Category: Europe
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An unholy legacy: the Mother and Baby Homes report reminds Ireland that the Catholic Church has blood on its hands
OPINION On the 12th of January 2021 the Irish government published the 3000-page final report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, their hand having been forced by the leaking of the report to media outlets. The Commission was established in 2015 to provide a full account of what happened to vulnerable women…
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Gender violence: Spain’s unending nightmare
OPINION The allegations of sexual assault made against a far-right member of the Spanish Parliament have shone the spotlight once more on the country’s institutionalised problem with gender violence. For decades, activists have been clamouring for an overhaul of the political and legal approach to the question of sexual consent and the plague of gender-based…
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“Next Generation EU”: Italy’s youth are the big losers of the ongoing political deadlock
OPINION Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s third-way party Italia Viva has officially withdrawn from the government coalition. Renzi announced it in a press conference last night at 18:15 (local time), asking three cabinet members from his party to subsequently leave their positions. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government may now face a vote of no confidence…
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Former far-right Vox MP investigated for sex crime
REPORT Sexual violence strikes Spanish politics again, as former far-right Vox MP, Carlos Fernández-Roca Suárez, is investigated for a sexual offence. On 13th November 2020 Fernández-Roca announced his resignation from Spain’s Parliament using a now-deleted Twitter account, following the accusation: ‘On Wednesday, after learning of the complaint made against me, I immediately and voluntarily made myself…
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State of the Union: a post-Brexit Northern Ireland looks south of the border for answers
OPINION The first week of the United Kingdom’s independent, “taking back control” status has been predictably underwhelming to say the least. Overshadowed by the devastating developments of the coronavirus pandemic, the early hiccups have been (understandably) largely passed over by the media in comparison with the more pressing health crisis. However, in Northern Ireland this new…
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A failure at multiple levels: Bosnia’s migrant crisis grows deeper amidst stop-gap measures
Image Credit: Facebook Page of Una-Sana Canton, Bosnia & Herzegovina OPINION Co-written with Dijana Dedić Dijana Dedić is the Coordinator for the European Union integration processes for the Una-Sana Canton and the Secretary for the Development Agency of the Una-Sana Canton. She has multiple years of experience implementing EU-funded projects for the Canton and local…
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Can Hungary’s rainbow coalition bring down Orbán’s regime in 2022?
OPINION The vast majority of popular opposition parties will run in Hungary’s 2022 national parliamentary elections as a coalition, with a joint program, a single Prime Minister candidate, and only one local candidate per voting district. With this, they hope to oust Viktor Orbán, whose latest stretch as Prime Minister began in 2010. A collective…
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Sinking beneath the poverty line: Serbia’s forgotten tragedy
REPORT Amid Covid-19’s cruel impact on human health and world economies, there is another crisis that has gone unspoken even though it remains a significant issue in countries like Serbia. People did lose their jobs due to the pandemic. But what is to be said about those who have already been struggling for years? What…
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Konstantin Kotov and the sorry state of freedom of expression in today’s Russia
OPINION On the 16th December, Russian activist Konstantin Kotov was released from a penal colony situated 100 kilometres from Moscow. He had served eighteen months after being convicted for violating the country’s numerous rules that regulate protesting and mass actions. Kotov was first arrested during the anti-Kremlin protests that rocked Moscow in the summer of…
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The Murder of Mary Ashford: an interview with women’s history writer, Naomi Clifford
INTERVIEW The Murder of Mary Ashford: The Crime that Changed English Legal History explores the true story of servant, Mary Ashford, from Erdington, who was raped and murdered by Abraham Thornton, whom she had met at a local party. The case stands out in the way it galvanised a group of influential middle-class men, under…
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