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Day: May 13, 2026
“Voices of Solidarity II”, a Palestinian-led cultural event due to take place at the Troxy music venue on 14 May, was set to mark 78 years since the Nakba through music, comedy and live performances while raising funds for healthcare workers in Gaza, News.Az reports, citing The New Arab.
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The event was organised by Health Workers for Palestine, MARSM and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and featured a line-up including Khalid Abdalla, Juliet Stevenson, Maxine Peake and Brian Eno.
Speaking to The New Arab, actor and activist Khalid Abdalla said organisers were shocked after every Palestinian artist invited to the event had their visa application rejected.
“It was a real painful shock to receive news that every Palestinian artist that we applied for visas for to come to the event commemorating the Nakba on the 14th of May at the Troxy, every single Palestinian artist was denied their visa,” Abdalla said.
“That was a huge shock, a painful one, and one that for me smacks of the depth of the lack of acknowledgement of Britain’s role in what has happened to Palestinians over the last 80 years.”
Abdalla said Palestinian artists should have been “fast-tracked specifically” for a Nakba commemoration event in Britain, citing the UK’s historic role in Palestinian displacement.
“If Britain wants to play any role whatsoever in the healing that needs to happen after the genocide and to promote a better future for everyone, the short-sighted blindness of the Home Office’s decision is absolutely shocking to me,” he added.
Organisers said the event would not be cancelled permanently but postponed to a later date, which has not yet been confirmed.
“I’m certain it’s going to be an even greater, better event,” Abdalla said.
In comments to TNA, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “The event has been postponed for a future date when we can ensure participation from diverse Palestinian artists, which is our priority.”
The event had been expected to feature a broad range of Palestinian and international performers, including musicians, poets, comedians and actors, in what organisers described as a night of “culture and resistance”.
The post UK bars Palestinian artists from London Nakba event appeared first on azeritimes.com.
“The European Commission is sending a very clear message, without ambiguity, to every member state in this union: ban conversion practices now,” said Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib on Wednesday while presenting Brussels’ response to the campaign. “This sends a powerful signal that these practices are harmful but also must be illegal,” News.Az reports, citing Politico.
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The European Citizens’ Initiative, which collected more than 1.1 million signatures, called for a binding legal ban on conversion practices, defined as interventions aimed at “changing, repressing or suppressing the sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression of LGBTQ+ persons.”
These practices can include verbal abuse, coercion, isolation, forced medication, electric shocks, and physical and sexual abuse, writes the Commission, and have “no therapeutic value.”
But the Commission said Wednesday it plans instead to adopt a recommendation in 2027 calling on countries to enact a ban on conversion practices — a decision that campaign organizers saw as a “missed opportunity.”
Through the recommendation, “the Commission will recognise the critical role that Member States play in this area and focus on supporting them in banning conversion practices, encouraging national action to extend the legal ban across the EU,” it said in its communication.
“The responsibility lies mostly at the level of the member states, and if we wanted to adopt a binding legislation, unanimity would have been necessary,” Lahbib told reporters.
Currently, only eight EU countries have banned conversion practices. “They have shown it can be done,” Lahbib said. “We are building on that momentum, on calling on the rest to follow, and with this recommendation in hand, I will personally advocate with ministers across our union to end these barbaric practices.”
The petition also asked the Commission to add these practices to the list of “eurocrimes,” which are serious crimes with a cross-border dimension, and possibly amend the 2008 directive on equality to include a ban on these practices.
It also wanted the executive to amend the Victims’ Rights Directive to establish minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of conversion practices.
The Commission said Wednesday that extending the list of EU crimes would require a unanimous decision from countries, and for conversion practice to meet the criteria set out by the provision. And “although it cannot be excluded that certain forced conversion practices fulfill the criterion … only a small proportion of such practices are likely to do so,” it said.
The organizers of the campaign see this as a “missed opportunity.”
Mattéo Garguilo, co-president of the European Association Against Conversion Therapy and representative of the European Citizens’ Initiative, also criticized the Commission’s argument that a legal ban would have taken too long.
“It’s going to take the same time with nonbinding resolution, because at the end of the day, if the state wants to ban, it bans; if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t,” Garguilo told POLITICO.
The post EU defers LGBTQ+ conversion therapy ban to individual member states appeared first on azeritimes.com.
The pro-government Imedi TV channel announced on May 13 that the European Parliament had suspended the channel’s accreditation and filming permits for a period of one year. The broadcaster further said that, in a separate development, Moldovan authorities also denied accreditation to three Georgian TV channels seeking to cover a Council of Europe meeting scheduled to take place in Chișinău.
In its May 13 TV report, Imedi aired what looked like a copy of a letter dated May 12 and signed by the Director of Media of the European Parliament’s Directorate General for Communication, addressed to Imedi’s Ana Chkhikvadze and informing the decision to “refuse all applications for accreditation and/or recording permit by yourself or media organisation you represent (Imedi TV) for a period of one year.”
The letter cites a complaint from an MEP and “thorough investigation” by the Parliament’s press services after the Imedi crew “approached and filmed the MEP concerned without prior consent” on May 6, with segments then aired in Imedi TV’s May 10 programme. The aired document further refers to the April 22 “formal warning” for a similar breach during the March plenary session.
Imedi’s May 10 report, titled “Beyond Democracy Facade” and aired as part of Imedis Kvira program, slams the critical draft report on Georgia that recently cleared committee vote at the European Parliament.
In the piece, the channel particularly focuses on one of the amendments to the EP report, which condemns the role of Imedi TV and PosTV, Georgian pro-governmental channels recently sanctioned by the UK, “in disseminating systematic disinformation and hostile propaganda against the EU, its institutions and representatives,” calling on EU institutions “to review the accreditation of such media outlets,” and encouraging EU Member States “to follow the United Kingdom’s example and adopt appropriate restrictive measures.”
The Imedis Kvira piece then shows the channel’s crew walking on the premises of the European Parliament and asking MEPs for clarification over the proposed amendment. That includes knocking on the office door of Lithuanian MEP Rasa Juknevičienė, who drafted the critical Parliament report, and trying to speak to her, then following her through the corridor as she refuses to speak and asks to agree on the interview with her assistants in advance, per the translation provided by the channel.
Moldova’s Rejection
Imedi also reported on May 13 that the Moldovan Foreign Ministry denied three Georgian channels, Imedi, Rustavi 2, and POSTV, accreditation to cover the 135th Session of the CoE Committee of Ministers, scheduled to take place in Chișinău on May 14-15. All three channels are pro-government outlets.
According to the copy of the letter aired by Imedi, the Ministry says that “the accreditation process includes a standard assessment procedure applicable to all applicants,” and that following the review, the channel’s request was not approved. The aired document further reads: “We respectfully note that we are not in a position to provide further comments regarding individual accreditation assessments or internal review procedures.”
Earlier, in September 2025, Imedi reported that its crew was denied entry to Moldova to cover the parliamentary elections.
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