Claudio Francavilla

EU embraces authoritarian Egypt for help on Gaza, migration – DW – 10/23/2025 As the EU held its first-ever bilateral summit with Egypt, activists said the bloc was rewarding an authoritarian government. But experts told DW the EU needs Egypt if it wants to help in Gaza and cur...

Let’s be clear: the #EUEgypt summit was an orchestrated whitewashing event to sanitize Sisi’s image as a brutally repressive ruler.

With its moral compass buried under Gaza’s rubble, the EU no longer subtly but openly, proudly bankrolls authoritarianism: dw.com/en/eu-embrac...

Ceasefire or Not, EU Should Keep Pressure on Israel to End Abuses As European Union leaders and foreign ministers prepare for meetings to discuss the situation in Israel and Palestine, some of their representatives in Brussels, and Israel’s new ambassador to the EU,...

Ceasefire or not, Israel’s occupation and apartheid, displacement, torture across the OPT continue unabated

As #EUCO leaders meet, they should reject calls to drop sanction proposals - or they'll deal yet another blow to their credibility, and to hopes for rights and justice
hrw.org/news/2025/10...

Vietnam: Former Political Prisoner Rearrested The Vietnamese authorities arrested a former political prisoner, Huynh Ngoc Tuan, on October 7, 2025, for his comments on social media.

#Vietnam was just re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council, but its crackdown on dissent is only intensifying

Wave of arrests ahead of Communist Party congress - including activist Huynh Ngoc Tuan, who already spent 10 years in prison for his writing: hrw.org/news/2025/10...

At #EUEgypt summit, @eucopresident.consilium.europa.eu @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu have a choice to make: use EU leverage to press Sisi to end repression, or continue to bankroll it.

Joint NGO statement: cihrs.org/eu-egypt-fir...

It's important that @kajakallas.bsky.social managed to keep #EU sanctions on the table after FMs meeting; but governments must stop blocking them

"What may have changed is the scale and intensity of #Israel ’s atrocity crimes in #Gaza, but its unlawful occupation and #apartheid continue unabated" 👇🏽

#India: @consilium.europa.eu endorsed new strategy that completely overlooks the country's human rights crisis: hrw.org/news/2025/09...

#FAC conclusions mention human rights in par. 15, human rights concerns nowhere

This will only embolden Modi’s repression and authoritarian drift

As @kajakallas.bsky.social & EU foreign ministers discuss sanctions for ongoing Israeli crimes, kind reminder that a ceasefire stops:
✅ Bombs (does it, really?)
❌ Occupation
❌ Apartheid
❌ Torture
❌ Forced displacement
❌ Unlawful detentions
❌ Impunity

Yes, EU should act: hrw.org/news/2025/10... #FAC

“Stick that they never used” 😉

Spot on analysis from @hrw.org. Today, with 40 other members of the European Parliament, I sent a letter to the Council echoing many of these points and expressing the need to keep up pressure towards Israel to respect human rights and international law, including through our trade policy #EUCO

Sanctions, suspension of trade benefits, ban of settlement trade - as explained in the piece.

Ceasefire or Not, EU Should Keep Pressure on Israel to End Abuses As European Union leaders and foreign ministers prepare for meetings to discuss the situation in Israel and Palestine, some of their representatives in Brussels, and Israel’s new ambassador to the EU,...

7/7 This is not the time to ease pressure, but to double down on it.

The EU should finally act on its own findings and supposed values, uphold international law, and end the impunity that’s enabled decades of occupation, apartheid, and acts of #genocide www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

6/7 All those measures - sanctions, suspension of EU-Israel deal, settlement trade ban - are listed in the annex to the "New York Declaration", led by France & KSA and widely endorsed by UNGA, incl. 25/27 EU states: docs.un.org/en/A/CONF.24...

Yet few, if any, have followed up on those commitments

NGOs, Trade Unions, Call on EU to Ban Trade with Israel’s Illegal Settlements Over 160 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, and civil society organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have called on the European Union to ban trade and business with Israeli set...

5/7 What's appallingly not on the EU table is a ban of trade with settlements.

All EU states rightly say they're illegal, and "an obstacle to a two state solution". Then why does the EU keep trading with them, feeding war crimes, occupation and apartheid? hrw.org/news/2025/02...

Ben Gvir announces his party will oppose ceasefire and hostage-release deal * * *

4/7 But even if EU states only cared about the ceasefire, they should be wary of its likely spoilers - and ethnic cleansing advocates - in Israel's cabinet timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent... - and finally sanction them, as UK CAN AUS NZ NW did 👉 www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/d...

3/7 The EU's own review of Israel's (non-)compliance with the human rights clause of the bilateral Agreement looked not only at Gaza, but at the whole Occupied Palestinian Territory, citing damning UN reports & ICJ rulings

Israel cannot be compliant with a human rights clause AND commit apartheid

Full text of EU report on Israeli crimes in Gaza Full text: The EU has corroborated UN allegations that Israel was guilty of "indiscriminate attacks ... starvation ... torture ... [and] apartheid" against Palestinians in a leaked "review".

2/7 A ceasefire may have finally stopped the bombs, but Israel's criminal siege, occupation, apartheid, oppression, torture, settlement enterprise and impunity continue unabated.

And the EU knows it very well 👇
euobserver.com/eu-and-the-w...

Ceasefire or Not, EU Should Keep Pressure on Israel to End Abuses As European Union leaders and foreign ministers prepare for meetings to discuss the situation in Israel and Palestine, some of their representatives in Brussels, and Israel’s new ambassador to the EU,...

🧵 As #EU governments prepare to meet amid a fragile #Gaza ceasefire, pressure is mounting for them to "drop the stick" they never used on #Israel

Caving to that pressure would be yet another blow to their credibility, and to hopes for rights and justice: hrw.org/news/2025/10... #EUCO #FAC ⤵️ 1/7

“Now is not the time to sanction Israel,” an EU diplomat said.

Tell that to those mourning, starving, maimed, living under occupation and apartheid.

Sanctions, suspension of EU-Israel deal must be squarely on the table - and leave it only once adopted.
👉🏽 euobserver.com/eu-and-the-w... #EUCO #FAC

#Brazil: Illegal cattle ranching has devastated territories in the #Amazon, right where #COP30 will be held

Some of that beef may have come into the EU - and keep coming if EU Deforestation Law #EUDR is delayed

New @hrw.org report: hrw.org/news/2025/10...

@vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu

Morocco: Protests Met with Repression, Violence Moroccan authorities have cracked down on youth-led protests demanding sweeping reforms to public services, resulting in deaths and mass arrests.

#Morocco' s youth took to the streets for their rights to healthcare and education. Their protests were met with violence and mass arrests.

Authorities should halt the crackdown, investigate abuses, and heed #GenZ212 protesters’ calls ⤵️
www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

Cambodia's Microloan 'Debt Traps’ Test the World Bank Cambodia has the most microcredit debt per capita anywhere in the world — debts held mainly by people living in poverty who receive loans to help with small businesses and emergency expenses. In 2024,...

#Cambodia: predatory microloans, backed by IFC & #WorldBank, are driving Indigenous families into hunger and land loss.

At #WBGMeetings, leaders should treat borrowers as affected people, apply safeguards, provide justice and remedies. @hrw.org: www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

If you don’t address justice, unlawful occupation, apartheid, reparations, return, that “road towards peace” will go the same way as it has for decades, @eucopresident.consilium.europa.eu.

Respectfully: you interviewed the ambassador of a state on trial for genocide, which runs a decades-long illegal occupation marred by apartheid (ICJ ruling), and whose PM is a ICC fugitive.

Read that again.

We all deal with editors. Wish we all also strived not to normalize the crimes above.

6/6 Finally: what's been going on in Gaza is not something you put a stone on and forget about. Nor can Palestinians be asked to accept apartheid and occupation.

Those truly seeking peace must realize a return to Oct 6, 2023, is not a solution. And they must act accordingly.

@jnbarrot.bsky.social

NGOs, Trade Unions, Call on EU to Ban Trade with Israel’s Illegal Settlements Over 160 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, and civil society organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have called on the European Union to ban trade and business with Israeli set...

5/6 On top of that, growing recognition of Palestine has yet to be accompanied by a EU-wide ban of settlement trade

Settlements ARE war crimes, the EU27 call them "an obstacle to peace", and trading with them is illegal. Then why does Europe keep doing it? www.hrw.org/news/2025/02...

4/6 As to the EU, that means suspending the EU-Israel trade deal and sanctioning Israeli ministers

As @rmomtaz.bsky.social lays out, that is more - not less - necessary today than it was before: carnegieendowment.org/europe/strat...

Italy, and most of all Germany, are key @aussenminister.diplo.de

Annex - New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution (A/CONF.243/2025/1/Add.1) - Question of Palestine 06 August 2025 To learn more about the High-level international conference, please visit the dedicated page.   High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palest...

3/6 International law is clear, and the annex to the New York Declaration - spearheaded by FR & KSA, and endorsed by most of those meeting today - paves the way to ensuring its respect: www.un.org/unispal/docu...

But measures must be adopted, not just considered, for that Declaration to be of use

2/6 Decades of atrocities, unlawful occupation, apartheid, up to Israel's ongoing genocidal campaign have one common root: impunity

Those crimes will continue, unless governments with leverage finally use it and take concrete action, instead of repeating "two-state solution" as an empty slogan

🧵 #Gaza: several Foreign Ministers are gathering in Paris to discuss the peace plan.

If they want more than another fragile ceasefire, they must walk the talk, take concrete, overdue steps, focusing on what’s been ignored for too long: justice and Palestinians' rights. 1/6 ⤵️

Bangladesh: New Crackdown Under Anti-Terrorism Law Bangladesh’s interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel peace laureate, is increasingly using the recently amended counterterrorism law to arrest alleged supporters of the deposed Awami League ...

“Right now, our choices are to be either jailed as terrorists or to face a mob”

Anti-terror law in #Bangladesh is being used to target perceived critics and opponents. Ill-treatment allegations, mob attacks echo Sheikh Hasina-era abuses: hrw.org/news/2025/10...

@euambbangladesh.bsky.social