Allah's Willing Executioners

Misogyny and domestic violence are being blamed by leading Irish politicians for the murder of an American woman by a migrant from the Middle East.

Forty-three-year-old Jamey Carney, a woman who had been living in the southern Irish town of Killarney with her 13-year-old daughter for around five years, was found dead at her home after suffering severe head injuries in what police believe was a brutal and prolonged assault.

The prime suspect fled Ireland within hours of her death, before Carney’s body was discovered by her daughter.

According to Irish media, the suspect is a Middle Eastern man who had been living in Ireland for two years while seeking international protection. He was officially accommodated in an International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) centre in Killarney but was known to Carney and is understood to have stayed at her home on occasion.

Investigators believe the man travelled by bus from Killarney to Dublin during the early hours of Tuesday, July 7th, before boarding a flight to Istanbul at around 11 a.m. Police have warned that the man may now attempt to travel onwards to his home country, potentially complicating any future extradition efforts.

Leading politicians in Ireland are attempting to frame the murder as a simple case of domestic violence—not a migrant-related attack.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik urged the government to support a €3 million “Safe Fund” for survivors of domestic violence, telling parliament that the number of women killed violently in Ireland this year had already exceeded the total recorded during the whole of 2025.

Prime Minister Micheál Martin said the government is “supportive of any measure that will help women who are victims of continuing domestic violence.”

Irish commentator Eoin Lenihan criticised the response, writing that in both Carney’s case and the 2022 murder of Ashling Murphy, “both women were murdered by people who should never have been in the country.” He accused the government of focusing on “the nonsense narrative that ‘misogyny’ is to blame.”

British activist Tommy Robinson wrote on X, “Jamey Carney from New York State, moved to Ireland with her kid. Started dating Ahmad Al-Saqar, a ‘refugee’ from Jordan. She wore Keffiyeh, was pro pally, hated ICE, apparently converted. The inevitable happened. Her child found her dead. The ‘refugee’ is on the run.”

Jamey Carney from New York State, moved to Ireland with her kid.

Started dating Ahmad Al-Saqar, a "refugee" from Jordan.

She wore Keffiyeh, was pro pally, hated ICE, apparently converted.

The inevitable happened.

Her child found her dead.

The "refugee" is on the run. pic.twitter.com/ZPcEXYnNJG

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) July 9, 2026

The investigation has also prompted criticism over the lack of information released about the suspect. Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported that the police were unable to comment on his age, name, or nationality for legal reasons. According to right-wing news outlet Gript:

It’s a very strange manhunt indeed that doesn’t release a photo but then wants the public to help with inquiries. Garda sources reportedly told media that there are concerns the man may have fled the jurisdiction. How is keeping his photo and name and nationality secret helping with that problem?

europeanconservative

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has flown directly from the NATO summit in Ankara to London on a military Airbus A310, where one of his daughters was due to graduate from a private university.

The aircraft left the Turkish capital late in the afternoon of July 8 and landed at Heathrow airport shortly before 9pm Spanish time, according to flight-tracking record. The flight lasted a little under four hours.

The A310 is the largest aircraft in the Spanish air force’s VIP fleet and is fitted out to carry about 80 passengers. It had brought Sánchez to Ankara for the two-day gathering of alliance leaders on July 7.

Defence Minister Margarita Robles and Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares travelled separately, returning to Madrid on Dassault Falcon 900 jets while the Airbus turned north towards Britain. The Spanish Government deployed three military aircraft in total for the summit, one of them held in reserve.

The estimated cost of the Ankara-London leg is €18,253. Then the combined bill for the outward and return journeys of the three aircraft at €74,822. It calculated the carbon footprint of the Prime Minister’s flight at 46 tonnes of carbon dioxide, against 14 tonnes for both ministerial jets together.

The official government agenda published by the Moncloa palace for July 9 listed no engagements for Sánchez, in Britain or anywhere else. Robles and Albares were both scheduled to appear at public events in Madrid.

Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, travelled to London separately after a court intervened. Judge Juan Carlos Peinado withdrew her passport in June over what he described as a flight risk, and she is awaiting trial on charges that include influence peddling, corruption in business, embezzlement and misappropriation.

A substitute magistrate, Antonio Viejo, ruled on July 6 that Gómez could travel to Britain between July 8 and 10 for the graduation but could not accompany her husband to Ankara, on the grounds that Turkey lies outside the European Union’s area of freedom, security and justice.

Elías Bendodo, deputy secretary of the People’s Party, said the case was damaging Spain’s international standing and reducing its institutions to spectators. He called the refusal to allow Gómez to attend the summit an absurdity, while urging respect for judicial rulings.

Commentators noted that the graduation took place at a private London institution weeks after Sánchez had attacked regional funding for private universities in Madrid.

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In Saint-Juvat, in the Côtes-d’Armor region of France, 56-year-old Hervé agreed to host a family of four illegal migrants from the African country of Mauritius in the summer of 2025. It turned into a major mistake, with Hervé now homeless and unable access the home he had put years of renovation work into.

Hervé, who had spent years restoring a historic French guest house in a quiet rural community with the dream of creating an affordable haven for travelers and those in need, now finds himself displaced after inviting the family to stay. The situation has spiraled into threats, property damage, legal battles, and his own homelessness.

Hervé acquired the former inn at auction in 2019. Over the next five years, he poured time, effort, and resources into restoring the building, envisioning it as both his home and a welcoming space. His plan was simple yet ambitious: offer low-cost stays to campers, tourists, and temporary residents who might otherwise struggle to find affordable lodging in the area, according to French outlet La Depeche.

This was not his first time extending a helping hand. Hervé had previously welcomed various individuals facing difficulties into his property.

“I believe opening your door to others is something fundamental,” he said, reflecting a personal philosophy of openness.

In the summer of 2025, a couple with two young daughters approached Hervé seeking permission to pitch a tent in his garden for the coming winter. The family, of Mauritian origin and reportedly in an irregular administrative situation in France, faced the prospect of spending the cold months outdoors.

Touched by their vulnerability, particularly the children, Hervé could volunteered to allow them to live on his property

“Children sleeping in a tent during winter and still having to go to school — that’s terrible,” he later explained. He then even let them stay in the guesthouse under short-term arrangement at a very favorable rental rate.

On Oct. 6, 2025, the parties signed a two-month lease, renewable once. The initial period of cohabitation appeared to go smoothly. Hervé even helped enroll the youngest daughter, who was still a minor, at the lycée hôtelier in nearby Dinard, giving the family a semblance of stability.

By early 2026, tensions began to surface. Reports describe increasing nighttime disturbances, unfounded accusations of theft against Hervé, and claims that electricity bills had been tampered with or falsified. The situation escalated dramatically in January 2026.

According to accounts, the father of the family was caught manipulating the electricity meter. When confronted, he allegedly threatened Hervé directly, saying: “I’m going to smash your face in.”

For Hervé, this marked a turning point.

“The mask falls,” he told Actu as it became clear that the family could be dangerous.

He decided against renewing the lease, citing among other issues the family’s failure to provide proof of insurance. Matters worsened when the couple allegedly damaged his car by breaking a rearview mirror. Hervé filed a complaint with the authorities. Following advice from gendarmes, who recommended he not remain alone on the property, he called his brother for support and ultimately left the guest house.

On one morning shortly after, he returned to find the house smeared with mud, an apparent act of vandalism.

On Feb. 1, 2026, Hervé issued a formal legal notice demanding that the family vacate the premises. The family did not comply.

As the eviction proceedings moved through the courts, Hervé made a startling discovery: the same couple had previously been subject to eviction proceedings from another property around July 2025. Those earlier issues reportedly involved unpaid rent, verbal violence, and threats of death.

The current legal process has proven painfully slow. As of July 2026 – nearly six months after the formal notice – the family remains in the guest house. Hearings have been missed or postponed at the family’s request, and Hervé has been unable to regain possession of his home. He has described the situation as “unmanageable” and is now considering selling the property he spent half a decade restoring.

France has seen even worse cases in the past, including migrants who ended up killing their host family, which Remix News has covered multiples times in the past (here, here, here, and here). The cases often featured left-wing and altruistic people who offer their homes to migrants who either end up violently killing them or squatting their apartments.

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Following the now publicised rape of a young woman (aged 16) in Vienna, further details have emerged about the migrant suspected of the crime: the Syrian man (aged 21) had already been convicted of a sexual offence months ago; he should currently have been in prison for a previous rape conviction.

The migrant arrived in Austria in September 2018 and was granted asylum the following month. He had already been reported to the police a year ago for rape. In October 2025, the police arrested him for another sexual assault on a woman. Two weeks later, however, he was released from pre-trial detention. In December 2025, a court convicted him of the offence; the verdict only became final some six months later, in June 2026.

However, instead of serving the prison sentence imposed on him, the man is alleged to have committed another serious sexual offence during this period: according to the Vienna police, a 16-year-old girl from Vienna wanted to take a taxi home on the night of July 6. However, as her mobile phone battery had run out, she was unable to make a call. A dark-coloured BMW pulled up beside the girl, and the driver offered to take her home. However, whilst en route to her home address, the Syrian man is alleged to have suddenly changed course and raped the teenager in the car. He then drove her home.

By analysing CCTV footage, investigators were able to identify both the dark-coloured BMW and the alleged perpetrator beyond any doubt. The Syrian man was arrested on the same day following consultation with the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office and is now in pre-trial detention at a correctional facility.

No explanation has yet been provided as to why the convicted man was not imprisoned immediately after the existing judgement became final: a swifter enforcement of the sentence would have prevented this latest offence. It is not currently known whether bureaucratic hurdles, staff shortages within the police or the judiciary, or specific legal circumstances are responsible for the delay. The judicial authorities have not yet issued a detailed statement.

Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) forcibly deported only three Syrians directly to their home country last year; no figures are yet available for this year regarding direct forced deportations to Syria. There are currently 104,000 Syrian migrants living in Austria; most of these migrants no longer have grounds for asylum – yet they are still not being removed from the country.

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A majority of Britons believe that their national identity is being diminished, while many believe that certain groups, such as Muslims, will not be able to integrate into British society.

A survey from the More in Common polling firm found that 55 per cent of the British public believe their country’s national identity is disappearing due to the artificial diversity imposed by the mass migration agenda favoured by the political establishment.

The poll further found that 42 per cent of voters do not believe that Muslims can be integrated into British society. This sentiment was most pronounced among supporters of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party at 71 per cent, the left-wing Guardian newspaper reported.

Additionally, 31 per cent of respondents said that they were open to the notion that non-white people could “never be as British” as the native white population, while 33 per cent said they favoured “remigration”.

This came in contrast to opinions from Muslims in Britain, 85 per cent of whom stated they were in favour of integrating into British society, and 88 per cent who said that they mixed well with people of other faiths.

However, perhaps undermining such claims, 64 per cent of Muslims in Britain also said they believed that the white British population was “working against Muslims”. Significantly, this was a larger proportion of the Muslim population than those who said Jewish people are working against Muslims at 56 per cent.

The survey, which polled 4,094 adults in Britain as a part of an upcoming report for the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre (UKEDRC), also found that 61 per cent saw the “social contract” between British institutions and the public had broken down.

The poll also found that although 80 per cent said that political violence was never acceptable, 29 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds considered it acceptable. Meanwhile, over one in four, 28 per cent, said that they would be fine with politicians they backed breaking the rules to achieve their political aims.

One of the co-authors of the report, Britain Under Strain: The Broken Social Contract, Democratic Distrust and the Mainstreaming of Extremism, former counter-extremism commissioner Sara Khan, said that the window to reverse course on the breakdown trust was “vanishingly small”.

“The incoming prime minister must address these issues before our social contract anxieties shred away our democratic values,” she said.

“The challenge now facing us is more serious, and more deeply rooted, than when I was counter-extremism commissioner. This is not a passing dip in confidence but a structural crisis as a result of a chronic erosion of trust in institutions.”

Yet it appears that the incoming government, which is reportedly set to be staffed by pro-censorship activists, will likely attempt to further clamp down on what is said on the internet and social media, rather than addressing the core issues driving the breakdown in trust, such as the issue of immigration.

Critics have warned that the failure of numerous governments in recent decades to meaningfully deliver on their promises t0 significantly cut immigration has fundamentally undermined faith in the democratic process to deliver.

Professor David Betz of the Department of War Studies at King’s College London has warned that Britain is likely already over the tipping point for a civil war breaking out, which he has attributed in large part to the multiculturalism imposed on the country and the unwillingness or the inability of the political establishment to reverse such trends.

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by Giulio Meotti

I have never worn bracelets with Dharma wheels, lotus flowers, and golden fish, but I adore Tibetans.

They do not promise rivers of other people’s blood.

They do not turn mourning into geopolitical spectacle.

They do not advance expansionist claims.

They do not want caliphates.

Their self-immolation as an extreme act of non-violence is their own body offered, not the other’s body destroyed.

They offer their own body as proof that tyranny still exists and that communist totalitarianism is not a closed chapter but a living machine that digests entire peoples.

So why does their tragedy, which has lasted eighty years, not generate the same emotional tides, the same viral campaigns, the same gatherings of intellectuals and movie stars that accompany other causes, such as the Palestinian Arab one?

Even Richard Gere no longer wears Tibetan scarves: has he understood that certain causes age badly in the indignation market that feeds Hollywood?

The video described below does not only show a man dying: it also shows a West that has lost the ability to recognize tragedy because it is too busy inventing one that is convenient, politically correct, monetizable, and third-worldist.

In front of the Glass Palace of the UN in New York, another Tibetan set himself on fire. The video is shocking; it must be watched and rewatched to understand what we have become.

Poor Logba, the 52-year-old Tibetan from Queens who set himself on fire on the street without anyone seeing him. He had declared before the immolation that Beijing’s policies are “destroying the Tibetan people.”

Under the clear sky overlooking the United Nations buildings, Logba turns into a living torch. The Tibetan flag waves for an instant, the last shred of identity before the fire devours flesh, hair, and voice. The body curls up in a pyre that is not a spectacle, not a performance, not a stupid social media scream: it is the extreme, desperate, crystal-clear act of someone who knows the world has stopped listening and wants to remind it that “cultural genocide” is not a metaphor – it is monasteries razed to the ground, language erased, children torn from their mothers to be “re-educated.”

This is not victimhood. It is the exact opposite. Here no one is demanding a “neutral pronoun” or demanding a “safe space.”

Since 2009, 159 Tibetans, including women and minors, have set themselves on fire. That is 10 precious human lives every single year, nearly one per month, sacrificed in flames to protest for identity, religious freedom, and dignity.

But their tragedy is too clean, too spiritual, for an era that prefers the canons of oppressor and oppressed defined according to the horrible woke gospel.

Have you ever seen international human rights activists, liberal leftists, or self-proclaimed peace defenders raise their voices for Tibetans with even a fraction of the intensity and constancy they pour into the Palestinian Arab cause?

Their cause is not the apex of an ideological syncretism that merges old anti-Western grudges with new Islamic dogmas.

David Emton writes in Le Point: “The Palestinian question has devoured everything, summarizes everything, eclipses everything. Relations between the West and Islam are reduced to Palestine. Racism, colonialism, the wretched of the earth: Palestine, they tell you! The intolerable fate of Christians under Muslim domination, the Kurds and Tibet, Timor and Darfur, blacks thrown into the desert in Tunisia or sold as slaves in Libya, the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Kosovo? Secondary problems. Our geopolitical masochism is endless: we have abandoned our allies, our friends, our own kind everywhere. When will we conduct a diplomacy based on our interests and our affinities, when will we finally say that the so-called Palestinian Arab question is perfectly secondary to us?”

A Tibetan sets himself on fire in front of the UN, which has dedicated 173 resolutions against Israel and 80 to the rest of the world, and no one notices.

Tibetans have suffered a refined, administrative genocide, a real one, that aims not only at the body but also at memory.

Unlike the Palestinian Arabs and radical Islam, Tibetans do not kill, Tibetans do not rape, Tibetans do not take hostages, Tibetans do not commit terrorism around the world, Tibetans do not want to erase another state, Tibetans do not call the Chinese “sons of pigs and monkeys.”

Tibetans do not create problems in the West: Syrians, Palestinian Arabs, Afghans, and others do – and many of them.

Yet how much the Tibetans have endured… Yet for them there is only a media blackout.

Tibetans, heirs to a millennia-old civilization that has resisted Mongol, Manchu, and now Han invasions, embody a paradoxical resistance.

They do not invoke global caliphates and do not cultivate a theological antisemitism that justifies the extermination of the other. Their struggle is existential: to preserve language, monasteries, the cycle of reincarnations that binds the sacred to the temporal. Yet precisely this purity makes them invisible.

Thus, no “Free Tibet” pins on the Cannes red carpet, no rapper tweeting against Xi Jinping with the same vehemence reserved for Netanyahu.

The Islamic Palestinian narrative has been skillfully interwoven with an anti-colonial, anti-Western tale that resonates with Europe’s historical guilt and contemporary woke ideology.

Tibet, on the other hand, sins with strategic innocence: its martyrs do not wave Jihad flags, do not invoke global Intifada, do not threaten to “erase” Israel or the West “from the river to the sea.” Their resistance is against Chinese atheist and communist imperialism, not against Jews and Western liberalism.

In a West where activism is only an anti-Western ideological performance, the “wrong” enemy makes the cause indigestible.

In a West of nihilistic narratives built in ridiculous television salons, those who do not know how to sell themselves are destined for oblivion.

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A cardinal known for defending homosexual “blessings” and promoting “synodality” has stepped down from public ministry temporarily after five women accused him of sexual assault.

Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, SDB, the Spanish-born archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, announced his decision in a statement published by Vatican News.

Romero, 74, “will refrain from presiding over public celebrations and participating in pastoral activities” during a “preliminary Church investigation,” according to Vatican News.

The cardinal, a close ally of the late Pope Francis, said that he faces allegations of “inappropriate behavior toward adult women.” He denied the accusations, telling AFP that he had committed “no assault, no violence, and no sexual harassment.”

Cardinal defended Fiducia Supplicans, breaking with African bishops

Romero is a notable supporter of Fiducia Supplicans, the 2023 document approved by Pope Francis that backs “blessings” for homosexual “couples” and other people in “irregular situations,” i.e., adultery or fornication.

In January 2024, Romero issued a communiqué as the head of the North African bishops’ conference defending Fiducia and breaking with bishops across Africa who had denounced the document and homosexual “blessings.”

Romero’s communiqué praised Fiducia as “an invitation to reread and evaluate our ecclesial practice of discernment, to deepen the concrete paths of a pastoral approach to reconciliation and communion.”

The communiqué endorsed homosexual “blessings,” saying, “When individuals in irregular situations come together to request a blessing, it may be given, provided that this does not cause confusion for those concerned or for others.”

It also decried the purported “risk of entrenched positions” about Fiducia that it claimed “could jeopardize the unity of the Church” and added that “the subject deserves to be re-examined in a calm manner within the framework of the synodal dynamic currently underway in the universal Church.”

Romero’s statement came in response to a letter from the president of the continental association of African bishops’ conferences, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, opposing homosexual “blessings.”

The liberal Moroccan prelate criticized Cardinal Ambongo for releasing a statement before the North African bishops did.

“Learning synodality is not a simple thing,” Romero said. “We are going to have to overcome many setbacks and many moments in which we will have to ask for forgiveness, just as the president of the African bishops asked forgiveness for making a statement without waiting for us make to one.”

Like Romero, all of the North African bishops – who preside over small Catholic populations in Muslim-dominated countries – are European.

Romero also accused opponents of Fiducia of “homophobia” and called for the eradication of “this or similar attitudes.”

“Could it not be that, at the root of some or many of the most furious reactions against the possibility of blessing same-sex couples, there are vestiges of homophobia?” he said in an essay shortly after the release of the North African bishops’ communiqué.

“Wouldn’t it be better for us to go, in a humble attitude, to ask for a blessing to help us get rid of this or similar attitudes?” he wrote.

“We cannot continue living either in homophobia or in denial of the existence of homosexuality,” the cardinal continued.

Strong backer of Pope Francis, claimed ‘no religion possesses the truth’

Romero is a particularly strong proponent of Pope Francis’ agenda, saying, “I’m fully in tune with everything Francis proposed—his way of acting, speaking, and leading.”

“Francis helped me reconnect with both the Gospel and tradition. And by tradition, I mean not the 19th century, but the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries,” he added.

“For me, Pope Francis was like a father, a pastoral model, and a friend who knew me,” he said.

Francis named Romero the archbishop of Rabat in 2017 and made him a cardinal in 2019.

An advocate of Pope Francis’ idea of “synodality,” Romero hailed the concept as a “prophetic sign that may illuminate the world.” He attended the Synod on Synodality and claimed that even those who oppose decisions resulting from the synod “are morally obligated” to support them.

Last year, the prelate scandalously also claimed that “We must abandon the false paradigm of ‘true religion, false religion.’”

“Religions, for their part, have the responsibility to offer paths of meaning and truth, not of domination,” he wrote in an article for L’Osservatore Romano in October. “No religion can appropriate the truth, as if it were its sole owner. No religion possesses the truth; if anything, it is the truth that possesses us all, and in every religion there are glimmers of truth.”

In 2022, he said that migration “should be seen as a reality or a social phenomenon, not as a problem.”

Like Popes Francis and Leo XIV, Romero has criticized conservative immigration policies, including in the United States.

“These rich countries want to lock themselves into their well-being and do not want to be disturbed,” he said. “The United States is building a physical wall; Europe is building an administrative and political wall.”

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An alleged asylum seeker is on the run after an American woman was beaten to death in Ireland.

Jamey Carney, 43, originally from New York, moved to Killarney, County Kerry, around five years ago and lived with her teenage daughter.

She was found dead at an address on Muckross Road on Tuesday – with the Gardai (Irish police) now appealing for witnesses.

According to the Irish Mirror, the suspect is a Middle Eastern man known to Ms Carney, who previously lived in France.

The suspect was known to Ms Carney and fears have been raised he could now flee Ireland after the attack, according to the Irish Mirror.

He is believed to have been living in Ireland since the middle of 2024 as a candidate for International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas).

He had been living at an Ipas centre in the town but occasionally stayed at the home of Ms Carney, according to local outlets.

One source told Irish media there was now a “major search” for the suspect.

Detectives have said they are following a definite line of inquiry to find the suspect, according to RTE.

In a statement, the Gardai said: “Anyone who was in the Muckross Road area of Killarney between the evening of the July 6 and the afternoon of July 7 2026 and who may have camera footage, including CCTV or dashcam, is asked to provide this footage to investigating Gardai.”

Neighbours said Ms Carney was very involved in the community and had a positive disposition.

Councillor John O’Donoghue told BBC News Killarney had fallen into a “complete malaise” and a “dark cloud” after her death.

Mr O’Donoghue, who also serves as the mayor of Killarney, said he did not know Ms Carney personally, but had often seen her walking in the area.

He added that she lived in a small and relatively new housing development in a “very desirable” part of the town, described as the “Golden Mile”.

Another councillor, Niall O’Callaghan, told BBC News: “We’re devastated, we send deepest sympathy to the family.”

He added: “I’m really sad and disappointed that this has happened to someone who was living in our community.”

Talking of the shift in mood in Killarney, Mr O’Donoghue said the town had a “festival atmosphere”, with tourists and local resident enjoying the sunshine.

“When this news broke yesterday, it was just like a dark cloud came over the town,” he said.

Irish Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik gave her deepest sympathies to the family of Ms Carney during Leader’s Questions in the Irish Parliament.

“As of yesterday the number of women killed violently in Ireland this year has overtaken the figure for the whole of 2025 – in just seven months,” she said.

Mrs Bacik called on the Irish Government to back her party’s proposal for a €3million “Safe Fund” to provide financial support payments for victim survivors of domestic violence.

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Tributes described her as a dedicated parent and active member of the community. She was heavily involved in pro-Palestinian causes and support for migrant issues.

On social media she reportedly critisised the US immigration authority ICE and shared pictures of herself attending pro-Palestinian marches.

She met her partner, a Palestinian refugee from Jordan,  at one of the protests she attended and converted to Islam. She frequently posted on social media about their trips together.

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A Hungarian conservative influencer was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday, July 8th and has since been released after spending several hours in custody, in a case that seems to confirm the new, pro-Brussels Hungarian government’s authoritarian tendencies.

István Szakács was taken into custody in the western city of Győr after police searched his home. Eight officers arrived shortly after 6 a.m., carried out a house search, and took him away for questioning.

The police said they were investigating Szakács on suspicion of making threats related to a terrorist offence. The allegation stems from a Facebook video in which he warned liberal Prime Minister Péter Magyar not to attempt to have his predecessor, conservative Viktor Orbán arrested in connection with the Ukrainian “gold convoy” scandal.

In the post, Szakács said that if Orbán were taken into custody, “500,000 Hungarians” would come to free him “wherever he is.”

Szakács was released after approximately four hours in police custody. Speaking afterwards to daily Magyar Nemzet, he said officers from the National Bureau of Investigation had taken DNA samples from him before the questioning.

He rejected the allegation of ‘terrorism,’ arguing that his comments referred to political protest and public solidarity rather than any attempt to storm a protected facility. “The police wanted me to admit that I had encouraged people to free Viktor Orbán physically. That is absurd,” he said.

Orbán himself described the case as evidence that “authoritarianism has reached a new level.” Writing on Facebook, he said:

Embed: They take you away simply for daring to criticise the prime minister. Today it’s him, tomorrow it’s you. Don’t let it happen.

The former prime minister called on supporters to attend a demonstration outside Budapest’s Sándor Palace on Thursday evening, July 9.

Conservative journalist László Szentesi Zöldi described Szakács as a “political prisoner,” while the organisation Védvonal—recently established to give legal assistance to persecuted conservatives—pledged to provide him with legal representation, arguing that the case represented a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression.

The investigation is linked to the “gold convoy” affair, in which Hungarian authorities—under the previous, Orbán-led government—intercepted two armoured vehicles in March carrying approximately $40 million, €35 million, and nine kilograms of gold from Austria towards Ukraine.

At the time, Hungarian government officials, Austrian right-wing politicians, as well as several analysts questioned why enormous amounts of cash and gold were being transported across borders rather than transferred via standard financial systems.

While the scandal points to potential large-scale corruption within the Ukrainian government, it is Orbán and his previous cabinet that are being investigated.

Lawyers representing the Ukrainian suspects have since sought criminal proceedings against Orbán and several former senior officials, while Hungarian prosecutors say separate investigations into suspected money laundering and the conduct of the original police operation remain ongoing.

The arrest of István Szakács is further evidence of the new government’s persecution of its conservative rivals.

As we reported, Orbán’s Fidesz party is organising a protest against a series of fast-tracked constitutional amendments, including measures to forcibly remove and replace the president of the republic, as well as the president of the Constitutional Court, along with several judges, before the end of their mandates.

The changes would also retroactively limit the mandates of members of parliament to three terms or 12 years, a move completely unprecedented in Europe, clearly designed to eliminate about half of all right-wing opposition MPs.

Meanwhile, the very same EU institutions that had criticised for many years the rule of law violations supposedly committed by Viktor Orbán and his cabinet, now remain completely silent.

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NCF Senior Fellow Emma Trimble debates the issue of illegal migrants on GB News.