Brazilian activist and one of the organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla Thiago Avila joins UNAPOLOGETIC.

He recounts his detention by Israeli forces after being aboard one of the flotilla boats intercepted by Israel in international waters while en route to break the siege of Gaza.

Avila describes the moments leading up to the interception at sea and his arrest, and details the conditions he and other activists faced while held in Israeli detention.

He reflects on nightly raids inside prison cells, the use of intimidation and fear, and the psychological tactics used against the activists.

UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

02:10 The Gaza flotilla mission

06:45 Interception at sea and arrest

13:30 First hours in Israeli detention

20:10 Prison conditions & interrogations

28:40 Shotguns, lasers & psychological warfare

34:20 The moment fear broke

38:50 Solidarity & resistance inside prison

43:30 Chanting “Free Palestine” after raids

48:40 'Nothing compared to what Palestinians endure'

In this conversation with UNAPOLOGETIC, Imam Omar Suleiman reflects on two decades of global politics, the Palestinian struggle, Islamophobia in America, and the meaning of justice in a collapsing world order.

Through personal stories of exile, family history, racism, 9/11, and spiritual grounding, he offers a deeply human account of how identity, faith, and political reality have shaped his life.

This episode moves between the intimate and the global - from his parents’ journey through displacement, to the trauma and resilience of Palestinians and Syrians, to the shifting political landscape in the US and the rising generational support for Palestine.

Omar Suleiman argues that despite oppression, people power is growing, Zionist propaganda is weakening, and justice - while it may take a while - in his view remains inevitable.

Chapters

0:00 Intro & Soundbites

2:03 Gaza & Global Indifference

8:11 Childhood & Exile

13:05 Media After 9/11

16:40 Family & Diaspora Roots

23:28 Homeland & Entry Denied

27:03 Syria’s Turning Point

36:42 U.S. Politics & Islamophobia

41:34 Final Reflections

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, we speak with journalist and historian Imran Mulla about his gripping new book The Indian Caliphate: Exiled Ottomans and the Billionaire Prince.

The conversation uncovers a forgotten plot to relocate the Ottoman caliphate to India after its abolition in 1924 — a story involving exiled Ottoman royalty, the fabulously wealthy but austere Nizam of Hyderabad, British imperial paranoia, and an audacious vision for a modern, post-imperial caliphate rooted in the subcontinent.

Imran walks us through the hidden alliances between Ottoman exiles and Indian Muslim thinkers, the astonishing marriage engineered to fuse two royal houses, the political stakes of Hyderabad’s autonomy under the British, and how the dream of an Indian-centred caliphate was ultimately crushed by partition and rising nationalism.

This episode is a sweeping look at empire, modernity, loss, cosmopolitanism, and the forgotten place of India at the centre of the Islamic world — and why recovering this history matters today.

UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim

Chapters

0:00 Intro & Soundbites

2:00 Tomb in Rural India

9:00 How This Story Began

18:00 Reinventing the Caliphate

27:00 Hyderabad, Empire and Wealth

36:00 Archives, Travel and Tomb

45:00 Partition, Federation and Palestine

54:00 Empire, Freedom and Violence

1:03:00 Princes, Princesses and Exile

1:12:00 Modernist Pan-Islamic Politics

1:21:00 Anglicised Radicals at Oxford

1:30:00 What History Taught Imran

1:39:00 Writing the Book, Closing

In this UNAPOLOGETIC episode from the Doha Forum, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill examines how Israel has carried out a campaign that many experts believe meets the legal and moral definitions of genocide in Gaza, while simultaneously insisting that Palestinians must not resist and that neighbouring states must demilitarise. Scahill situates Israel’s assault within a wider history of US militarism, privatised warfare, and the global security industry, showing how Gaza has become a testing ground for surveillance, weapons and siege tactics.

We also discuss the collapse of the 2025 cease-fire, the regional implications of Syria’s political shift, and the contrasting strategies of Gulf states as the war reshapes regional power.

Jeremy Scahill is co-founder of The Intercept and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield.

Recorded at the Doha Forum, this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC is in conversation with political scientist Dr. Omar Ashour examines the shifting landscape of the Middle East through three major developments: Syria’s transformation under Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the widening regional divide illustrated by the UAE’s military support for separatist groups versus Qatar’s increasingly active diplomatic strategy.

Ashour breaks down how these dynamics are reshaping alliances, security calculations, and narratives of power across the region. We explore for how long Syria’s new leadership scan continue to allow Israel to bomb it with impunity, how the genocide in Gaza has redrawn regional moral and political lines, and why Gulf states are pursuing sharply divergent approaches to influence.

Dr. Omar Ashour is the author of The De-Radicalization of Jihadists, Bullets to Ballots and How ISIS Fights and is a leading expert on military behaviour, armed groups, and security studies.

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, political strategist and CEO and founder of the Cordoba Foundation,

Anas Altikriti speaks to us about the history of the Muslim Brotherhood and why Trump is looking to now proscribe the organisation in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

We examine how the Brotherhood evolved, why authoritarian governments frame it as a threat, and how Western policymakers adopted those narratives. Altikriti discusses Britain’s review of the organisation, the limits of proscription laws, and why banning political movements often strengthens regional dictatorships rather than weakening them.

The conversation also explores wider issues: political Islam, public misconceptions, the role of civil society, and how counter-extremism frameworks shape policy. A clear, structured look at an organisation widely debated but rarely understood.

Chapters:

00:00 Opening and introduction

07:40 What is the Muslim Brotherhood

15:20 Why regimes fear it

22:55 UK review and findings

31:10 Misconceptions about Islamism

39:05 Authoritarian influence abroad

47:00 Proscription laws explained

55:10 Counter-extremism as politics

1:03:00 Public narratives and bias

1:10:55 Civil society and power

1:18:20 Western policy contradictions

1:26:15 Future of the movement

1:34:30 Final reflections and outro

Former South African ambassador to the United States Ebrahim Rasool sits down with Ashfaaq Carim for an unflinching conversation on power, punishment, and principle. Rasool explains how South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel triggered U.S. retaliation—from tariffs to blocked HIV/AIDS funding—while dismantling the “white genocide” narrative pushed by Trump-aligned networks.

He also traces the global resurgence of white supremacism, drawing on South Africa’s struggle history to show why Gaza has become the defining moral battleground of our time. The discussion explores MAGA’s evolution, collapsing U.S. soft power, student uprisings, and the growing fractures inside Western politics.

From BRICS realignments to ethnic cleansing and global solidarity, Rasool attempt to provide a historically grounded analysis of the world as it is—and where it may be heading.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

03:14 Washington appointment tensions

06:09 Maga and lobby pressure 09:10 White genocide narrative

10:14 Timeline of U.S. retaliation

19:40 U.S. wars and isms

39:26 Pro-Israel tactical schisms emerging

43:32 Lessons from apartheid

46:04 ICJ soft power victory

58:07 BRICS and geopolitics

01:14:37 Israel’s endgame and personal reflections

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, we speak to Dr Andreas Krieg — a leading Gulf security expert — about how the UAE has pursued an aggressive statecraft strategy since 2011.

Andreas unpacks how Abu Dhabi has shaped the region through covert interventions, proxy forces and political engineering. From Egypt to Libya, Yemen to Sudan, we examine how the UAE has empowered secessionist, authoritarian and anti-democratic actors to build a regional order aligned with its own interests and often at the expense of social stability and cohesion, and in the case of Sudan, plausible genocide.

He explains the ideology and strategy driving this approach, why the UAE views political Islam and more representative government as existential threats, and how these policies have fuelled instability across the Middle East. A crucial conversation on power, repression and the region’s future.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

2:00 UAE’s pursuit of dominance

12:00 MBZ’s authoritarian worldview

22:00 Blueprint for counterrevolution

32:00 Engineering Egypt’s repression

42:00 Yemen as a testing ground

52:00 Dividing allies, breaking states

1:02:00 Sudan’s gold-fuelled militias

1:12:00 Moscow, mercenaries, money flows

1:22:00 Washington’s blind partnership

1:32:00 Abu Dhabi’s influence machine

1:42:00 A region remade by fear

British journalist and commentator Sami Hamdi was detained by ICE for 18 days.

He recounts here on UNAPOLOGETIC how he was arrested after being informed that his valid tourist visa had been suddenly revoked, and how he was eventually allowed to leave after a federal judge was concerned that there had been serious breaches of his freedom of speech.

Hamdi describes in detail how he was arrested, what he witnessed in ICE facilities and processing centres, how ICE routinely obstructs and evades the justice system, and how, through his observations, many ordinary Americans are turning against Israel as they discover how deeply the U.S. government has been drawn into financing Israel’s war crimes while ordinary Americans continue to require government assistance in numerous areas.

David Adler - a Jewish American writer, activist, and organiser - joins UNAPOLOGETIC where he reflects on what it means to be Jewish in the age of Israel’s genocide on Gaza — and why silence is no longer an option.

From his family’s divided Zionist and anti-Zionist roots to his experience being detained by Israel after joining the Summud Flotilla, Adler recounts how Jewish identity, power, and solidarity are being redefined.

He explains why Israel poses an existential threat to Judaism itself — and why resisting in the name of justice is the only path left.