"BLOW THE WHISTLE! on TWITTER"
blowthewhistle@wnyc.org with an update.
Here are some tips about "How To Track Down Anonymous Holds" from Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project
Source: WNYC: Blow the Whistle
"FREE ASSANGE! FREE MANNING! FREE SPEECH!"
Four Days of Action announced for Julian Assange and Bradley Manning 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th February.
Cyber, anti-war and human rights activists will today descend on the Australian High Commission and on Monday/Tuesday on the Woolwich magistrates court, while on Saturday there will be a public meeting in Harringay, north London.
FOUR DAYS OF ACTION ANNOUNCED
"FREE ASSANGE! FREE MANNING! FREE SPEECH!"
Friday 4 February: Cyber, anti-war and human rights activists will today descend on the Australian High Commission and on Monday and Tuesday 7 and 8 February on the Woolwich magistrates court, attached to the Category A Belmarsh Prison, to demand freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, presently on restrictive bail and facing extradition, and also for Bradley Manning, the young soldier who is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico Marine Base in USA. The activist groups will join others from WikiLeaks London Support group outside the court.
Saturday 5 February: a public meeting will be held at Harringay's Giuseppe Conlon Hall, which also serves as a 'house of hospitality' for refugees and others in need of help and support. Speakers will include former political prisoner of the US, Ciaron O'Reilly, and a speaker from the support group 'UK Friends of Bradley Manning'. Footage from the 'Collateral Murder' video Manning is accused of leaking will be shown and there will also be live music.
IRISH DISARMAMENT ACTION MENTIONED IN WIKILEAKS
Irish/ Australian anti-war activist Ciaron O'Reilly served 13 months in US prisons for his part in disabling a US B52 Bomber at the now defunct Griffiths Air Force Base in upstate New York on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War. In December 2010 WikiLeaks published secret cables which had been sent from the US embassy in Dublin following the 2006 acquittal of O'Reilly and four other activists of criminal charges in relation to $US2.5 million damage to a US war plane being refuelled at Shannon Airport en route to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A Dublin jury had unanimously acquitted the activists on all charges but the cables show that US authorities were considering further legal action against the activists through the civil courts. The cables also quoted Irish government making apologetic and dismissive statements about the Irish legal system.
"REPORTING WAR CRIMES SHOULD NOT BE A CRIME"
O'Reilly has said: "Reporting war crimes should not be a crime. The war on Iraq is the crime. I should know a crime when I see one. I have a 30 year criminal history in a wide variety of jurisdictions! The persecution of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are the great anti-war show trials of our era. They echo the persecution of Daniel Ellsberg, the Chicago 8, the Berrigans and the Catonsville 9 during the Vietnam period. We need to be on the streets protesting as loudly as we can while these two men are in the docks and in the dungeons for their opposition to these criminal ongoing wars on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq."
MANNING'S PRISON CONDITIONS AMOUNT TO TORTURE
"I was talking to a British Iraq combat veteran recently and he reflected on the sophistication of the war machine in prosecuting wars, marketing wars domestically and persecuting anyone who has the courage to oppose these wars. When I was a prisoner of the United States government, they did to me what they are doing to Manning: they isolated me. I was arrested and sentenced in upstate New York and was transported by Con Air to the Mexican border, then driven hours into the Texas outback to do my time in an overcrowded isolated county jail in Pecos. Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst, has been buried alive in solitary confinement in the largest US marine base in the world. His present prison conditions amount to torture in anyone's terms of reference."
BOGUS CHARGES NOTHING NEW
"Many believe that Assange has been hit with bogus charges that will eventually evaporate as a holding action before the British government hands him over to the Americans. At the end of my sentence, I was moved from Texas to Louisiana. I was rearrested on release on a minor immigration charge and was also charged with 'being guilty of a crime of moral turpitude' and an exorbitant $50,000 bail was placed on my head. This is a charge they had previously used effectively against their political target Charlie Chaplain to banish him from the United States. In my case the charge evaporated, as these proposed charges with Assange will also evaporate."
BRADLEY MANNING IS A UK CITIZEN
UK Friends of Bradley Manning have been campaigning for the UK to recognise Manning as a British citizen on account of his Welsh-born mother, and to take steps to protect him as such.
WikiLeaks London Support group have maintained a consitent presence outside of all Assange's bail hearings.
DETAILS OF ALL EVENTS
Friday Feb. 4th 4.30pm-6.30pm Vigil and Speak Out at the Australian Embassy on The Strand, central London.
Saturday Feb. 5th, 3pm Public Meeting at Giuseppe Conlon Hall 49 Mattison Rd. Harringey London N4.
Monday and Tuesday Feb. 7th and 8th, 9am-5pm Vigil outside Julian Assange's extradition hearing at Woolwich Courts, Belmarsh Rd. London SE28.
'These actions are being co-ordinated by the London Catholic Worker, an organisation which offers hospitality to the destitute as well as taking part in nonviolent resistance to war.'
For further information, please contact: Ciaron O'Reilly
Phone 079 392 90576
Email: ciaronx [at] yahoo.com
Solidarity
- Homepage: http://www.collateralmurder.com/* Download this article in pdf format
* Email this article to someone;
* Submit an addition or make a quick comment on this articleAdditions
Bristol Event04.02.2011 19:24
we intend to hold a lively vigil with films. Tuesday February 8th - opposite the hippodrome 4.30pm - 7.00pmKEEP INFORMATION FREE
FREE BRADLEY MANNING - GIVE JULIAN ASSANGE A FAIR TRIAL.
Usual Suspect
home Homepage: http://www.bristolagainstarmstrade.wordpress.comAct Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More!
WL Central's clayclai outlines on the following terms a campaign to bring a halt to anti-protest state violence in Egypt:
‘The chant is يسقط يسقط حسني مبارك – Tell the world he is killing us’
As the Sun rises in Cairo on the tenth day of the Egyptian uprising, the protesters opposed to the government of Hosni Mubarak still hold Tahrir Liberation Square. They still hold it in spite of a night of horrific violence by pro-Mubarak thugs that attacked the peaceful protesters with machine guns, other guns and fire bombs. Overwhelming evidence is already mounting that this murderous gang was composed of police in plain clothes, NDP functionaries and loyalist and hired thugs. The army, which in previous days made sure all the protesters that entered the square were unarmed, stood by and did nothing while the assault took place.
The goal of the thugs was to drive the protesters from the square. In this they were not successful.
Click here to sign the petition....
Call to Action in support of Julian Assange / WikiLeaks in Monday's London Extradition Hearing
Auto-emailing United Kingdom media, their Embassy and Consulates in support of Julian in his extradition hearing. There are 5 individual identical emails each with 25 addresses. PLEASE sign all 5. Click here to go there.
The following letter of support for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks will be available for signing at the Minneapolis, MN: Demonstration supporting Julian Assange and Wikileaks and will be delivered. Any group in one of the other 27 cities with British Consulates (or UK Embassy in Washington DC) is free to copy our letter as a model:
February 7, 2011
Honorary United Kingdom Consul William R. McGrann:
Today Julian Assange stands before a court that will decide if he will be extradited to Sweden. Our concern is the same as that of Mr. Assange's lawyers - that this is just the first step in his being rendered illegally from Sweden to the United States. We hope and stress that the laws of the United Kingdom be upheld. Political rendition is unlawful in the United Kingdom, but there are several indications that extradition to Sweden would serve as false cover to effectively render him illegally to the United States.
The seven major points of law (see Guardian article: "WikiLeaks: Julian Assange 'faces execution or Guantanamo detention'") outlined by Assange's attorneys need to be fairly evaluated without any of the extra-legal political pressure from the United States that has, unfortunately, occurred during the Chilcot Inquiry or vis a vis Spanish authorities' inquiries into Iraq War crimes and the Bush Administration's use of torture and illegal renditions.
We note that United States' interference in other countries' justice systems, including the justice system of England, runs against the international wisdom of how we honor each other as nations.
On this day, Feb. 7, 2002, our country became a rogue state when President Bush dropped the protections of the Geneva Conventions for those we had taken prisoner. We stand in solidarity with WikiLeaks supporters in London this day and ask that you not collaborate in those and other crimes. We are thankful for the people who have revealed war crimes that have been committed. And, we are thankful that the secrets of war are made public to the people whose name is on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - we the people of the United States.
We are ashamed as United States' citizens that our government has held back information about crimes committed in our names, only to have it marked "Secret" for "national security reasons." A nation of laws cannot be secure if its laws are broken with impunity. It is a wretched irony that our previous president openly brags that he ordered waterboarding and other torture, yet our current president, despite public claims that he is opposed to torture and favors the rule of law, is doing nothing to investigate and prosecute this hideous crime.
As longtime partners, it would cast a terrible pall on our relationship were the United Kingdom to participate directly or implicitly in the same crimes the United States has embraced, such as illegal rendition. Mr. Assange has bravely participated in a great public service to the United States and the world through his journalism. He has broken no U.S. laws. As a nation that lifts high the right of freedom of speech and the virtue of transparency of government, we advocate for the freedom of the press, including that of WikiLeaks. Exposing war crimes is no crime...NOT exposing war crimes is the crime.
Sincerely,
(please email tacklingtorture@gmail.com if you'd like to sign this letter being delivered to the UK Consulate in Minneapolis)
*here is a site with 28 UK embassy/consulate locations in the U.S. -- http://united-kingdom.visahq.com/embassy/United-States/. They are D.C., San Juan (PR), Chicago, San Francisco, Orlando, Miami, Denver, Glendale (AZ), Houston, Charlotte (Nebraska), Boston, Nashville, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Anchorage, Pittsburgh, Seattle, New York, La Jolla (CA), Philadelphia, Dallas, Chesterfield (Missouri), Portland, Kansas City (Kansas), San Jose, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. [DC of course is the Embassy; all the others are Consulates.]
Translated from German
The massive intimidation by corporations such as Visa, Master Card, Paypal and Amazon against Wikileaks is a frontal attack on press freedom. Subscribe to our appeal to the company!
To those in charge of Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Amazon
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your notice to Wikileaks provide a massive attack constitutes at the press freedom at risk with this approach a cornerstone of democracy. Quit now your obviously politically motivated attempts to block and take the business to Wikileaks again!
Yours sincerely,
Please join us in signing our petition here.
Support Julian Assange Our Freedom Depends on it.2011-01-19 Video Protest: This is a simple and direct open letter to the US government about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange spoken on video by people from around the world. We presently have approximately 12 countries and 35-50 people on board. The video will include your voices as part of a collective message as well as other relevant imagery and quotes that provide a full picture to help us meet our objective. The goal is for this video to be powerful, intelligent, moving and straightforward.
The objective of this project is two-fold. First, it is to interrupt the US government’s attempts to villainize and prosecute Julian Assange and bring down WikiLeaks. Second, it is to assist in shifting public opinion in the US by strategically highlighting the potential loss of key freedoms including free speech and a free press and the implications this could have on open societies everywhere. This video will be uploaded onto YouTube, highlighted on the www.support-julian-assange.com site, and loaded onto our new site (in construction) called www.nomino.org.
Open letter to be read
2011-01-15: Dear President Obama,
I am outraged by the abuse of power by your government I have been witnessing against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
It is very clear to me that actions in those regards are NOT designed to protect the people, but to keep information about corruption and deceit by the government covered at all cost.
I ask you to stop all action against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. I ask you to expose the corrupt individuals in your government and those who are protecting them. I ask for them to bear the consequences of their actions. Lastly, I ask you to assume personal responsibility for the humane and just treatment of Bradley Manning.
Sincerely,
Dagi Cueppers (on behalf of anybody who signs this petition)Please join us in signing the petition and tweeting the message to Barack Obama here.
2011-01-06: Rally4Wikileaks has created an email form that allows people to send an email message to up to 12 Australian Federal MPs at a time.
2011-01-07: I read Wikileaks. I support freedom of speech and our free press, not torture, military coups or drone strikes on civilians.
I support Wikileaks because government secrecy is used to protect powerful criminals, not to protect the people.
My government has no right to threaten me or to frighten me or to lie to me to protect the guilty.
I read Wikileaks.
Please join us in signing the petition here.
2011-01-06: An Appeal for Wikileaks
The German activist group www.bewegung.taz.de has posted an "Online Aktion Unterzeichner liste" (on-line petition) "Appell gegen die Kriminalisierung von Wikileaks" (An Appeal Against The Criminalization of Wikileaks)"Allgemeine Erklärung der Menschenrechte der Vereinten Nationen Artikel 19: "Jeder hat das Recht auf Meinungsfreiheit und freie Meinungsäußerung; dieses Recht schließt die Freiheit ein, Meinungen ungehindert anzuhängen sowie über Medien jeder Art und ohne Rücksicht auf Grenzen Informationen und Gedankengut zu suchen, zu empfangen und zu verbreiten."
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers "
There are already over 15k signatories on the list; please join us in our support by signing the petition here
2010-12-15: FAIR: We Support WikiLeaks
FAIR (Freedom and Accuracy in Reporting) has published a petition in support of WikiLeaks, signed by Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Barbara Ehrenreich, Arundhati Roy, Medea Benjamin, Tom Morello, John Nichols and more. The text reads:
As journalists, activists, artists, scholars and citizens, we condemn the array of threats and attacks on the journalist organization WikiLeaks. After the website's decision, in collaboration with several international media organizations, to publish hundreds of classified State Department diplomatic cables, many pundits, commentators and prominent U.S. politicians have called for harsh actions to be taken to shut down WikiLeaks' operations.
Major corporations like Amazon.com, PayPal, MasterCard and Visa have acted to disrupt the group's ability to publish. U.S. legal authorities and others have repeatedly suggested, without providing any evidence, that WikiLeaks' posting of government secrets is a form of criminal behavior--or that at the very least, such activity should be made illegal. "To the extent there are gaps in our laws," Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed (11/29/10), "we will move to close those gaps."
Throughout this episode, journalists and prominent media outlets have largely refrained from defending WikiLeaks' rights to publish material of considerable news value and obvious public interest. It appears that these media organizations are hesitant to stand up for this particular media outlet's free speech rights because they find the supposed political motivations behind WikiLeaks' revelations objectionable.
But the test for one's commitment to freedom of the press is not whether one agrees with what a media outlet publishes or the manner in which it is published. WikiLeaks is certainly not beyond criticism. But the overarching consideration should be the freedom to publish in a democratic society--including the freedom to publish material that a particular government would prefer be kept secret. When government officials and media outlets declare that attacks on a particular media organization are justified, it sends an unmistakably chilling message about the rights of anyone to publish material that might rattle or offend established powers.
We hereby stand in support of the WikiLeaks media organization, and condemn the attacks on their freedom as an attack on journalistic freedoms for all.
Please join us in signing the petition here.
2010-12-08: Avaaz petition in support of WikiLeaks
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.
2010-12-07: EFF: 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.
On Friday, we wrote about Amazon's disappointing decision to yank hosting services from WikiLeaks after a phone call from a senator's office. Since then, a cascade of companies and organizations has backed away from WikiLeaks. A public figure called for the assassination of Assange. PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa axed WikiLeaks’ accounts. EveryDNS.net pulled Wikileaks’ DNS services. Unknown sources continue to cripple WikiLeaks with repeated denial of service attacks. Even the Library of Congress, normally a bastion of public access to information, is blocking WikiLeaks.
There has been a tremendous backlash against WikiLeaks from governments around the world. In the United States, lawmakers have rashly proposed a law that threatens legitimate news reporting well beyond WikiLeaks. We expect to see similar efforts in other countries. Like it or not, WikiLeaks has become the emblem for one of the most important battles for our rights that is likely to come along in our lifetimes. We cannot sit this one out.
Join EFF in standing up against Internet censorship.
Download our No Censorship button to display on your websites and social networking profiles. Show the world that you are committed to free expression and denounce censorship."
2010-12-08: Italy: Il Fatto Quotidiano Petition
7 dicembre 2010
Salviamo il soldato Assange!
Firma la petizione
Julian Assange è stato arrestato il 7 dicembre, per accuse scandalose oltre che incredibili: un rapporto sessuale consenziente, un preservativo che non ha funzionato. La verità è un’altra: Assange è stato catturato come un micidiale terrorista (un «uomo che vuol distruggere il mondo», dixit il ministro Frattini) perché nella sua qualità di direttore di WikiLeaks ha fatto luce su politiche, misfatti, crimini che dovevano restare segreti, custoditi nelle segrete di cancellerie e ambasciate, inaccessibili all´opinione pubblica mondiale che sta prendendo forma nel web. Chiediamo che sia immediatamente liberato. Allo stesso modo chiediamo chiarezza sul caso di Bradley Manning, il soldato che rischia 52 anni di carcere per aver rivelato a WikiLeaks i crimini contro i civili commessi dall´esercito Usa in Iraq. I soldati che appaiono nei video da lui trasmessi a Wikileaks, colpevoli di massacri di civili, sono stati elogiati dal comando militare Usa per il loro «giudizio sensato».Saving private Assange
Julian Assange was arrested on December 7th, on the basis of absurd and unbelievable accuses: a consensual sexual relationship and a broken condom. We believe the truth is different: Assange has been captured as a dangerous terrorist (a “man who wants to destroy the world”, says Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini) because the founder and director of Wikileaks has brought to light all sorts of crimes, misdeeds and political acts that had to remain secret, protected into diplomatic offices and embassies, inaccessible to the world’s public opinion that is taking shape on the web. We ask for his immediate release. In the same manner we ask for the truth for Bradley Manning, the young soldier who is risking 52 years of jail for disclosing to Wikileaks a video showing crimes against civilians committed by the American army in Iraq. The soldiers appearing in the video, guilty of the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen civilians, were praised by US military for their “reasonable judgment”.
Please join us in signing the petition here.
2010-12-09: Get Up! Action for Australia: Petition in support of WikiLeaks
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.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
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