On 17 October a platform calling for EU-wide whistleblower protection is launched by the first 44 signatories of a joint statement, which include the Courage Foundation. The statement will be open for additional organisations and individuals to sign after the launch. Following the trade secrets directive and the LuxLeaks trial earlier this summer, the lack of protection of whistleblowers at EU level has come into sharp focus.
Category: News
The latest news from Courage Foundation
After a four-hour disciplinary board hearing at Ft. Leavenworth, Chelsea Manning has been punished with two weeks of solitary confinement for attempting to take her own life. One week is a ‘suspended’ sentence, meaning she’ll only serve it if military authorities seek to punish her again in the next six months.
Responding to the verdict, Manning wrote,
I am feeling hurt. I am feeling lonely. I am embarrassed by the decision. I don’t know how to explain it. I am touched by your warm messages of love and support. This comforts me in my time of need.
Chelsea was acquitted of “Resisting The Force Cell Move Team”, but she was convicted of “Conduct Which Threatens”, for attempting to commit suicide, and a count of “Prohibited Property”, which, she explains, was for an unmarked copy of “Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy,” by Gabriella Coleman. The charges carried a potential sentence of indefinite solitary confinement.
Chelsea attempted to take her own life in July. Prison officials divulged that information to the press but refused to allow Chelsea’s lawyers to see or speak to her. When she was finally released from the hospital, her legal team issued a statement confirming her status.
When the prison still refused to provide her with proper medical care for gender dysphoria, Chelsea then commenced a hunger strike, vowing to refuse food until she was treated adequately. She said her pleas for basic help were “ignored, delayed, mocked, given trinkets and lip service by the prison, the military, and this administration.” Prison officials finally, after five days without food, showed Chelsea a form approving her gender confirmation surgery, and Chelsea ended the strike.
Chelsea Manning should be cared for, not punished, following her attempt on her life. She deserves medical treatment for gender dysphoria, a condition that if untreated leads to depression, not solitary confinement, which has shown to exacerbate depression and which constitutes psychological torture.
In May, Chelsea wrote that solitary confinement is “no touch torture”, and she recounted her harrowing experience after her 2010 arrest. In 2013, a military judge awarded Manning with 112 days off of her sentence for improper treatment.
You can support Chelsea Manning by writing her a letter, signing a petition for her clemency, or donating to her defense fund.
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What’s next for Lauri Love
Sarah Harrison, Courage’s acting director and longtime WikiLeaks journalist, has sat down for several interviews to discuss various news items happening this week: the premiere of Oliver Stone’s film ‘Snowden,’ Harrison’s return to the UK after years of effective exile, and WikiLeaks’ US releases.
After she assisted Edward Snowden escape from Hong Kong to Moscow, and stayed with him in Sheremetyevo Airport in Russia with hopes of reaching Latin America, Harrison was advised to stay out of the UK, where British terrorism laws threaten to criminalize journalistic work. She’s lived in Berlin for the last three years, but since David Miranda’s recent legal success challenging his 2013 detention in Heathrow, Harrison’s lawyers suggested she could attempt to return home.
BBC
In her first UK interview, Harrison discussed Snowden, WikiLeaks, and Courage.
Democracy Now
Obama’s War on Whistleblowers Forced Edward Snowden to Release Documents, Says WikiLeaks Editor
RT
‘Ridiculous to say Assange faces no threat’ – WikiLeaks founder’s advisor to RT
RT’s Going Underground: Wikileaks & Oliver Stone’s Biopic “Snowden”
National Post
In a major, exclusive piece, the National Post revealed the story of the refugees and asylum seekers in Hong Kong who helped hide Edward Snowden as he plotted his next moves.
The Register
Edward Snowden’s 40 days in a Russian airport – by the woman who helped him escape
On Snowden:
Obviously he’d like to be able to go back to the United States, he’d like to know that he could have a fair trial there, although it would be even better if he didn’t even have to go through a trial of course. It would be amazing to go to other European countries if they would give him asylum as well.
ABC News RN Drive
NSA whistleblower’s life turned into film
Evening Standard
Sarah Harrison: the woman behind whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange
On Courage: “Working with Snowden, we noticed that nobody was able to help in the immediate need of these politicised cases.”
AFP
“What will help Snowden’s situation and potential other whistleblowers as well, is getting more public awareness of the retaliation that’s used against people that do these sorts of things,” Harrison said.
El Diario
Sarah Harrison: “When law and politics face, usually politics wins”
Europeans were more open to the revelations, partly because it was a foreign country watching us. It is very different when it is a foreign government that watches you in your own home. Or in the case of England, where my government was in cahoots with another state to spy on everyone.
The New Zealand government has announced a new law criminalising the exposure of classified government information, the New Zealand Herald reports, with a penalty of up to five years in prison.
As the Herald writes, the legislation will apply to those “who hold a government security clearance, or those given access to classified information, who wrongfully communicate, retain or copy it.”
Those who “encounter evidence of wrong-doing can make a protected disclosure to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security,” but going to the media will incur charges and prison time.
Meanwhile, the legislation expands surveillance powers for New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau, authorizing spying on New Zealanders’ private information.
It also expands the types of warrants spy agencies can apply for, such as warrants based on classes of people or “purpose-based” warrants, specifying a certain type of information.
While the government denies the new law is in response to Edward Snowden’s revelations, the powers it grants stand counter to the global tide of support for whistleblowing and scrutiny on surveillance. As the international debate has led tech companies to increase encryption, supporters to call for Snowden’s freedom, and governments to hold enquiries into their spying powers, New Zealand is widening its net to sweep up data and then tightening its grip on what it collects.
This new legislation — which could still be altered, as critics call for narrower language — is the latest Five Eyes crackdown on whistleblowers. The US has ramped up its use of the Espionage Act to silence truthtellers, the UK’s Investigatory Powers Bill has expanded penalties for disclosing government orders, Australia introduced a 10-year penalty for disclosure written broadly enough to punish journalists, and Canada has become a “dangerous wasteland” for whistleblowers. Now New Zealand is following suit, surveilling its citizens and imprisoning those who speak out against it.
In June, Luxembourg became the subject of criticism worldwide when whistleblowers Antoine Deltour and Raphael Hallet were convicted for casting light on the industrial scale tax avoidance that was being enabled by the country’s government. At the time, Deltour said that the ruling was “a warning towards future whistleblowers, which is detrimental to citizens’ information and the good functioning of democracy.”
The UN’s Independent Expert on the promotion of a equitable and democratic international order, Alfred de Zayas, also condemned the sentence:
We seem to live in an upside-down world in which whistleblowers are convicted and those who loot society are not… Governments are systematically being deprived of essential tax revenues. As long as there are widespread tax avoidance, tax evasion and tax havens, States will not have the financial capacity to meet their human rights treaty obligations.”