Political analysts and human rights organisations say Turkey's courts are increasingly being used to silence political dissent and to shape a more socially conservative society. The most prominent defendant is Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, and the opposition figure opinion polls suggest is most likely to beat President Erdoğan at the ballot box. İmamoğlu has been held in Silivri prison since March 2025 and now stands trial alongside more than 400 co-defendants in a sprawling corruption case. Other elected mayors have been removed from office and replaced by government appointees. Journalists, musicians, and comedians too are now increasingly finding themselves in trouble with the law, jailed for jokes insulting the President or the state.

The government insists its courts are independent and simply applying the law and that these are ordinary prosecutions, in a state entitled to defend itself after the violent coup attempt of 2016. But critics say President Erdoğan is using the courts as part of a "lawfare" campaign that aims to silence opponents, extend his more than two decades in power and shape the country in his own traditional, socially conservative Islamic vision.

Emily Wither speaks to a former judge punished for criticising the changes to Turkey's judiciary, mayors held for months without conviction, court reporters accused of spreading "disinformation," and performers prosecuted for what they said on stage.

Produced and presented by Emily Wither

Russian is the first language of millions of Ukrainians, including many of the country’s frontline troops. But it’s also the language of their enemy. And its public use is increasingly restricted by law, with ever more measures to enforce communication in Ukrainian. Ukrainians are allowed to speak Russian in private conversations. But they can be fined for playing a Russian language song in the street, if the singer or composer is a Russian citizen. The state says Russian must be policed because Russia uses the language as a weapon to spread its influence. But in primarily Russian-speaking places such as Odesa, Ukraine’s third-largest city, many are unhappy about the language laws. One popular entertainer says they’re beyond Kafkaesque. Tim Whewell reports on the arguments dividing a city under constant Russian bombardment, as one side calls the Russian language a colonial hangover, while the other says cultural diversity is what Ukraine should be fighting for.

Producer: Tim Whewell

AI cameras. Drones. Facial recognition. Sound detection. Flock.

The United States is monitored through a growing, high-tech, and increasingly interconnected surveillance network. The police say this is all for public safety - to prevent crime and assist investigations. Critics think it’s an invasion of privacy, open to misuse, and a sneaky tool aiding ICE in President Trump’s deportation drive.

One company is bearing the brunt of the backlash: Flock Safety. Its network of AI-powered licence plate readers spans over 7000 communities, generating 20 billion vehicle scans a month. In some cities - like Houston, Texas - which has over 60 different law enforcement agencies, the full extent of the system is unclear. Many of these authorities won’t say publicly how many Flock devices they have.

Vigilantes have been cutting down licence plate readers. Social media is full of tips on how to obstruct or disable the cameras. City halls across America are debating their Flock contracts. Meanwhile Flock employees are facing threats to their own safety.

Ellie House is in Houston, Texas, investigating the surveillance network authorities want to keep quiet. She sees how Flock has been used by police to fight crime, and gets inside the anti-surveillance ‘techlash’. And she sits down with Flock CEO Garrett Langley in his Atlanta HQ.

Presented and produced by Ellie House.

The figures are startling. 2.1 million Brazilians have a clinical addiction to betting. 7.5 million are problem gamblers. Women now comprise 40% of all gamblers, having been 25% just a decade ago. Online sports and casino betting have exploded in Brazil to make it one of the largest gambling markets in the world. The self-help group Gamblers Anonymous says it's receiving thousands of calls each month and millions of Brazilians are estimated be suffering financial, emotional or relationship problems as a result of betting.

Camilla Mota talks to football fans in Sao Paulo on why they’re gambling on their team’s result. She also speaks to a man who gambled away $75, 000 on a corporate credit card over just one weekend and a businesswoman who locked herself in the toilet of her family home in order to bet in secret. Camilla also meets two psychiatrists offering treatment to addicts at a special clinic. What can be done to protect problem gamblers while at the same time avoid driving legal gambling underground?

What do the stolen love letters of John Keats have to do with homicide on the streets of New York?  Prosecuting both crimes falls under the remit of assistant district attorney Matthew Bogdanos.   A retired Marine colonel with both law and classics degrees, he has been the head of the Manhattan District Attorney's Antiquities Trafficking Unit since its creation in 2017. In his time on the job, the office has has seized more than six thousand pieces of stolen art and antiquities from various museums, art galleries and private homes in order to return them to their countries of origin.

In this Crossing Continents, Sandra Kanthal travels to New York to learn more about this special unit of law enforcement and the reasons why one man thinks tracking down stolen treasures of the art world and reuniting them with their rightful owners is vitally important to our past and for our future.

Presenter and Producer: Sandra Kanthal

The Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe is one of the natural wonders of the world. It's also one of Africa's great tourist attractions. As both countries seek to grow the tourism economy, there’s been a push to develop land around the Falls. But as Isa Jacobson reports from Zambia, it's led to fears for the preservation of the World Heritage Site, and warnings that the loss of land will exacerbate a deadly conflict between local people and wildlife.

Presenter: Isa Jacobson

How amid the tents and the rubble Gaza is developing once again as an unlikely tech hub.

Even before the October 7th 2023 attack and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas, NGOs, with the backing of Google, had sought to develop tech start-ups in the Gaza strip. The digital economy was one of the few areas in which young Gazans in particular could seek to earn money for their families.

During the two years of war they struggled for food and water. Forced to move from place to place, most of them lost their homes, their work, sometimes their laptops and plenty lost family members. Now 80% of Gazans are unemployed and have no income. Many of them live amid the rubble in tents. Stable electricity and internet are difficult to come by. And yet co-working hubs have begun to pop up, giving well educated graduates a chance to work remotely for foreign companies as coders, software engineers and app developers. With Israel controlling what comes in and out of Gaza, they still face significant obstacles, not least finding decent internet, electricity and spare parts for their laptops. And with near-daily bombings continuing, Gaza’s wider recovery remains uncertain. Yolande Knell reports on how its tech workers give a glimpse of a brighter, possible future, open to the world beyond Gaza’s borders.

Producer: John Murphy

In 2017, five men digging in an open pit found the third largest diamond ever unearthed in west Africa. It was dubbed the Peace Diamond, in memory of the brutal civil war that had ravaged large parts of the region in the 1990's – a war driven in part by factions competing for control of the diamond trade.

Presented and produced by Ed Butler

Nadia Marcinko, originally Marcinková, was born in Slovakia and met Jeffrey Epstein as an 18-year-old model. Later, she became a successful aircraft pilot. For seven years, she was Epstein’s main girlfriend. And she’s one of four women that US prosecutors named in a 2008 plea deal as his “potential co-conspirators”. But she’s never been accused of any crime. And she’s described herself a victim who was abused physically and psychologically by Epstein.

Presented and produced by Tim Whewell and Jakub Pohle

Since 2023, Sudan has been engulfed by a brutal civil war. More than 150,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaced. The war began as a power struggle between the Sudanese military and the powerful paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The capital Khartoum was the epicentre of the conflict. Millions fled as fighting wrecked the city. In 2025, the Sudanese military finally retook the capital from the RSF. One year on, Mohanad Hashim returns home to Khartoum to see how life is slowly returning to the battered city.

Reporter: Mohanad Hashim