Unwritten Lives

Israel uses AI and surveillance technology in its genocide and apartheid against Palestinians, and the companies developing the tech have contracts here in Britain. Our new Delete Genocide Tech campaign, launching in June, will force complicit tech companies out of the government, local councils, universities and workplaces. Join the public meetings in Liverpool, Cardiff and London to learn more, including how you can get involved! BOOK YOUR TICKETS

It has been 78 years since one of the most catastrophic events in modern times: the violent expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The Nakba, or the great catastrophe, is commemorated annually on 15 May. At Nakba 78, there is no ceasefire, no peace, no justice. There is only genocide, continued Israeli military occupation, and increasing conflagration across the region. In addition to the original Palestinian dispossession of 1948, Nakba commemorations also highlight the continued displacement, loss, and statelessness experienced by millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), in Palestinian refugee camps across the Middle East, and in the global Palestinian diaspora around the world today.

Ishtiyaq Shukri first travelled to the occupied West Bank in 2005. For twenty years, Palestine has remained a recurring theme in his writing. His work forms part of the vast catalogue of Israeli atrocities, appalling and unchallenged violations of international law, which over decades, have culminated in the genocide currently unfolding in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and the systematic erasure by Israel of Palestinians from the across the OPT.

For Nakba 78, we are republishing his 2005 travel journal, Palestine Journey, along with "...And 1 Can of Sardines", an extract from his novel, I See You, accompanied for the first time by photos from Shukri's personal archive from the time.

With heavy losses for the governing Labour party, and huge gains for the rightwing populist party, Reform UK, the results of last week's local elections on 7 May have reverberated through the UK like an earthquake. Here is what will happen next

Solitary confinement is one of the great unknowns – and once it envelopes you, it fills you with terror and dread. Before my arrest, one of our activities had been protesting the use of solitary confinement against our family members.

The South African project remains unfinished. Stories like Sachs’s not only testify to the hard-won gains of the past but also confront us with the urgent, unfinished work still ahead to achieve justice, dignity, and equality for all.

In October 2025, after confirmation of Israel’s inclusion in the 61st International Art Exhibition, the Art Not Genocide Alliance began circulating the below letter among participants and workers of the Venice Biennale.

ANGA’s call responds to the appeal issued by Palestinian civil society to challenge the normalisation of Israeli apartheid and occupation within international cultural platforms. In this context, the Venice Biennale cannot be exempt from scrutiny.

The following letter calls on the leadership of the Venice Biennale to exclude Israel from the 2026 exhibition. It has been signed by 236 artists, curators and art workers involved in this year’s Biennale and formally delivered to the President and Board of the Venice Biennale.

To all governments engaged in diplomacy with Iran: Narges Mohammadi could die in Iranian prison, and your governments have the power to help save her. We call on you to use every diplomatic channel and negotiation with Iran to demand immediate and unconditional release for Narges, transfer to her own medical team for lifesaving treatment, and freedom for all political prisoners in Iran. We urge you to act now — before it’s too late. Sign the petition to help save Narges

Sami al-Saei has defied social stigma to speak out about what a report calls a ‘grave pattern’ of sexual violence in Israeli prisons

It has been five years since renowned Delhi University linguistics professor Hany Babu was arrested on 28 July, 2020. He is being held without charge in India’s notorious Taloja Central Jail on the outskirts of Mumbai. Here his former student takes a roll call to remember his name, because “naming is work we do for one another.”

For a snapshot of the authoritarian era to which today’s launch of Unwritten Lives is a response, we don’t have to rewind too far, just to the recent past, to moments that still reside fresh in recent memory.