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The Show Trial Against Julian Assange

February 25, 2024 Fabian Scheidler, Scheer Post. , , , , , ,
“Those who tell the truth need a fast horse,” says an Armenian proverb. Or they need a society that protects the truth and its messengers. But this protection, which our democracies claim to offer, is in danger. As a journalist, Julian Assange has published hundreds of thousands of files documenting war crimes committed by the USA and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo and elsewhere. The authenticity of the documents is beyond question. However, none of the perpetrators have been brought to justice or convicted.

Congolese Journalist: It’s Time To Stop Negotiating With Rwanda

February 25, 2024 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
Rwanda’s M23 militia and Rwandan Special Forces have been advancing on Goma, the capital city of North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). I had a Zoom conversation with Congolese journalist Akilimali Chomachoma, who is based in Goma. Ann Garrison: Akilimali, do you feel safe talking about the security situation there in the northeastern DRC? Akilimali Chomachoma: I'm not feeling safe as a journalist, but as a journalist, I have the duty to tell what is going on here. I have the duty to give testimony, I have the duty to give voice to all people who are suffering, to tell what actors here locally are doing.

Government Gag Rules Keep Vital Information From The Public

February 24, 2024 Kathryn Foxhall, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , , ,
Reporting on the government institution charged with saving us from the Covid pandemic was restricted enough to leave real holes in what we knew. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—like many other organizations these days, public and private—prohibits its employees from speaking freely to reporters. At many entities, the rules mean staff members cannot have any unauthorized contact with reporters, with media inquiries often redirected to a public information office (PIO). The forced notification of the higher-ups is quite enough to silence many employees about anything that would displease the bosses.

Day Two: US Reinforces Grand Assange Deception

February 23, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , ,
On the second and final day of Julian Assange’s High Court hearing, barristers for the United States wove a delusory tale in which journalism is espionage, First Amendment rights are stripped from foreigners on U.S. soil and a government hunting a dissident journalist who revealed its secret crimes is lauded as a beacon of democracy. However, outside the courthouse on a street called The Strand; and with human rights and press freedom organizations, presidents, prime ministers, and parliaments and with millions of ordinary citizens around the world, this false construct the United States seeks to impose on the world is failing.

Assange Appeal Hearing Plagued By Media Access Issues

February 22, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , ,
In a high-profile extradition case widely regarded as a threat to global press freedom, administrators of the United Kingdom’s courts have repeatedly shown that they are incapable and unwilling to ensure open justice for journalists. All reporters outside of England and Wales (including this reporter) were barred from accessing the audio-visual link for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s hearing, where he urged the British High Court of Justice grant permission to appeal extradition to the United States. Several journalists who traveled internationally to cover proceedings have been seated in a section of the courtroom that makes doing their job practically impossible.

Day X Protests To Free Assange

February 19, 2024 Assange Defense. , , , ,
Day X is here: February 20-21, imprisoned publisher Julian Assange returns to court in London for his final bid to appeal his extradition to the United States where he would face life in prison for publishing truthful information in the public interest. Human rights leaders and civil liberties groups around the world are again warning that the prosecution of Assange threatens journalism everywhere. In this month alone, a UN Special Rapporteur, leading press freedom groups, over 35 U.S. law professors, and the Australian Parliament have called for an end to the prosecution of Julian Assange. 

The Collapse Of US Media Is Accelerating Our Political Crisis

February 17, 2024 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , ,
Yet another wave of media layoffs is putting hundreds of journalists out of work across some of the largest major news outlets in the US, including CNN, the LA Times, Vox, Business Insider, CNBC, Garnett, and others. In an already-grim media landscape that’s been decimated by decades of tanking revenues, this latest round of cuts raises serious questions about how the loss of so much journalism will impact our society. Newspapers closed at a rate of 2.5 per week in 2023, up from 2 per week in 2022. 3,000 of the US’s 9,000 newspapers have permanently closed, and since 2005, two thirds of all journalists have lost their jobs.

Countdown To Day X: Denying Assange’s Freedom Of Expression

February 14, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his legal team assert that extradition to the United States would be a “flagrant denial” of his rights to freedom of expression because the charges criminalize Assange for engaging in journalism. When Assange was first charged, Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Jameel Jaffer of the Knight First Amendment Institute declared, “The [computer offense] characterizes everyday journalistic practices as part of a criminal conspiracy. Cultivating a source, protecting a source’s identity, communicating with a source securely—the indictment describes all of these activities as the ‘manners and means’ of the conspiracy.”

UK Steps Up War On Whistleblower Journalism

February 14, 2024 Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone. , , , , , ,
It was the afternoon of May 17 2023 and I had just arrived at London’s Luton Airport. I was on my way to the city of my birth to visit my family. Before landing, the pilot instructed all passengers to have their passports ready for inspection immediately upon disembarking the plane. Just then, I noticed a six-strong squad of stone-faced plainclothes British counter-terror officers waited on the tarmac, intensely studying the identification documents of all travelers. As soon as the cops identified me, I was ordered to accompany them into the airport terminal without explanation. There, I was introduced to two officials whose names I could not learn, who subsequently referred to each other using nondescript callsigns. I was invited to be digitally strip searched, and subjected to an interrogation in which I had no right to silence, no right to refuse to answer questions, and no right to withhold pin numbers for my digital devices or sim cards.

Northwestern U: Threatened With Prison For Distributing Parody Paper

February 13, 2024 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , , ,
Students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, produced a parody edition of the school’s paper, the Daily Northwestern, to call out the school’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza. Some folks wrapped the fake front pages around some 300 copies of the actual school paper. This exercise in culture jamming got two students brought up on a charge that could have landed them in prison for a year. After widespread protest on campus, and national coverage in the Intercept (2/5/24) and Responsible Statecraft (2/5/24), charges were dropped against the students. After the appearance of the look-alike Northwestern Daily—bearing the headline “Northwestern Complicit in Genocide of Palestinians”—the parent company of the school paper, Students Publishing Company, announced that it was engaging “law enforcement to investigate and find those responsible.”

Like Prison Visiting Rules, Use Of The Espionage Act Is Arbitrary, Punitive

February 11, 2024 Jeffrey Sterling, Scheer Post. , , ,
In Mid-December 2023, Charles Glass, the esteemed writer, journalist, broadcaster, and publisher visited with Julian Assange, an inmate at Belmarsh Prison in the U.K. Assange has been confined there since April, 2019. He is awaiting his final appeal to quash U.S. efforts to extradite him to face some of the same Espionage Act charges I was confronted with. Glass chronicles the visit in a recent piece in The Nation. His account took me right back to prison. Glass’s visit with Assange could have been a visit with me. I fondly remember Charles Glass. He wrote to me while I was in FCI Englewood, the prison I was bound in after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act in 2015.

Alert: Friedman’s Vermin Analogies Echo Pro-Genocide Propaganda

February 9, 2024 Jim Naureckas, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , , ,
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman had a piece in the Point (2/2/24), an online Times feature the paper describes as “conversations and insights about the moment,” that compared the targets of US bombs to vermin. It’s the sort of metaphor that propagandists have historically used to justify genocide. Friedman’s piece compared the nation of Iran to “a recently discovered species of parasitoid wasp,” which (according to Science Daily) “injects its eggs into live caterpillars, and the baby wasp larvae slowly eat the caterpillar from the inside out, bursting out once they have eaten their fill.”

Study Finds Media Giants Pushing For US War In Yemen

February 6, 2024 Alan MacLeod, MintPress News. , , , , , , , ,
A MintPress study of major U.S. media outlets’ coverage of the Yemeni Red Sea blockade has found an overwhelming bias in the press, which presented the event as an aggressive, hostile act of terrorism by Ansar Allah (a.k.a. the Houthis), who were presented as pawns of the Iranian government. While constantly putting forward pro-war talking points, the U.S. was portrayed as a good faith, neutral actor being “dragged” into another Middle Eastern conflict against its will. Since November, Ansar Allah has been conducting a blockade of Israeli ships entering the Red Sea in an attempt to force Israel to stop its attack on the people of Gaza.

CNN Staff Say Network’s Pro-Israel Slant Is ‘Journalistic Malpractice’

February 5, 2024 Chris McGreal, Portside. , , , , , ,
CNN is facing a backlash from its own staff over editorial policies they say have led to a regurgitation of Israeli propaganda and the censoring of Palestinians perspectives in the network’s coverage of the war in Gaza. Journalists in CNN newsrooms in the US and overseas say broadcasts have been skewed by management edicts and a story-approval process that has resulted in highly partial coverage of the Hamas massacre on 7 October and Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza. “The majority of news since the war began, regardless of how accurate the initial reporting, has been skewed by a systemic and institutional bias within the network toward Israel,” said one CNN staffer.

FightBackBetter.com: Hyper Focused News For NJ’s Pro-Palestine Movement

February 5, 2024 Bob Witanek, Fight Back Better. , , , , ,
“NJ area news hyper-focused on the topic of the efforts in solidarity with the people of Palestine” is how editor of the new site Bob Witanek describes his newly rebranded http://FightBackBetter.com. The news is certainly of the advocacy bend – unlike most standard journalism that attempts to maintain a semblance of impartiality. According to Bob Witanek, “The assumption is that our readers are on this site to find out what they can do to take effective action against the US-supported genocide targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza. ”The site is structured to present the dozens of activities and organizational efforts occurring around NJ each and every week with the details and the contact information, to show what the editor believes is repression against some sectors of opposition to the what he considers “genocide’.
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