[Peace-discuss] Sweden talking about handing over Assange to US / letters in support of Assange / Alexandria Virginia and Assange / Bradley Manning's situation / women don't take kindly to being used for political agandas

[Karen Medina]

Highlights from the article below:

   -  Swedish prosecutors are already talking publicly about the conditions
   under which they would hand Assange over to the U.S. for prosecution for his
   work on WikiLeaks. Swedish authorities have said that if Assange is
   extradited to them, "they will defer their interest in him to the
   Americans...
   - Various letters in support of Assange, including one signed by Noam
   Chomsky
   - a grand jury empaneled in Alexandria Virginia
   - The Obama DOJ has launched nothing less than a full-on war against
   whistleblowers
   - the appalling conditions of 22-year-old Bradley Manning: "Maximum
   Custody Detainee." He is subject to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement and
   constant surveillance, has been refused sheets or pillows for his bed, and
   is not allowed even to exercise in his cell.
   - Attempts to charge Assange as accomplice to Manning, not just passive
   recipient of the documents. Such a charge poses a serious threat to free
   speech, because it threatens any journalist who might arrange to receive
   classified information and documents directly from government officials or
   other whistleblowers.
   - FOR JUST a small taste of the hypocrisy in the Obama administration's
   drive to get its hands on Assange, consider that Washington has repeatedly
   refused to extradite 23 U.S. CIA agents who were convicted in absentia in
   Italy in November 2009 for their role in abducting Osama Mustafa Hassan, an
   Egyptian imam, from a street in Milan in 2003.
   - Women don't take kindly to our demand for safety being misused to
   further a political agenda



http://socialistworker.org/2010/12/17/why-we-stand-wikileaks

Analysis: Nicole Colson
Why we stand with WikiLeaks

Nicole Colson looks at the latest developments in the case of WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange--and how this attack is part of a spreading
government assault on free speech.

December 17, 2010

[image: Julian Assange speaks to the press outside a central London court
building after his release on bail (Adrian Dennis | AFP)]

Julian Assange speaks to the press outside a central London court building
after his release on bail (Adrian Dennis | AFP)

U.S. AUTHORITIES seemed closer to attempting to manufacture an excuse to
bring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S. to face charges.

This week, amid reports that a grand jury had been convened in Virginia to
consider charges against him, Assange, backed by dozens of supporters,
appeared in court in Britain and was granted bail on December 16.

Ostensibly, Assange is wanted for questioning concerning rape and sexual
assault allegations in Sweden--but Swedish prosecutors are already talking
publicly about the conditions under which they would hand Assange over to
the U.S. for prosecution for his work on WikiLeaks.

This makes it crystal clear that authorities are using accusations of the
serious crime of rape in the most cynical and opportunistic way.

A British judge granted Assange bail on December 14--on the condition that
$373,000 be posted to secure his release, and that he agree to electronic
monitoring, house arrest and the surrender of his Australian passport
(Assange is an Australian citizen). But Swedish prosecutors appealed this
ruling. Two days later, a British court upheld the bail order, while adding
even more restrictions--Assange was released to the home of journalist
Vaughan Smith.

"If justice is not always an outcome, at least it is not dead yet," he said
to the cheers of supporters as he walked out of court. "I hope to continue
my work and continue to protest my innocence in this matter--and to reveal
as we get it, which we have not yet, the evidence from these allegations."

Assange and his legal team now have less than a month to prepare their case
opposing his extradition to Sweden. According to his lawyers, since he has
not formally been charged with a crime, but is wanted for questioning, there
is a legal issue about whether Sweden actually has the right to extradite
him.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AS THE furor over WikiLeaks has grown--especially in the U.S., where calls
for Assange's extradition, prosecution (and even assassination) have grown
increasingly strident from both Democrats and Republicans--Assange has also
attracted a growing number of supporters who see his prosecution as
politically motivated and a threat to freedom of speech around the globe.

The International Federation of Journalists, which represents more than
600,000 journalists worldwide, condemned what it called a "political
backlash" against WikiLeaks. Christopher Warren, the head of Media
Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Australia's largest media union,
argued<http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/15-2>that "attacks
on WikiLeaks can also be seen as attacks on the Australian
media outlets which have worked with the organization to publish leaked
material."

Dozens of Australia's most prominent journalists have signed onto a
statement of support sent to Prime Minister Julia
Gillard<http://www.walkleys.com/news/1076/>(who has vowed her own
investigation into whether Assange has committed a
crime against Australia) that reads:

In essence, WikiLeaks, an organization that aims to expose official secrets,
is doing what the media have always done: bringing to light material that
governments would prefer to keep secret.

It is the media's duty to responsibly report such material if it comes into
their possession. To aggressively attempt to shut WikiLeaks down, to
threaten to prosecute those who publish official leaks, and to pressure
companies to cease doing commercial business with WikiLeaks is a serious
threat to democracy, which relies on a free and fearless press.

Several rallies have been held in Sydney and other Australian cities,
including one drawing 800 people on December 15.

This defiant support of Assange is in stark contrast to the reaction of much
of the U.S. media--which was either silent about, or agreed with, growing
calls by politicians from both main parties to see Assange tried for his
work on WikiLeaks.

But with each day, as it becomes more and more clear that the U.S.
government is intent on seeing Assange extradited and tried for releasing
classified information, even the complicit U.S. media has begun to recognize
implications of the attack on Assange. If Assange and WikiLeaks can be
prosecuted, then surely any reporter or publication releasing classified
information or information obtained by government whistleblowers would also
liable for prosecution.

As Salon.com's Glenn
Greenwald<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/wikileaks/index.html>noted:

The *New York Times'* Eric Lichtblau and the *Washington Post's* Dana
Priest--both of whom won Pulitzer Prizes for publicly exposing classified
programs of the Bush administration--warned that prosecuting WikiLeaks would
endanger investigative journalism generally. The *Denver Post* editorialized
that the idea of prosecuting WikiLeaks "is about the only one in recent
memory that has attracted bipartisan support in Washington" but "is
ill-conceived and fraught with problems," and that "acquiring and publishing
information is at the heart of the definition of a free press, which has
substantial First Amendment protections."

Even the government-revering *Washington Post* editorial page came out in
opposition to prosecuting WikiLeaks...recognizing that "the government has
no business indicting someone who is not a spy and who is not legally bound
to keep its secrets" and that "doing so would criminalize the exchange of
information and put at risk responsible media organizations."

A petition circulated by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
(FAIR)<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/592/p/dia/action/public/index.sjs?action_KEY=5343>and
signed by Daniel Ellsberg, Barbara Ehrenreich, Arundhati Roy, Noam
Chomsky and other prominent progressives points out:

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.

Even Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell
when he was Secretary of State under George W. Bush--including years when
some of the State Department cables released by WikiLeaks were
published--joined a group of former government officials in a letter of
support for Assange
<http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=2404>that states:
"WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very
opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are
trying desperately to stuff the genie back in."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

REPUBLICANS AND the right wing are clamoring the loudest for Assange's head.
But for its part, the Obama administration has aggressively pursued
Assange--and is challenging the overall right of the press to reveal
government information, even when it includes evidence of previously hidden
war crimes.

Recent reports suggest that a grand jury may have been empaneled in
Alexandria, Va. "We have heard from Swedish authorities there has been a
secretly empaneled grand jury in Alexandria...They are currently
investigating this," Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens told *Al
Jazeera*<http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-13/justice/wikileaks.investigation_1_julian-assange-wikileaks-case-grand-jury>,
referring to WikiLeaks. "I think that the Americans are much more interested
in terms of the WikiLeaks aspect of this," Stephens added.

The Bush administration was notorious for its attacks on civil liberties and
free speech, and progressives condemned them. But it's now clear that the
Obama administration has continued the trend--and appears to be taking an
even more severe stance against those who would leak government information.
As Glenn Greenwald noted:

The Obama DOJ has launched nothing less than a full-on war against
whistleblowers; its magnanimous "Look Forward, Not Backward" decree used to
shield high-level Bush criminals from investigations is manifestly tossed to
the side when it comes to those who reveal such criminality....

[I]f current reports are correct--that the Obama DOJ has now convened a
grand jury to indict WikiLeaks and Julian Assange--this will constitute a
far greater assault on press freedom than anything George W. Bush managed,
or even attempted. Put simply, there is no intellectually coherent way to
distinguish what WikiLeaks has done with these diplomatic cables with what
newspapers around the world did in this case and what they do constantly:
namely, receive and then publish classified information without
authorization...

To criminalize what WikiLeaks is doing is, by definition, to criminalize the
defining attribute of investigative journalism. That, to be sure, is a
feature, not a bug, of the Obama administration's efforts.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ANOTHER LESS-talked-about aspect of the case are the appalling conditions
that 22-year-old Bradley Manning--the U.S. soldier who accused by the
government of turning over massive amounts of information to WikiLeaks,
including the "Collateral Murder" video showing U.S. troops engaging in the
murder of civilians in Iraq, documents showing U.S. complicity in war crimes
and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the more recent leaked diplomatic
cables.

According to reports, Manning has been detained for five months in a
military brig in Quantico, Va., under cruel conditions as a so-called
"Maximum Custody Detainee." He is subject to 23-hour-a-day solitary
confinement and constant surveillance, has been refused sheets or pillows
for his bed, and is not allowed even to exercise in his cell. For the single
hour he is allowed out of his cell each day, he is barred from watching the
news or any current events programs, as well as from speaking to reporters.

The government is almost certainly aiming to eventually try Manning for
crimes including transferring classified data and delivering national
defense information to an unauthorized source--and there is speculation that
if the U.S. is eventually able to extradite Assange to the U.S., he may be
charged as an accomplice to Manning.

According to the *New York
Times*<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/16wiki.html?hp>,
the Justice Department is "looking for evidence of any collusion" between
WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning--"trying to find out whether Mr. Assange
encouraged or even helped" the Army private leak the documents. If it finds
such evidence, federal prosecutors will "charge him as a conspirator in the
leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published
them."

Such a charge poses a serious threat to free speech, because it threatens
any journalist who might arrange to receive classified information and
documents directly from government officials or other whistleblowers.

The reason that the material Manning is alleged to have leaked was
classified is only because it shows the ugly truth about U.S. wars and
imperialism. In many cases, the revelations in WikiLeaks documents aren't
surprising to anyone who is critical of the U.S. empire--but the government
wants to keep it out of the public eye at all costs.

As Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the famed Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam
War, has repeatedly
noted<http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/from-the-pentagon-papers-to-wikileaks-daniel-ellsberg-calls-julian-assange-a-hero-20101216>,
if Manning is guilty of leaking the information, then he is a hero, not a
criminal. "To call [Manning and Assange] terrorists is not only mistaken,
it's absurd and slanderous. Neither of them are any more terrorists than I
am, and I'm not," he said.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FOR JUST a small taste of the hypocrisy in the Obama administration's drive
to get its hands on Assange, consider that Washington has repeatedly refused
to extradite 23 U.S. CIA agents who were convicted in absentia in Italy in
November 2009 for their role in abducting Osama Mustafa Hassan, an Egyptian
imam, from a street in Milan in 2003.

Hassan, who had political asylum in Italy when he was kidnapped in a joint
CIA and Italian military intelligence operation, was eventually flown to
Egypt, where he says he was tortured as part of George W. Bush's
"extraordinary rendition" program.

Those who carried out these actions, because they were sanctioned by the
U.S. government, will never see a day in prison--indeed, they are being
shielded by the Obama administration for their crimes. Meanwhile, U.S.
officials hope to exploit Sweden's attempt to extradite Assange in order to
bring him to the U.S.--whether or not he is ever tried on the charges over
which he is wanted for questioning in Sweden.

Lawyer Mark Stephens told *Al
Jazeera*<http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-13/justice/wikileaks.investigation_1_julian-assange-wikileaks-case-grand-jury>,
for example, that he has been informed that Swedish authorities have said
that if Assange is extradited to them, "they will defer their interest in
him to the Americans...It does seem to me that what we have here is nothing
more than a holding charge." The United States wants Assange detained, he
said, so "ultimately they can get their mitts on him."

Indeed, in a statement posted on the Swedish Prosecution Authority's Web
site, Marianne Ny, the prosecutor in charge of the Assange case, has already
raised the possibility of Assange being extradited to the
U.S.<http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/swedish-prosecutor-raises-possible-extradition-of-wikileaks-founder-to-u-s/>

That Swedish prosecutors are already talking about handing Assange over to
the U.S. for prosecution should give the lie to the idea that Assange was
jailed merely because he is wanted for questioning on the charges in Sweden.

Instead, international leaders--who care little for women's rights in the
best of times--are using the very serious allegations of rape and sexual
assault as a cover for their drive to prosecute Assange for his work with
WikiLeaks. Just as with the sudden calls to "liberate" Afghan women in the
run up to the war in Afghanistan, we should not take their sudden zeal for
women's rights at face value.

As Katrine Axelsson of the group *Women Against Rape* pointed out in a
letter to Britain's *Guardian* newspaper:

Many women in both Sweden and Britain will wonder at the unusual zeal with
which Julian Assange is being pursued for rape allegations...Though Sweden
has the highest per capita number of reported rapes in Europe and these have
quadrupled in the last 20 years, conviction rates have decreased. On April
23, 2010, Carina Hägg and Nalin Pekgul (respectively MP and chairwoman of
Social Democratic Women in Sweden) wrote in the Göteborgs-Posten that "up to
90 percent of all reported rapes never get to court. In 2006, six people
were convicted of rape though almost 4,000 people were reported."...

There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for
political agendas that have nothing to do with women's safety. In the South
of the U.S., the lynching of Black men was often justified on grounds that
they had raped or even looked at a white woman.

Women don't take kindly to our demand for safety being misused, while rape
continues to be neglected at best or protected at worst.

In reality, the prosecution of Assange is part of a government war on
dissent that comes in the context of raids and subpoenas of left-wing and
antiwar activists in Chicago and the Twin
Cities<http://socialistworker.org/2010/12/14/feds-expand-their-assault>seeking
to criminalize support for, among other things, the growing movement
for justice for the Palestinian people.

They want to chill our right to dissent. If we are to prevent that, we must
stand in defense of the right of Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and
WikiLeaks to expose the crimes committed by the U.S.




********************************************************
ISO Resources:
isochampaign.org
internationalsocialist.org
haymarketbooks.org
socialistworker.org
isreview.org
********************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20101220/ba63f912/attachment-0001.html>