John Pilger: Statement in support of Sydney rally
"The defence of Julian Assange and Wikileaks is one of the most important issues of my lifetime. There are now two superpowers in the world — the military power of Washington and the power of public opinion and justice, which Wikileaks represents.
If the Australian prime minister doesn’t understand this, we Australians need to remind her that she may head a mercenary government but we are not a mercenary people.
Those of us in London who are working to free Julian, knowing that the Swedish prosecution is a political stunt that would never produce a fair trial, will be at his side, and we call on the support of every decent Australian."
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Robert Scheer, TruthDig: From Jefferson to Assange
"All you need to know about Julian Assange’s value as a crusading journalist is that The New York Times and most of the world’s other leading newspapers have led daily with important news stories based on his WikiLeaks releases. All you need to know about the collapse of traditional support for the constitutional protection of a free press is that Dianne Feinstein, the centrist Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, has called for Assange “to be vigorously prosecuted for espionage.”[...]
Jennifer Robinson, one of Julian Assange's lawyers, was interviewed yesterday on Democracy Now!. Regarding the charges, she clarified that "the first thing to note is that no formal charges have yet been brought" and that the warrant is "in relation to the allegations, not formal charges, and is for the purposes of having him give his interview and answers to the questions of the prosecutor."
She reiterated that Julian Assange had cooperated with the investigation throughout, and that there was absolutely no need for an arrest warrant to be issued for an interview. He had remained in Sweden for more than a month and a half to answer the allegations and police questions, and he left the country with the prosecutor's permission. She added: "Since leaving the country, he has been in touch with her. And indeed, the judge noted yesterday that I had written to the police to notify them here in Britain that we were aware that an arrest warrant may be communicated and that we were willing to cooperate. The judge noted that this was a very positive sign. Julian has, at all stages, cooperated. We have volunteered cooperation to the prosecutor."
Julian Assange and his legal team have not been presented yet with any of the evidence of the allegations against him, she noted, despite the fact that this contravenes the European Convention. "The first document we have received in English, which is her obligation under that convention, with respect to Mr. Assange, was Monday, when we received the arrest warrant, and there was a very short notation of the offenses and the basic facts underlying those offenses. So, as to any earlier correspondence between the complainants and Julian and their motivation for going to the police, we only know what we’ve been able to read in the press, which is a highly unsatisfactory position to be in."
Get Up! is hosting a petition in support of WikiLeaks. The campaign organizers also plan to take out ads in The New York Times and Washington Times. The petition reads:
"Dear President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder:
We, as Australians, condemn calls for violence, including assassination, against Australian citizen and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, or for him to be labeled a terrorist, enemy combatant or be treated outside the ordinary course of justice in any way.
As Thomas Jefferson said, "information is the currency of democracy." Publishing leaked information in collaboration with major news outlets, as Wikileaks and Mr. Assange have done, is not a terrorist act.
Australia and the United States are the strongest of allies. Our soldiers serve side by side and we’ve experienced, and condemned, the consequences of terrorism together. To label Wikileaks a terrorist organisation is an insult to those Australians and Americans who have lost their lives to acts of terrorism and to terrorist forces.
If Wikileaks or their staff have broken international or national laws, let that case be heard in a just and fair court of law. At the moment, no such charges have been brought.
We are writing as Australians to say what our Government should have: all Australian citizens deserve to be free from persecution, threats of violence and detention without charge, especially from our friend and ally, the United States.
We call upon you to stand up for our shared democratic principles of the presumption of innocence and freedom of information."
Please join us in signing the petition here.
Personal Democracy Forum presents:
A Symposium on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom
Saturday, December 11, from 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM (ET), New York City
Join us to explore these questions with:
Emily Bell, Director of Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School
Esther Dyson, EDventure
Allison Fine, Co-author, The Networked Nonprofit
Charles Ferguson, Director, Inside Job and No End in Sight
Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post
Jeff Jarvis, Professor, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Andrew Keen, Author of the forthcoming book, Digital Vertigo: An Anti-Social Manifesto
Gideon Lichfield, Deputy digital editor, The Economist
Rebecca MacKinnon, Senior fellow, New America Foundation and author of the forthcoming book, Consent of the Networked
Mark Pesce, Author and futurist
Andrew Rasiej, Co-founder, Personal Democracy Forum
Jay Rosen, NYU Journalism School and PressThink.org
Jack Rosenthal, Senior fellow, Atlantic Philanthropies
Carne Ross, Director, Independent Diplomat and former UK Diplomat
Douglas Rushkoff, Author, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age
Micah L. Sifry, Co-founder, Personal Democracy Forum
Katrin Verclas, Principal, New Rights Group
Tom Watson, Author, CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World
Dave Winer, Editor, Scripting News and Visiting Scholar, NYU
and more...
We would like to remind you that a few events are taking place today, Thursday, December 9:
AUSTRALIA
Melbourne: A meeting to discuss Wikileaks' Julian Assange's legal and political position
Speakers: Julian Burnside AO QC, Peter Gordon, John Faine and Professor Spencer Zifcak
Date: Thursday 9 December 2010
Time: 5:30pm
Venue: the Law Institute of Victoria, 470 Bourke St, Melbourne
Details: http://www.law.monash.edu.au/castancentre/events/index.html
Brisbane: Rally in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
Date and time: Thursday, December 9, 5.30pm
Location: Brisbane Square CBD
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=153885131325141
UNITED STATES
New York, NY: Thursday, December 9, 6:30pm - 0:30am
Location: New York Times Bldg, New York, NY 10018
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=155203287858724
New York, NY: Thursday, December 9, 5:00pm
Location: Federal Building, Broadway between Worth and Duane St, NY, NY
(A, C, E, R, 4, 5, 6 Trains to Chamber and/or Brooklyn Bridge stops)
Event page: http://www.iacenter.org/nyc_actions/
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=182681678414096
Organized by: International Action Center, 212-633-6646
Please spread the word and attend if you can! For details on other upcoming global WikiLeaks support events, please click here.
New events in support of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have been announced as below. Our current list of events is available here. Note to event organizers: please email us at admin@wlcentral.org with updated event information, such as event pages.
AUSTRALIA
Perth: Friday, December 10, 6:00pm
Location: Wesley Church, corner of William & Hay Streets, Perth City
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=152006861514227
Canberra: Thursday, December 16, 5:30pm
Location: Garema Place, Civic
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=109503732454066
UNITED STATES
New York City, NY: Saturday, December 11 at 12:00 noon
Location: British Consulate-General at 845 Third Ave.
Minneapolis, MN: Monday, December 13, 4:30pm - 5:30pm
Location: Senator Klobuchar's Minneapolis Office, 1200 Washington Ave S., Minneapolis, MN
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=109641875774406
THE NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: Saturday, December 11, 2:00pm
Location: De Dam
Event page: http://www.dejimachan.org/jihad/
UNITED KINGDOM
London: Tuesday, December 14, 11:00am - 6:00pm
Location: City of Westminster Magistrates' Court, 70 Horseferry Rd, Westminster, London SW1P
Directions: Google maps
Nearby stations: St. James Park, Victoria and Pimlico
The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Consult us before using intelligence to commit war crimes, US tells Uganda
"The US told Uganda to let it know when the army was going to commit war crimes using American intelligence – but did not try to dissuade it from doing so, the US embassy cables suggest.
America was supporting the Ugandan government in its fight against rebel movement the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), providing information and $4.4m (£2.8m) worth of military hardware a year.[...]
[US Ambassador Jerry] Lanier continued: "Uganda understands the need to consult with the US in advance if the [Ugandan army] intends to use US-supplied intelligence to engage in operations not government [sic] by the law of armed conflict. Uganda understands and acknowledges that misuse of this intelligence could cause the US to end this intelligence sharing relationship."
Nowhere, though, does it appear that the ambassador directly told the Ugandans to observe the rules of war."
Read more
The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Shell's grip on Nigerian state revealed
"The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable.
The company's top executive in Nigeria told US diplomats that Shell had seconded employees to every relevant department and so knew "everything that was being done in those ministries". She boasted that the Nigerian government had "forgotten" about the extent of Shell's infiltration and was unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations."
Read more
Joe Lieberman, Senator, DHS Committee Chair, Terms of Service Policeman
I had been trying to reach Leslie since Friday...
Global activist organization Avaaz has launched a petition titled Wikileaks: Stop the crackdown. The text reads:
"Whatever we think of WikiLeaks, the massive campaign of intimidation against it is sending a chill through free speech and media advocates everywhere. Top US politicians has even gone as far as calling WikiLeaks a terrorist organization and suggested assassination of its staff, and the organization has come under massive corporate attack to shut it down.
Right now, dozens of governments and corporations are being heavily pressured to join the crackdown -- we urgently need the public to take a stand and make sure our governments protect our democracies and rule of law.
Sign the petition to stop the crackdown below and forward this email to everyone -- let's get 1 million voices against the crackdown this week!"
"To the U.S. government and corporations linked to Wikileaks:
We call on you to stop the crackdown on Wikileaks and its partners immediately. We urge you to respect the democratic principles and laws of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. If Wikileaks and the journalists it works with have violated any laws they should be pursued in the courts with due process. They should not be subjected to an extra-judicial campaign of intimidation."
Please join us in signing the petition here.
The Bolivian government is now hosting WikiLeaks Cablegate documents on its official servers: http://wikileaks.vicepresidencia.gob.bo/, under the banner of the Vice President's office and the office of the President of the Legislative Assembly. The statement reads:
"The Vice President of the State of Bolivia and the President of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, seeking to democratize access to information available to the public, are making available the documents of the Department of State of the United States, published by Wikileaks, which refer to Bolivia. All of them are available in their original language (English) and those that contain information relevant to the country, beyond simple references are translated into Castilian or being in the process of being translated, a situation in which we ask for your patience.
The search engine offers search alternatives according to the relevance of the document, its creation date, language of the source institution, etc. We firmly believe that this site will expand access to this vital information and facilitate the work of many citizens."
In a reversal from the Australian government's previous pronouncements on Julian Assange, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said today in a declaration to Reuters that "Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorised release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network. The Americans are responsible for that." He added that the leaks raised questions about the "adequacy" of US data security, and that "Maybe 2 million or so people having access to this stuff is a bit of a problem," referring to the number of personnel who had access to the SIPRNET network.
Join EFF in Standing up Against Internet Censorship
December 7, 2010
Call to Action by Shari Steele
"Over the past few weeks, we here at EFF have watched as whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has fueled an emotionally charged debate about the secrecy of government information and the people's right to know. We have welcomed this debate, and the fact that there have been myriad views is the embodiment of the freedom of expression upon which this country was founded.
However, we've been greatly troubled by a recent shift in focus. The debate about the wisdom of releasing secret government documents has turned into a massive attack on the right of intermediaries to publish truthful information. Suddenly, WikiLeaks has become the Internet's scapegoat, with a Who's Who of American and foreign companies choosing to shun the site.
Let's be clear — in the United States, at least, WikiLeaks has a fundamental right to publish truthful political information. And equally important, Internet users have a fundamental right to read that information and voice their opinions about it. We live in a society that values freedom of expression and shuns censorship. Unfortunately, those values are only as strong as the will to support them — a will that seems to be dwindling now in an alarming way.
MEDIA RELEASE
December 8
Support Wikileaks rally called in Sydney, protests nationally
Supporters of the website Wikileaks will protest Friday, December 10 at 1pm Sydney Town Hall to protest the backlash, persecution and threats it is facing for its release of more than 250,000 secret US government cables. The protest will also call for the release of imprisoned Wikileaks editor-in-chief and award-winning Australian journalist, Julian Assange.
The rally will be addressed by independent journalist Antony Loewenstein, author of My Israel Question. A federal senator from the Australian Greens, Simon Frew of the Pirate Party Australia, Green Left Weekly co-editor Simon Butler and the editor of Wikileaks Central (wlcentral.org) will also speak.
The rally will demand the Gillard government cease backing the US persecution against Assange and Wikileaks, which is its backing despite being able to point to any Australian law broken by Assange or others at Wikileaks.
Please note: This news post is not being updated anymore. For a list of current WikiLeaks events, please click here.
AUSTRALIA: Discussion: Julian Assange, Law & Politics
Melbourne: A meeting to discuss Wikileaks' Julian Assange's legal and political position
Speakers: Julian Burnside AO QC, Peter Gordon, John Faine and Professor Spencer Zifcak
Date: Thursday 9 December 2010
Time: 5:30pm
Venue: the Law Institute of Victoria, 470 Bourke St, Melbourne
Details: http://www.law.monash.edu.au/castancentre/events/index.html
AUSTRALIA: National rallies to defend Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
Media release: http://wlcentral.org/node/556
Website: http://rally4wikileaks.com/
Brisbane: Thursday, December 9, 5.30pm
Location: Brisbane Square CBD
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=153885131325141
Sydney: Friday, December 10, 1pm
Location: Sydney Town Hall
Media contacts: Antony Loewenstein 0402 893 690; Simon Butler 0421 231 011. Rally information: [contact details redacted on request]
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161656067211736
Melbourne: Friday, December 10, 4:30pm
Location: State Library Lawns, Melbourne
Contact: Vashti Jane 0423 407 910.
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=182297491780623
Brisbane: Friday, December 10, 12:00 noon
Location: Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, 295 Anne Street, Brisbane CBD
Rally information: Liam Hanlon 0435 266 613. Media contact: Jim McIlroy 0423 741 734
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=155161634529449
Hobart: Saturday, December 11, 12:00 noon
Location: Hobart Parliament Lawns
STATEMENT: "We will not be gagged"
Following the detention of Wikileaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assangem, Wikileaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said:
“Today, Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange was refused bail by a UK court. While we are troubled by this bizarre decision, we know Julian is grateful for the support of both his legal team and prominent figures such as Ken Loach, Jemima Khan and John Pilger.
“However, this will not stifle Wikileaks. The release of the US Embassy Cables – the biggest leak in history – will still continue. This evening, the latest batch of cables were released, and our media partners released their next batch of stories.
“We will not be gagged, either by judicial action or corporate censorship. Today Visa joined Mastercard, Paypal, Amazon, EveryDNS and others in cutting off their links.
“Wikileaks is still online. The full site is duplicated in more than 500 locations. Every day, the cables are loaded more than 50 million times.
“US Senator Joe Lieberman today attacked the New York Times for its decision to publish the cables, just days after calling for companies to boycott Wikileaks.
“Just minutes later, the State Department announced the US will host next year’s UNESCO Press Freedom day. The irony is not lost on us. We hope in future, UNESCO celebrates press freedom somewhere where it exists.”
Visit the Cablegate site at http://www.wikileaks.ch/cablegate
(via @wikileaks| Source: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/7canol)
Written in response to a specific request but available for use by anyone. Feel free to use, in whole or in part, or publish them on a website, newsletter, store window, office cublicle, etc. If you are organizing a rally, please tell me the details and I’ll post them here and at WLCentral. Thank you all for your support.
The Australian has posted today an op-ed written by Julian Assange. In it, he talks about the ideas that inspired WikiLeaks, the concept of scientific journalism, the role of the media in a democratic society, the threats that he and WikiLeaks have been receiving and the Australian government's failure to respond to them. Also addressed are the contradictory and false accusations that on the one hand WikiLeaks disclosures are very dangerous but on the other hand that they are "nothing new," some of the most significant revelations in the Cablegate documents, and the reasons why the media's right to report the truth must be defended.
A few excerpts are reproduced below:
"Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.
People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.
If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US embassy cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported, consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things freely.
WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US embassy cables. Other media outlets, including Britain ‘s The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.
Visa became today the fifth financial institution to suspend payments to WikiLeaks, after Moneybookers, PayPal, Mastercard, and PostFinance. A spokesman said: "Visa Europe has taken action to suspend Visa payment acceptance on WikiLeaks' website pending further investigation into the nature of its business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules," reports the Press Association.
The Guardian wrote: "Charles Arthur, the Guardian's technology editor, points out that while MasterCard and Visa have cut WikiLeaks off you can still use those cards to donate to overtly racist organisations such as the Knights Party, which is supported by the Ku Klux Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan website directs users to a site called Christian Concepts. It takes Visa and MasterCard donations for users willing to state that they are 'white and not of racially mixed descent. I am not married to a non-white. I do not date non-whites nor do I have non-white dependents. I believe in the ideals of western Christian civilisation and profess my belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God.'"
Probably no further comment is needed. (You can still donate to WikiLeaks via other methods.)
A demostration to protest Julian Assange's arrest is being organized today at 13:30 London time in front of the Westminster Magistrates' Court. Please join if you can!
Address: 70 Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AX (More details)
Map: Google maps
Details: http://www.justiceforassange.com/
Few hours ago it was reported that Julian Assange was arrested in London. His arrest is based on the rape charges in Sweden, so it is claimed it has nothing to do with Wikileaks' latest release, but it is of course very, very convenient. All we can hope for is that he is treated with respect according to law and that Sweden will not be coerced to hand him over to the U.S.
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