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Press Freedom

The Sound Of Enforced Silence

August 30, 2024 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , , ,
Is there some connection, — not quite official but it may as well be— between censorship and presidential politics? I pose the question as a survivor of the Russiagate years, when illiberal liberals started talking about “free-speech absolutists,” and when corporate journalists cheered the censoring of unincorporated journalists so long as it was called “content moderation.”

The Slide Into Authoritarianism

August 28, 2024 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , , , ,
All of us who care about civil liberties, civil rights, human rights and freedom of the press have had a front-row seat lately to a slide toward what can only be described as authoritarianism. The governments of the U.S., U.K. and even Canada have been working hard, sometimes in a coordinated fashion, to silence dissenting voices. The governments’ tactics have been heavy-handed, to say the least. Most recently, journalist Richard Medhurst was arrested last week by British authorities. Richard, who is one of the loudest and most important voices in support of human rights for Palestinians, was arrested at Heathrow Airport. Detaining a journalist is not terribly unusual in the U.K., unfortunately.

Police Arrest Several Journalists While Cracking Down On DNC Protest

August 21, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , , ,
During the Democratic National Convention, Chicago police aggressively cracked down on a protest outside of the Israeli consulate. Officers carried out a mass arrest that included multiple members of the press, according to several independent reporters that were on the ground. Josh Pacheco, a photojournalist from New York City, and Olya Fedorova, a freelance photojournalist, were singled out by police and arrested and charged with “disorderly conduct.” Police reportedly damaged Pacheco and Fedorova’s camera equipment during their arrests, and they were released from the Area 3 police station in the early morning after being held in police custody for nearly 10 hours.

Richard Medhurst And The Right To Armed Resistance

August 21, 2024 Craig Murray, Consortium News. , , , , ,
We were waiting for Richard Medhurst to arrive and join our panel at the Beautiful Days festival, when he was arrested and imprisoned for 23.5 hours last Thursday. Obviously we were all worried sick about him. It is now becoming easier to list the truly dissident U.K. journalists who have not been arrested for terrorism than those who have! This fascist ploy of labeling journalists as terrorists is incredible. Richard’s case is slightly different to that of other journalists including myself, John Laughland, Vanessa Beeley, Johanna Ross, Kit Klarenberg and many more to suffer the same treatment, in that Richard was specifically held under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act — which outlaws support for a proscribed organisation.

UK Police Arrest Journalist Richard Medhurst Under ‘Terrorism Act’

August 20, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , ,
Medhurst stated via social media that six police officers were waiting for him as he exited his plane in London on 15 August, adding that he was questioned under the Terrorism Act, Section 12. "I believe I'm the first journalist to be arrested under this provision of the Terrorism Act. I feel that this is a political persecution and hampers my ability to work as a journalist," Medhurst explained. Other British journalists who have reported critically on Israeli, UK, and US foreign policy have also been detained and harassed upon returning to their home country, including The Cradle contributor Kit Klarenberg and Vanessa Beeley, who is well known for her reporting from Syria during the US and Israeli-backed regime change war.

Meta Permanently Bans The Cradle In Latest Attack On Free Speech

August 19, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , , ,
On 16 August, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta permanently banned The Cradle from its social media platforms for allegedly violating community guidelines by “praising terrorist organizations” and engaging in “incitement to violence.” “No one can see or find your account, and you can't use it. All your information will be permanently deleted,” reads the message accompanying the ban on Instagram, where The Cradle had surpassed 107,000 followers and amassed millions of views. “You cannot request another review of this decision,” the message ends, despite the fact the ban came with little warning or any chance for review.

Police Must Respect Journalists’ Rights To Freely Report On DNC Protests

August 19, 2024 Seth Stern and Jimena Pinzon, Chicago Sun-Times. , , , , , , , ,
Hundreds of journalists are expected to converge on Chicago to cover the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19-22 – and they must be allowed to do their jobs unimpeded. The city’s plan to “streamline” mass arrests during the convention, by processing arrestees at a makeshift court at the Area 3 police station at Belmont and Western, does nothing to alleviate the threat mass arrests pose to journalists. The plan, reported by the Sun-Times last week, is supposedly for the arrestees’ convenience: It’ll be easier for them to get home on public transportation that way. But “catch and release” arrests are never convenient for journalists, or their readers.

Journalists Demand Blinken Back Israel Arms Embargo

August 15, 2024 Open Letter, Consortium News. , , , , ,
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 160 Palestinian journalists. This is the  largest recorded number of journalists killed in any war. While Israel’s indiscriminate bombing  of the densely populated Gaza means no civilians are safe, Israel has also been repeatedly  documented deliberately targeting journalists.   Israel’s military actions are not possible without U.S. weapons, U.S. military aid, and U.S.  diplomatic support. By providing the weapons being used to deliberately kill journalists, you are complicit in one of the gravest affronts to press freedom today.   On World Press Freedom Day this year, you called on “every nation to do more to protect  journalists,” and reiterated your “unwavering support for free and independent media around  the world.” 

Consortium News Condemns FBI Raid On CN Columnist’s Home

August 10, 2024 Consortium News. , , , ,
Consortium News condemns in the strongest terms the F.B.I. raid on the home of CN columnist Scott Ritter. Federal agents removed Ritter’s electronic equipment and numerous boxes of paper files from his Albany, N.Y. area home Thursday on suspicion that the former U.N. weapons inspector is violating the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act. In a video posted to his Substack page, Ritter said that normally in alleged FARA violation cases the authorities send a letter to the subject of the inquiry informing them of the investigation. They do not send numerous F.B.I. agents to the door with a warrant to search and remove potential evidence.

Guilty Plea In First Espionage Act Case Involving Drone Photography

July 16, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , , ,
In a first-of-its-kind prosecution, a Chinese graduate student pleaded guilty to violating the United States Espionage Act when he flew a drone and photographed U.S. military and naval installations. The plea deal does not create any legal precedent, and U.S. prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia never explicitly accused Fengyun Shi of spying on behalf of the Chinese government. However, the case itself carries implications for the right to photograph or gather news. Shi agreed to plead guilty [PDF] to two counts of “unlawful photographing of designated installation without authorization.” Both are misdemeanor charges that carry a potential sentence of one year in prison and a fine of $100,000. He also faces deportation back to China.

Assange’s Case Shows Why Reforming The Espionage Act Is Imperative

July 12, 2024 Chip Gibbons, The Nation. , , , , ,
On June 25, 2024, the 14-year persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange came to an end. As part of a plea deal, the journalist pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act. In exchange, he received time served for the five years he spent in a British maximum-security prison while fighting his extradition. Although Assange walked out of the courthouse a free man, his freedom came after paying an extraordinary harsh price. Officially, Assange’s crime was “conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information.” According to the plea deal, Assange helped to set up WikiLeaks, which announced that it would publish “classified, censored, or otherwise restricted information of political, diplomatic, or ethical significance.”

Julian Assange Freed By The Prospect Of Justice

July 7, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The sudden announcement that Julian Assange would be freed after a plea agreement came as a great and very welcome surprise. Assange and the Wikileaks team were targets of United States persecution and prosecution by three different presidential administrations because they revealed secrets that the state wanted to keep hidden. Wikileaks revealed war crimes committed during the George W. Bush administration in their Iraq War Logs and Afghanistan War Logs. Private Chelsea Manning leaked the Collateral Murder video, which shows the deaths of civilians, including two Reuters reporters, as they were gunned down by a U.S. army helicopter crew in 2007.

The Media Kept Assange Behind Bars

July 1, 2024 Jonathan Cook, Consortium News. , , ,
It is only right that we all take a moment to celebrate the victory of Julian Assange’s release from 14 years of detention, in varying forms, to be united, finally, with his wife and children — two boys who have been denied the chance to ever properly know their father. His last five years were spent in Belmarsh high-security prison as the United States sought to extradite him to face a 175-year jail sentence for publishing details of its state crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. For seven years before that he was confined to a small room in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after Quito awarded him political asylum to evade the clutches of a law-breaking U.S. empire determined to make an example of him.

Julian Assange Is Finally Free; Let’s Not Forget The War Crimes He Exposed

June 29, 2024 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , ,
After a 14-year struggle, including five years spent in Belmarsh, a maximum-security prison in London, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is finally free. Under the terms of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain documents, writings and notes connected with the national defense under the Espionage Act. Assange was facing 175 years in prison for 18 charges in the indictment filed by the Trump administration and pursued by the Biden administration. The Justice Department agreed to the plea bargain a little over a month after the High Court of England and Wales ruled that Assange would be allowed to appeal an extradition order.

Assange: I Broke The Law But The Law Is Wrong

June 27, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
Before Federal Judge Ramona Manglona on Wednesday at the court in Saipan, capital of the Northern Marianas, Assange pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to obtain defense information, a violation of the U.S. Espionage Act. “With this pronouncement, it appears that you will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man,” the judge said. According to an account by Dow Jones news service in The Australian, Mangola asked Assange what he had done to violate the law. “Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified,” Assange replied. “I believed the First Amendment protected that activity, but I accept that it was a violation of the espionage statute.”
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