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Why Every American Needs to Defend Julian Assange’s Freedom

July 30, 2018 By administrator

Julian Assange’s Freedom

(CD Opinion) — Over 50 years ago, in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, addressing a struggle of the civil right era, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” His message is now more prevalent than ever in the current political climate surrounding WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.

WikiLeaks stepped onto a global stage with release of a huge trove of classified documents revealing government secrecy. After the publication of war logs that exposed the atrocities committed by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reaction of the Pentagon quickly escalated into a war against the First Amendment. WikiLeaks was subjected to unlawful financial blockades and there has been an ongoing secret grand jury against the organization and its associates since 2010.

These efforts to destroy WikiLeaks brought a long dreadful persecution of Julian Assange. He has been detained for 8 years, first in prison, then under house arrest and now as a refugee living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. In 2012 he was granted political asylum against the threat of extradition to the U.S., relating to his publishing activities with WikiLeaks. The UK government, in violation of UN rulings that indicated the situation of Assange as arbitrary detention, kept him in confinement, depriving him of medical care and sunlight.

In late March, this already untenable situation got worse. Pressured by the U.S., Ecuador’s new President Lenin Moreno put Assange in isolation by cutting off his access to the Internet, denying him phone calls and visitors, including Human Rights Watch. The latest news about him indicates that the Ecuadorian government is close to finalizing an agreement with British officials to evict Assange from the embassy. How did this all happen? Here we have a Western journalist, who has not been charged with any crime, being punished for providing information that shed light on crimes and corruption of governments. This plight of Assange has been largely ignored by American mainstream press and there has been an appalling silence on this issue even among political activists.

Villain, Hero or Useful Idiot?

WikiLeaks has been consistently vilified by U.S. officials across two major political parties. After the publication of U.S. diplomatic cables, Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, designated the whistleblowing site as a terrorist organization, calling for aggressive prosecution. Similar reactions were made by Democrats. Former Vice President Joe Biden compared Assange to a “high-tech terrorist”, while senator and chairman of the Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein urged him to be prosecuted for espionage.

As officials jumped to condemn this new media organization, the public responded differently. WikiLeaks, with the release of the collateral murder video in 2010, that provided an everyday scenery of the War on Terror in the Middle East instantly became a hero among liberals. This was contrasted with Republicans who tended to view the release of U.S. Diplomatic Cables as harmful, with conservative leaders calling Assange a traitor.

This attitude toward WikiLeaks flipped during the election season in 2016. WikiLeaks’ publication of damaging information from the Hillary Clinton campaign during the final weeks leading up to the election was met with Democrats’ hostile criticism. In their minds, WikiLeaks has changed. It no longer represented a champion of free speech that they once saw. To them, WikiLeaks appeared to have been taken over, being weaponized for the agenda of their political opponent.

As mainstream media hype of Russiagate came full on, demonization of WikiLeaks increased, depicting the transparency group as Putin’s puppet for meddling with the U.S. election. Contrary to progressives’ suspicion and animosity toward the organization, support for WikiLeaks grew among conservatives during the most recent presidential race. Right wing commentators on Fox News and politicians like Sarah Palin cheered WikiLeaks. Trump repeatedly praised the organization during his campaign. Ever since it attained public notoriety, WikiLeaks has become many things for different people. Assange has been called a villain, a hero or a useful idiot. But what is WikiLeaks, who is Assange and what is his agenda?

Crushing Bastards

Julian Paul Assange is a computer programmer and journalist with an independent mind and deep knowledge of the workings of hidden forces of control. Raffi Khatchadourian, a staff writer at The New Yorker, who profiled Assange in his article in 2010, described how this Australian native, who recently obtained citizenship in Ecuador came to “understand the defining human struggle not as left versus right, or faith versus reason, but as individual versus institution.”

In his 2006 seminal writing “Conspiracy as Governance”, Assange identified authoritarian regimes as patronage networks of political elites. He analyzed how this network maintains its power through the use of secrecy, restriction, and the control of national and global communication and information. Assange conceived WikiLeaks upon this understanding of the structure of power. With its innovative technical infrastructure and the method of transparency, the organization revolutionized the function of the press.

As a transnational journalistic entity that is entirely funded by public donations, WikiLeaks places no allegiance to any nations, corporations or political ideology. Its sole loyalty lies in the principle of democracy, using a leak as a tool for information warfare to perform a function of watchdog, restricting the power of institutions and protecting the rights of individuals. This fidelity to checks and balances is demonstrated in Assange’s ability to speak truth, no matter who is in power.

In Obama’s second term of presidency, while many who voted for him were still mesmerized under the spell of “hope and change”, Assange was able to penetrate the deception and see lies and hypocrisies of this president who received a Nobel Peace Prize, while simultaneously engaging in multiple wars. In the statement after one year in the embassy where he called for global support for the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was charged with espionage, Assange fiercely denounced Obama’s war on whistleblowers.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, WikiLeaks released documents concerning one of the major candidates that would inherit the throne of this global imperial power. With the publication of documents that revealed internal workings of the Clinton campaign, WikiLeaks brought vital information that could help American people carefully scrutinize their political system and crush bastards that try to attack and undermine democracy.

If the organization had documents concerning Trump, WikiLeaks indicated that they would have published it. In responding to accusations of WikiLeaks favoring the Trump campaign with the DNC leaks, Assange made it clearthat the role of the organization is to publish whatever is given to them, and they will not censor their publications for any political reasons.

The recent article written by an Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who worked with WikiLeaks for nine years, backs this claim. In sharing her insider view of the organization, she described how the decision of the timing of Podesta leaks was made and how Assange and his team were preparing to release material on Trump, which didn’t materialize, as it was already published before.

Defense of American Ideals

This revolutionary journalism that Assange created through WikiLeaks resonates with the ideals that founded the United States. In fact, Assange pointed out how WikiLeaks derives its inspiration from the American revolutionary ideas and that it aligns its mission with these ideals.

Similar to the faith in the wisdom of ordinary people to govern themselves, expressed in the preamble of the Constitution with its first words “We the People”, Assange believed in the significance of ordinary people and their ability to engage in history. Thomas Jefferson recognized how, “Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press…”. Just as founders of this country did not trust their own government and created a safeguard for individual liberty, Assange believed in the importance of an informed public in the functioning of democracy.

From its inception in 2006, WikiLeaks has been working to defend these American values. When the laws that protect whistleblowers were gutted, it is through Assange and WikiLeaks staff’s adamant commitment to the principle of free press that made it possible for former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to exercise her uncompromising free speech. Also, it is because of WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison, with her courage in demonstrating extraordinary source protection that Snowden is now able to enjoy his rights that were denied by his own country.

WikiLeaks, as the world’s first global Fourth Estate, extended the freedom of speech, not only for Americans, but for people all around the world. As of late 2016, itpublished 10 million documents with a pristine record of authentication. The organization, by making full archives available in a searchable format, brought back information that belongs to the public, directly into their own hands. From the election in Kenya to the Icelandic revolution, WikiLeaks publications empowered people in many countries, creating greater social change and sparks for global uprisings. Information made available has been used to bring justice in courts and address numerous human rights abuses.

Until the moment he was cut out from the outside world, this editor in chief of the world’s most prosecuted publisher defended ordinary people’s right to self-determination. From a tiny sanctum in the Ecuadorian Embassy of London, Assange followed Catalans’ struggle for independence and continuously spoke out against Spanish Central government’s abuse of their democratic rights.

Self-Righteous Betrayal of Democracy

So, did WikiLeaks change? Has this organization that once cracked our heart open with uncensored images of modern war lost its ideals? WikiLeaks illuminated our minds with a large cache of documents detailing dirty secrets of powerful figures, including over 650,000 critical documents concerning Putin’s Russia. Are they now really compromised?

WikiLeaks has not changed. It has not abandoned American ideals that have fueled the engine for this organization. WikiLeaks accepts information that is of public interest. It verifies and publishes authentic documents that fit the criteria of having “diplomatic, political, ethical, or historical significance, which has not been published before, and which is being suppressed”. It does this, no matter who is in office and which nation-state rises to global dominance, and even if doing so makes it a target of massive political retaliation.

WikiLeaks’ influence on U.S. politics in 2016 with the publication of documents that belong to Clinton campaign manager can be likened to efforts of consumer advocate Ralph Nader in the electoral arena. Nader, through his third party presidential run aimed to awaken in American people a fire in the belly that could challenge the corporate two-party duopoly. Similarly, WikiLeaks, by revealing the corruption of the American political system, tried to awaken moral courage for voters to take back their democracy that has long been stolen.

The publication of Podesta files exposed WikiLeaks to the same bigotry and bullying that Nader had faced back then, where the Democratic Party with their ardent middle class devotees blamed him for George W. Bush’s presidency and called him a spoiler. Now, the Democratic establishment, with MSNBC cable news stations and commentators, recycles the old tactics of defamation. They branded Assange as a Trump supporter and Russia’s intelligence asset. By even filing the lawsuit against the organization, they directed their vengeance to this whistleblowing site about the loss of Clinton’s campaign.

Yet, just as Nader’s third party presidential efforts could not spoil the election that was already so rotted, WikiLeaks could not ruin the political campaign that was so corrupted to the core. It is not WikiLeaks, but Americans who have been compromised. It is we who have fallen for a manufactured national politics that is designed to divide and conquer us every four years with new packaged candidates of the same product.

We have lost the revolutionary spirit that founded this nation, its vigilance toward government and have settled for the lesser of two evils. By engaging in our self-righteous crusade for defending our allegiance to leaders, parties and to the flag we plead to, we have betrayed our own interests and ideals.

Claiming Our Sacred Heart

With the publication of Vault 7, a series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, fury against WikiLeaks now intensifies. The Trump cabinet continues the war on the First Amendment that began under the Obama administration. In recent months, Trump’s Justice Department Jeff Sessions stated that Assange’s arrest is a priority. Mike Pompeo, former CIA Director and the current U.S. Secretary of State,referred to the whistleblowing site as “a non-state hostile intelligence service” and indicated WikiLeaks as a force that subverts the U.S. Constitution.

From a traitor and a Kremlin puppet to a spoiler of American democracy, words are thrown around to create distortion. Bombarded by loud media sound bites, in this illusion of democracy, many can no longer hear a voice of conscience that knows what is right and they now remain silent. As Ecuador now prepares to hand over Assange to British authorities for a financial reward, by breaking its own Constitution of the Republic, our democracy’s last line of defense is about to be severed. Cruel treatment of Assange is no longer a character assassination and imprisonment of one innocent man. What is at stake is the death of the sacred heart of democracy that remembers our inherent obligation to one another. In his earlier blog, Assange wrote about the moral courage required in our age:

Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.

He reminded us that what drives our will to crush bastards is a gentle love that inspires us to nurture the vulnerable. In a world where there is WikiLeaks, the veil of secrecy can no longer be maintained. The released information revealed the abuse of the powerful on the most vulnerable amongst us—those that are voiceless, ailing and impoverished. Calamity happening in Knightsbridge under the heightened security at the heart of London represents the injustice of the world that this fearless journalist and his courageous sources brought to us all to bear witness. It is now laid out for those who are willing and ready to see the truth.

Prosecution of Julian Assange is a persecution of American ideals. Criminalizing the act of publishing through the Espionage Act destroys the First Amendment as the guardian of democracy. This not only sets a dangerous precedent for press freedom, but it could allow the beginning of a new totalitarianism. We must break our silence and refuse to participate in the destruction of values that founded this country. It is time for us all to put aside ideological differences and unite in solidarity with people around the world who are engaging in non-violent resistance against this assault on WikiLeaks and our right to free speech.

Only through sincere efforts to keep our eyes open to the truth before us, can we have a chance to end the tyranny of the past that casts its shadow ever more into the present. If our silence has led to this great tragedy that we face now, the victory of democracy can be brought through each of us claiming the center of our heart to stand up for this fellow man who sacrificed his liberty so that all can be free.

Source: https://theantimedia.com/defend-julian-assange-freedom/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: freedom, Julian Assange’s

Investigative journalist Jan Kuciak killed in Slovakia, “Media freedom under threat”

February 26, 2018 By administrator

Media freedom under threat

Slovak reporter Jan Kuciak and his partner have been shot dead in an attack “likely” tied to his reporting, officials say. Kuciak went to the police last year after receiving threats, but the case was reportedly ignored.

Investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend were shot to death in their home east of the Slovak capital Bratislava, authorities said on Monday.

“The evidence indicates that the murder was planned and did not result from a spontaneous confrontation,” police president Tibor Gaspar said.

Gaspar added that the killings “likely have something to do with his investigative activities” but did not elaborate further.

The 27-year-old’s investigative work at the news portal Aktuality.sk focused primarily on tax evasion.

Police went to check on the home on Sunday after the girlfriend’s mother said she hadn’t heard from her daughter since Thursday. Both victims sustained multiple gunshot wounds.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said that if Kuciak’s murder was tied to his work, the case would be “an unprecedented attack on freedom of the press and democracy in Slovakia.”

President Andrej Kiska urged a quick investigation into the murders, saying in a statement: “We have to find those who did it as soon as possible and ensure the safety of all journalists.”

Uncovering tax evasion

Kuciak’s work at Aktuality.sk primarily involved suspected tax fraud involving high-ranking officials and businesspeople.

In his last story for the site, Kuciak reported on suspected tax fraud connected with a luxury apartment complex in Bratislava.

Last year, Kuciak filed a complaint with police after businessman Marian Kocner threatened him. Kocner is known for real estate deals as well as for insulting reporters and threatening to publish private information on journalists, according to the Slovak newspaper SME.

Kuciak said police never acted on the case.

The editors-in-chief of major media outlets in Slovakia called on the government to take steps to find out who committed the crime and “also to create conditions for the safe work of journalists.”

rs/tj  (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: freedom, media, under threat

Imagen Erdogan champions press freedom abroad while 160 journalists are in Turkey’s jail

July 1, 2017 By administrator

Erdogan champions press freedom By Pinar Tremblay,

On June 22, Qatar received a list of 13 demands the Saudi-led coalition said must be met before they lift the regional blockade against Qatar. On June 27, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the media that he supports Qatar’s refusal to discuss such demands. When asked about the most crucial items on this list for Turkey — requesting the closure of the Turkish military base in Qatar and ending any Turkish-Qatari military cooperation — Erdogan said these kinds of demands were against international law. Then he shrewdly brought the subject to another point on the list, which is not even remotely related to Turkey: the closure of Al Jazeera, Qatar’s state broadcaster. Erdogan said, “There is [global] talk of press freedom. Now I call upon all the global media networks, what are you waiting for? What are you good for? Right now, media freedoms of an international outlet [of Al Jazeera] are at risk, its activities are to be suspended. You [global media organizations] must make noise. But they are quiet.”

Erdogan’s sudden and angry outburst in defense of the Qatari network is perplexing for a couple of reasons. First, it is wrong: Al Jazeera’s reporting on June 23 shows that Erdogan is not even following the news. Several media outlets and rights groups have voiced their concerns about the demand that violates Al Jazeera’s freedom of expression. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called upon the Saudi-led coalition not to include Al Jazeera in their list of demands to normalize relations with Qatar. Daoud Kuttab, an International Press Institute (IPI) executive board member and Al-Monitor columnist, wrote a searing piece in The Washington Post opposing the attempt to silence Al Jazeera. Interestingly, Al Monitor’s columnist Kadri Gursel, who is IPI’s chair for Turkey and also an executive board member, is one of the jailed journalists in Erdogan’s Turkey.

It is rather ironic that on June 28, government-funded Anadolu Agency acknowledged and tweeted about UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye’s report in support of Al Jazeera, yet Kaye’s multiple warnings on press freedom and human rights in Turkey have been diligently ignored by the pro-government media for years.

To make matters more complicated, Erdogan’s love for the network is quite a change of heart. In 2011, Al Jazeera Turk was set up with high hopes and a significant amount of investment in Istanbul. It was gradually shut down in May 2017 because it failed to receive permission to launch properly and was only able to broadcast over the internet with a rather limited audience in Turkey.

One of the little-known causes for this failure was the fact that the Turkish government was not pleased with its broadcasting policies. Its first Turkish investor, Vural Ak, had a big budget and wide-ranging plans of even launching a sports channel for Al Jazeera Turk.

However, these dreams were not realized, as Vural Ak quit in early 2012 allegedly due to Al Jazeera’s insistence on referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party as a resistance organization, not a terrorist group.

During the last couple of years, Al Jazeera Turk was known for its pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP) broadcasting and dwindling viewership. Al Jazeera’s record in Turkey regarding freedom of expression is also mixed. For example, in 2013, there were allegations that eight journalists were fired from the network due to their tweets. With dozens of pro-AKP networks, Erdogan had little to no use for a foreign media outlet that he could not fully control. Another important point is that if Erdogan really believed in the Al Jazeera network, why did he not provide the support for the outlet to survive in Turkey? So could it really be about freedom of expression?

To put this question into perspective, we can take a brief look at the dramatically worsening situation in the Turkish media. Reporters Without Borders announced Turkey’s ranking as 155th among 180 countries in its 2017 Press Freedom Index. Turkey has regressed four levels in the last year and 56 in the last 12 years.

The data on Turkish journalists present a more depressing picture with each passing day. About 160 journalists are in jail, with more than 150 media networks permanently shut down by emergency government decrees since July 2016, and 2,500 media workers have been fired from their jobs. Along with financial and legal difficulties, journalists and publishers also face physical and verbal abuse.

Foreign journalists suffer as much as Turkish colleagues, facing deportation, arrest and other difficulties at an increasing rate.

Erdogan’s censorship has permeated all levels of society. Even top private colleges’ academic conferences are now designed around the government’s sensitivities. The latest case was from Koc University in Istanbul, when an academic paper that was accepted months ago and scheduled for presentation during the Turkey-Latin America Workshop was taken off the list due to “academic cowardice,” according to Yasemin Yilmaz, the paper’s author from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. It was Turkish academics who decided “politically sensitive topics” should best be avoided in humanities and social sciences. The most pressing question for academia then becomes: How and what can be studied in Turkish academia while avoiding jail during emergency law?

So why would Erdogan champion press freedom for a Qatari network given the increasingly worrisome picture in his own country? In other words, why does Erdogan act so blatantly hypocritical? The simple answer is it works for his end goals. Erdogan in his own careful wording in standing up against the closure of Al Jazeera did not directly target Saudi Arabia or the coalition. Hence, most of his base perceives this as an attack on an Arabic news channel from the West. With increasing xenophobia, it is easy to convince Turkish audiences that the West is shutting down media outlets and not respecting the freedom of expression.

In addition, it is Erdogan’s usual vexing pragmatism that has worked to his advantage for so long. For example, Germany’s refusal to grant space for Erdogan’s rallies is reported as an act of open aggression in pro-AKP Islamist media outlets. It is impressive how Erdogan can demand freedom of expression, association and assembly rights from Western countries but ever so persistently refuse them to his own citizens.

Erdogan might know that these tactics would not work against Saudi Arabia or other Gulf states, which do not subscribe to Western values of freedom of expression. But this kind of vague approach still helps Erdogan avoid targeting Saudi Arabia directly while defending Qatar. Under the cover of these tactics is Erdogan’s dilemma of how to keep friendly relations with the Saudis while not sacrificing the benefits of supporting Qatar.

 

Tremblay is a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and a visiting scholar of political science at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She is a columnist for Turkish news outlet T24. Her articles have appeared in Time, New

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: champions, Erdogan, freedom, press

With press freedom under attack worldwide, US is setting wrong example

May 2, 2017 By administrator

By Joel Simon/CPJ Executive Director and Alexandra Ellerbeck/Senior US Research Associate,

For decades if not longer, repressive leaders around the world have defended restrictions on freedom of the press by citing examples of Western governments failing to live by their own professed standards.
So when, in late-2016, Canadian photojournalist Ed Ou was unable to report from the Dakota Access Pipeline protests because he had been barred from entering the United States, the Turkish government issued a press release describing it as yet another example that in countries that frequently criticize Turkey for its treatment of the press, “journalism is not as rose-tinted as it may seem.” Ou, who one year earlier had been blocked by Turkey from entering that country, said he “didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
Although the Ou incident took place during the waning days of the Obama Administration, throughout the first 100 days of the presidency of Donald J. Trump — a man who loves to disparage, insult, and rail against the media — the trend has continued. President Trump’s oft-tweeted “fake news” epithet, for example, has already been adopted by repressive governments such as China, Syria, and Russia. And when Trump attacked a correspondent during a February press conference, he was cheered by Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the world’s worst jailer of journalists, according to CPJ’s annual global imprisoned census.
Of course, all U.S. presidents complain about how they’re treated in the press. Some have gone further: During Obama’s first term, the Department of Justice used the Espionage Act to conduct an unprecedented number of leak investigations, several of which ensnared journalists. Generally, however, U.S. presidents have criticized the media while also acknowledging the essential role of a free press in American democracy, and while pledging to uphold the First Amendment.
Continue reading.

 

Contact:

Carlos Lauria
Americas Senior Program Coordinator
Tel. +1.212.300.9009
Email: clauria@cpj.org

Alexandra Ellerbeck
Senior US and Americas Researcher
Tel. +1.212.300.9015
Email: aellerbeck@cpj.org

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: freedom, press, under attack

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has warned that press freedom is under attack.

April 26, 2017 By administrator

World Press Freedom Index 2017 finds democracies are clamping down

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has warned that press freedom is under attack. In its latest World Press Freedom Index, the annual report criticizes Germany for laws on data retention and against whistleblowers.

Press freedom deteriorated in two thirds of the world’s countries, according to the Press Freedom Report published on Wednesday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF.)

“The rate at which democracies are approaching the tipping point is alarming for all those who understand that, if media freedom is not secure, then none of the other freedoms can be guaranteed,” RSF Secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

 

RSF, the non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Paris, has consultant status at the United Nations. It investigated freedom of media and journalists in 180 countries and found democracies, as well as dictatorships, had increasingly clamped down on press freedom.

Researchers found that high-level politicians had used their power to quash media reports – a trend which was particularly frightening, according to Michael Rediske, Chief Executive of the group.

One prominent example was Finland’s Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, who allegedly sent 20 e-mails to the editorial offices of the public broadcasting corporation YLE. He complained about stories which had accused him of conflicts of interest. As a result of his complaints, further reports were stalled by the editor in chief.

In New Zealand, legislation was introduced to dramatically expand the powers of intelligence services against the press.

In Canada state agencies monitored journalists who had investigated terrorism, in an effort to find the source of police leaks, the group found. The same trend happened in Great Britain, with laws protecting journalists from intelligence monitoring deliberately crippled .

In the US journalists were repeatedly put on trial for reporting on protests. The group accused US President Donald Trump of “systematic denunciations” of the media.

Changes on the press freedom index

Norway came out top of the index with the world’s most free media. North Korea took over last place from Eritrea, which had occupied the position for a decade. “Even listening to a foreign radio broadcast can lead to a spell in a concentration camp,” the report said of North Korea.

China, Syria; which has become the deadliest country for journalists, and Turkmenistan complete the bottom five.

Italy rose 25 places to 52nd place due to the acquittal of journalists tried in the Vatileaks II case, which investigated the Catholic Church.

New Zealand fell eight places, Canada fell four, while Great Britain, the US and Finland all fell two places. The biggest drop was in Nicaragua, which slipped 17 places.

Germany, which fell four positions in 2016 due to death threats against journalists, remained unchanged for 2017, along with Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Austria and Estonia.

But the report found journalists in Germany were exposed to frequent attacks, or were often investigated by law enforcement agencies and secret services. Reporters Without Borders criticized Germany’s data retention laws and new laws against whistleblowers.

Seven places ahead of Turkey, “Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains firmly entrenched in the bottom fifth of the index,” in 148th place, the report noted.

Dangerous Middle East, Africa

The Middle East and North Africa remained the most dangerous regions for journalists. In Burundi the secret service arrested and imprisoned several reporters. Similar attacks were also reported in Uganda. But Namibia and Botswana were relative bastions of press freedom in the continent. The situation also improved in Eritrea, with a handful of foreign journalists allowed to travel to the country under strict supervision.

The Philippines rose 11 places, with the number of journalists killed falling sharply last year. In Colombia the peace agreement with the FARC rebels had a positive effect after 52 years of armed conflict. For the first time in seven years no reporters died due to their work.

Russia, Egypt, Vietnam, China, Syria, Turkmenistan and North Korea all fared poorly in the report.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: freedom, press

Council of Europe: Urgent measures needed to restore freedom of expression in Turkey

February 15, 2017 By administrator

The space for democratic debate in Turkey has shrunk alarmingly following increased judicial harassment of large strata of society, says Memorandum on freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey.

The Memorandum has been published by Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights based on the findings of two visits to the country that he conducted in April and September 2016.

“This deterioration came about in a very difficult context, but neither the attempted coup, nor other terrorist threats faced by Turkey can justify measures that infringe media freedom and disavow the rule of law to such an extent. The authorities should urgently change course by overhauling criminal legislation and practice, re-develop judicial independence and reaffirm their commitment to protect free speech” said Nils Muižnieks.

The Commissioner regrets that tangible progress concerning media freedom and freedom of expression which was painstakingly achieved by Turkey in co-operation with the Council of Europe, was halted and reversed in recent years, leading to an already alarming situation at the time of the Commissioner’s visit in April 2016.

“In particular, the overly wide application of the concepts of terrorist propaganda and support for a terrorist organisation, including to statements and persons that clearly do not incite violence, and its combination with an overuse of defamation, has put Turkey on a very dangerous path. Legitimate dissent and criticism of government policy is vilified and repressed, thus shrinking the scope of democratic public debate and polarising society.” This situation has significantly worsened under the on-going state of emergency which confers almost limitless discretionary powers to the Turkish executive to apply sweeping measures, including against the media and NGOs, without any evidentiary requirement, in the absence of judicial decisions and on the basis of vague criteria of alleged “connection” to a terrorist organization.

Media pluralism and independence, in particular, have been casualties of these developments characterised notably by the use of state resources to favour pro-governmental media, pervasive internet censorship, arbitrary exclusion of media and journalists, takeover or closure of media outlets critical to the authorities, violence and reprisals against media workers and the incarceration of over 150 journalists.

The Commissioner also underscores that this deterioration goes hand-in-hand with the erosion of the independence and impartiality of the Turkish judiciary. “While this problem affects the whole judiciary, it is in particular the role of the criminal judges of peace that is the most concerning, because these formations have transformed into an instrument of judicial harassment to stifle opposition and legitimate criticism and are now at the origin of some of the most obvious violations of the right to freedom of expression.”

The Commissioner urges the Turkish political leaders in the strongest possible terms to change course and to display the responsibility and tolerance expected in a democratic society. They must redevelop the political will necessary to tackle the very long-standing systemic issues suppressing freedom of expression, including on the Internet, and finally execute the numerous judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, some of which date decades back.

“A first step is to lift the current state of emergency and reverse the numerous unacceptable infringements of freedom of expression, and in particular media freedom and academic freedom, that it engendered. In addition, the Turkish authorities must completely overhaul the Criminal Code and the Anti-Terrorism Law so as to align law and practice with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Beyond these deficiencies, it is crucial to change a judicial culture where judges and prosecutors interpret and apply laws in a way that consistently undermines freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey.”

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Council of Europe, expression, freedom, Turkey

PPK Leader Bayık: Kurds have reached the stage of freedom, need to sever all ties with the Turkish state.

December 2, 2016 By administrator

KCK Executive Council Co-President Cemil Bayık

KCK Executive Council Co-President Cemil Bayık

KCK’s Cemil Bayık remarked that Kurds have reached the stage of freedom, and called on the Kurdish people to sever all their ties with the system of the Turkish state.

NEWS DESK – ANF

KCK Executive Council Co-President Cemil Bayık evaluated the recent developments for Rojeva Welat program on Stêrk TV.

Bayık firstly commemorated Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro who -he said- was an influential leader alongside Che Guevara in the eyes of the Kurdish people.

Bayık also remembered Amed Bar Association President and human rights defender Tahir Elçi who was murdered on November 28, 2015, since when the Turkish state continues its attacks on the Kurdish population. According to Bayık, Tahir Elçi was murdered deliberately with the goal of silencing bar associations, preventing the emergence of truths and starting a dirty war in the Kurdish region.

Commenting on the decision of two courts in Germany and Belgium that did not define the PKK as a “terrorist organization”, Bayık recalled that the Kurdish people never waged a struggle against Europe.

Calling attention to the PKK’s struggle in Shengal and Rojava, Bayık continued as follows: “PKK is a movement waging a freedom struggle. Peoples in Europe are also supporting the PKK’s struggle and the Kurdish people, which has also influenced the European community and courts. European states will understand this reality better in time.”

Bayık also mentioned the European Parliament’s decision to freeze negotiations with Turkey, saying: “The European Union has some values and standards that it needs to protect for these are trampled on by the Turkish state. The EU has long remained silent on the AKP-MHP politics but this has reached such a level that they couldn’t stay silent anymore. If this silence continued, peoples in Europe wouldn’t accept this.” He underlined that the European Union and NATO shouldn’t be deceived by Turkey’s blackmail over refugees.

Bayık continued, commenting on the deepening political and economic crisis in Turkey:

“AKP is pretending to be strong but it is not. The AKP government is advancing fascism in Turkey together with the MHP. The problems caused by this truth are huge and they will get even deeper.

Conflicts have started to erupt within the AKP and this politics will not lead Turkey to success. If they insist on this politics, Turkey will enter a more dangerous process and even end up like the Ottoman Empire.”

Referring to the Kurdish movement’s call for mobilization against attacks, Bayık said balances in the Middle East haven’t been established yet, and that Kurds have a right more than everyone else in these new balances to be formed.

Bayık remarked that Kurds will take their place in the balance within the new sharing battle, stressing that the AKP regime made interventions everywhere in the face of this situation.

“Kurdish organizations should all come together urgently and discuss what kind of a unity and congress they will realize. If they do this, dangers will decrease and their opportunity to triumph will be stronger than dangers themselves.”

Bayık also spoke about the Turkish state’s insistent attacks on Bab, saying the followings:

“Their target is not the ISIS but democratic forces, the basic force of which is the Kurds. They are trying to neutralize Kurds and hinder the advancement of democracy. Turkey shows up wherever ISIS faces a danger. Turkey is assisting the ISIS and if ISIS is annihilated, Turkey will not be able to wage a war against forces of democracy and defenders of freedom in the same way it is doing at the moment.”

Bayık continued, commenting on the AKP-MHP alliance over the new constitution, saying:

“MHP represents nationalism and AKP purportedly represents religion. These two parties came together and united nationalism and religion, which has also formed the basis of fascism. They want to make a new constitution on this basis and to make fascism permanent. Such a goal requires a war against democratic forces and they are mainly targeting the leading force of these democratic circles, which is the Kurds that are leading and representing democracy.”

Bayık pointed out that the people of Southern Kurdistan should also stand against Turkish colonialism and occupation attempts.

Bayık also congratulated Donald Trump who won the election and became the President of the U.S., adding that they hope Trump will pursue a policy in favour of his people and humanity as the U.S. policies influence the entire world, including the Kurdistan territory.

“There is a big war ongoing in the Middle East today amid ongoing changes and formation of new balances. The U.S., Russia and other forces are all involved in this battle. We are a part of the Middle East and Kurdistan is the backbone of the Middle East. Every policy on the Middle East has an influence on Kurds and the PKK. The politics of the PKK does also influence the entire Kurdistan and Middle East territory.

We hope the U.S. will take the Kurds into consideration in its Middle East politics. I believe the U.S. will see the injustice, atrocity and genocidal policy against Kurds and the struggle of Kurds against this aggression. They will get closer towards the Kurds and the PKK.”

KCK Executive Council Co-President Cemil Bayık ended his words with the following message:

“Our people should know that we have reached the stage of freedom, which is why the war is being waged this much violent. Our people should not live with the Turkish state anymore and they should sever all their ties with this system. If they do this, this system will collapse and the society of Turkey will attain peace even sooner.”

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: freedom, Kurd, PKK, Turkey

CPJ Committee 2016 International Press Freedom Awards dinner

November 23, 2016 By administrator

cpj-dinner-award

CPJ’s 2016 International Press Freedom Award winners Óscar Martínez, Malini Subramaniam, and Can Dündar join the campaign calling on Egypt to #FreeShawkan, an Egyptian journalist who has been in jail since 2013. Shawkan was also honored with CPJ’s 2016 award. (Getty Images/Jeff Zelevansky)

Last night, many of CPJ’s friends and supporters gathered at CPJ’s 2016 International Press Freedom Awards dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York to honor courageous journalists who face reprisal in pursuit of the news.


Many of you were there, and heard the speeches made by the award winners — Malini Subramaniam from India, Can Dündar from Turkey, and Óscar Martínez from El Salvador. But for those of you who weren’t able to make it, you can watch a video of their speeches, or read them, by clicking on the links in their names in this paragraph.

One of CPJ’s 2016 awardees — Mahmoud Abou Zeid, or Shawkan, from Egypt — could not be there as he has been languishing behind bars in Egypt for three years. CPJ will hold his award until he can attend a CPJ awards dinner and accept it in person. For now, you can join our campaign to free him. Take a photo of yourself holding a sign that says #FreeShawkan and tweet it with the hashtag. Add your voice to the thousands of others calling on Egypt to #FreeShawkan. 
The night ended with a resounding call to action by Christiane Amanpour , CNN’s chief international correspondent and anchor, who was honored with CPJ’s 2016 Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom. “If ever there’s a time to celebrate, honor, protect, and mobilize for press freedom and basic good journalism, it’s now,” Amanpour told the room. (Click on the link in this paragraph to watch a video of Amanpour’s speech, or read it.)

We hope you had fun last night. And if you weren’t able to make it, there’s always next year!

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Awards, cpj, dinner, freedom

Artsakh President signifies the freedom fighters’ participation in defending the Motherland

May 17, 2016 By administrator

f573b122496031_573b12249606e.thumbArtsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan visited one of the Defense Army’s training grounds on 17 May, met with the personnel of a battalion composed of members of the Artsakh Union of Freedom Fighters, got introduced with their daily life and course of service, reports Central Information Department of the Office of the Artsakh Republic President.

The Head of the State welcomed this initiative, signifying the freedom fighters’ participation in defending the Motherland.

According to the source, Defense Minister Levon Mnatsakanyan, Head of the Artsakh Union of Freedom Fighters Samvel Karapetyan, Chairperson of the NKR NA Standing Commission on Defense, Security and Legalism Issues, Zhanna Galstyan and other officials accompanied the President.

 

Source Panorama.am

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Artsakh, fighters, freedom

ECHR fines Turkey for violating Alevis’ right to religious freedom

April 26, 2016 By administrator

alv.thumbThe European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled Turkey must pay 3,000 euros each to 203 applicants in a case concerning Turkish authorities’ “refusal to provide the applicants, who are followers of the Alevi faith, with [a] public religious service,” the Hurriyet Daily News reports.  

In its decision, the court stated that Turkey had violated the applicants’ rights to freedom of religion and the prohibition of discrimination.

In its April 26 ruling, the court said the authorities’ “refusal of the applicants’ requests amounted to a lack of recognition of the religious nature of the Alevi faith and its practices (cem).” The ruling also elaborated that Turkey’s lack to recognize their religious practice had the “effect of denying legal protection to Alevi places of worship [cemevis] and religious leaders [dedes],” thus causing “numerous consequences for the organization, continuation and funding of their religious activities.”

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: alevis, ECHR, fines, freedom, religious, right, Turkey, violating

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