Lizzie Eldridge
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lizzie4.bsky.social
Lizzie Eldridge
@lizzie4.bsky.social
55 followers 67 following 26 posts
Writer and human rights activist
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Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
scottishpen.bsky.social
Scottish PEN gives a big thank you to @alisonphipps.bsky.social for her inspirational talk about #Gaza #Palestine, about her phenomenal work, & the 'menace of hope' which fuelled the evening. A night to remember.
Thanks,too, to @ruthaylett.bsky.social & @lynndaw.bsky.social for organising this event
December 12, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
asls.org.uk
When the sun was white and wintry and drained of energy
Macbeth met the witches under the rim of the sky.
Why did you confirm my evil, he said…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Macbeth and the Witches”
in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS: Selected Poems, @carcanet.bsky.social 2021
#poem #poetry #Shakespeare #Macbeth
Macbeth and the Witches by Iain Crichton Smith When the sun was white and wintry and drained of energy Macbeth met the witches under the rim of the sky. Why did you confirm my evil, he said. And the witches who were lighting thorns in the cold winter said, There is a play that one plays when the summer is over and you happened to be one of the cards in our hand, a deformed king with a coat too large for him and a crown that sizzled in the white wintry sky. These things are after all not important except to those who suffer, who are not important. Feeling belongs to the spring and the ignorance of lovers. Here in this wood it is a question of passing the time, and the abstract intellect constructs dramas with a queen and a pawn and the immortal joker who faces two ways at the frosty January gates. Let be, let be, it was quite a nice structure. And truth after all can be played with under the sun which is fading slowly towards a renaissance of leaves. Come, join us, join us, at the unimportant edge of things wearing your coat of blood with the hole in the breast. This is the west. The east has innocent wings.
December 12, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
scottishpen.bsky.social
Scottish PEN condemns the use of violence against our Vice President @lizzie4.bsky.social and her fellow protesters.
We are appalled that this government is clamping down on the #RightToProtest & #FreedomofExpression, & using brute force to do so.
www.thenational.scot/news/2569150...
Pro-Palestine protesters 'dragged' out of Scottish plaza hosting Keir Starmer
PRO-PALESTINE protesters have slammed Labour officials after they were “manhandled” and "aggressively" removed from a venue which was…
www.thenational.scot
December 12, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
asls.org.uk
Learn from this picture how we journey in this world
Slithering as we go, the foolish and the wise…

—John Burnside, “Pieter Brueghel: Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap, 1565”
from BLACK CAT BONE (Jonathan Cape, 2011)
#poem #poetry #art #visualart
www.penguin.co.uk/books/412331...
John Burnside Pieter Brueghel: Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap, 1565 Learn from this picture how we journey in this world Slithering as we go, the foolish and the wise We have to imagine the duties they leave behind for the thrill of the river, the kitchens and middens, the sheepfolds and clouded byres, the old folk in their sick beds mumbling prayers. The day is bright and this is their escape from hardship, but each has his private hurt, her secret dread: the man who starts thirsty and tired, his body soured with last nights schnapps, then skates out to the bridge at breakneck speed, away from the loveless matron he’s had to endure for decades; the woman in blue and grey, keeping pace with her child, untroubled for now, but never released from the fear that her husband will catch her wasting his precious time and beat her as he’s beaten her for years, the moment he gets her home. At midstream, the children play with makeshift hockey sticks and, near the church, a man finds the thoughtless grace of the boy he once was to glide free in the very eye of heaven; it could be simple – paradise foreseen – but up on the rightmost bank, amid thorns and briars, someone has built a bird trap from a plank set on a perch, from which a length of rope snakes to a half-closed door, and all around it, birds dip from the air, starlings and fieldfares, redwings, unaware of any danger. It seems a fable and perhaps it is: we live in peril, die from happenstance, a casual slip, a fault line in the ice; but surely it’s the other thought that matters, the sense that, now and then, there’s still a chance a man might slide towards an old belonging, momentarily involved in nothing but the present, skating out towards a white horizon, fair and gifted with the grace to skate forever, slithering as he goes, but hazarding a guess that someone else is close beside him, other to his other. A 1565 oil painting on an oak panel, attributed to the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It shows a village scene where numerous small people skate on a frozen river, while on the right among trees and bushes, birds gather around a bird trap – a heavy wooden board propped up on a single stick, with a few crumbs underneath the board. A string is attached to the stick and leads off to a small dark hole in a wall at the very edge of the painting.
December 12, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
peninternational.bsky.social
#Vietnam: Ahead of the 4th anniversary of writer Pham Doan Trang's unjust sentencing, we join @rsf.org @amnesty.org @penamerica.bsky.social @pressfreedom.bsky.social & others in calling on the international community to secure her release #FreePhamDoanTrang www.pen-international.org/news/vietnam...
Vietnam: Four years after Pham Doan Trang’s sentencing, the international coalition is once again urging her release — PEN International | Promoting Literature & Defending Freedom of Expression Worldw...
12 December 2025 – Ahead of the fourth anniversary of the sentencing of prominent Vietnamese journalist, writer, and woman human rights defender Pham Doan Trang, an international coalition of non-gove...
www.pen-international.org
December 12, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
asls.org.uk
A CHAOS OF LIGHT
New Writing Scotland 43
Ed. Kirstin Innes, Chris Powici & Niall O’Gallagher

“writing that unsettles and challenges, that questions assumptions…A rich, boisterous, tender, charming, angry, sorrowful, gleeful mix”

Available now from all good bookshops!
💙📚
asls.org.uk/publications...
New Writing Scotland 43
Edited by Kirstin Innes, Chris Powici & Niall O’Gallagher Published in: Paperback, 184 pages By: Association for Scottish Literature, Glasgow, August 2025 Price: £9.95 ISBN: 9781906841669 Cover image…
asls.org.uk
August 27, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
thisismyglasgow.bsky.social
A poem by Edwin Morgan inscribed into a flagstone on Candleriggs in Glasgow, just outside the City Halls. Born in 1920, Morgan became the city's first poet laureate in 1999.

Cont./

#glasgow #streetart #poetry #edwinmorgan #glasgowcoatofarms #streetpoetry
December 9, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
zackpolanski.bsky.social
Seeking asylum is not illegal.

People entering the country by irregular means without any other option are not breaking the law.

The Govenrment should be showing humanity not further brutality
December 9, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
georgemonbiot.bsky.social
How many times do we need to point this out?
By appeasing the far right, you do not weaken it. You strengthen it.
While weakening your own position.
There's a vast amount of academic research showing this.
But Labour will not listen.
www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...
Starmer urges Europe’s leaders to curb ECHR to halt rise of far right
Exclusive: PM calls for members of European convention on human rights to allow tougher action to protect borders
www.theguardian.com
December 10, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
charleskeener.bsky.social
Meanwhile, a new report by Reporters Without Borders finds Israel has killed more journalists in 2025 than any other country — for the third year running. The report found Israel’s military liable for the deaths of 29 Palestinian journalists, among 67 journalists killed around the world this year.
December 10, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
peninternational.bsky.social
This Human Rights Day, we share a new statement from the Writers for Peace Committee. Together, they reaffirm that words still matter and that peace depends on how we speak and listen.

Read the full statement: www.pen-international.org/news/human-r...
PEACE IS A VERB; PEACE IS A MUST; PEACE NOW! A statement by the Writers for Peace Committee — PEN International | Promoting Literature & Defending Freedom of Expression Worldwide
A statement by the Writers for Peace Committee of PEN International for of Human Rights Day 2025 Every year on 10 December, the world marks Human Rights Day, commemorating the adoption of the Univer...
www.pen-international.org
December 10, 2025 at 10:33 AM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
scottishpen.bsky.social
"You cannot protect the majority’s rights by attacking the rights of minorities. That is the opposite of universal human rights." @amnestyuk.bsky.social

Scottish PEN supports Amnesty in its condemnation of this latest attempt to undermine human rights.

www.thenational.scot/news/2568613...
Fury as Keir Starmer urges European leaders to curb core human rights
THE UK Government is in "moral retreat", Amnesty International has said, after Keir Starmer urged Europe’s leaders to rehash how a major…
www.thenational.scot
December 11, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
jonathan-cook.bsky.social
It's antisemitic to call out Israel's genocide, says the Guardian.

Read my latest here: jonathancook.substack.com/p/its-antise...
It's antisemitic to call out Israel's genocide, says the Guardian
The band Primal Scream had the audacity to tell its audience that the British government is complicit in genocide. They have been reported to the police for doing so
jonathancook.substack.com
December 12, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
declassifieduk.org
Nelson Mandela died 12 years ago. In 1995 the UK government rejected his personal appeal to impose oil sanctions on Nigeria after its military regime executed nine environmental activists — as it wanted to protect oil company Shell’s commercial interests.

www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-bri...
Britain rebuffed Nelson Mandela’s appeal for oil sanctions against Nigeria after it executed environmentalists
The British government rejected Nelson Mandela’s personal appeal to impose oil sanctions on Nigeria after its military regime executed nine environmental activists in 1995 as it wanted to protect oil ...
www.declassifieduk.org
December 6, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
scottishpen.bsky.social
scottishpen.org/scottish-pen...
Scottish PEN Speaks at Glasgow Protests Against the Genocide in Gaza
scottishpen.org
December 6, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
scottishpen.bsky.social
Scottish PEN mourns the loss of #RefaatAlareer, murdered by Israel 2 years ago today.
So many writers, artists, academics & thinkers have been murdered in this barbaric genocide.
We actively condemn Israel's actions & the role of the West in these war crimes.
electronicintifada.net/content/refa...
Refaat Alareer and the online culture war
Western media institutions excused the intellectual's murder by deeming him "controversial."
electronicintifada.net
December 6, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
declassifieduk.org
The Ministry of Defence has enough public money to fund “an additional 26 PhD students” to work on Britain’s nuclear weapons programme.

#DCUKparliament
December 6, 2025 at 9:49 AM
lizzie4.bsky.social
I have just signed this petition. It's an issue I care about. Will you sign it too? action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-12...
Say No to Mass Deportations in Europe
SIGN NOW! This issue is urgent and really important. We need your support - please take action now!
action.wemove.eu
December 6, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
scotnational.bsky.social
Tomorrow's front page 📰

SNP: Starmer and Reeves's view on indyref2 carries less weight than some think
December 2, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
yasmeen.bsky.social
Since the implementation of the ceasefire in Lebanon, the IDF has murdered 338 men, women and children They have wounded hundreds more.
November 23, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
freedom.press
We’re just over $61,000 shy of reaching our goal for the year!

Please consider supporting @freedom.press with a tax-deductible gift.

Any donations made before Dec. 31 will be DOUBLED, up to $75,000.

freedom.press/donate/
November 24, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
asls.org.uk
Reading Scotland with Margaret Bennet
Why Scotland Celebrates St Andrew's Day
2 Dec, online – free

Dr Margaret Bennet talks about the relevance of celebrating St Andrew’s Day today & dives into the origins of this national holiday
www.scotland.uni-mainz.de/reading-scot...
READING SCOTLAND with Margaret Bennett Why Scotland Celebrates St Andrew's Day Tuesday 2nd December 2025 6.00–7.30 pm (German time) on MS Teams www.scotland.uni-mainz.de
November 24, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
theguardian.com
Plan to reduce jury trials an ‘irremediable error’, lawyers say in MoJ letter
Plan to reduce jury trials an ‘irremediable error’, lawyers say in MoJ letter
More than 100 lawyers have accused the Ministry of Justice of ignoring the legal profession’s objections More than 100 lawyers who wrote to the Ministry of Justice expressing significant concerns about plans to severely restrict jury trials say representations by the legal profession are being ignored. The government is expected to formally announce the changes, which have caused deep division among the judiciary and senior lawyers, as soon as next week. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 30, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
pressfreedom.bsky.social
🎬 London: CPJ is proud to support the documentary "#ArmedOnlyWithACamera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud." Join us for a screening and Q&A with the filmmakers.

🗓️ 13 Norfolk Place | Dec. 8 | 7-8:30 PM GMT

Register👇
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-...
November 30, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Lizzie Eldridge
ifex.org
This week in #FreeExpression news:

🔹 #US shutters RFE/RL’s #Hungary service for “opposing” Orbán
🔹 LGBTQI+ journalists targeted in #Turkey
🔹 #Samoa government blocks daily newspaper from press access

📬 Read more & subscribe: buff.ly/iHp8lju #IFEXThisWeek
November 30, 2025 at 2:00 PM