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Press Freedom

If The Police Can Decide Who Qualifies As A Journalist, There Is No Free Press

June 2, 2023 Eleanor Goldfield, Truthout. , , ,
On a cold Christmas night in 2021 in the picturesque mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina, The Asheville Blade journalist Veronica Coit sat in a police station waiting to be booked. A police officer motioned toward Coit and said, “She says she’s press.” The magistrate responded: “Is she real press?” “In that very moment, he could’ve decided that we were press, which we were. The magistrate has the legal right to say ‘no’ [to booking someone].” But the magistrate didn’t exercise that right. Both Coit and their colleague Matilda Bliss were processed for trespassing while covering the eviction of unhoused people at Aston Park in Asheville.

Report: FBI Reopens Assange Investigation

June 1, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
Three years after indicting him on espionage and computer intrusion charges, the Federal Bureau of Investigation appears to be still seeking more evidence against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. The Sydney Morning Herald has reported in its Thursday edition that the F.B.I. last week sought an interview in London with Andrew O’Hagan, who worked as a ghostwriter on Assange’s autobiography in 2011. The London Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism command sent the letter to O’Hagan, which said: “The FBI would like to discuss your experiences with Assange/WikiLeaks …” O’Hagan told the Herald: “I would not give a witness statement against a fellow journalist being pursued for telling the truth. 

UK Police Detain Journalist Kit Klarenberg Over ‘Political Views’

May 31, 2023 News Desk, The Cradle. , , ,
UK counter-terrorism police detained journalist Kit Klarenberg upon his arrival in his home country from Belgrade, Serbia, on 17 May, subjecting him to an extended interrogation over his “political views” and his reporting. Klarenberg has written extensively for The Cradle, exposing London’s many covert operations in West Asia. According to The Grayzone, six plainclothes police were waiting for him outside his plane, promptly moving him to a back room and informing him of his detention under Schedule Three, Section Four of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act.

Biden Missing, But Assange Sydney Rally Goes On

May 25, 2023 Consortium News. , , , ,
Joe Biden was due in Sydney Wednesday where he’s facing increased pressure to let Julian Assange go. Biden cancelled the trip but a rally in Hyde Park sent him the message anyway.   Stella Assange, Scott Ludlum, John Shipton, Gabriel Shipton, David McBride and Stephen Kenny addressed the rally Wednesday morning. Stella Assange, on her first trip to Australia, vowed that she would return with a liberated Julian Assange and their children to his home country.

Monopolies, Prosecution Of Assange Drive Drop In US Press Freedom Rank

May 9, 2023 Mark Taylor-Canfield, Truthout. , , , , , ,
CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin interrupted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a Washington Post-sponsored World Press Freedom Day event on May 3, taking the stage where a Post journalist was interviewing Blinken. Benjamin demanded that the U.S. and United Kingdom free imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. A group of men in suits, presumably Secret Service agents, immediately charged onto the stage and forcibly removed Benjamin and another activist who joined her. Blinken, however, failed to address either Assange’s persecution or the U.S.’s continued decline in press freedom after the disruption.

Julian Assange And World Press Freedom Day

May 4, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , ,
The detention and persecution of Julian Assange eviscerates all pretense of the rule of law and the rights of a free press. The illegalities, embraced by the Ecuadorian, British, Swedish and U.S. governments are ominous. They presage a world where the internal workings, abuses, corruption, lies and crimes, especially war crimes, carried out by corporate states and the global ruling elite, will be masked from the public. They presage a world where those with the courage and integrity to expose the misuse of power will be hunted down, tortured, subjected to sham trials and given lifetime prison terms in solitary confinement.

First Amendment Authorized Assange’s Possession Of Classified Data

April 21, 2023 Bruce Afran, Consortium News. , , , ,
Last week marked four years of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange being held at Britain’s Belmarsh Prison while he awaits the outcome of his fight to block extradition to the United States. While the U.S. government is also charging Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion,  the core of its case is that Assange violated the 1917 Espionage Act by “possessing” and releasing “defense” material that caused “injury” to the United States or gave “advantage” to other nations, a boundless and limitless standard that can turn virtually any journalist or blogger into a criminal defendant. No other direction, definition or limitation appears in this law that is now being applied to Assange.

Seven Members Of Congress Take A Stand For Assange

April 17, 2023 Cody Bloomfield, Defending Rights and Dissent. , , ,
April 11 - Four years ago today, six men dragged Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London into a van, where he was carted off to Belmarsh Prison, where he remains, fighting extradition to the U.S. On April 11, 2019, after seven years holed up in the embassy, Ecuador rescinded Assange’s citizenship and turned him over to British authorities. The final extrication from the embassy followed years of CIA plotting against Assange, going so far as to draw up “options” for how to assassinate him and contracting with the security company charged with surveilling the Ecuadorian embassy. The date marks nearly eleven years of persecution of Assange.

Belmarsh Warden Blocks Assange From Meeting With Press Freedom Advocates

April 7, 2023 Kevin Gosztola, Scheer Post. , , ,
The warden of Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh blocked representatives with the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) from visiting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, despite previously reviewing RSF’s request and agreeing to grant access. Rebecca Vincent, the director of operations and campaigns for RSF, declared, “We followed all rules this morning. We were there very early with all required documentation. Without even checking our documentation, we were told that we would not be allowed in.” “The first official that we spoke to said that they had received ‘intelligence’ that we were journalists, and therefore we would not be allowed to visit,” Vincent added.

Take Action: End The Persecution Of Julian Assange

April 1, 2023 Defending Rights and Dissent. , , ,
Australian publisher Julian Assange is a political prisoner. After being abducted out of the Ecuadorian embassy, he has languished in Belmarsh prison for nearly four years. In the intervening time, press freedom groups, major newspapers, and civil libertarians have all condemned the US’s unprecedented charges against Assange.  After years of grassroots advocacy, now members of Congress are starting to speak out. But they need to hear your voice.  Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is currently circulating a sign-on letter calling for Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the charges against Assange.

The Betrayers Of Julian Assange

March 11, 2023 John Pilger, Mintpress News. , , ,
Those who are the antithesis of Julian: in whom courage is unheard of, along with principle and honour, stand between him and freedom. I am not referring to the Mafia regime in Washington whose pursuit of a good man is meant as a warning to us all, but rather to those who still claim to run a just democracy in Australia. Anthony Albanese was mouthing his favourite platitude, ‘enough is enough’ long before he was elected prime minister of Australia last year. He gave many of us precious hope, including Julian’s family. As prime minister he added weasel words about ‘not sympathising’ with what Julian had done.

Julian Assange’s Family Members Are Touring The United States With Ithaka

February 20, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG, , , , ,
This April will mark four years since Julian Assange was forcefully removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been granted asylum, and jailed in Belmarsh Prison. Assange, whose health is declining, is being persecuted for being a publisher who made leaked material available to the public through Wikileaks. The materials, which exposed war crimes and corruption, were reported on by major media outlets around the world. The Biden administration could free Assange immediately by dropping the charges made by the Trump administration. Clearing the FOG speaks with Gabriel Shipton, Assange's brother, who is starting a US tour with his father, John Shipton, at the end of the month to show his documentary, Ithaka, and call on President Biden to act. The film provides an intimate view of Assange's family's fight to free him. 

Julian Assange And The US Government’s War On Whistleblowers

January 22, 2023 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. , , ,
The long persecution of Julian Assange, the publisher of WikiLeaks, is set to culminate in its final act: a trial in the United States, probably this year. Kevin Gosztola has spent the last decade reporting on Assange, WikiLeaks, and the wider war on whistleblowers. His new book, Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case against Julian Assange, methodically lays out the complex issues surrounding the case, the gross distortions to the legal system used to facilitate the extradition of Julian, now in a high security prison in London, the abuses of power by the FBI and the CIA, including spying on Julian’s meetings when he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London with his family, doctors, and attorneys, and the dire consequences, should Julian be convicted, for the press. Joining me to discuss his new book is Kevin Gosztola. So Kevin, you do a very… I think your book and Nils Melzer are the two books I would recommend for people who don’t understand the case.

Brazil’s President-Elect Lula Calls To Free Julian Assange

November 30, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. , , ,
Brazil’s left-wing President-elect Lula da Silva has called for journalist Julian Assange to be freed from his “unjust imprisonment.” Assange, the founder of whistle-blowing journalism publication WikiLeaks, has languished since 2019 in a maximum-security British prison, where he has suffered from prolonged torture that could threaten his life, according to the top United Nations expert. The United Kingdom is preparing to extradite the Australian journalist to the United States, where he is facing up to 175 years in prison on politically motivated charges based in part on illegal CIA spying and threats. On November 28, Lula met with Assange’s colleagues from WikiLeaks.

Media Serve The Governors, Not The Governed

November 25, 2022 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
In his 1971 opinion in the Pentagon Papers case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote: “In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government.” That’s what WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have been doing since 2006: censuring governments with governments’ own words pried from secrecy by WikiLeaks’ sources—whistleblowers. In other words, WikiLeaks has been doing the job the U.S. constitution intended the press to do. One can hardly imagine anyone sitting on today’s U.S. Supreme Court writing such an opinion.
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