SRT Grantee News – December / January

Grantee News

• MSF is one of over 30 NGOs banned by Israel from operating inside Gaza and the West Bank. This follows a threat to withhold registration unless strict new requirements were met, including sharing personal information about Palestinian staff – a deep concern to the group given that more than 1,700 healthcare staff have been killed in Gaza, including 15 MSF employees.
• A Bureau of Investigative Journalism investigation found that the UK issued oil and gas licences overlapping roughly 13,500 km² of protected land and marine areas, making it the worst global offender for allowing fossil fuel companies to operate inside conservation zones. Environmental groups warn this undermines nature protections and could worsen biodiversity and marine ecosystem threats as decisions loom on new offshore extraction approvals.
• Watershed Investigations has found that thousands of hidden landfill sites across the UK and Europe are at risk of leaking toxic waste into water supplies, in a first-of-its-kind mapping exercise. Many are in flood-prone areas and lack modern pollution controls, increasing the risk that climate-driven flooding could release harmful chemicals such as PFAS and PCBs, with some sites already exceeding safe contamination levels.
• After a legal challenge by Foxglove, the UK government admitted it made a serious error in approving a major data centre and accepted that the planning decision should be overturned after failing to properly assess environmental impacts, including high water use, heavy energy demand, and the project’s potential contribution to increased carbon emissions.
• Third Act, as a US-based community advocacy group for the over 60‘s, was able to respond swiftly to the killings in Minnesota by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, issuing rapid-response emails offering support and outlining concrete ways to advocate for change. The organisation also hosted a timely webinar on fighting authoritarianism that drew more than 1,000 participants, with resources continuing to be widely shared.
• An IPEN member Semia Gharbi was named a 2025 Goldman Prize winner after she helped spearhead a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia, resulting in the return of 6,000 tons of illegally exported household waste back to Italy, its country of origin, in 2022. The Goldman Prize recognises significant efforts to protect and restore the natural environment.
• PEN International and partners, in a submission to the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review, warned that a wave of repressive laws and harassment targeting journalists, writers and activists in Georgia has pushed independent media and civil society to the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, pro-democracy protests and symbolic resistance in the country continue.
• People in Need (PIN) secured Czech national interest visas for two prominent Georgian human rights defenders targeted in 2025 by smear campaigns and politically motivated “sabotage” charges. Approved by the Czech foreign minister, the visas allowed the defenders, whose bank accounts were frozen and who face trial in absentia after fleeing Georgia, to relocate safely, with PIN covering relocation costs.