whoever is an enemy of Allah and His angels and His messengers and Gabriel and Michael, Allah is their enemy. Allah is an enemy of the unbelievers”.
In the leaflet, the author addresses unbelievers directly and warns them: “I am merely a clear warner to you: any person who denies Islam until his death and has not accepted it will be punished eternally by Allah in the fires of Hell,” the leaflet states. The Islamic God is “the true King” and there is “no god but Him, the Lord of the Noble Throne”.
As early as the summer, the same leaflet from a then-unknown sender had appeared in several districts of Duisburg, as reported by the newspaper WAZ. However, the police classified the leaflet as not constituting a criminal offence. Nevertheless, the State Security Department was informed about the leaflet at the time.
According to a spokeswoman for the Duisburg police, they have since been able to identify the sender of the leaflet. A complaint has now been lodged against the sender – on the grounds of an administrative offence. This is because the sender had not included a legal notice on the leaflet. Under North Rhine-Westphalia’s press law, all printed material that is reproduced and intended for public distribution is subject to the legal notice requirement. The complaint has been forwarded to the relevant authority in the city of Duisburg.
There are numerous mosques and Muslim organisations in Duisburg. In the 2024 European elections, the result in electoral district 1001 caused a stir nationwide. According to the results, the DAVA party – considered Islamist and close to Erdogan – secured a relative majority with 41.10 per cent of the vote. The AfD came second with 14.16 per cent, followed by the SPD with 10.96 per cent. The CDU achieved 8.68 per cent.
While France, Belgium, Italy and Albania saw rioting, the protest wave reached Portugal, Spain, Greece and Austria through union marches, housing encampments and student tent camps. Established communist parties are openly participating in these protests.
The parties’ own documents show cross-border coordination, including a Greek communist delegation marching in Paris and plans for a Europe-wide youth strike on November 20.
In Portugal, the CGTP, the country’s largest union confederation, called the October 17 demonstrations in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra. The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) announced that its general secretary, Paulo Raimundo, would join the Lisbon march with a PCP delegation.
Two days earlier, Raimundo was asked about the housing encampments in Porto. He said the party supports all such actions expressing indignation over housing. Left Bloc coordinator José Manuel Pureza and Livre spokeswoman Isabel Mendes Lopes also spoke at the march.
Popular assemblies run the housing encampments in Lisbon’s Rossio square and Porto. The Lisbon assembly voted unanimously to ask union confederations to call an “Iberian general strike” on November 11.
In Spain, housing protests began alongside the French movement, including an encampment in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. After Congress rejected two housing decrees, the tenants’ union Sindicato de Inquilinas called marches in about 50 cities on October 3. The government delegation counted 70,000 participants in Madrid, while organizers claimed 500,000.
Izquierda Unida, a coalition that includes the Communist Party of Spain, announced on September 29 that it would participate in the mobilizations on October 3 and 4. It said its members were active in the tenants’ unions, platforms and assemblies organizing against evictions.
Under pressure from the Sindicato de Inquilinas and the anarcho-syndicalist CGT, the CCOO and UGT agreed to a 24-hour general strike over housing and wages. It will be the first since 2012 backed by both confederations.
On October 14, the first day of an indefinite education strike in Madrid, police charged a student picket at Complutense University and detained five students. The Organización Estudiantil Socialista (OES) and the Coordinadora Juvenil Socialista (CJS) demanded that the charges be dropped and called for the government delegate’s resignation.
In Greece, Athens student associations set up tents in Syntagma Square on October 13 to protest housing and study costs. They announced plans for a second encampment on October 20 and a rally with high school students, teachers and parents on October 21. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) announced that a delegation from its youth wing, KNE, marched in Paris on October 17 behind banners of the two organizations’ branches in France.
Thodoris Kotsandis, secretary of the KNE Central Council, led the delegation. He linked the French protests to a Greek general strike planned for November 25 and the October 21 student and teacher rallies. On October 18, he spoke at a KKE event in France that included a greeting from the Union of the Communist Youth and the Communist Revolutionary Party of France.
In Austria, the national student union ÖH continued protests against university budget cuts that began in May. On October 13, it held a “Ring lecture” on Vienna’s Ringstraße, drawing about 8,000 people, according to the union. ÖH vice chair Selina Wienerroither is a member of the Socialist Students association, VSStÖ.
The next coordinated date is November 20. A coalition of student and youth organizations across Europe has called an International Youth Strike under the slogan “Fight for Our Future, Not Their Wars.” The campaign calls for walkouts, assemblies, blockades and occupations.
The national chair of Britain’s Socialist Students cited the French school blockades and Spanish housing protests as part of the campaign. He also said German students who walked out against conscription will strike again on November 20. Fox News Digital reported that 28 communist and socialist youth organizations in 12 countries are behind the strike.
The strike was announced in August, so its planning predates the French riots and October violence. Communist parties in Portugal, Spain and Greece also documented their participation in the October protests on their websites, while KNE leaders traveled to Paris to march.
I live in Reggio Emilia, a town of 150,000 inhabitants located in Northern Italy between Parma and Modena, just about 40 miles west of Bologna.
Reggio Emilia is famous for Parmesan cheese. It’s also known as a town with a very efficient early childhood education, to the point that its kindergartens are said to be the best in the world, visited every year by delegations from all over the planet.
At the same time, it’s a town where most people are politically on the left. Ever since the end of World War Two, which gave democracy back to Italian childhood education, the mayor has always been from that political area.
Recently, a local foundation named Reggio Children invited a delegation of American kindergarten teachers of Jewish faith to a meeting whose only subject was to have been early childhood education — nothing else. However, the local far left protested strongly, stating that those teachers should not have set foot in town without signing a declaration condemning the alleged genocide going on in Gaza. Reggio Children sided with them and drew up a document the American teachers would have had to sign to be allowed to take part in the meeting. Of course, they refused, and the meeting did not take place.
This unheard-of event received considerable coverage in the Italian and American media. All the American teachers discriminated against were deeply disappointed, because they were treated so badly by authorities of a country they have always regarded as a friend of the United States.
As a citizen of Reggio Emilia, I’m ashamed of the disgraceful behavior of my town’s authorities. I think the mayor and the city councilor for education should resign; of course, they haven’t, since in this country, nobody hands in his resignation unless compelled to do so, not even politicians convicted at first instance by a court of law.
I hope I will never again see something so shameful in my country. Personally, I’m not under the impression that a genocide is going on in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army is there to defeat a terrorist organization, not to exterminate the Palestinian people. I would rather call genocide what Hamas did in the south of Israel on October 7, 2023, when they butchered thousands of innocent and defenseless Israelis, including many women and children.
Of course, in a democracy, you are quite free to hold the opinions you wish. But under no circumstances may you impose your opinions on anyone else or politicize everything. We are in the West, not in Iran, Afghanistan, China, or North Korea.
Police in Paris have extended the night curfew covering two parts of the city centre until the morning of October 26, keeping the restrictions in force through a weekend of planned protests.
The order bars anyone, adult or minor, from the central esplanade of the Place de la République and from a section of the Halles district between 11pm and 6am.
The city’s police prefecture said it had acted on instructions from Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez. Metro and RER stations serving both areas have been closing at 10pm at the prefecture’s request.
The measures follow the worst disorder France has seen in years. Protests on October 17 drew more than half a million people and ended with shops looted, the town hall in Limoges burnt out and almost 2,400 people arrested.
President Emmanuel Macron said demonstrations not called by trade unions would be banned wherever possible in the coming days, adding that his general advice was for none to be held at all. Prefects would examine requests from unions and could move march routes away from commercial districts, he said.
Bans have been announced in Marseille, Nice, Montpellier and Nantes, as well as in parts of Saint-Étienne and Roanne. Lyon, where hundreds of shops were damaged, and central Toulon are also covered.
The culture ministry said the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Picasso museum, the Orangerie and the Grand Palais would shut on October 24. Institutions under its supervision were told to safeguard visitors, staff and collections.
Police numbers on the day are to be about 20 per cent higher than on October 17, with leave cancelled and Sentinelle soldiers deployed alongside the GIGN and RAID units. Armoured vehicles are to be used in the capital.
Two routes have been declared for the Paris march, one by the yellow vests and one by the CGT union, with the prefecture still to rule on them. The capital had already seen marches banned across much of the city for 12 hours on October 22.
The unrest began in September with school protests over overcrowded classrooms and decaying buildings, and later merged with yellow vest anger over living costs and fuel prices.
Unions have called a further national strike and day of protest for November 5. The disorder has added to the pressure on a minority government already struggling to pass a budget that must satisfy European Union deficit rules, with French borrowing costs rising and a presidential election due in the spring. brusselssignal
Afsar Safi was jailed earlier this year| MET POLICE
An asylum seeker who sexually assaulted a seven-year-old in an immigration hostel has had his jail sentence increased by 18 months.
Afsar Safi pulled the girl into his room, grabbed her by the waist and kissed her on the cheek at a London hostel on September 6 last year.
Safi, who entered the UK via a small boat in 2021, denied the charges but was convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault of a child during a trial in April.
He was jailed for two years and six months, but the Court of Appeal has now ruled the sentence was “unduly lenient”.
On Friday, Lord Justice Jeremy Baker, sitting with Mr Justice Swift and Mr Justice Kimblin, increased his jail term to four years.
Lord Justice Baker said the sentencing judge had not taken the kidnap offence seriously enough.
He added: “It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the reason he selected his victim was her age and inability to resist.
“We are satisfied the sentence that was passed in this case did not adequately reflect the offender’s criminality.”
“We are satisfied the sentence that was passed in this case did not adequately reflect the offender’s criminality.”
The court heard how the girl had noticed Safi staring at her before he offered her an apple and invited her into his room, which she refused five times.
He then pulled her into his room, forced the apple into her bag and assaulted the child before allowing her to leave.
She no longer feels safe around single men and has recurring nightmares, the court was told.
During the hearing, Ben Lloyd, representing the Solicitor General, argued the sentencing judge was wrong to reduce the term due to Safi’s youth, his claims of a difficult childhood and the fact he had limited English.
Safi says he came to the UK from Afghanistan in 2021 after being taken from his family to be a slave for the Taliban at the age of 10.
Speaking through a Pashto interpreter during the hearing earlier this year, Safi told the court: “I like children, and she was a child. I asked her where she was going.
“She said she was waiting for her mother to go shopping. I kissed her to the face. I kissed her out of the love for children. Back home, all the people do that.”
His asylum claim has been refused but he is awaiting the outcome of an appeal.
Jai Patel, for Safi, argued that the details of the sexual assault should place it in a category resulting in a sentence on the lower end of the scale.
France is in chaos and the government imposed a curfew in certain areas, after Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez resigned: “In some cities we have lost control”.
Pascal Bruckner speaks of a “silent coup d’état” in Le Figaro:
“What is striking is the good humor of the participants who shout ‘Wallah, Wallah!’. They are cheerful, they are the masters. Everywhere the same slogan on the walls and shop windows: ‘Bismillah the darkness’: the promise of a dark period of looting and violence, the consequence of a long series of abandonments that some of us have been denouncing for twenty years, from the tolerance of internal rot to the eruptions of violence in the banlieues explained by ‘racism.’ A silent coup d’état.”
To understand the intensity and scale of what is happening one must not look at Paris, but at Marseille.
The population of Marseille is 886,040 inhabitants.
According to the authorities, about 30,000 residents of Marseille took part in the lootings on 17 October.
30,000 people are 3.4 percent of the total population of Marseille. Three inhabitants out of a hundred who took part in the devastation of their own city.
This is why Pierre-Henri Tavoillot, president of the Collège de philosophie at the Sorbonne, no longer hesitates to evoke the term “civil war.”
And yet Emmanuel Macron, in his ridiculous address to the nation, blamed the “French.”
The last time I was in Marseille two years ago, after a few hours I already felt the physical need to leave.
A city is not an aggregate of inhabitants. It is an order, fragile and continuously renegotiated, in which the majority recognizes certain rules as its own and enforces them. When a significant portion of the population-3 percent according to the authorities themselves-participates in organized looting, when the addresses of shops belonging to a specific community are known in advance, and when the damage is concentrated on those targets while others remain intact, we are not facing “disturbances,” but an act of war that distinguishes between “us” and “them.”
Let’s start then with this article from Algérie Matin. A little dialogue between friends, reported by the journalist. “How many Algerians are there in Marseille? 200,000. Marseille has 800,000 inhabitants; that means one inhabitant out of four is Algerian.” No, there are not 200,000 but 300,000, says the journalist, before getting excited about the fact that one inhabitant out of three is “DZ” (the name given to Algeria on license plates).
And the rest of the Maghreb, Moroccans and Tunisians? The latter number 60,000. Who says so? Radio France. For Moroccans, the figure is 40,000. The total reaches 400,000, a figure that does not take into account the proliferation of illegals. But there are also the Comorians, right? From 50,000 to 80,000, not counting the Senegalese, Malians, etc.
Therefore, over 50 percent of the Marseille population is African.
The president of the Jewish community of Marseille, Zvi Ammar, has asked his co-religionists not to wear Jewish symbols. Too dangerous. The Jews of Marseille go to synagogue in groups of ten, for security. Many mothers, when they go to kosher shops, leave their children in the car with someone else. Parents have organized patrols around the schools. One synagogue has been bought by Muslims to turn it into a mosque.
In some neighborhoods of Marseille the insecurity is such that (from Le Figaro) postal services have been interrupted. Journalist Philippe Pujol writes that “there are more Kalashnikovs in Marseille than in Kabul.”
Marseille illustrates what happens when a society stops defending the material and symbolic conditions of its own continuity. The city empties of meaning, street by street, and those who have lived there for generations no longer recognize it.
A group of tourists taking a boat trip on the Seine found themselves filming images of fires and devastations.
We are not even noticing that the European Titanic is sinking.
Federal prosecutors in Brazil are seeking to put a veterinary student back on trial for “transphobic” social media posts despite a unanimous court ruling earlier this year stating that she had committed no crime. Isadora Borges faced up to ten years in prison before the prosecution was halted in March, and prosecutors are still pushing for her criminalization.
Borges was first charged in November of 2020 after being reported to authorities by Erika Hilton, a trans-identified male politician from the left-wing Socialism and Liberty Party. Hilton had been monitoring the Twitter account of a women’s rights advocate named Isabella Cêpa, whom he had also reported to police for referring to him as a “man.”
A male politician who identifies as "female" has been elected to lead Brazil's top Women's Rights Committee.
Erika Hilton had previously attempted to have a women's rights advocate imprisoned for 25 years for "misgendering" him.https://t.co/ZzHo2TGKAY
On her Twitter account, Cêpa had retweeted two posts made by Borges, one of which stated that trans-identified males were not women because they had been born male, while the other discussed Simone de Beauvoir’s distinction between being born female and the social expectations imposed on women. It argued that identifying as transgender, taking synthetic hormones, undergoing surgery or changing clothing did not alter a person’s DNA.
For her two posts, Borges was charged with aggravated prejudice under the classification of “social racism,” an offense created by Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2019 when it found that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity was in fact covered under already pre-existing anti-discrimination laws relating to race or national origin. Cêpa was charged under the same law.
Court records show that federal prosecutors filed the charges on February 17, 2025, and that a judge accepted them on April 29. Borges’ lawyers sought to have the prosecution stopped, arguing that the posts expressed philosophical and scientific views without any intention to incite discrimination.
On March 12, 2026, the Third Panel of the Federal Regional Court of the Fifth Region unanimously ordered the criminal proceedings closed. Its written judgment found no attack or threat against trans-identified people, individually or as a group, and no call for violence, hostility or discrimination.
The ruling warned that criminalizing dissenting philosophical or scientific opinions about sex and gender would suppress intellectual debate, and that criminal law could not be expanded to turn legitimate disagreement into an offence.
Before the dismissal, prosecutors argued that a trial was necessary to establish whether Borges intended to discriminate. The panel rejected that position, finding that the absence of discriminatory intent was apparent from the posts themselves.
But prosecutors are unsatisfied, and are now seeking to revive the case through a special appeal.
In their latest filing, prosecutors argue that the court focused “too narrowly” on incitement to hostility or violence, overlooking discrimination committed through the statements themselves. They contend that the “systematic denial of gender identity” could itself constitute discrimination, independently of any actual harm or incitement.
They also argue that the judges prematurely decided Borges lacked discriminatory intent and exceeded the scope of the procedure used to halt her prosecution. They ask for the dismissal to be overturned or, alternatively, for the court to address their argument about discrimination independently of incitement.
On October 21, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, a freedom of speech-oriented law firm providing legal support to Borges, announced the renewed attempt to prosecute her.
If prosecutors are successful, Borges could again face two charges of “social racism,” each carrying a prison term of two to five years.
“It is terrifying to know that my case could reopen and that I may once again face time in prison, but it is important to me that I always speak the truth,” Borges said in ADF’s statement.
Isadora Borges
“Too many Brazilians have been criminalised or bullied into silence out of fear they will be punished for ‘transphobia’. When we say men cannot become women, we are not spreading hate or targeting anyone; we are stating a biological fact,” she added.
“I hope the court will uphold its previous decision and that my case will go on to stand for our right to speak freely,” Borges concluded.
“Earlier this year, the court rightfully found that Isadora did nothing unlawful by expressing her beliefs on X,” said Julio Pohl, ADF’s legal counsel for Latin America. “By attempting to reopen this case, the state is showing once again that it will go to great lengths to silence speech it doesn’t like.”
Pohl further criticized the use of transphobia allegations to silence dissent.
“Accusations of ‘transphobia’ are being rampantly used to censor and scare Brazilians into silence. Isadora’s case is one of many living proofs of this. Brazil’s ongoing crackdown on free speech must stop. The Court’s initial ruling set an important legal precedent that opinions are not grounds for criminal charges for the so-called crime of ‘transphobia’,” Pohl continued. “We urge the Court now not to backpedal on its decision and uphold freedom of expression.”
On X, women’s rights advocate Isabella Cêpa denounced the renewed efforts to prosecute Borges.
“The psychological and procedural violence perpetrated by [Erika Hilton] against me and Isadora knows no bounds. Someone needs to stop this individual. Isadora has already suffered TOO MUCH!!!!”
A violência psicológica e processual praticada por EH contra mim e a Isadora não tem limites.
As previously reported by Reduxx, Cêpa herself was aggressively pursued in a lengthy criminal investigation after she made a social media post about Erika Hilton – a male politician who “identifies” as a woman. Hilton was elected to São Paulo’s municipal government in November of 2020, winning his seat by a landslide that gave him the title of the most voted-for ‘woman’ in Brazil.
At the time of his victory, Hilton was celebrated in international media as being a “symbolic triumph” for transgender people. Hilton was amongst the top 10 most-voted for candidates in all of Brazil, and was touted as the “only woman” to make the list.
Hilton later reported Cêpa, an outspoken feminist activist, to the police for referring him to a “man” in her social media reaction to his electoral victory, prompting a criminal investigation. In January 2022, authorities summoned Cêpa to a station for questioning.
After speaking with police, Cêpa remained unaware of any further developments in her case until June 2022, when a reporter from a major Brazilian newspaper contacted her for comment on an article about the charges. It was only after the article was published that Cêpa discovered she was being charged with five counts of “social racism.” From the news article, Cêpa discovered that she was facing up to 25 years in prison for the supposed “crime.”
Later on that same year, Cêpa’s case reached the Supreme Court of Brazil, which ultimately handed down a ruling in her favor.
It’s official: my case has now reached res judicata in Brazil. From today, September 9th 2025, it sets a binding precedent – the attempt to criminalize radical feminist speech has failed.
Speaking to Reduxx, MATRIA Brasil spokeswoman Clarice Saadi condemned the renewed efforts to prosecute Borges, and noted that it was part of an anggressive effort to chill free speech in Brazil.
“The amount of time and effort the State is wasting to try to convict a woman for quoting Simone de Beauvoir and saying that trans women aren’t women, is simply unbelievable,” Saadi says.
“Brazil has so many problems and this is what the Public Prosecutor’s Office is worried about? The judicial system has already stated that Isadora Borges should never have been prosecuted, that she committed no crime, but the State insists on having her punished for so-called ‘transphobia.’ It’s infuriating. A woman’s life has been upheaved, with terrible consequences for her mental health, for nothing. Or better yet, to satisfy the whims of Erika Hilton, who dreams of having women who say that no one can change sex arrested.”
The body of 29-year-old Hajar was discovered on the morning of Oct.16 inside a suitcase in the Amstel River along the Amsteldijk in Amsterdam-Zuid, near Martin Luther Kingpark. She had been missing since Oct. 4, when she was last seen cycling away from the RAI convention center toward the Buitenveldert neighborhood with an unidentified man.
Hajar disappeared after sending a series of alarming text messages to a family member. According to reporting by De Telegraaf, one message read: “Help me. Now. He is killing me.”
The messages arrived around 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 4. Her family reported her missing that evening, but police initially classified the case as non-urgent. A public appeal for information was not issued until Oct. 13, nine days later.
On Oct. 20, Amsterdam police arrested a 23-year-old Somali national identified in reports as Abdi A. (or Abdi Anan). He has lived in the Netherlands since the age of six, holds permanent residency, and has no fixed address.
Authorities said he was first questioned as a witness after CCTV footage placed him with Hajar near the RAI on the day she vanished. He was arrested the following day after a separate violent incident at a home in Koggenland, Noord-Holland, in which a man, later identified as his foster father, was injured.
Police Chief Peter Holla told a press conference that “Hajar died fairly soon after her disappearance” and that “as far as is known, the suspect has no connection to the victim.”
Chief Prosecutor René de Beukelaer said, “Once again we must pause at the violent death of a young woman.”
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema confirmed the death was the result of a violent crime and noted the case alongside the prior murder of 17-year-old Lisa.
Investigators later searched an empty school building on De Klencke in Buitenveldert, where police believe Hajar was killed.
Holla described the circumstances of the disposal as “inhumane.”
Family members expressed anger that police did not treat the case as urgent sooner despite the text messages, telling LINDA.nl: “We already knew she had been murdered. That is what she messaged.”
Police said they assessed the initial report differently and have since spoken further with the family.
Hajar was described by acquaintances as vulnerable and known for leaving her home with a suitcase and going away for longer periods before returning.
The investigation remains ongoing, and the suspect is expected to appear before a judge.
A leading Scottish museum has sparked public backlash after removing its longstanding ancient Egyptian mummy exhibits from public view, citing a lack of documented consent from the individuals who died thousands of years ago.
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, operated by the municipal charity Glasgow Life, pulled several preserved human remains, including a mummified head, a right hand recovered from the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, a right foot and the coffin of an ancient priest named Nekht.
The painted coffin dates from Egypt’s 12th Dynasty, between 1985 and 1797 BC. Leopard-skin decoration on its lid identifies Nekht as a sem-priest, an office central to the Opening of the Mouth funerary ceremony. It was excavated at Beni Hasan, in Middle Egypt, by the British archaeologist John Garstang between 1902 and 1904 and presented to Glasgow in 1923.
The decision came to light after visitors noticed empty glass vitrines replaced by notices stating that the human remains had been withdrawn “as a mark of respect”.
It went viral after Scottish journalist Jonny McFarlane took his young daughter to Kelvingrove to see the mummies after she read a school book about ancient Egypt, only to find the vitrines empty with the new advisory notices.
His post on X sparked the national press coverage.
According to guidelines reported by The Telegraph, the museum’s updated human-remains policy concluded that displaying ancestral remains without verifiable, informed permission from the deceased individuals or their living descendants failed to align with modern ethical standards. Glasgow Life has said the document remains a draft and has not published its full wording.
Glasgow Life, funded by the SNP-led Glasgow City Council, defended the move by asserting that the revision reflects contemporary museological practice across the United Kingdom, where institutions increasingly review collections acquired during the colonial era. It has cited the revised code of ethics published by the International Council of Museums in June 2026 and a 2025 report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations, which called for an end to the public display of Egyptian mummies.
Under the updated policy, human remains will primarily be held in off-site storage for academic research rather than kept on open exhibition. Glasgow Life has said further removals are planned from Kelvingrove’s History Discovery Centre and the Scotland’s Early People gallery, followed by a coffin and mummified remains held at the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art.
Critics and public commentators seized on the move, describing the policy as performative bureaucratic overreach.
Scottish Conservative culture spokesman Murdo Fraser told the Daily Mail: “This is woke madness at its most ridiculous. Even Egyptian mummies are now being cancelled by a society so obsessed with modern sensibilities that it has lost all sense of perspective.
“People visit museums to learn about ancient civilisations, not to see history hidden away because it fails to meet today’s ideological standards.”
Campaign for Real Education chairman Chris McGovern called the decision “virtue-signalling, woke nonsense”. McGovern, a former adviser to the Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street, added: “It represents the triumph of educational stupidity and ignorance.”
Commentators noted the practical absurdity of applying modern legal consent frameworks to funerary mummies preserved between two and three millennia ago, pointing out that ancient Egyptian burial rites were explicitly designed to preserve the physical body and ensure the individual’s name and legacy survived across eternity.
Kelvingrove drew more than 1.2 million visits in 2025, placing it among Scotland’s five most-visited attractions, and has an extensive collection on ancient Egyptian mummies and culture.
The controversy in Glasgow reflects a wider cultural shift across European and British cultural institutions, which have faced mounting internal pressure from activist groups and curatorial boards to repatriate, conceal or contextualise imperial-era historical collections.
The question is live in Westminster too. On September 16, 2026, arts minister Ruth Mackenzie told parliament the government had commissioned an independent review of its 2005 guidance on the care of human remains in museums, chaired by the forensic anthropologist and crossbench peer Sue Black, with revised rules due in autumn 2027. That guidance, though, applies only to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, leaving Scottish institutions such as Kelvingrove to set their own terms.
