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https://www.instagram.com/p/DVB1isHiEPi/

https://reduxx.info/scottish-lgbt-activist-pediatrician-banned-from-practicing-after-sending-indecent-images-to-child/

O’Neill was found guilty of indecent communications with a 15-year-old boy at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in February of 2025, as reported by local news. The crimes spanned from November of 2019 to May of 2020, when O’Neill sent indecent messages and images to a boy who was 14-years-old at the time. The disgraced Doctor was reportedly introduced to the child by a colleague at his work. The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing was told how in November 2019, O’Neill was driving a car and asked the child, who was a passenger, how he masturbated. O’Neill then pursued the boy through social media apps, sending vile messages to the child on WhatsApp and Snapchat, with the pedophile pediatrician sending pictures of his penis to the minor.

The predator then discussed with the boy how he was purchasing “sex toys” and later arrived at the child’s home and attempted to give him a “silicone device.” Local reports describe how the boy attempted to protect himself by “blocking” the doctor on social media, but O’Neill was unrelenting and made fake profiles with male and female names in attempts to reengage the child in conversation. One fake male username was used as a disguise to sexually interrogate the boy. While using the account, O’Neill proceeded to ask the minor if he was gay, and then sent him photos of his penis and asked him if he recognized it. Despite being found guilty of the appalling crime, O’Neill avoided a custodial sentence entirely and was given 18 months community service during a sentencing hearing in March of 2025.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/21/australia/australia-truck-rammed-into-synagogue-intl-hnk

A man has been charged with committing a hate crime after a car smashed into the gates of the biggest synagogue in Brisbane, the latest of a series of attacks on Australia’s Jewish community.

The attack follows a string of assaults on Jewish people and their religious establishments in the country, as community leaders warn of a rise in antisemitism.

In December, two gunmen opened fire on families celebrating the first night of Hanukkah at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach, killing 15 people, in the country’s worst mass shooing in almost 30 years.

On Friday evening, a black pickup truck crashed into the Brisbane Synagogue, knocking down its gates, before being driven away, Queensland Police said.

A 32-year-old man was later taken into custody after investigators located the vehicle, they added.

https://www.ecdhr.org/child-marriage-in-iraq-a-year-since-personal-status-law-ammendments/

In January of 2025, Iraq’s parliament passed three crucial amendments which sparked global outrage. These amendments have essentially legalised child marriage, and further removed fundamental human rights, freedoms, and protections from women and girls. Child marriage has been an issue across Iraq even prior to legislative changes. With Iraq’s turbulent history and religious factions, the matter has not strictly been governed by the letter of the law. Since January of last year however, these issues have become institutionalised and legally permissible. The amendments were made to Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, which unified family law and established safeguards for women. The Personal Status Law was a progressive effort to unify family law, and outline the rights of women with regards to marriage, divorce, custody, and matters of family law. This law also explicitly banned the marriage of women under the age of 18. Since January of 2025, women’s autonomy on such matters has been severely restricted, and most controversially, the minimum age for women to marry was lowered to only 9 years of age. There are several risks which are inherently tied to a girl marrying at such a young age, particularly pertaining to their physical and mental well-being. While women’s rights and freedoms are legally restricted with the new amendments, a surge in child marriage entrenches a dynamic in which women grow up accustomed to an asymmetrical gender balance, further normalising child-marriage.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/02/19/taliban-allow-men-to-beat-wives-so-long-dont-breaak-bones/

Taliban allows men to beat wives – so long as they don’t break bones

Afghanistan government introduces new code that allows beatings, bans women from escaping violence and makes justice structurally impossible

The Taliban has passed a law that allows men to beat their wives as long as it does not cause “broken bones or open wounds”. The Telegraph obtained the 60-page penal code – signed by Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban supreme leader, and distributed to courts across Afghanistan – which classifies spousal beatings as “ta’zir” – discretionary punishment – rather than a criminal act. A husband may strike his wife and children freely, provided the violence does not leave visible bone fractures or open wounds. Even where serious injury can be proven, the maximum sentence is 15 days in prison.

https://archive.ph/tIX5l

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/feb/19/afghanistan-women-book-club-defying-taliban-education-ban

Four young women sit together, waiting for the phone to ring. When the call finally comes, their friend’s voice is crackly and hard to make out, but they wait patiently for the signal to improve so they can start discussing their chosen book.

Every Thursday, the five friends come together away from the disapproving gaze of the Taliban for a reading circle. They read not for entertainment but, as they put it, to understand life and the world around them. They call their group “women with books and imagination”. Most of the women in the group meet in person, but Parwana*, 21, lives in a different district so has to join by phone. She was still a child when the Taliban pulled girls out of education, so didn’t get to finish school. Now, she says, her entire week revolves around books.

“When they banned us from attending school, I lost all hope. My mother encouraged me, but I knew things wouldn’t improve,” she says. “I decided to do something myself … and now I have this reading circle.” This week, Parwana is leading a discussion on The Year of Turmoil, a novel by the Iranian writer Abbas Maroufi about a young woman named Noushafarin who finds herself trapped in an oppressive marriage. Set against the backdrop of turmoil in mid-20th-century Iran, its themes of repression, faith and patriarchal power resonate strongly with the women.

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/20/g-s1-110736/taliban-afghanistan-women-face-covering

In stop-start efforts since November, Taliban officials have cracked down on women and girls in the western city of Herat who have been ignoring the hardline group's rules by showing their faces. Enforcement agents are preventing them from entering hospitals and seminaries and pulling them out of public transport.

Initially, women and girls were punished for not wearing a burka — the Afghan burka is typically blue, has a netted opening for the eyes and drapes down around the body, largely constraining the woman wearing it. Later, after what residents described as pushback, officials enforcing the rules relented and allowed women to wear the typical conservative dress in this part of Afghanistan, a voluminous cloak known as a chaddar, along with a face mask. At the main hospital in the Western city of Herat, one health worker described female staff milling outside the entryway for hours, waiting for colleagues on the night shift to hand over their burkas so they could enter — like a token that allowed them "entry permission," the worker said. In another incident, Human Rights Watch reported on a female surgeon, who was detained for several hours for not donning the burka.

Forcing women to don burkas, to cover their faces or even to wear a hijab, or head covering, "is part of the Taliban's policy of controlling women's bodies to make women invisible," said Sahar Fetrat, a researcher in the women's rights division of Human Rights Watch. She said in a statement: "Afghan women and United Nations human rights experts have called this "gender apartheid."

In interviews conducted since November, more than a dozen Herat residents described different incidents to NPR. They all requested anonymity, or that we only use an initial of their first names, fearing reprisal from Taliban officials. The crackdown was run by officials of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which is tasked with the implementation of the Taliban's interpretation of Islamic law.