Free Republic

Organizers have planned protests in at least seven provinces on Thursday throughout Iraq in response to the introduction of amendments to a core family legal framework that could legalize child marriages, deprive widows of their inheritance, and facilitate sex slavery. The Iraqi Parliament began to debate amendments to the Personal Status Law on Sunday that would, critics say, effectively dissolve the country’s universal standards to protect women and girls on matters such as consent to marriage, alimony, and custody of children by allowing men to opt out, choosing traditional Shiite or Sunni Islamic mandates, instead. While child marriages, sex slavery,...

In a shocking display of political manipulation, the left-wing establishment, terrified of the rising right, has trampled on democratic principles by enforcing a cordon sanitaire to block Orban’s Patriots for Europe from their rightful positions, betraying the will of millions of voters.A disgraceful spectacle is unfolding in the European Parliament. The left-wing establishment has united to exclude Viktor Orbán’s new “Patriots for Europe” group from offices that are rightfully theirs. This coordinated effort, known as a cordon sanitaire, is a blatant attack on democracy, showing the left’s desperation as they face the growing power and influence of right-wing voices in...

For many years, I have testified and written about Antifa and its growing anti-free speech philosophy. Some Democratic leaders have embraced this violent movement, which continues to gain strength on campuses and its cities across the nation. It is also a global movement. That is reflected in the alarming election of Antifa candidates to the French National Assembly as well as the European Parliament. That is quite an accomplishment for a movement that President Joe Biden dismissed as “just an idea.”As discussed in my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore the history...

"Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last," is how Winston Churchill, just months away from becoming Britain's wartime Prime Minister, described the appeasement that led to World War II. "All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. " The same could be said of France's snap election, in which everyone from French Stalinists to the country's business interests banded together to defeat the country's "far right" at the polls. But the far right is not the threat, and the crocodile snapping at everyone's...

A coalition of left-wing parties pulled off a stunning upset in the final round of France's parliamentary elections, relegating the right-wing National Rally to third place and seemingly guaranteeing paralysis in the French government. In the first round of voting last Sunday, Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) won 34 percent. The leftist New Popular Front (NFP) — a coalition of five parties that range from lunatic leftists and environmentalists to run-of-the-mill socialists — took 28 percent of the vote. French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance was essentially repudiated by the voters gathering only 20 percent. The election wasn't...

Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre went to church last Sunday, not once, not twice, but three times — to three evangelical churches in the Toronto area where he briefly participated in the services, made a short political speech and moved on. The three churches are all in ridings held by Liberal MPs and the congregants are mostly members of ethnic minority communities, which makes these visits smart politics for a campaigning Conservative leader. But observers say these visits are also groundbreakers if only because leaders of mainstream Canadian political parties have long avoided public events with evangelical Christians for fear those...

Sectarian politics is officially here to stay in Britain as a schism on the left saw multiple independent candidates best the Labour Party in Thursday’s general election after running on a pro-Palestinian platform. While the left-wing Labour Party has traditionally been able to count on the overwhelming support of the Muslim community in the UK, this support appears to be fracturing as new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has attempted to move his party away from the antisemitism scandals and accusations of supporting radical Islamists that bedevilled his socialist predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. According to an analysis from the BBC, Labour...

@RaheemKassam EXCLUSIVE: Nigel Farage's first interview – with @RealAmVoice and @TheNatPulse – following his historic parliamentary victory in Clacton-on-Sea and the insurgency of his @reformparty_uk.

There are reports of protesters having been k*lled and wounded by gunfire Video

A radical Italian Antifa activist accused of attacking people with a hammer in Budapest has been elected to the European Parliament, potentially paving the way for her to be freed from custody in Hungary. Ilaria Salis, a 39-year-old schoolteacher and “anti-fascist” activist currently under house arrest in Hungary, has won a seat in the EU parliament on behalf of the Green-Left Alliance (AVS) in Italy, ANSA reports. Salis has been accused of being part of a leftist group of mostly Germans who allegedly attacked a group of supposed “neo-Nazis” on February 11th in 2023 as they honoured the Nazi Waffen...

After the four-day, 27-state democratic marathon that is the European parliamentary election, a picture has emerged of a fragile centre just holding amid a shift to the right that carries a significant potential to shape the near future of the EU, despite having fallen short of producing the earthquake some predicted. The big shock came in France, with President Emmanuele Macron’s defeat at that hands of the RN (Rassemblement National – National Rally) party prompting him to call snap national parliamentary elections. France needed not only “a clear majority” argued Macron, but citizens capable of “choosing to write history, not...

Elections in 27 countries for the European Parliament ended on Sunday with early projections giving far-right parties a strong showing, a result that, if confirmed, would amount to a powerful gauge of voter dissatisfaction and a stinging rebuke for the political mainstream.The balloting indicated that the prevailing winds had grown decidedly chill for Europe’s political establishment. The results are likely to make it harder for the European Parliament to form majorities to pass laws, and would render negotiations over divisive issues even tougher. More broadly, they underscored that the momentum of the far-right forces that have been expanding their challenge...

Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders declared his Party for Freedom was the “biggest winner” in the country’s EU Parliament elections on Thursday as exit polls predict massive gains for the anti-mass migration party. The Party for Freedom (PVV) built upon its recent domestic success on Thursday, with exit polls predicting that the populist party will secure at least seven seats in the next European Parliament after winning zero seats in the 2019 EU elections. According to the initial estimates from Ipsos on behalf of public broadcaster NOS, this marked the largest gains for any Dutch party and the largest total...

This dissolution signals the conclusion of all parliamentary activities in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords while rendering every seat in the Commons vacant until after the general election on July 4.

A Taiwanese lawmaker caused a major commotion by grabbing a bill and running out of the legislative chamber to prevent it from being passed. The event happened just before President-elect Lai Ching-te was set to take office on Monday. According to reports, the morning session was already heated, with lawmakers shouting and shoving each other even before any votes were cast. The situation escalated when one MP, now nicknamed the “Bill Bandit,” grabbed the bill and dashed for the exit. Other lawmakers chased him, turning the chamber into a scene of chaos. The video was shared by @CensoredMen on X...

Speaker Greg Fergus kicked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre out of question period Tuesday after a particularly nasty exchange with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Poilievre's day-long removal from the House of Commons came after he called Trudeau a "wacko" for supporting B.C.'s past policy of decriminalizing some hard drugs in an attempt to reduce the number of overdose-related deaths. Poilievre said it was a "wacko policy" backed by "this wacko prime minister." Fergus asked him to withdraw the "unparliamentary language." Poilievre refused, saying only that he agreed to replace "wacko" with "extremist" or "radical." Poilievre's refusal prompted Fergus to remove him....

Staunchly pro-Palestinian left-wing firebrand George Galloway on Thursday won a chaotic by-election in Rochdale, northwestern England that was defined by the Israel-Gaza conflict. The controversial former Labour MP, who was standing for the Workers Party of Britain, won 12,335 votes with a majority of 5,697, giving his party its first-ever Member of Parliament in Britain’s House of Commons. It will be Galloway’s fifth constituency in 37 years, having now unseated his former party in three separate elections.

Palestine protesters used powerful lasers to write the words of an infamous antisemitic message on the Elizabeth Tower, best known worldwide as the Big Ben clock at Britain’s Parliament. Messages including “From the river to the sea, Palestina will be free” were projected onto the side of the Elizabeth Tower during a large Palestine protest in Westminster’s Parliament Square on Wednesday night. As the demonstration roared outside, Parliament faced problems of its own, as conflicting left-wing party attempts to vote on a resolution in favour of a Gaza ceasefire saw a major break with convention potentially permanently damaging the authority...

The Ukrainian Parliament has decided the nation’s state of martial law will not expire later this month, extending it a further 90 days. Martial law will last until May 13th in Ukraine at least — and likely much longer than that, as the national Verkhovna Rada confirmed a law approving a presidential decree made on Monday. The measure passed with an overwhelming majority in the parliament where 11 opposition political parties were suspended in 2022, accused of fomenting “division or collusion” by President Zelensky. As noted by Ukrainian state media, the original martial law was activated on the day of...

The upcoming European Parliament elections will see a “sharp turn to the right” as populist parties are projected to be victorious in at least nine EU member states and come in second or third in a further nine countries. According to an analysis of opinion polls in each EU member state in combination with statistical modelling based on the previous performance of national parties, the globalist European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank has predicted that right-wing populist parties will come out on top in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia in...