Harry Stopes
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harrystopes.bsky.social
Harry Stopes
@harrystopes.bsky.social
Historian and journalist. Writing a book on the history of prison. Mancunian in Berlin. www.harrystopes.com for work, and www.harrystopes.substack.com for somewhat work-related musings.
Pinned
For more than 2 years, police in Berlin - encouraged by city and national politicians - have systematically used excessive violence in an attempt to beat the Palestine solidarity movement into silence.

I wrote about this phenomenon for the @lrb.co.uk
Harry Stopes | Police Violence in Berlin
In the last six months human rights officials at both the Council of Europe and the United Nations have written to the...
www.lrb.co.uk
You could argue that Farage has offered more substantive criticism than Starmer at this point. His clear endorsement is stronger than Starmer’s implicit one, but he does at least state that the action is illegal.
January 3, 2026 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
100% seriously, European leaders and Commission officials should plan on the basis that the US might do this to them too, about Greenland, about tech regulation, about “Christian values”, about “free speech”, whatever.
Fucking hell.

Think the referance to US Law Enforcement here is quite telling as well: a huge extension of how far the US feels its laws reach.

Apparently its fine to now attack and kidnap a head of state because of 'US law'. Fucking hell.
Trump says Maduro is in US custody.
January 3, 2026 at 9:59 AM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
The abduction of a head of state and the unprovoked attack on Venezuela are extremely dangerous. This is the most naked form of imperialism, which - if unopposed and unresisted - puts every country and government at the mercy of the US, and any other powerful country that tries to copy it.

1/
January 3, 2026 at 10:46 AM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela - the shredding of international norms and conventions by terror states with unimaginable supplies of weapons
January 3, 2026 at 8:22 AM
Starmer’s only achievement is going to be that he’s a compelling cautionary tale
american centrist pundits looking at starmer after he adopted a "popularist" approach to governance
January 3, 2026 at 9:09 AM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
EILT! Ich bin da was ganz Grossem auf der Spur: selbst-organisierte Migrant:innen und Juden treffen sich in nem Laden in Kreuzberg. News hook: die bangen um ihren von Google subventionierten Mietvertrag, der bald neu verhandelt werden muss. PS. Sie haben ihr Awareness Concept redigiert!1!!
December 22, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
Deutscher Investigativjournalismus à la Potter einfach minuziöseste Kontaktschuld. So kann die eigene Obsession mit unliebsamen Migrant:innen und Juden vom Hobby (scrolling and snitching) zum Job werden, ausgezeichnet mit dem ELNET-Preis.
December 22, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
On January 1, 1804, revolutionaries established the independent country of Haiti, the first nation to permanently ban slavery. As we begin a year engulfed by the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, it’s worth reading the Haitian Declaration of Independence in full. 🇭🇹
January 1, 2026 at 1:04 PM
give it Tony Pulis til the end of the season
December 31, 2025 at 10:17 PM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
Brilliant article that not only paints a more honest picture of this human rights defender but puts our right wing press to shame. The arc of this story proves their willingness to foreground racist far right activists’ propaganda.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s tweets were wrong, but he is no ‘anti-white Islamist’. Why does the British right want you to believe he is? | Naomi Klein
I have no interest in defending his social media posts, but calls to strip the newly freed activist of British citizenship pile torment on top of torture, says Naomi Klein, Guardian US columnist and c...
www.theguardian.com
December 31, 2025 at 8:05 AM
amusing that a club so obsessed with its Class and History branding consistently scores such snide goals
December 30, 2025 at 9:25 PM
I think the way the players around Gabriel celebrate that, turning towards the ref as they do so, suggest they know what’s up with the goal
December 30, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Tweets sent 15 years ago by a person who was then living in a different country and was not a British citizen, should make that person liable to prosecution, apparently.
December 30, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
This latest shitshow is another reminder why Starmer needs to go - not in May but now. He is not willing or capable of playing the role of PM. He is vindicating the far-right and demoralising the left. He should be removed for being bad for the country not merely losing Labour elections
December 29, 2025 at 11:27 AM
In this day and age it does my head in that there are news and opinion articles which consist entirely of 'this person's tweets are controversial / objectionable', where the content of all of the contested tweets is not shared in full.
December 29, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
There should be literally no circumstances, ever, where citizenship is can be revoked. If you literally sign up to fight for an opposing army in a war, then we should prosecute you for treason not revoke citizenship
Hell, I'm not convinced we should revoke citizenship at all.

But certainly not for being a twat online.
December 29, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
Ah, what happened to the concerns about wasting police time over tweets?
It was all a long time ago and anyway, the BBC used to be racist too
December 29, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
“The main way the genocide has been actively supported by our democracies is less the flow of weapons and intelligence to Israel, than the organised repression and punishment of everyone who dared to call attention to events in Gaza or offer criticism of Israel’s conduct.”
— Bruno Maçães
December 26, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
Today, 1.25 million kids will spend the holiday without their parent because of mass incarceration.
December 25, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
“Since the announcement of their hunger strike on 20 October till 10 December 2025, the hunger strike by jailed Palestine Action activists was mentioned a total of 12 times in the British mainstream newspapers.”

That is so damning and grim.
The UK media’s silence on the Palestine Action activists’ hunger strikes is a deliberate editorial choice - Media@LSE
LSE's Professor Bart Cammaerts discusses the lack of coverage of the hunger strikes of imprisoned Palestine Action activists in the UK media.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
December 22, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Car drivers have unilaterally decided that pavements are for cars, then get annoyed with you when you walk on the road with a pram because they have left no space
December 22, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Harry Stopes
when your "Innellekshuals! Learn from Amurka" text opens with 3 paragraphs citing the Great Mind Thomas Friedman whose 40+ yr career of mangled tech-metaphor belching is taken seriously only by the kind of crashing transatlanticist bore who knows nothing about contemporary American political thought
SZ mit fulminanter folgeberichterstattung zur Züricher Konferenz, nun war sogar Ulf Poschardt selbst da.
Much Journalizm
www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/polyz...
December 22, 2025 at 11:30 AM