After nine weeks of governing without an actual government, Denmark has stayed true to over a century of tradition and formed yet another coalition government.
This time, however, it is a government that almost nobody wanted but got because of the Danes’ particular practice of “democracy.”
Because the new government is a minority government that cannot be sure of implementing any policies without the tacit approval of a party or parties outside the government (something the Scandinavians call “negative parliamentarianism”), it can be a disastrous path to follow and one that can easily topple a sitting government.
Yesterday, after nine painful weeks of back and forth negotiation and two changes in “royal mediators,” the Danes decided to scrap a previous “red and blue” (conservative and liberal) coalition and instead embrace a full-blown left-wing one that includes the Social Democrats (Socialdemokratiet),
The Socialist People’s Party (Socialistisk Folkeparti) and the Radical Left (Radikale Venstre) along with a small swing party, the Moderates (Moderater). The latter, while professing to stand for conservative values was comfortable in selling out those values to be a part of the new government. Its head, Mr. Lars Løkke Rasmussen, was himself a former prime minister d a former foreign minister (now acting foreign minister until the new government is in power).
Critics claim that Mr. L-R has betrayed his party’s platform and was only concerned with keeping his minister’s job and that’s why he agreed to be a part of the new coalition. Others claim that he joined the coalition to “keep it honest” and keep it from going overboard when they get the power to levy taxes and spend the citizens’ money on new or expanded welfare projects and increase the size of government like the former prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, did while in office.
The jury is still out on which motive is the true one, whether Mr. L-R exhibited real cleverness by staying inside the political circle like a conservative-friendly “mole” that would pull the fire alarm and not support the government if it decided to go completely red. In any event, this new “wag the dog” government has one party, “Enhedslisten,” which is the absolute reddest of the red parties outside the government that has promised to support the governing coalition by giving it their vote while still wielding an effective veto. Then there is the party inside the government (“Moderater” Mr. L-R’s party) with the same power.
Nigel Farage during his “address to the nation” on the killing of Henry Nowak, on June 2, 2026 A screenshot of Reform UK’s live-streamed video on YouTube on June 2, 2026
A fierce political row has erupted in Britain over policing, race, and multiculturalism after the sentencing of Henry Nowak’s killer and the release of body-camera footage showing officers handcuffing the dying student while accepting false allegations of racism made by his attacker.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accused Britain’s institutions of operating a system of “two-tier policing” after officers treated Nowak as a suspect rather than a victim while accepting claims from Vickrum Digwa that he had carried out a racist assault. The footage has reignited debate over diversity policies in policing and prompted fresh scrutiny of how British authorities handle incidents involving race.
Farage said the footage showed that “an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder” and argued that the case exposed deep cultural problems within British institutions. Referring to the treatment of Nowak after police arrived at the scene, he said the teenager had been “treated in a way that meant an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder.”
Drawing comparisons with the reaction to the 2020 death of George Floyd in the United States, Farage said: “What has the public reaction been from our leaders and politicians and indeed, to be frank, much of the media to this? Silence, absolute silence. Proof, if ever there was any, that we’re living in a two-tier culture in this country where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities.”
The controversy intensified after Hampshire Police released footage showing Nowak repeatedly telling officers he had been stabbed and could not breathe before being handcuffed. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is continuing its investigation into the officers’ actions.
The case has also increased pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who faced criticism from opposition politicians and commentators for not publicly addressing the case until after the conclusion of Digwa’s trial. Starmer later described the murder as “awful” and “shocking” and said it was right that the police response was being investigated.
The government has defended its handling of the case. Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds rejected claims of two-tier policing and argued that ministers had refrained from commenting publicly while criminal proceedings were ongoing. At the same time, he described the body-camera footage as “absolutely shocking” and acknowledged that serious questions remained about the actions of the officers involved.
Meanwhile, Reform UK has renewed calls to abolish legal exemptions allowing Sikhs to carry ceremonial knives in public. At the time of the killing, Digwa was carrying both a traditional kirpan and the larger ceremonial blade used in the attack.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge William Mousley KC rejected Digwa’s claims that he had been subjected to racist abuse and concluded that he had repeatedly lied to police about the circumstances of the killing. The judge said those lies influenced officers’ actions at the scene, contributed to the arrest of the dying victim, and helped fuel wider racial tensions after the case became public.
The judge also delivered a stinging rebuke to Digwa’s conduct, telling him that he had “brought shame upon your family, your community and your religion.” Mousley further found that Digwa had abused the legal privilege granted to Sikhs to carry ceremonial blades in public and had contributed to fears of a backlash against innocent members of the Sikh community.
With the police watchdog’s investigation still ongoing and Parliament demanding answers from ministers, the case has become a flashpoint in Britain’s increasingly polarised debate over race, policing, immigration, and public trust in state institutions.
A leading leftist in the National Assembly has claimed that France was never a white and Christian country, and that the idea is merely a “fantasy” of the so-called far-right.
Mathilde Panot, who leads Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (France in Rebellion/LFI) party in the lower house of the French parliament, not only championed the idea of a “New France” but appeared to suggest that Old France never actually existed.
Speaking to Le Média, the MP for Val-de-Marne’s 10th constituency said that it is imperative for the political left to “never concede anything whatsoever to the far right” as it is through the acceptance of premises through which the “far right becomes socially acceptable”.
Despite Christian heritage in France dating back to the 5th century with the conversion of Clovis I, she claimed that the right “fantasises about a France that does not exist and has never existed… a France that is supposedly a ‘white’ France, a ‘Christian’ France… a France being ‘invaded’ by—well, by who knows whom. In short, they are completely lost in a fantasy regarding the true nature of this country.”
“The only way to defeat the far right is to remain steadfast in one’s principles and refuse to yield even an inch to them regarding issues of racism, immigration, and—well—all such matters. Anyone who actually cedes ground to them is, in effect, helping them advance every single time—because, by doing so, they are effectively playing right into the far right’s ideological framework,” Panot continued.
The LFI leader made the comments in reference to a growing consensus across the political spectrum against mass migration into France, with fellow leftist leaders such as François Ruffin, who was formerly in the same party as Panot, coming out last month in favour of limiting the influx of foreigners to protect the wages of French workers.
Meanwhile, neo-liberal Macronists, who will be vying for tactical left-wing votes in the upcoming presidential election, such as former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, have both in the past week called for significant cuts to immigration.
In contrast, Panot and her party’s presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, have doubled down on multiculturalism, in what they term “New France“.
Mélenchon, who was born in Morocco to Sicilian and Spanish parents, has hailed the idea that France is experiencing “creolization” through the importation of millions of foreigners, primarily from former French colonies in North Africa.
This has seen his party become a major power player in the areas of the country dominated by ethnic minorities, such as the Seine-Saint-Denis commune outside of Paris.
While Mélenchon has embraced the term “Great Replacement” — arguing that it is a good and natural phenomenon in which one generation takes over from the previous — he has also made it clear that he views the native French population, particularly the rural, Catholic working-class, as a chief impediment to forming a socialist state.
British MP Rupert Lowe on Monday (June 1) shared the testimonies of multiple survivors of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse. A victim recalled being raped by ‘600 or 700 different men over three years’. Another claimed that the perpetrators targeted ‘white girls’. The abusers in the grooming gangs scandal, haunting the UK for decades, have been found to be mostly men of Pakistani heritage
Horrific accounts of sexual abuse linked to the United Kingdom’s “grooming gangs” have emerged. Rupert Lowe, the independent MP for Great Yarmouth, shared graphic testimonies of the survivors in Westminster Hall, the oldest building in Parliament, on Monday (June 1).
“I sincerely urge this Parliament to listen to the testimonies from these brave survivors and to act, to finally act,” he said. As per Lowe, he compiled these accounts of the survivors during his independent inquiry into group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse.
British MP Lowe read out testimonies of multiple survivors who were sexually abused as children. The accounts reveal severe abuse, alleged police misconduct and racial targeting of the victims, often over years.
One of the survivors revealed her abuser “forced” a liquor bottle “up inside me” when she was a teenager. “He took the bottle of Jack Daniels and he forced it up inside me. He broke the glass. I was about 12 or 13,” she recalled.
In a chilling testimony, another survivor said she was raped by hundreds of men. “I was raped by probably about 600 or 700 different men over three years,” she alleged, recalling that abuse began when she was 13 years old.
A third survivor alleged she was raped by multiple police officers in different parts of the country.
“I was bleeding from both my vagina and my back passage and was so swollen I could not sit down. I told hospital staff my drink had been spiked, and I did not know what had happened because I was too afraid to tell the truth. They did not ask any questions. They gave me tablets and discharged me. I was 15 years old,” alleged another.
Disclosing distressing details, some victims said they were treated like animals. “I remember a man opening the back of a van, and I saw 15 to 20 girls locked in dog cages,” one woman said.
According to another survivor, she was gang-raped and after the assault ended, “the men hit me repeatedly, threatened to find me, kill me and harm my loved ones if I ever told anybody what had happened.”
Another alleged that a perpetrator “put a cigarette out on the baby’s face”.
As per the statement read by Lowe, a survivor claimed that these gangs targeted white girls.
“Race did play a part and motivated the selection or demographic of the victims. Throughout my exploitation, the other girls I encountered or who were abused alongside me were almost exclusively white.”
Another said that a victim got pregnant by a perpetrator whose father was a Muslim cleric. “She had a baby by him, and his dad was an Imam. His dad knew. And he got his son married and said that he wasn’t allowed to see the child. They look after their own community.”
A third survivor recalled that the incidents of sexual abuse increased around festivals. “Things would escalate around Eid and holidays. Parties got bigger, got worse, got more violent. More people involved, more girls involved. The parties were just bigger.”
Another survivor alleged she was teased over her Christian faith. “The main clash that I kind of had with the religion side of it was, I grew up a Christian. I would wear my cross because it was something really, really special to me. It was just used as a way to break me down. They said, ‘Where is your God now? Why has your God forsaken you?’”
The perpetrators used racial comparisons to defend the way they “treated and controlled” women.
According to a separate testimony, “Comments were constantly made suggesting that ‘white girls’ and Christian girls were viewed as having fewer morals or lower value, whereas ‘Muslim girls’ were described by some of the men as having dignity and higher moral standing. These comparisons were used to justify the way I was treated and to further humiliate and control me.”
Years of child sexual abuse by “ grooming gangs” have rocked the UK. Last year, Lowe headed a private investigation that detected “gang-based child sexual exploitation” in at least 85 areas across the UK.
In a statement in August last year, the British MP said the probe found that “rape gangs”, mostly comprising men of Pakistani heritage, have been operating for decades and “far more widespread than thought”.
“Patterns of predominantly Pakistani males, combined with gross negligence from public bodies, are identifiable,” the statement added, accusing authorities of failing to act on the systematic abuse.
The scandal first came to the public attention around 2001 when the names of taxi drivers who allegedly picked up girls from care homes in Rotherham to abuse them were shared with the police and council. The convictions in the case came in 2010 when five men of Pakistani origin were imprisoned for several offences against girls as young as 12 years of age.
Similar systematic abuse of children was reported in 50 other cities across the UK, including Rochdale, Oxford, Telford and Bristol.
As per a 2014 report by Professor Alexis Jay, more than 1,400 children were sexually abused between 1997 and 2013 in Rotherham alone. Many of the victims were abducted, raped and trafficked by predominantly British-Pakistani men. Authorities hardly intervened due to fears of being labelled racist.
The UK government’s investigation into these grooming gangs has found that perpetrators are mostly “taxi drivers and market traders of Pakistani heritage”.
Keir Starmer’s government has announced a near tenfold surge in funding for detectives hunting grooming gangs. Last June, his government ordered a national inquiry into organised child sexual abuse. This came after a report by Baroness Louise Casey criticised decades of institutional failure to protect children from these gangs.
Junior Pashi Kabunda is already free from prison despite his spate of vicious murders, with the family of the victims asking what a life sentence really means in Belgium.
Junior Pashi Kabunda, the individual nicknamed “the monster of Brussels,” has been released from prison under conditional terms, a decision that has sparked significant controversy. Now, the 36-years-old Pashi Kabunda was recently permitted to leave Huy prison, where he was serving a life sentence for multiple homicides.
The list of his crimes is truly shocking. Born in the Congo on May 6, 1990, he had moved to Belgium and by the age of 16, he had murdered Benjamin Rawitz-Castel, a Jewish pianist of Polish descent who was returning from a recital. He committed the assault on Aug. 29, 2006, with 22-year-old Laurent Oniema, who beat the victim unconscious, dragged him to a basement, and then beat him again when he woke up. Rawitz-Castel asked the men before he died, “What did I do?” Instead of helping the man, they stole his Honda Civic. That was just his first murder, but many more would follow.
Pashi Kabunda’s first victim was Benjamin Rawitz-Castel, who he beat to death.
Instead of being imprisoned, he was institutionalized in a children’s care home after being tried in March 2008.
In September 2009, Kabunda received a pass to leave the children’s home to visit the family of his girlfriend, Céline Mamadou-Hendrickx, in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. That turned out to be a fatal mistake on the part of Belgian authorities.
On Sept. 20, 2009, while on leave from the center, he raped and murdered 79-year-old Marcelle Deconinck, the grandmother of his girlfriend, Céline.
Pashi Kabunda then beat and suffocated his own 18-month-old daughter Anaïs to death over the suspicion that she was not his child. However, a DNA test would later determine it was indeed his child. During the incident, he also tried to strangle Céline and left her for dead.
Pashi Kabunda seen with his daughter and the grandmother before he murdered them both and raped the grandmother
In December 2010, the justice system sentenced Pashi Kabunda to life in prison, which legally equated to 30 years and one month. During the trial, he showed no remorse and was found guilty of double murder and attempted murder. However, under Belgian law, prisoners who have served over half of their time are eligible for parole.
In 2024, he became eligible for release. This year, 2026, the courts have agreed to release him despite protest from the victims and the prosecution. The prosecution has already alleged that he has violated his conditional release and is fighting to ensure he is imprisoned once again. His current conditions include an electronic ankle monitor, supervision from a probationary officer, and therapy.
The victims are in complete shock that “The Monster of Brussels” is freely roaming the streets once again at only the age of 36, which means he has a long life of freedom ahead of him. According to Brussels Today, the relatives of the victims say the conditional release has brought back immense pain and anxiety.
During an earlier parole evaluation in 2022, David Mamadou-Hendrickx—who lost his mother and his granddaughter in the attacks, while his daughter Céline survived—voiced his profound distress. He heavily criticized the terminology used in the judicial system, explicitly targeting the use of the word “life imprisonment,” which he argued becomes meaningless if a convict is allowed to walk free before their natural death.
To add to the shock, family and friends of Céline, who is still alive, only learned by chance that he was granted unsupervised day outings from prison as early as 2021. That means he was out on the streets and could have targeted Céline or anyone else if he chose to do so — all with no supervision from the authorities during the time he was outside the prison.
Pashi Kabunda had already been granted unsupervised day outings starting as early as 2021.
A review hearing about the man’s release is slated to take place shortly, leaving the final determination with the judge. Defense attorneys who represented Pashi Kabunda throughout his legal proceedings have declined to comment on the matter.
Pashi Kabunda is far from the only “monster” in Europe either. Known as the “Monster of Cherbourg,” one of the most horrifying accused criminals in France, Oumar Ndiaye, became infamous for his brutality.
He then repeatedly raped her, both through sexual intercourse and then with a 29-inch-long broom handle.
Mégane arrived at the hospital with life-threatening internal injuries, including perforations of her colon, small intestine, peritoneum, and diaphragm. She also suffered a collapsed lung and fractured ribs.
Emergency responders who attended the scene were offered psychological care and support, with many emergency responders also breaking down in tears at the condition of the victim, France Bleu reported at the time.
“Investigators are shocked, they have never seen so much barbarity,” one source familiar with the case told France Bleu.
After spending a month in a coma on the brink of death, she finally regained consciousness on Sept. 6, 2023.
Shortly after emerging from her coma, her father said: “(The government) not communicating about this attack gives credit to all these sexual predators and other parasites of society who plague the streets. A wake-up call to the government about the fact that we leave this kind of individual, with a heavy criminal past, in complete freedom, would be welcome. ‘Trust in justice,’ we were told… We only want that.”
Though she survived, her life has been shattered. She has undergone numerous surgeries and has been forced to move back in with her mother. Today, she suffers from recurrent nightmares and severe depression, requiring ongoing medication. She no longer leaves her house alone and has had to give up both her career and her passion for sports.
Distressing body-worn camera footage released by Hampshire Police has sparked widespread outrage after showing officers completely misreading the situation and ignoring pleas by the fatally wounded Henry Nowak for help.
Images show officers handcuffing the 18-year-old university student Nowak as he lay bleeding to death from multiple stab wounds, while initially believing false accusations made by his killer.
The footage, made public yesterday following the sentencing of Vickrum Singh Digwa, 23, at Southampton Crown Court, captures Nowak repeatedly telling officers “I’ve been stabbed” and “I can’t breathe.”
One officer is heard replying, “Don’t think you have, mate.”
Although Nowak looked very weak and pale due to his stab wounds, including one to his lung, and posed no threat whatsoever the police decided to handcuff the young man anyway.
Nowak laid handcuffed on the ground while eventually receiving first aid, then died at the scene on December 3, 2025 in Portswood, Southampton.
Despite Nowak obviously being in distress, as he was bleeding to death, the officers ignored his pleas over fake racism accusations by his murderer, which seemed more important to them.
The police did ask the murderer if he was injured. He said he was and had a swollen eye, though this wasn’t clear based on the images.
🇬🇧 Bodycam footage has been released showing Henry Nowak begging for an ambulance before being handcuffed behind his back.
At one point a female police officer says “we have to check, don’t we” regarding Nowak’s wounds, and superficially starts looking.
Another male officers held him on his side during that process, and informs the dying Nowak that he is under arrest for assault and starts to read him his rights.
Digwa, who stabbed Nowak five times with a 21cm ceremonial knife, falsely claimed the teenager had racially abused him. He was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years after being convicted of murder.
Hampshire Police have apologised, stating officers were initially “misled at the scene” and failed to immediately identify Nowak’s injuries in what they described as a chaotic situation. The force said life-saving aid was provided “as quickly as possible” once the extent of his wounds became clear.
However, the footage shows they missed many cues to act.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has launched an independent investigation into the officers’ actions, including the decision to handcuff Nowak and the standard of first aid given.
Nowak’s family has called for a “full, fearless and transparent” inquiry, with his father describing the treatment as “inhumane”.
UK Prime Minister spoke for the first time about the case after the verdict on Digwa was pronounced. On X he said it was “an awful, shocking case”. He also connected it to knife crime.
“Henry’s loved ones have gone through the trauma of a long trial and endured Henry’s killer making up appalling claims about their son who was thoughtful, kind and deeply loved. It is right that the IOPC is investigating the police’s response to his senseless murder. And we must end the cycle of tragedy by tackling the horror of knife crime”, Starmer said.
His government will also address the issue in the Parliament.
This morning, Reform UK leader Nigel Farrage issued an “emergency address to the nation” regarding the released footage.
He said it was “proof we live in a two-tier country”.
“Enough of anti-white prejudice. A promotion of the idea that white lives matter just as much as black lives. This is serious. This is urgent,” Farage said.
The fear of being called racist was greater than dealing with Henry Nowak’s murder.
upert Lowe, leader of the Restore UK party said “Young white British men are bleeding to death in the street as a direct result of our racist establishment. I will never forget, and I will never forgive.”
“Henry Nowak is one of thousands and thousands and thousands. Innocent young men and women put through the most unimaginable pain, because our country has failed to do what needs to be done. Because children have been sacrificed to death in order to appease foreign cultures that have no place in our country. ”
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservatives, said; “I don’t want to hear about Black Lives Matter. I don’t want to hear about White Lives Matter. Everyone matters. Henry Nowak matters.”
She said policing had overcorrected its policies after the George Floyd events, being overly focussed on racism and not on policing. She also wanted to restore equality under the law.
Badenoch warned that the UK was devolving into tribalism.
Former Attorney General Sir Michael Ellis told GB News that the case adds to a series of disasters by the British police, stressing that no one called an ambulance while Nowak repeatedly stated he was stabbed. He also questioned why Nowak was handcuffed, which is not the standard procedure and he obviously wasn’t a threat.
Former Superintendent at Police Scotland, Martin Gallagher, told the same news channel that police officers are being indoctrinated by DEI training.
Labour MP Jonathan Pinder, an ex-police officer himself, told the BBC he also didn’t understand why Nowak was handcuffed nor why they didn’t immediately administer first aid. Pinder noted they seemed indifferent to the situation.
Despite the huge outrage about the death of Nowak, mainstream/left-leaning outlets have been very minimal in their reporting about the story, focusing narrowly on the murder conviction and the IOPC investigation.
Vickrum Digwa's family disrupted his sentencing hearing by shouting at Henry Nowak's family, calling the judge racist, and had to be restrained by court security.
A police force has ordered its officers to keep a record of Britons’ anti-Islam comments.
South Wales Police has been accused of undermining free speech after directing its officers to log any behaviour deemed “hostile” towards Muslims that exceeds what the force considers “legitimate” debate about Islam.
The Free Speech Union has now issued a formal demand for the constabulary to rescind the guidance, and has threatened a judicial review should it refuse to comply.
Its founder Lord Young warned the policy risks “penalising people for expressing misgivings about Islam”, which he argues contradicts statutory protections for free speech.
The union’s lawyers have written to the force arguing that its internal memo “gives rise to an unjustified chilling effect on lawful expression and belief”.
Critics have argued the approach effectively grants individual police officers the power to determine what constitutes acceptable discourse about religion.
The concern centres on what happens when an officer judges that someone has overstepped “boundaries” in discussing Islam or Muslims.
In such cases, the force would create an anti-social behaviour incident record.
This would be accessible to future employers if those who fall foul of officers undergo vetting for a job.
The union’s legal correspondence says people “are deterred from expressing religious, philosophical or political views, or from manifesting their beliefs, by the knowledge that doing so may result in police categorisation and recording as an instance of hostility notwithstanding the absence of any criminal conduct.”
Multiple other police forces are said to have adopted similar approaches.
This official definition covers the “prejudicial stereotyping” of Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim, treating them as a collective defined by fixed negative characteristics with intent to encourage hatred, regardless of their individual opinions or actions.
The Government also built in explicit safeguards protecting the right to criticise or ridicule the religion.
However, South Wales Police’s interpretation adds additional wording which opponents warn strips away these protections.
The force has said its definition is not meant to restrict “legitimate discussion, scrutiny, or differing viewpoints”, but tells officers to record relevant conduct “appropriately”.
The FSU’s legal letter says individual officers should not beocome responsible for determining what qualifies as “legitimate” expression, arguing this creates “an unacceptable risk of unlawful interference with protected rights.”
The European Convention on Human Rights includes safeguards freedom of expression, including speech that may offend, shock or disturb.
It also protects “freedom of thought, conscience and belief”, including the right to hold religious or philosophical beliefs which may be critical of or “incompatible” with others.
But the police’s interpretation of anti-Muslim hostility means that “individuals are left unable to predict whether their lawful speech or beliefs will attract police recording, or how any resulting record may be used, retained, or relied upon”, the letter says.
Lord Young also warned that public bodies adopting Labour’s definition would “gold-plate it, ignoring the free speech protections and penalising people for expressing any misgivings about Islam, even when it’s clear those misgivings are rooted in evidence, not prejudice”.
He said the default police response to reports of anti-Muslim hostility, even those clearly outside the definition, would likely be recording them as anti-social behaviour incidents, which remain disclosable in enhanced DBS checks.
A South Wales Police spokesman confirmed the force had “received correspondence from the Free Speech Union and the matter is ongoing”.
The Crown Office has backed down and refused to appeal the case of a Glaswegian Catholic grandmother, who was cleared in court after offering to speak with people in a “buffer zone.”
Rose Docherty, 75, was cleared at Glasgow Sheriff Court on April 27, when the judge dismissed two criminal charges of “influencing” against her, in the first ever victory under censorial national legislation introducing abortion facility “buffer zones” in the UK.
In a development that reinforces last month’s free speech victory, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Scotland’s public prosecutor, has refused to appeal the ruling and is now timed out of doing so.
They had one week to appeal the ruling, which expired on Tuesday, May 5. ADF International coordinated Mrs. Docherty’s legal defence.
The 75-year-old Christian grandmother was arrested last September merely for offering to speak with people in the vicinity of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow and holding a sign that read: “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want”, leading to outcry across the world, including from the U.S. State Department.
She did not approach anyone, did not speak about abortion, did not engage in any behavior that was obstructing, harassing or intimidating, and was not protesting.
Following her arrest, Mrs. Docherty was held in custody for several hours. She was refused a chair to sit on in her cell, despite making it known that she had had a double hip replacement.
With ADF International’s support, Mrs. Docherty is now considering all options to prevent the recurrence of her arrest and treatment, including legal action against the police.
Last September was the second time Mrs. Docherty had been arrested for peacefully offering consensual conversation in a “buffer zone.” Her first arrest for peaceful expression was on February 19, 2025, and the Procurator Fiscal later backed down and decided not to proceed with a prosecution in August, in a free speech win.
“Peaceful expression, which is protected by national and international law, can never be a crime.”– Rose Docherty
Mrs. Docherty was the first person to be criminally charged under Scotland’s 2024 “buffer zone” law, which forbids the “influencing” of anyone seeking to access, commit, or facilitate abortion and is enforced within 200 meters of every hospital where abortions occur. There are similar “buffer zone” laws in England and Wales and Northern Ireland.
On April 27, Sheriff Stuart Reid dismissed two charges of “influencing” against Mrs. Docherty, ruling that the charges violated her Article 10 ECHR right to freedom of expression.
Sheriff Reid found that the charges were not “prescribed by law,” since they failed to state or identify another person in the “buffer zone” that was present for the purpose of accessing, committing, or facilitating abortion, and who was criminally “influenced” by Mrs. Docherty’s actions, as is required by the law.
The judge concluded that the Procurator Fiscal had “failed to disclose an offence known to the law of Scotland” and dismissed the case pro loco et tempore, meaning the matter can be brought back if prosecutors bring improved evidence and decide that a prosecution continues to be in the public interest.
Rose Docherty said:
“I am very pleased with this development, which reinforces that offering consensual conversation is not a crime on any public street in Scotland—regardless of whether or not that street is in a ‘buffer zone’. Today, there is sadly an epidemic of loneliness and people experience coercion every day. An offer to speak, which can be freely accepted or refused by any person, could really help someone and should never be criminalised.
“Peaceful expression, which is protected by national and international law, can never be a crime. The authorities should learn from their failed attempts to censor me—a 75-year-old Christian grandmother, who has always lived in Glasgow—and refrain in the future from criminalising me or any person who lawfully expresses their rights in this country.
“I repeat my call for ‘buffer zone’ laws to be repealed in Scotland and across the UK, to prevent them being used to censor peaceful expression like mine.
“I am now consulting with my legal team and considering what actions are necessary, including legal action, to ensure the authorities are not able to repeatedly arrest, imprison and prosecute me for peacefully exercising my right to free speech.“
Barrister and legal counsel for ADF International, Jeremiah Igunnubole, commented:
“Rose’s free speech win last month has now been solidified by the Crown Office’s decision not to appeal. This is a victory for freedom of expression in Scotland and across the UK.
“Regardless of whether people agree with Rose’s pro-life and Christian views, all should be able to agree that offering to speak with people in a public space is not a crime and must never be treated as one.
“However, ‘buffer zone’ legislation across the UK continues to dangerously undermine the rule of law. It is inconsistent that Rose has been vindicated in Scotland, while our clients Livia Tossici-Bolt and Adam Smith-Connor have been criminally convicted for peaceful expression in ‘buffer zones’ elsewhere in the UK.
“The only way to robustly protect fundamental rights, uphold the rule of law in the UK, and ensure that ‘buffer zones’ are not used as a tool to censor lawful conduct is to repeal the deeply flawed, anti-free speech laws that impose thought-crime restrictions in Scotland and across the UK.
“We have already seen the US State Department strongly criticise the UK’s ‘buffer zone’ censorship and express deep concern over the cases of Rose and our other clients. If politicians do not act to protect free speech, the alarming reality is that Great Britain will cease to be a place where human rights are respected as they once were, and our reputation on the world stage will suffer as a result.
“Although Rose has been vindicated, she should never have been arrested. The process has become the punishment, with a deeply concerning chilling effect on free speech more broadly.
“We are now supporting Rose in considering all her options, including legal action, to ensure such treatment is not repeated or normalised. Standing in a public space offering a consensual conversation is not, as Sheriff Reid put it, “an offence not known to the law of Scotland”. We will continue to stand with Rose to keep the peaceful exercise of free speech rights out of the criminal courts.”
Background
Mrs.. Docherty’s censorial arrest sparked expressions of concern in the UK and around the world, including from the U.S. State Department, which described it as “another egregious example of the tyrannical suppression of free speech happening across Europe,” and from the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
The architect of Scotland’s 2024 “buffer zone” law, Gillian Mackay MSP, admitted on BBC Scotland that the vague prohibitions in the legislation could criminalize someone for praying visibly from a window in their home within the zone, “depending on who’s passing by the window.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance highlighted this law as a particular matter for concern in his Munich Security Conference speech in February last year.
A trans-identified male student has won gold in both girls shot put and discus at a New York high school sectional championship, defeating his female rivals by significant margins.
In the shot put competition, Arnold claimed a personal best throw of 42 feet 5.5 inches, significantly ahead of second-place Keyonna Mitchell of Rome Free Academy with 38 feet 0.5 inches. Despite Mitchell herself earning a personal best, she still ended up still well behind Arnold’s mark.
Julia Arnold showing his medal at the regional championships.
In the discus competition, the results were even more stark. Arnold took first place with a throw of 132 feet, with Mitchell once again relegated to second place with a throw of 120 feet and 5 inches. However, below Mitchell, the third place competitor only managed a result of 93 feet and 10 inches, with Arnold out-throwing her by a staggering 39 feet.
This spring season, Arnold entered eight discus and shot put competitions, and came first in seven of them. The elite track and field Glenn D. Loucks Memorial Games, held in White Plains, New York each May, saw Arnold’s only non-first place finishes, when he came 3rd in the shot put and 2nd in the discus.
In social media posts, CNS Athletics celebrated Arnold’s success at the Section III Championships. One commenter said that Arnold’s numbers in the discus and shot put were “impressive,” with another correctly pointing out that the only reason why they were is because Arnold is “a male competing against females.”
With his performance at the Section III Championships, Arnold is expected to compete at the NYSPHSAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, which is scheduled to be held on June 13 and June 14 at Webster Schroeder High School in Webster, New York.
Arnold is currently ranked #1 in girls 4KG shot put according to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association, making him the highest performing “female” in the state in that category. He is also ranked #1 in his region and #2 in the state in girls 1KG discus.
In addition to participating in girls shot put and discus, Arnold has competed in on his school’s chess team. At the 2026 Upstate New York Scholastic Chess Championship, where Cicero-North Syracuse High School took first place, he was the only “girl” on his school’s team.
Arnold competing in the 2026 Upstate New York Scholastic Chess Championship.
In January of 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14201, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which directed federal agencies to interpret protections in Title IX on the basis of biological sex, not gender. The order stated that any federally funded educational institutions, such as schools or universities, who allow men to compete in women’s sports would lose their funding. However, New York is one of the states that has permitted students to compete in athletics not based on their biological sex, but the gender identity that they claim to be.
Responding to the executive order at the time, New York State Education Department officials issued joint guidance with the state Attorney General reaffirming that any students who were trans-identified could continue to play in their sports, with the guidance also stating that New York has “robust protections” for trans-identified students, and that schools were not allowed to ask students what their biological sex was before they could participate in sports.
A spokesperson from HeCheated, an independent platform that tracks male participation in female sports, noted that Arnold’s performance in girls athletics is particularly damning, and that he outperforms even other trans-identified male athletes currently known to be participating in girls shot put in the US.
“There is a huge sex-based performance difference in throwing, which is why the boys’ shot put is over three pounds heavier than the girls’. It is no longer possible to pretend these boys do not have any sort of advantage over girls and that their participation is fair. The athletic authorities in charge can’t possibly justify this while claiming to support female athletics. It’s just plain wrong.”
Marshi Smith of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) echoed HeCheated’s concerns, and called upon the Department of Education and the Department of Justice to clamp down on schools refusing to protect the female athletic categories.
“The perception that the travesty of boys competing in girls’ sports is over and resolved simply isn’t true. Particularly in blue states across the country, schools, districts, and sports associations continue their flagrant defiance of federal law and openly challenge the current administration by refusing to comply with its clear ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports’ Executive Order,” Smith said.
“Until there is accountability and painful punishment for schools, districts, and states that violate the rights of girls, there will continue to be no deterrent to undermining the accomplishments and dreams of female athletes nationwide,” she continued.
“Parents, coaches, and community members must speak out loudly against these injustices and be willing to challenge these violations in court. The Department of Education and the Department of Justice should use every available lever to make an example of those who violate the law. Inaction only emboldens those determined to erode the protections that generations of female athletes have fought to achieve.”
National Rally leader Jordan Bardella has lamented that France descended into what appeared to be “civil war”-like conditions following this weekend’s Champions League Final and said that the only way to fully restore order will be to regain control of immigration.
In the wake of Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain winning its second consecutive championship on Saturday in a dramatic shoot-out against London’s Arsenal FC, pandemonium erupted across France, with riots and looting breaking out in dozens of cities and towns.
According to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, some 890 people were arrested between Saturday and Sunday, an increase of 45 per cent over last year. The minister also revealed that 178 police officers had been injured during the mayhem. Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that multiple officers had been hit with what she described as “bombe agricole” — crude or home-made bombs — which left them with “terrible” injuries.
Appearing on broadcaster BFMTV on Monday morning, National Rally leader and potential presidential candidate Jordan Bardella said that he was “horrified” by the outburst of violence from the hordes of youths in Paris and other cities over the weekend.
“We saw scenes of near civil war in the heart of Paris, shops looted and vandalised, police officers attacked,” He said. “We witnessed an outpouring of violence to which we are becoming accustomed and which is only getting worse.”
“France has become a country where life and celebration are now totally impossible. There is no longer a single event related to football, a single sporting event, a single popular village festival without it systematically degenerating,” Bardella added.
The populist MEP urged the French public to “wake up” to the dangers facing them, warning that the mobs seen on the streets will soon “break down the doors of buildings and enter your apartments” if the government fails to regain control of immigration.
“There is obviously a link to our inability for thirty years to control immigration,” Bardella said, while noting that the unrest was frequently tied to “certain football clubs” which have a multicultural fan-base rather than other sporting events such as rugby or tennis, both of which recently held tournaments in France without any major issue.
Bardella was not alone in linking the violence to mass migration, with former Interior Minister and current presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau, who said that the riots were a result of immigration having eroded “respect for the law and the weakening of the republican pact.”
Others further afield also shared similar sentiments, with U.S. Senator Mike Lee saying that “mass deportations are in order” in response to footage of the Paris riots over the weekend.
Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders remarked, “If you import Africa, you become Africa.” The leader of Germany’s AfD party, Alice Weidel, simply stated: “Remigration”.
The French public also appears to be increasingly pessimistic about the state of their country, with a poll conducted before the violence over the weekend finding that over seven in ten believe that crime is “out of control” and that France risks becoming like Mexico, in which criminal gangs operate free from fear of the state.
Yet the government does not appear to share the same view, with Interior Minister Nuñez claiming on Monday that despite the widespread violence, looting, and rioting, the large number of arrests demonstrated that the response was “done well”.
