Melissa Krawczyk

Arabic to English translator. Avid reader & translator of science fiction, fantasy and other speculative fiction.
Humanist. Science & Human Rights!

[Melissa Krawczyk @moolecular]

Thanks to ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY @arablit for publishing our English translation of "The Wall" by #Ahmed_Khaled_Tawfik from the collection "Now I Understand" 🎉😁
(Publishing rights for the collection available with @Kayanpublishing)
#speculativefiction #احمد_خالد_توفيق

[Melissa Krawczyk @moolecular]

Thrilled to announce that my translation/revision/edit of the short story "The Wall" by Ahmed Khaled Tawfik just dropped! https://t.co/yEJfGTlWRo

#literarytranslator #arabictranslation
#AhmedKhaledTawfik

[Eylon Levy @EylonALevy]

“Please look at me,” begs a survivor of the Hamas Rapist Regime.

But UN “expert” @UNSRVAW Reem Alsalem won’t give her that basic dignity.

There’s no humanity in the UN Human Rights Council.

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

🚨IMPORTANT: First statement in English from the June 26 anti-Hamas revolution in Gaza: an appeal to international media, human rights organizations, and the international community.

[WIRED Science @WIREDScience]

Years after initial tests, researchers are now racing to see if a vaccine developed in 2011 can help fight the current Bundibugyo outbreak in Congo. https://t.co/iAHdYke07J

[Hamza @HowidyHamza]

First Gazan to file a case against Hamas at the ICC demanding that 14 Hamas leaders be investigated for crimes committed against the Palestinian people and other war crimes. The Gazan who filed the case lost his wife, children, and home during the Gaza war.

All war criminals must be held accountable.

[Melissa Krawczyk @moolecular]

https://t.co/vCFF89ws5N

[Magnus Ranstorp @MagnusRanstorp]

NY Rapport:

The Civil Commission on October 7th crimes by Hamas against women and children.

Efter en tvåårig oberoende utredning slår Civilkommissionen fast att sexuellt och könsbaserat våld var systematiskt, omfattande och en integrerad del av attackerna den sjunde oktober 2023 och dess efterspel. På flera platser och under samtliga faser av angreppet – inklusive vid bortföranden, transporter och i fångenskap – använde Hamas återkommande metoder av sexuella övergrepp och tortyr mot offren.

Avgörande är att rapporten konstaterar att övergreppen inte var isolerade.

Det fanns ett återkommande mönster av våldtäkter och gruppvåldtäkter; sexuell tortyr; stympning; riktad beskjutning mot ansikte, huvud och genitalområde; påtvingad nakenhet; fasthållning och fastbindning; bränning av könsorgan; införande av föremål i intima kroppsdelar; sexuell förnedring efter döden; samt avrättningar under eller efter sexuella övergrepp.

Kommissionen har systematiskt analyserat över tiotusen fotografier och videosegment från attackerna, motsvarande mer än ettusenåttahundra timmars visuellt material. Detta har kompletterats med ett omfattande arbete med vittnesmål: insamling, transkribering, översättning och korsverifiering av överlevandes och vittnens berättelser, liksom platsbesök, expertkonsultationer och möten med anhöriga och drabbade samhällen.

Sammanlagt har kommissionen genomfört över fyrahundratrettio formella och informella intervjuer, vittnesmål och möten med överlevande, vittnen, frigivna gisslan, experter och familjemedlemmar.

https://t.co/bUt7atJ5sY

[Daily Mail @DailyMail]

Full depravity of Hamas during October 7 revealed for the first time: New report details how terrorists performed almost unimaginable horrors upon Israeli families https://t.co/14KfEBq7jV

[Maarten Boudry @mboudry]

A while ago, I watched the infamous 47-minute video documenting the atrocities of October 7th — the one not made publicly available, to protect the privacy of the victims.

The worst part of this video is not what it displays, but who is displaying it: the perpetrators themselves. Gleefully. Sadistically. Unabashedly. Most of the footage was filmed by Hamas terrorists on their GoPro bodycams, some also by ordinary Gazan civilians on their cellphones.

Even the Nazis tried to cover up their atrocities, but Hamas brags about theirs for the entire world to see. The killers are euphoric throughout the massacre, and their relentless, ecstatic cries of "Allahu Akbar" (punctuated by the occasional "Kill the Jew!") are simply nauseating.

Some images are seared into my memory forever. I will never forget the two boys in their underwear — one with his eye socket hanging out of his face — asking his brother whether he thinks they're going to die, while the Hamas monster who had just thrown a grenade in their saferoom helps himself to a drink from their fridge, taking a casual break from the slaughter.

Neither will I ever forget the terrorists playing football with a severed head. Or the Thai migrant worker whose head is viciously hacked off with a garden hoe — another "Zionist colonizer" getting what he deserved, right?https://t.co/JvfJEtk8LA
Or the throngs of Gazans crowding around pickup trucks loaded with the mutilated corpses of Jewish women, filming and spitting on the bodies. Or the woman in Kibbutz Mefalsim, crouching and begging in vain for mercy.

There is some evidence of sexual violence in the video — the charred corpse of a young woman with her legs splayed and her genitals exposed — but not much. Apparently even Hamas draws a line somewhere: they are not as proud of raping Jewish women as they are of murdering them. Or, more likely, they simply didn't want to embarrass the delicate sensibilities of their legions of useful idiots in the West.

But yes — there was rape. Not "rape" in scare quotes, as the apologists would have it, but sadistic, murderous sexual violence, documented in a new damning new report by The Civil Commission, an independent Israeli women's rights NGO. (video summary here: https://t.co/LTTjiO1s7E)

Across its 180 pages, the report describes "a recurring pattern of rape and gang rape; sexual torture; mutilation; targeted shooting to the face, head and genital area; forced nudity; binding and restraint; genital burning; objects inserted into intimate areas; post-mortem sexual humiliation; and execution during or after sexual assault."

And it was premeditated and organized. The terrorists crossing into Israel carried printed Arabic-to-Hebrew phrasebooks with handy expressions like "take off your pants," "lie down," "spread your legs," and "don't make trouble." I wonder why they expected to need those particular phrases?

I know one thing: no civilized country on earth would tolerate the existence of an organization like Hamas on its border after October 7th. Not one. This includes every self-righteous Westerner currently lecturing Israel from thousands of kilometres away, without an inch of skin in the game.
https://t.co/PoKUfIHeXV

[Jonathan Greenblatt @JGreenblattADL]

Another Jewish American attacked, pinned down, and choked. This time, outside a synagogue in Los Angeles. His crime? Being Jewish. This is what antisemitism looks like right now: violent, physical, and dangerous. We can’t look away. No one should ever fear for their safety because of who they are or the religion they practice.
https://t.co/KEuQrrhlTH

[Masih Alinejad 🏳️ @AlinejadMasih]

Iran’s Regime Sentences 21-Year-Old Karate Champion to Death for Protesting، Execution Imminent!

So let me get this straight;
Sasan Azadvar goes to a protest… and the regime’s response is not a debate, not reform, but a rope?

He isn’t a criminal. He’s a kid with medals, a future, and apparently the dangerous idea that freedom should exist.

Iran’s Supreme Court looked at this and said, “Yeah, execution sounds about right.”

And now the family gets the message from the judicial system:
“Come say goodbye.”

This is a regime so weak, it has to kill its own young people to feel strong.
#StopExecutionInIran

[Saganism @Saganismm]

In April 1946, just months after the end of World War II, Albert Einstein visited Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a historically Black university founded during a period when racial segregation and exclusion severely limited educational opportunities for Black students in the United States.

During the visit, Einstein received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and delivered remarks reflecting his longstanding opposition to racism and segregation. He spoke against racial separation in the United States, arguing that it reflected the attitudes of those who upheld it rather than those who were subjected to it.

As a refugee who had fled Nazi Germany in 1933, Einstein was acutely aware of the dangers of institutionalized prejudice. In the United States, he publicly supported civil rights causes, corresponded with figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, and spoke out against racial discrimination. The visit was covered unevenly in contemporary media, but it was noted and positively received within the Lincoln University community.

📷 Einstein at Lincoln University (colorized)

[Eric Alper 🎧 @ThatEricAlper]

On this day in 1975, Monty Python and the Holy Grail first hit theaters, forever changing comedy — and how we think about coconuts.

[Desiree @DesireeAmerica4]

The kids are more than alright, they're extraordinary. And, incredibly, the bus driver has made a 100% full recovery.

Last Wednesday, on a seemingly ordinary day in Mississippi, a school bus driver suffered a severe asthma attack. She blacked out behind the wheel. The bus loaded with 40 children, was hurtling down a busy four-lane highway. Disaster felt inevitable.

But instead of chaos, these kids showed grit and unshakable courage. Five middle schoolers immediately sprang into action in a scene straight out of an edge-of-your-seat thriller.

A 12-year-old seized the wheel, steering the bus away from catastrophe. Another kid slammed on the air brakes, grinding the bus to a halt in the median, averting disaster. One student dialed 911 with trembling fingers but an unshakable resolve. Meanwhile, another hero-in-training searched for the driver’s nebulizer and personally administered her life-saving medication.

None of these kids waited for an adult to save the day. They became the adults right then, right there.

[Earth @earthcurated]

Amateur UK photographer Nima Sarikhani has won the People’s Choice Award at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, run by the Natural History Museum.
His image Ice Bed, showing a sleeping polar bear in Svalbard, was chosen from 25 finalists out of nearly 50,000 entries worldwide.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

The post above is an example of Holocaust denial.

See our page debunking many deniers’ lies. You will find short responses and links to texts addressing frequently recurring denialist claims, which are ready for you to copy and share: https://t.co/tByw9kLY0e

Learn about strategies employed by Holocaust deniers to spread misinformation and falsehoods.

Online lesson: https://t.co/Gp1iuaHSSW

Podcast: https://t.co/WG6F1S7A3C

Denial of the existence of gas chambers is a disgraceful assault on the memory of all those people: Jews, Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, and all other victims. It is also a slap in the face to those prisoners who risked their lives to document and convey the truth about German crimes, as well as to the Survivors who still bear the trauma of their personal experiences.

Holocaust denial has nothing to do with the truth. It is a mendacious conspiracy theory. A dangerous & hideous carrier of antisemitism & hatred that hurts people. Deniers harass & insult the memory of the victims.

[Hurad @iamhurad]

If the internet in Iran were cut by US or Israeli airstrikes, the media and the left would be talking about it every single day. But because the Islamic Republic is the one cutting it, no one says a word.

[Center for Inquiry @center4inquiry]

We’ve been debunking the same claims for 50 years.

Some sank.
Some didn’t.

James Randi called them unsinkable rubber duckies. You push them under, they pop right back up.

Organized skepticism has made real progress, but the work is far from done:
https://t.co/g8FlPdMQ71

[Reuters @Reuters]

Afghanistan is at risk of losing more than 25,000 female teachers and health workers by 2030 if the Taliban-led country's restrictions on girls' education and women's employment are not lifted, according ‌to a new UNICEF report https://t.co/3qCnoiWQvg

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Death Valley National Park is experiencing its first major superbloom in a decade as of March/April 2026, driven by record winter rainfall (1.7 – 2.5+ inches) that transformed the desert landscape with vibrant carpets of yellow, pink, and purple flowers.
https://t.co/YgaHskYSlM

[Amnesty Iran @AmnestyIran]

Two months on, 90+ million people in Iran are still cut off from the internet amid an internet shutdown imposed by the authorities. Meanwhile, officials from the Islamic Republic keep using the internet freely. Access to the internet is a human right; it must be restored NOW!