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Kate

@katesheill.bsky.social
692 followers 816 following 236 posts

Human rights and migration, gender, sexuality. She/her. London / Bangkok.

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Reposted by Kate
Sarah Woolley @sarahwoolley.bsky.social · 4h
🚨LAST DAY TO SIGN AGAINST EARNED SETTLEMENT🚨 🧑‍🧑‍🧒 Save 90,000 children from poverty 🌈 Protect our NHS and care workers 🏡 Make Burnham’s pledge to end rough sleeping actually possible ✍️ PLEASE SIGN ❤️https://act.praxis.org.uk/andy-burnham-scrap-earned-settlement
act.praxis.org.uk
To Andy Burnham: Scrap the earned settlement proposals
Sign the petition and call on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to scrap the earned settlement plans. They are unpopular. They are divisive. And they will devastate our already struggling NHS and our social...
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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 23h
A thread of what life is like for anyone these groups dislike, usually by existing in our own skin. The threat has always been there, but it’s escalating and endangering ever more lives as so many either look away, or even embolden this hatred and violence.
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Kate @katesheill.bsky.social · 23h
Thread
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Senthorun S. Raj @senthorun.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
“Many men rape, and few seem to think that it’s a very big deal… Complicity, too, is typical, not uncommon, for responding institutions. Impunity for rapists is cast as good sense, or as responsibility; as fairness, or compassion.” We need better systems of accountability to refuse sexual violence.
theguardian.com
The horror of the Cornell rape case is how ordinary it is | Moira Donegan
Many men rape; many men giggle encouragingly, or shrug indifferently, when their friends rape. Many men rape, and few seem to think that it’s a very big deal
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
“It’s not that people don’t want nonfiction,” the editor says. “They cannot afford a hardcover; they wait a year for the paperback they can afford, and then [it] never comes. What are they supposed to do?” (le sigh)
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Liliana Segura @lilianasegura.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I've been thinking and talking and writing about the death penalty for my whole adult life and the past week+ has been truly surreal and exhausting, not only because of the onslaught of horrors but because there seems to be so little historical memory of what this system is and always has been.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Precisely.
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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
"The last thing I did is the report on Gaza naming what is happening there as genocide. One of the main reactions to that report [was] paying tribute to me for my courage.. why would you need courage to speak the truth?" Navi Pillay upon winning the 2026 Nobel peace prize
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Anthropic banning “abusive or cruel behavior” toward Claude in its new usage policies is proof to me that tech companies are going to moderate violence against AI before they ever moderate violence against women and minorities
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
a little louder for the cheap seats in the back
One of the biggest myths is that men rape by mistake. Like, "Oh, they need consent training." But research is very clear: Sexual violence is not a mistake. It is an intentionally made decision by people who know they don't have consent. They just don't prioritize consent over things like status, power, domination, and sexual gratification.
For my research, I got a certificate of confidentiality from the National Institutes of Health, so my notes couldn't be subpoenaed. One of the reasons I call them perpetrators in my work is because every single person I interviewed confessed in that context. The first question I would ask them was, "When you received that email from Title IX that you were under investigation, did you know what it was about?" Every perpetrator I interviewed said "yes." If sexual assault were a miscommunication, you would be wondering, What have I possibly done wrong? That is not the way that any of them reacted because they knew.
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Sarah Kay @k-interarma.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
To the surprise of absolutely no one, but to their courage, victims of far-right figures arguing they are “protecting women and girls” from unknown and unseen particular threat from migrants are coming forward to tell their story of sexual and domestic abuse
theguardian.com
‘Bully in every way’: domestic abuse survivors say ex-partners behind far-right UK street patrols
Seven women share their stories to make people aware of patterns of violence behind anti-immigration street patrol movement
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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This is almost certainly true, and the UK fails women refugees in multiple ways, including by refusing safe routes to come here, wrongly rejecting asylum claims, barring family reunion & not recognising trafficking victims promptly or at all. If only Mahmood had the power to do something about this
theguardian.com
Nearly all women arriving on small boats have been raped, says Shabana Mahmood
Home secretary warns people traffickers will exploit asylum seekers because they decide who comes to the UK
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gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
New: As gay bars across the country say that Meta is flagging and deactivating their accounts without warning, I spoke to an Austin queer bar that says Meta nearly destroyed their ability to advertise events: www.chron.com/culture/arti...
chron.com
How Meta's new content moderation upended a Texas gay bar
At least one LGBTQ establishment in Texas says the social media giant has incorrectly disabled its social media account, potentially hurting business.
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Lisa Diedrich @lisadiedrich.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"This is not models going rogue. This is gross incompetence & negligence by a particular company, which actually they could be held criminally liable for." @timnitgebru.blacksky.app cuts to the AI chase.
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"The current level of political animosity is exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s citizens." There are not enough exclamation points to convey how I felt reading this paragraph
Screenshot of article which reads: From this perspective, the “both sides” frame falls apart. The prob-
lem is not that the parties are divided. The problem is the existential 
threat that a reempowered ethnonationalist strain poses to pluralistic 
U.S. democracy writ large. The current level of political animosity is 
exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted 
to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s 
citizens. The only way to re-oppress most of a country is to use anti-
democratic and authoritarian tactics. And the only way to oppose those 
tactics is to push back as a population and clearly reject them. This is 
the argument happening in the United States, and its pathology is not 
anger—it is the movement to undermine a generation of rights.
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Daniele Saracino @dansaracino.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The new deportation ("return") regulation has been adopted today by the Council. Bernd Parusel @bernd-parusel.bsky.social from @sieps.bsky.social has written an article on it on the Forced Migration Studies Blog @fluchtforschung.bsky.social. Must-read! fluchtforschung.net/deportation-...
fluchtforschung.net
Deportation at all costs? The EU’s new regulation on returns – Netzwerk Fluchtforschung
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International Rescue Committee - EU @eu.rescue.org · 30/09/2026
As Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands meet again in Brussels tomorrow, IRC warns return hubs could mark a historic setback for fundamental rights. It is not too late for EU governments to step back from the return hub initiative. Our call: www.rescue.org/eu/press-rel...
rescue.org
IRC urges European governments to abandon "return hub" plans | The IRC in the EU
As last week's EU Munich migration summit concluded with a renewed commitment to externalising returns, ahead of a follow-up meeting planned tomorrow, 1 October, the International Rescue Committee (IR...
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Kate @katesheill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent have released their new report to the Human Rights Council, “Crossings and journeys: People of African descent in global migration and the enduring architecture of racialization" (link in press release) www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...
ohchr.org
UN experts warn of racialised treatment in migration
GENEVA – UN experts* today warned that Africans and people of African descent on the move are victims of racism and discriminatory acts throughout their migration journeys, as a result of migration po...
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Senthorun S. Raj @senthorun.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“Success is measured by whether people become safer, freer and more able to organise, speak and live with dignity… That future can only be built in partnership with the communities whose lives are most directly affected.” Governments should better support local queer communities fighting to thrive.
genevasolutions.news
❝The UN rights council can't address anti-gay laws without condemning their colonial roots - Geneva Solutions
Fifty-two of the 65 countries that criminalise consensual same-sex intimacy inherited such laws from colonial rule. Yet a proposed UN resolution on decriminalisation omits that history, risking the fa...
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Sean Jones KC @seanjones.org · 29/09/2026
The rush to speculate that asylum seekers are responsible for every crime in the news is a sort of opportunistic informational terrorism. Until it’s disproved it stokes fear and hatred. When it is disproved there are no adverse consequences and they know that they only have to be lucky once.
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Kate @katesheill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Human rights experts: US migration externalization scheme mires over 35 other states, triggering cascade of human rights violations including torture www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...
ohchr.org
US migration externalization scheme mires over 35 other states, triggering cascade of human rights violations including torture: Human Rights Experts
GENEVA – US migration externalization arrangements are already putting migrants at heightened risk of human rights violations, including torture and persecution, Human Rights Experts** warned today, a...
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Kate @katesheill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
16 UN human rights mandates & one from African Commission name & warn States signing US externalization agreements. "More countries are negotiating & signing agreements every day. For migrants in situations of particular vulnerability, the consequences can be deadly" www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...
ohchr.org
US migration externalization scheme mires over 35 other states, triggering cascade of human rights violations including torture: Human Rights Experts
GENEVA – US migration externalization arrangements are already putting migrants at heightened risk of human rights violations, including torture and persecution, Human Rights Experts** warned today, a...
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
"In order to deliver the PM's promise to save social care we need a permanent class of indentured migrant workers without labour rights".
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CJ McKinney @cjmckinney.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Mahmood will tell the Labour conference on Monday that she will reopen the UK [refugee] resettlement scheme... The Home Office expects about one in four arrivals to be Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees, though numbers will initially be very small". www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
UK to open new refugee resettlement routes for Afghan women and Palestinians
Exclusive: Move by Shabana Mahmood comes after closure of Afghan scheme last year but experts say numbers too small to deter Channel crossings
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Virginia Werewoolf @woolfianjosh.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Nobody could have predicted this. It’s not as if Britain has a history of damaging its own economy in order to chase the satisfaction of a clutch of racists.
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is *not* the result of "the success of Mahmood's reforms", but of earlier measures/other factors. Her proposals could make it considerably *worse* in future years. A few other points linked below.. archive.ph/0psJ8
Falling migration numbers could cost the chancellor as much as £7bn in fiscal headroom as he writes his first budget, The Times has been told. 

Government insiders believe that John Healey, who already faced an uphill battle to balance the books next month, is likely to have an even bigger challenge after immigration significantly undershot projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). 

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimated last month that the success of Shabana Mahmood’s reforms, which have seen net migration cut to the low hundreds of thousands, could cost Healey some £4bn. 

Labour sources familiar with the budget process, however, said that the figure was now closer to £6.5bn. The OBR’s migration forecasts have been consistently higher than real numbers in recent years.

Treasury officials, who have long expected Mahmood’s reforms to cause a hit to headroom, described the number as “pure speculation” but did not deny that Healey would have to contend with a larger funding gap than expected because of falling migration
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Kate @katesheill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Labour is not a commodity
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Mark Stout, Ph.D from Miskatonic University @markstout.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I think it's telling that the companies buying up these books to throw into the maw of the AI machine feel obliged to do it on the down-low.
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Kate @katesheill.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The city has seen nearly twice as much September rain as usual www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/gen...
bangkokpost.com
All 50 Bangkok districts declared disaster areas
All 50 districts of Bangkok have been declared disaster zones after almost 48 hours of heavy rain that caused widespread flooding, traffic problems and disruptions to daily life.
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Yenni Kwok @yennikwok.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
16 years after she was sentenced to death, 11 years after she was nearly executed in Indonesia. Mary Jane Veloso is finally free. She was granted an absolute pardon by the Philippine president late on Friday.
en.tempo.co
Mary Jane Veloso Is Free: Who She Is and What Her Pardon Means for Others
Mary Jane Veloso, a drug convict who was sentenced to death in Indonesia and later repatriated to Philippines, was granted absolute pardon on Friday.
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Rayner is correct: these proposals are economically damaging and politically counterproductive. Pretty clear that view is now almost universal in the Cabinet/Labour Party and the informed public. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
thetimes.com
Angela Rayner condemns Labour’s migrant visa crackdown
Speaking before the party conference, the housing secretary says Shabana Mahmood’s immigration plans would affect care workers
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En Buen Ora @enbuenora.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is a fantastic brief essay in how news media & pundits turn upside down who is who is being punished for speaking freely--in the case of Kraft, Macklemore, & Sheeran--when rich elites want things to go one way, but unruly peasant masses refuse to go along. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/se...
lrb.co.uk
Lorna Finlayson | Public Positions
In much of the coverage of the Ed Sheeran-Macklemore debacle, the reality of the incident is turned on its head, as...
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David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Thanks to the "legitimate concerns" paradigm, we have a national consensus that migrants (you know which specific ones) are a problem. More migrants = bad, fewer migrants = good. In that context, "anti-migrant protestor" isn't even neutral language to describe this fascist thug. It is *positive*.
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 24/09/2026
We've given the knuckle draggers way too much of the mic and now they've really pissed off the historians
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the most stereotypically Tory conservative man of the 21st Century, responded to Suella Braverman with a long-form video criticizing her position and rejecting a race-based theory of Englishness, and in response has been ratioed by the increasingly feral British online far-right.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
@Jacob_R...•22h
The English are a mongrel people, not an Aryan master race.

Underneath is an extremely English-looking man in a suit sitting in front of a large bookshelf.

There are 6.2 thousand comments compared to 6 thousand likes.
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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Not a dicky bird about thugs trying to sink a dinghy with a rescue worker on board or their claims to be "forming an army". Two boats of people seeking safety land and bingo bango they're the ones portrayed as the issue. Labour is complict in the rise of the far right. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Home Secretary hits out at 'unacceptable' migrant landings in Kent
Usually brought ashore by Border Security Command or the RNLI, these are the first uncontrolled landings since 2025.
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Emiliano Mellino @mellino.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Meanwhile, in the UK Deliveroo has sponsored events at Labour Party conference for years.
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Video of the fascist Danny Tommo slashing a Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) boat rescuing migrants at sea www.instagram.com/reel/DdmJaD4...
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David Kaye @davidakaye.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
it's quite a thing to see a confession to a war of aggression
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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
it I had to cite a key moment from Trump's speech, it would be this one. it is a threat not just to the Iranian government but to the Iranian people, and in that sense it contravenes both the international laws prohibiting war and the international humanitarian law that protects civilians
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Kate @katesheill.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
For anyone wondering about Trump at the High Level Week of the UN Generally Assembly 🧵
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 20/09/2026
Exactly. I’ve been saying this since I started the tracker last year, and it’s why I don’t call them deportations. gillianbrockell.com/tracking-all...
I am using the term "third-country removals" instead of "third-country deportations" here, because the latter is a legal process in which a migrant is resettled in a safe third country. What is actually happening, in nearly all cases, more closely resembles chain refoulement, rendition, or kidnapping - and may violate U.S. and
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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Years of discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community, continuing homophobia and transphobia, all coupled with ageism. Older LGBTQIA+ facing ongoing discrimination/ stereotyping/judgment. Things were meant to be better by now. Instead they just seem to go backwards. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Adam Porter, a housing development manager from the LGBT Foundation charity, says he regularly meets older members of the community in exactly that situation.

"It's very common for people to hide things if they have a carer visiting their home, for example hiding their wedding photos or taking down a trans flag," he says.

"In the case of someone moving into a care environment, that means hiding who they are in their own home, for what could be the rest of their life."
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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
a powerful case for appointing a secretary of state specialising in media and culture
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Theodore Kim @theodore-kim.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
As always, @tressiemcphd.bsky.social ’s analysis of the “AIs gone rogue” bullshit is spot on. “Why do the powerful leaders of A.I. want us to panic? Because panic sells the idea that A.I. is ungovernable.” They show their unseriousness when “[n]one of them are enthusiastic about accountability."
nytimes.com
Opinion | A.I. Is a Threat, but Not in the Way You Think (Gift Article)
The threats from A.I. are real — and they’re ones we know how to deal with.
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Colin Yeo @colinyeo.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Terrible article. But also telling that these pieces never mention the burden of compliance with Home Office immigration regulations by employers, universities, landlords, the NHS, public services… giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
giftarticle.ft.com
The relentless creep of Britain’s compliance state
While some rules are just fiddly and frustrating, others do real harm
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Milk Tea Alliance Calendar @mtacalendar.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Tis the weekend #MilkTeaAlliance & here's the upcoming events 🧵 To begin, The planned Refoulement of Rohingya Refugees to Myanmar from Malaysia is deeply problematic and this week Anwar not only defended the plan but also invited the murderous Junta leader to Malaysia. Which is insult to injury 1/
aljazeera.com
Malaysia offers to invite Myanmar leader in Rohingya repatriation push
Malaysia has invited Myanmar’s military ruler for a visit to the country in a bid to expedite Rohingya repatriation.
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Blake @1kdne.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Not just academia
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Emiliano Mellino @mellino.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The UK government is making upwards of £4.9bn in profit from visa fees, citizenship fees & the immigration health surcharge. Meanwhile, people are getting into thousands of pounds of debt or going without food just to afford to these immigration fees. www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...
thebureauinvestigates.com
Government makes £5bn a year from immigration fees while applicants…
Home Office’s fees are up to 10 times the processing cost – and rising every year
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