[HN Gopher] Number of journalists in jail reaches global high
___________________________________________________________________
Number of journalists in jail reaches global high
Author : samizdis
Score : 301 points
Date : 2021-12-09 08:31 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cpj.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (cpj.org)
| mikotodomo wrote:
| I keep saying people should use Tor to help prevent things like
| this from happening. They never listen.
| VictorPath wrote:
| A satellite dish salesman with a storefront in Brooklyn, New
| York, was jailed in 2009 because he turned on the ability to
| watch al-Manar, a station associated with a political party that
| has made up 10+% of Lebanon's parliament since 2005 (both
| associated with the Shia organizational group in Lebanon,
| Hezbollah).
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/nyregion/24cable.html
|
| Germany, France and other European countries have banned the
| channel as well.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I don't see how it is different from what Iran or China is
| doing! Wow
| smackay wrote:
| Craig Murray, friend of Julian Assange, was just released from a
| Scottish prison for the crime of jigsaw identification of some of
| the accusers in the trial of former First Minister, Alex Salmond
| despite the fact that many journalists from mainstream media had
| published information that allowed their readers to identify some
| of the accusers explicitly.
|
| So it's not just a problem of dictatorships in second or third
| world countries. But then again, maybe it is.
|
| https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
| gampleman wrote:
| Sadly looking at the map in the OP, the UK is reported as 0
| journalists imprisoned.
|
| Between Julian Assange and Craig Murray that seems low.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Usual problem - how do you define a journalist and how do you
| say whether they've been jailed for being a journalist or
| not.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| I'd argue the second part is unnecessary. If country A
| jails more (percentage) journalists than country B, you
| know that either country A is trying to control them, or
| that country A has more criminal journalists. At least that
| gives you another lead to look into.
| SllX wrote:
| I'm at a point where I'm willing to throw the word away.
| It's just too imprecise.
|
| I know what a reporter is, and I know what a columnist is.
| I know what an editor is, and I know what an editorial
| stance is. I know what it means for people to do these
| things professionally as their vocation. "Journalism" might
| still have some life left in it, but if somebody told me
| they were a journalist, my follow up question would still
| be "what do you do?".
| OneTimePetes wrote:
| If you deliver information to the public, that the public
| needs to know to make informed decisions your a journalist.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Yes, consider it a role and not a guild.
| teh_klev wrote:
| This is the CPJ definition:
|
| _" CPJ defines journalists as people who cover the news or
| comment on public affairs in any media, including print,
| photographs, radio, television, and online."_
|
| I'd say that both Murray and Assange legitimately fit into
| this definition.
|
| Unfortunately in the UK you're only considered a
| "journalist" if you can join the cosy boys club that is the
| NUJ, which is a bit like saying you're not a real train
| driver unless you're a member of ASLEF which is clearly
| nonsense.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Don't we all comment on public affairs online?
| im3w1l wrote:
| Yeah. I would make a simple common-sense addition, that
| this commenting is their primary source of income.
| boringg wrote:
| Yeah this is the crux of the problem. As the definition
| of journalist becomes so broad that everyone falls into
| this category so to does the number of journalists going
| to prison.
|
| The counter is that if there is too strict a definition
| of journalism - you put to many controls on the group. It
| almost feels like you should need some kind of standard
| to qualify as a journalist (again that has issues with it
| as well).
|
| It's fraught either way but I don't think I am alone here
| when I say a lot of journalists around the world don't
| really qualify as journalists and are actually activists
| under guise (both on the right and on the left).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > The counter is that if there is too strict a definition
| of journalism - you put to many controls on the group.
|
| How so? I don't think 'journalist' is any kind of
| privileged or protected group - so you don't lose
| anything by not being a journalist do you?
| svachalek wrote:
| To the point that governments shouldn't be putting
| _anyone_ in jail just for revealing their activity, there
| 's a truth to that. But so far as we can use metrics like
| "journalists in jail" as a proxy for despotism, there's a
| loss when despots are hand-picking the journalists.
|
| As to privilege and protection, that depends a lot on
| regional laws.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > people who ... comment on public affairs in any media
|
| I mean... I do that, but I'm clearly not a journalist.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| I guess if our fact-focused essays/comments about the
| issues of the day sufficiently annoy someone powerful,
| enough to get thrown in prison, then we're a journalist.
| At least the powerful, annoyed person thinks so.
| Something to think about while we rot away in solitary.
| COGlory wrote:
| Professional organizations are extremely effective
| gatekeeping mechanisms.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| delecti wrote:
| How to define a journalist is a tough problem I can't
| easily solve, but I'd be inclined to say that once you do,
| any of them being in jail for any reason should count. The
| risk of overcounting the few journalists who might
| genuinely commit crimes unrelated to their journalism seems
| lower than the risk of undercounting journalists who were
| in reality jailed because of their journalism, but were
| officially for invented crimes.
| golemotron wrote:
| "Journalism" was a temporary artifact of the transition
| from industrial to technological economy. There was a
| brief time when communicating broadly was hard and
| required capital. Now, anyone can do it.
|
| It's important to remember how vulgar early (and pre)
| 20th century journalism was. Largely opinion, hearsay and
| sensationalism.
|
| Later, journalism consolidated and developed standards to
| sell itself. Once technology put it in everyone's hands,
| it became so cheap that standards could no longer be a
| moat. We're back to vulgarity. I don't think there is any
| significant difference in the market between someone who
| went to the Columbia School of Journalism and a blogger.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "It's important to remember how vulgar early (and pre)
| 20th century journalism was. Largely opinion, hearsay and
| sensationalism."
|
| Luckily today, that drastically improved.
| boringg wrote:
| Are you suggesting a (jailed journalist) / (total
| journalists in the country) ratio to determine the level
| of control that the government is trying to exert?
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's a bit like "cyclist": someone currently engaging in
| an act of journalism, like a cyclist is someone riding a
| bike.
| laydn wrote:
| Well a journalist -a US citizen- (Jamal Khashoggi) was killed
| in a foreign (Saudi) embassy; evidence (including, Audio
| evidence) was presented of the killing and was found to be
| credible, CIA concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
| Salman ordered the killing.... then.... what happened? Nothing.
|
| In a world where you can kill a US journalist so brazenly
| without any repercussions, would you be surprised journalists
| being jailed for $reasons ?
| finiteseries wrote:
| A "US journalist" whose grandfather was the personal
| physician to the house of Saudi's founder, whose billionaire
| arms dealing uncle was involved in Iran Contra, whose first
| cousin was _in that car with Princess Diana_ ...
|
| He was hilariously Saudi!
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Hilarious is a strange adjective to use. So to you a person
| is defined largely by their extended family.
| tootie wrote:
| His billionaire uncle Adnan also sold a yacht to Donald
| Trump.
| driverdan wrote:
| How is that relevant?
| finiteseries wrote:
| Because most people genuinely aren't aware of this, and
| labor under the impression a US citizen/journalist was
| randomly butchered by the powers of evil.
|
| An immensely wealthy, heavily connected Saudi political
| actor got taken out by a new Saudi ruler asserting
| himself.
|
| I am personally not okay with foreign nobles attempting
| to hide behind the same label as eg Assange, it's fucking
| absurd.
| pydry wrote:
| Killing Khashoggi definitely cooled the US's relationship
| with Saudi Arabia - a relationship they are critically
| reliant upon.
|
| I would be surprised if bin Salman didn't regret his
| decision.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| And Obama has killed and droned US citizens who were
| journalists and even his US citizen children with a great
| Orwellian response by the White House spokesman.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-
| tea...
| nverno wrote:
| It doesn't say anything about them being journalists, but
| instead that the guy was an 'operational' al-Qaeda target,
| and his kid an innocent victim. How is this an attack on
| free press?
| iriri8 wrote:
| Don't see anyone here putting their agency into hunting,
| growing their own food to move, to wind down the military
| industrial complex their technology careers are tethered to
| grifting on.
|
| PG's four quadrants of conformism is stupid because
| everyone is a political conformist in the end. That's the
| perimeter of our society. Annotating them with types a
| billionaire preferences is creepy grooming by a white old
| guy.
| tc313 wrote:
| Not to notpick, but while Khashoggi was a US resident, he was
| not a US citizen.
| jaywalk wrote:
| That's not a nitpick, it's a very important point. It
| doesn't justify the killing in any way, but it does shed
| some light on why the US response was what it was.
| pydry wrote:
| What's crazy about his case is that he was sentenced to more
| time than somebody who just outright named an accuser on
| twitter.
|
| Leonna Dorrian should be disbarred. What she did was a blatant
| abuse of her power.
| gadders wrote:
| I'm English, and pretty far from Murray politically, but from
| what I've read in other places as well the Scottish
| Government, the SNP, and the Scottish judiciary seem very
| close - probably too close.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| The Scottish Government is the most useless, unnecessary
| body imaginable. The only office less important then that
| of the First Minister must be the Vice President in the US.
| It's not surprising that petty officials will abuse their
| power as much as they can.
| smackay wrote:
| The fundamental problem is that there is no separation of
| powers between the government and the judiciary as you
| might find in most (all?) modern democracies. The Crown
| Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) acts as the
| governments lawyers and the prosecution service. Most of
| the accusers in the trial of Alex Salmond, for which he was
| acquitted on all charges, are close associates of the
| leadership of the Scottish National Party which are
| currently in power in the devolved parliament. The risks
| are clear and obvious.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| I'm a bit confused by this statement about separation of
| powers. The function of a prosecutor is not a judicial
| function in the context of an adversarial legal system
| such as the common law.
| gadders wrote:
| True, but I think choosing which cases to prosecute (or
| not prosecute) based on political expediency rather than
| weight of evidence could be the danger here.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The notion that (theoretically independent in either
| case) prosecutors who are part of the judicial branch
| rather than the executive branch are less likely to be
| influenced by political considerations is worth
| examining. I have real doubts it is valid.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Moreover, how is this really different from the CPS in
| the rest of the UK?
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Isn't that one of the definitions of dictatorships in
| other non-white countries according to neocon
| NGO/CIA/white savior class. The separation of powers that
| may exist de jure but no de facto when it comes to the
| power structure like in the US.
| ajb wrote:
| Yeah that judgement was crazy. It has been spun as being
| about protecting the identity of victims of sexual offences,
| but I don't believe that for a moment because _the judgement
| contained a detailed account of how you could find the
| accusers from Murray 's articles_. So I personally had no
| idea who they were when I read his article originally, but it
| was easy to figure out from the judgement. If what they cared
| about was protecting the identities, the judgement would
| never have been written that way.
| BehindBlueEyes wrote:
| I'm not surprised. I haven't had much faith in the system
| protecting identities since the time I had to move for
| witness protection only to find my new address revealed to
| all parties in the summons to the hearing.
| pydry wrote:
| IIRC the argument was that by "identifying" the supposed
| victims he "could have" prejudiced the trial.
|
| The UK has exceptionally strict laws surrounding
| interference with an ongoing trial. It's much easier to get
| somebody on that than it is most crimes if you're
| motivated.
|
| The judge seems to have been lashing out after failing to
| convict Alex Salmond and reading the blog posts which
| lampooned her. They didn't come after him while the trial
| was in progress.
|
| Tommy Robinson was also convicted on similar charges of
| attempting to prejudice a trial.
| teh_klev wrote:
| Not only this. Before the criminal trial there were no
| restrictions on reporting the identity of the accusers.
| Murray had even pointed this out in his affidavit to the
| court that he had chosen not to though it would have been
| quite legitimate to do so at that time.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Wait, it's doxxing a witness a bad thing?
|
| This seems like a legitimate crime.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Accusers, who in Scotland are afforded legal protection from
| being named in the press in cases of sexual assault.
| tacobelllover99 wrote:
| Happening in the US now. Certainly bleak times.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| Dated number for Brazil, which counts 3 imprisoned journalists in
| 2021, not 1.
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| And most people would be surprised to know that the jailed
| journalists (downgraded as "bloggers" by traditional media) are
| aligned with the right-wing government (but prosecuted by the
| supreme court members from the previous leftist government)
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| A supreme court whose members are engaged political activists
| is "jaw dropping" by itself.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Funnily enough, the proportion of journalists who deserve
| jailtime or worse is also at an all time high.
| hansvm wrote:
| The article's framing of the problem (increased authoritarianism,
| decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a lot to be desired
| without more evidence. The evidence is:
|
| - A small increase in total jailed journalists (roughly matching
| world population growth, and the delta is a small discrete count
| which would yield large error bounds)
|
| - Specific examples of horrific events (matching atrocities that
| governments have been more than willing to commit in 2020, 2019,
| 2018, ...)
|
| Without looking at longer time scales (e.g., over the last 10-20
| years journalist jailings significantly outpace population
| growth) or providing some justification for why circumstances
| have changed and we would expect journalist jailings to not pace
| population growth (e.g., if there are significantly fewer
| journalists per capita (not sure if that's true, just
| hypothetically)), a story that matches the evidence better is
| that lots of countries were horrible to journalists in years past
| and they're repeating that bad behavior now.
|
| To be clear, that's not saying that the overall problem shouldn't
| be fixed or even that their framing isn't correct, but...it's not
| exactly hard to provide evidence that _actually_ backs up their
| claim; why wouldn't they?
| d23 wrote:
| The first sentence in the article compares 2021 to 2020 and
| reflects a 4% increase in jailed journalists. This is 4x larger
| than the typical 1% population growth.
|
| Sure, more numbers would help. I'm not sure what sort of
| mindset would make someone immediately jump to defending the
| jailing of journalists though.
|
| > The article's framing of the problem (increased
| authoritarianism, decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a
| lot to be desired without more evidence.
|
| I think democratic backslide / the rise of authoritarianism
| globally is broadly recognized at this point. It's not my area
| of expertise though.
| kbenson wrote:
| >> > The article's framing of the problem (increased
| authoritarianism, decreased tolerance for reporting) leaves a
| lot to be desired without more evidence.
|
| > I think democratic backslide / the rise of authoritarianism
| globally is broadly recognized at this point.
|
| Assuming people agree on things like that is part of the
| problem. Different groups of people often have wildly
| different ideas about what the problems their countries are
| currently facing are, and if you make assumptions and
| statements that seem to align with one set of views more than
| another all you're doing is limiting your audience and pre-
| seeding a group that will discount your argument.
|
| The way around this is the same as it's ever been (even if
| people seem somewhat more resistant to it). Make well
| reasoned arguments backed by publicly available evidence, and
| reference that evidence so people can verify it.
|
| This is the bar. Not hitting it because of assumptions you're
| making which the bar is specifically meant to guard against
| is a shame. We should encourage people to do better, not
| excuse them when they fail.
| d23 wrote:
| The vast majority of this article consists of the exact
| thing you're claiming to ask for.
| kbenson wrote:
| I wasn't criticizing this article, so I'm not sure how
| that's relevant?
| tootie wrote:
| I'd also argue that at least some percentage of them deserve
| jail time. I don't feel any sympathy for someone like Judith
| Miller nor would I shed a tear for James O'Keefe if he is ever
| brought to justice. I'm sure the overwhelming number of
| journalists in jail are in jail for offending a despot rather
| than committing a real crime, but not 100%.
|
| I would actually wager that the biggest problem with this
| statistic is the meta problem of underreporting of jailed
| journalists. I would not be surprised if there are dozens or
| hundreds of journalists in jail in China that we just don't
| even know about.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Miller deserves censure, but what do you think makes her
| reporting criminal?
| treeman79 wrote:
| So jail is fine for people you disagree with?
| tootie wrote:
| Jail for people who commit genuine crimes. Judith Miller
| and James O'Keefe are "journalists" who have pushed
| deliberately false stories leading to negative outcomes.
| _vertigo wrote:
| Are you saying they deserve jail time for that? That the
| government should be able to jail journalists if they
| publish "deliberately false stories leading to negative
| outcomes"? Do you think that might have any sort of
| ramifications on the freedom of the press?
| farss wrote:
| I'm not sure that per capita is a very useful rubric to measure
| over time. Like I'm not saying there's _no_ relation to
| population size, if you compare a tiny country to a large one,
| but it 's not clear to me that there's a strong relationship -
| why a government would be expected to lock up 5% more
| journalists if the population grew by 5%. Or why if a country
| of 30 million jailed 100 journalists it should be necessarily
| be considered less repressive than if a country of 40 million
| jailed 100.
| iriri8 wrote:
| Nearly 300/year jailed for writing words.
|
| Let's equivocate it away given the minimal statistical impact
| on society.
|
| Ask for help when the boots on your neck. Sorry, 1 of 7 billion
| isn't worth getting out of my chair.
| Spivak wrote:
| My hot take is that is actually a good thing, not because I want
| to see journalists in jail but because it means that journalists
| are actually doing things that upset the established order enough
| for them to be thrown in jail. It's a huge improvement from the
| typical corporate journalist writing listicles and rewording
| press releases off newswires.
|
| Investigative journalism isn't a legally protected activity and
| the nature of the job involves running afoul of the law if you
| want to uncover anything worthwhile.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| this is in no way a good thing, the world is supposed to be
| moving forward towards greater freedoms
| Spivak wrote:
| Legal lawbreaking is still an oxymoron though. Any
| investigative journalist that operates completely within the
| law will uncover nothing the current powers don't wish to
| allow them to know.
|
| The whole point of civil disobedience is to break the law for
| the greater good knowing full well you might suffer
| consequences for it.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| putting them in jail however means they are single-report
| journalists
|
| i'm not at all sure there's an increase in investigations,
| authoritarianism is on the rise around the world
|
| also, investigative journalism IS protected, however
| curious journalists will often cross lines
| kakkan wrote:
| I think this is a misleading title. Journalism as a profession
| shot up the last couple of years due to internet and media so the
| count should be normalized. What ratio of journalists are
| persecuted compared to total number of journalists out there?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| what's your data for that? If anything, with most 'journalists'
| being professional retweeters, there are fewer correspondents
| in dangerous places. How many journalists were in afghanistan?
|
| Reporters sans frontieres tracks journalism persecution
| worldwide: https://rsf.org/en/barometer
| game_the0ry wrote:
| What I am wondering is - how much corruption would be uncovered
| if journalists investigating corruption did not fear going to
| prison or dying?
| 1cvmask wrote:
| So we don't classify jailed and tortured Julian Assange as a
| journalist even though he broke amongst some of the biggest news
| stories over the last 20 years. Or that the Trump administration
| planned on assasinating him. Or that Joe Biden is trying to
| extradite him on trumped up charges (pun not intended).
|
| Or the Black TV reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem from Chicago that
| Obama tried to kill multiple times:
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-off...
|
| -
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >So we don't classify jailed and tortured Julian Assange as a
| journalist even though he broke amongst some of the biggest
| news stories over the last 20 years.
|
| I do believe he is considered a journalist but he's in prison
| for multiple reasons. False and retracted sexual assault
| allegations in Sweden. Which technically had nothing to do with
| journalism and far more to do with Sweden's considerable
| problem with rape in their country. Sweden went to the extent
| that it's rape if you don't have written consent for sex. They
| also removed all the intent/threats/violence as being part of
| it as well. Effectively they made sex illegal.
|
| >Or that the Trump administration planned on assasinating him.
|
| Woah, never heard this before. Trump directly benefitted from
| assange and even praised him. Though never actually helped him
| in any way. I believe he kinda disavowed knowing anything about
| him. I do believe that was a big political mistake by Trump. If
| Trump gave Assange a pardon... that would have been huge.
|
| As for CIA making plans under Trump... clearly didnt happen.
|
| > Or that Joe Biden is trying to extradite him on trumped up
| charges (pun not intended).
|
| It is afterall the democrat email servers assange leaked.
| Biden's going all in for sure.
|
| >Or the Black TV reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem from Chicago that
| Obama tried to kill multiple times:
|
| woah, thats another i never heard. nobel peace prize obama took
| his attention away from his 7 wars to try to kill some
| journalist from his home city?
|
| This seems more like the CIA isn't under control.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Glad you noticed the Chicago reference. There are many more
| such examples. My favorite doublespeak is the fancy name for
| killing Obama administration used:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix
| pell wrote:
| The following is not so much an attempt at arguing with the
| poster but to correct falsehoods and blatant
| misrepresentations in their post.
|
| > I do believe he is considered a journalist but he's in
| prison for multiple reasons.
|
| Right now he's only in prison due to the extradition trial.
| The reason he isn't out on bail is because he skipped bail in
| the past.
|
| > Sweden went to the extent that it's rape if you don't have
| written consent for sex. They also removed all the
| intent/threats/violence as being part of it as well.
| Effectively they made sex illegal.
|
| This is an incredibly absurd recount of Swedish law. It's
| evident you do not know much about it. Swedish law defines
| rape as sex without consent. This definition was passed in
| 2018. The accusations against Assange were made in 2010. The
| conviction rates do not reflect your assumption that sex
| itself is deemed illegal in Sweden. The charges against
| Assange were also dropped.
|
| By the way, one accusation against him was that he penetrated
| a woman without a condom while she was sleeping. That is
| considered rape in most countries around the world. So even
| if we were to take your incorrect description of Sweden's
| rape laws seriously they wouldn't fit the bill here.
|
| > It is afterall the democrat email servers assange leaked.
| Biden's going all in for sure.
|
| The US case against Assanges originated in the Obama era.
| However his administration decided to not go forward with it.
| It was Trump's administration who decided to make the
| extradition request. Assange was forced out of the Ecuadorian
| embassy during Trump's tenure. So this had nothing to do with
| DNC leaks, nor was this a Democrat endeavor.
|
| Whatever one thinks of Assange or his work with Wikileaks,
| the way he is being treated by the US and the UK is entirely
| absurd and does not show any signs of fair trial at this
| point. News outlets in the US have done a poor job at holding
| the government accountable here. If Assange does get
| extradited and convicted it will break journalism in the
| United States fundamentally.
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >The following is not so much an attempt at arguing with
| the poster but to correct falsehoods and blatant
| misrepresentations in their post.
|
| Always welcome being corrected. Not usually good when you
| open a reply calling me a liar.
|
| >Right now he's only in prison due to the extradition
| trial. The reason he isn't out on bail is because he
| skipped bail in the past.
|
| Aka multiple reasons. I dont believe I am lying here.
|
| >This is an incredibly absurd recount of Swedish law. It's
| evident you do not know much about it. Swedish law defines
| rape as sex without consent. This definition was passed in
| 2018. The accusations against Assange were made in 2010.
|
| So you are asserting that I am a liar because rape wasn't
| illegal in 2010? Sure they updated the law in 2018 but rape
| was certainly illegal before 2018. What exactly dont i know
| about?
|
| >The conviction rates do not reflect your assumption that
| sex itself is deemed illegal in Sweden. The charges against
| Assange were also dropped.
|
| Convicted rape is up >1,000% over the last several decades
| in Sweden. Sweden is the rape capitol of the developed
| world. Are Swedish men disproportionately rapists compared
| to other countries like UK, Canada, or USA? Or is it their
| laws?
|
| This app was created in Sweden: https://legalfling.io/
| which by name implies sex is illegal unless steps are
| taken. This is tantamount to making sex illegal in sweden.
| As I said, 'effectively made sex illegal'. Their birthrates
| are down 25-50%. Very bad sign long term for their society.
|
| >By the way, one accusation against him was that he
| penetrated a woman without a condom while she was sleeping.
| That is considered rape in most countries around the world.
|
| Incorrect. That is what the prosecutor alleged but the
| women did not. It was fully consensual. Which is why
| assange wanted assurance that he would answer the crimes in
| sweden but only if it ends there. sweden cant extradite or
| anything. They didnt go for it because that's fully what
| they intended to do. The rape allegation didnt matter, it
| didnt matter that there was absolutely no chance of
| conviction because of public comments by the women. They
| wanted to extradite. The swedish prosecutor is clearly
| affiliated with the CIA.
|
| >So even if we were to take your incorrect description of
| Sweden's rape laws seriously they wouldn't fit the bill
| here.
|
| You never rebutted my 'description'. You never even
| provided one of your own.
|
| >The US case against Assanges originated in the Obama era.
| However his administration decided to not go forward with
| it. It was Trump's administration who decided to make the
| extradition request. Assange was forced out of the
| Ecuadorian embassy during Trump's tenure. So this had
| nothing to do with DNC leaks, nor was this a Democrat
| endeavor.
|
| Trump never ordered anything. It was public knowledge that
| he was approached on the subject and he refused to take
| part. Saying he wasn't going to influence the justice
| system. Either stopping the efforts put forth by Obama,
| pardoning or otherwise. As I said, he made a huge mistake
| doing that, pardoning assange would have been a very smart
| idea. Assange being thrown out of the embassy had nothing
| to do with trump. So ya absolutely, as you said obama era
| and dnc leaks is entirely what this is about.
|
| >Whatever one thinks of Assange or his work with Wikileaks,
| the way he is being treated by the US and the UK is
| entirely absurd and does not show any signs of fair trial
| at this point.
|
| I like wikileaks and such, so far the USA hasnt done much,
| The extradition isnt happening as far as I know. I highly
| doubt the appeal will work out. I guess we find out
| tomorrow, but i doubt the USA wins.
|
| The UK had legitimate crimes for him to answer for. He was
| obviously convicted because he did commit the crime.
| Assange will likely soon be a free man and he'll get the
| Epstein treatment from the DNC.
|
| > News outlets in the US have done a poor job at holding
| the government accountable here. If Assange does get
| extradited and convicted it will break journalism in the
| United States fundamentally.
|
| You have a very bad understanding of news outlets in the
| USA. I'm not even sure where to start. You wont believe me
| anyway, I lie and blatantly misrepresent something.
| pell wrote:
| >Aka multiple reasons. I dont believe I am lying here.
|
| You said he is in prison for multiple reasons and then
| only went on to name the rape case before making
| assertions about Sweden's rape law next. Yet, Assange is
| not in prison due to any active rape case against him.
| You did not provide any other reasons in your comment.
|
| >So you are asserting that I am a liar because rape
| wasn't illegal in 2010? Sure they updated the law in 2018
| but rape was certainly illegal before 2018. What exactly
| dont i know about?
|
| You claimed falsely that Assange is in prison due to rape
| allegations. Then you went on to describe the rape law in
| Sweden according to the latest changes which were not in
| effect when the case against Assange started. Ignoring
| your misrepresentation of those laws for the moment, it
| makes no sense to go on about them if they weren't what
| the Assange case was actually subjected under.
|
| >This app was created in Sweden: https://legalfling.io/
| which by name implies sex is illegal unless steps are
| taken.
|
| Your argument that "rape is illegal" is that consent apps
| have been released? You understand that by your logic
| "renting" or "buying" are illegal unless there's a
| contract? Also please cite the part of Sweden's rape law
| that requires written consent.
|
| >Convicted rape is up >1,000% over the last several
| decades in Sweden. Sweden is the rape capitol of the
| developed world. Are Swedish men disproportionately
| rapists compared to other countries like UK, Canada, or
| USA? Or is it their laws?
|
| Convictions have risen by 75%, not by over 1000%.(1) Even
| if we ignore your gross misrepresentation of numbers,
| your argument is that the numbers are inherently wrong
| when another argument could very much be that the
| convictions in other countries don't represent the actual
| cases and might be far too low. I am not arguing for
| either but your logic is obviously flawed here.
|
| Sweden is also not "the rape capital" of the world. This
| is a classical populist headline which is obviously
| incorrect after any closer inspection.(2)
|
| (1) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-crime-rape-
| law-trf...
|
| (2) https://www.thelocal.se/20170221/why-sweden-is-not-
| the-rape-...
|
| >Incorrect. That is what the prosecutor alleged but the
| women did not. It was fully consensual.
|
| Actually the accuser said exactly that.(3) So it wasn't
| something the "prosecutor alleged" as you're claiming.
|
| (3) https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-
| assange...
|
| >Trump never ordered anything. It was public knowledge
| that he was approached on the subject and he refused to
| take part. Saying he wasn't going to influence the
| justice system. Either stopping the efforts put forth by
| Obama, pardoning or otherwise. As I said, he made a huge
| mistake doing that, pardoning assange would have been a
| very smart idea. Assange being thrown out of the embassy
| had nothing to do with trump. So ya absolutely, as you
| said obama era and dnc leaks is entirely what this is
| about.
|
| I did not say Trump personally ordered anything. I said
| these things happened under his administration. And the
| "efforts put for by Obama" didn't result in Assange being
| charged. It was Trump's administration that actually
| charged Assange.(4)
|
| (4) https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15377996/julian-
| assange-w...
|
| >I like wikileaks and such, so far the USA hasnt done
| much, The extradition isnt happening as far as I know. I
| highly doubt the appeal will work out. I guess we find
| out tomorrow, but i doubt the USA wins.
|
| The extradition has only been stopped because the UK
| court found Assange's mental health too fragile to
| survive under US prison conditions. The rest of the
| extradition was not rejected by the UK. Assange is
| therefore far away from being released, I'm afraid.
|
| >Assange will likely soon be a free man and he'll get the
| Epstein treatment from the DNC.
|
| Assange's extradition was requested during Trump's
| administration. Yet you think the DNC is somehow about to
| stage an Assange suicide in the event that he might be
| released.
|
| >You have a very bad understanding of news outlets in the
| USA. I'm not even sure where to start. You wont believe
| me anyway, I lie and blatantly misrepresent something.
|
| Given the fact that almost everything you wrote on this
| topic in your two comments here was either entirely false
| or a misrepresentation, I do not really think your
| assumptions on my understanding of US media here do have
| the merit you think they do.
| gadders wrote:
| Project Veritas was recently raided by the FBI and had material
| taken as well.
| long_time_gone wrote:
| I think this is where the question of "what is a journalist?"
| comes into play. What legitimate journalism has Project
| Veritas done?
|
| Wikipedia makes them seem more like a political hit squad
| than legitimate journalists:
|
| == Project Veritas unsuccessfully attempted to mislead The
| Washington Post into publishing false information about the
| Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations in 2017; the Post won
| a Pulitzer Prize after uncovering the operation.==
|
| == In 2020, The New York Times published an expose detailing
| Project Veritas' use of spies recruited by Erik Prince, to
| infiltrate "Democratic congressional campaigns, labor
| organizations and other groups considered hostile to the
| Trump agenda".==
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas
|
| - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-
| prince-p...
| gadders wrote:
| Well Wikipedia and the NYT are hardly unbiassed sources,
| but for an independent left wing view I suggest you read
| what Glen Greenwald wrote:
|
| "This not-a-real-journalist tactic was and remains the
| primary theory used by those who justify the ongoing
| attempt to imprison Julian Assange. In demanding Assange's
| prosecution under the Espionage Act, Sen. Dianne Feinstein
| (D-CA) wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "Mr. Assange
| claims to be a journalist and would no doubt rely on the
| First Amendment to defend his actions." Yet the five-term
| Senator insisted: "but he is no journalist: He is an
| agitator intent on damaging our government, whose policies
| he happens to disagree with, regardless of who gets hurt."
|
| This not-a-real-journalist slogan was also the one used by
| both the CIA and the corporate media against myself and my
| colleagues in both the Snowden reporting we did in 2013, as
| well as the failed attempt to criminally prosecute me in
| 2020 for the year-long Brazil exposes we did: punishing
| them is not an attack on press freedom because they are not
| journalists and what they did is not journalism."
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/kyle-rittenhouse-project-
| ve...
| long_time_gone wrote:
| ==Well Wikipedia and the NYT are hardly unbiassed
| sources, but for an independent left wing view I suggest
| you read what Glen Greenwald wrote==
|
| I don't believe Glen Greenwald to be either unbiased or
| representative of the "independent left wing view". He
| seems to exist to encourage the exact type of strawman
| you just created.
| gadders wrote:
| What strawman would that be?
| long_time_gone wrote:
| The idea that he represents some "unbiased, independent
| left-wing view" is the strawman. The only people I've
| seen suggest that Glenn Greenwald represents the left are
| people on the right looking to make some political point.
|
| Could you point me to any of his articles about the 2020
| Senate Intelligence report? It seemed to prove many of
| the things he claimed were just conspiracy theories. I
| can't find any articles on his Substack about it, which
| is odd considering how much time he spent on Trump/Russia
| prior.
|
| -
| https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-
| sele...
| [deleted]
| koheripbal wrote:
| It discredits the entire effort to omit journalists who don't
| support your agenda.
|
| It really speaks to the heavy handed bias of the western main
| stream journalism industry.
| bombcar wrote:
| But we do classify others who wrote a few blog articles as
| "journalist" when they were/are much more obviously engaged in
| other activities.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| We also classify people who are spies, publish fake news or
| lie all the time as journalists as well.
|
| During the Church Committee it got public that the publishers
| of Time Henry Luce, New York Times' Sulzberger and so many
| journalists worked for the CIA:
|
| "Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the
| Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting
| System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of
| the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle
| Courier-Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service.
| Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the
| American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting
| Company, the Associated Press, United Press International,
| Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek
| magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald
| and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald-
| Tribune.
|
| By far the most valuable of these associations, according to
| CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and
| Time Inc."
|
| http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
|
| https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hear.
| ..
|
| https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-
| now/2015/05/06/40-y...
| RansomStark wrote:
| Of course not! We first world states would never do something
| so, so unseemly.
|
| Think about it, we would never do what Russia did and invade
| another country for self-serving reasons. No, we manufacture a
| humanitarian crisis and do our solemn duty and protect the
| weak. Or we bomb the bad guys from 100s of miles away and
| install a puppet government. So much more dignified, so much
| more polite.
|
| We would never jail a journalist, that's simply not done by
| freedom loving, democratic, first world nations. China does
| that, we don't do that! We simply have an abundance of traitors
| and terrorists masquerading as journalists and it's not just
| okay to jail or kill these ne'er-do-wells, it must be done to
| protect all lovers of freedom.
|
| No country has outlawed journalism, and I doubt any of the
| journalists on this list have been killed or jailed for the act
| of journalism, but instead for sedition, advocating for
| violence, supporting a terrorist organization, etc. etc. etc.
|
| I smell the whataboutism in this, but at the same time,
| everyone sees themselves as the hero of their own story, and
| I'm sure the governments of places like China and Burma see
| their actions as justified, as necessary to protect their
| people and their way of life.
|
| It's why we as states, and individuals, that proclaim the
| sanctity of a free press, must not simply call out the 'others'
| for their obvious attacks, but must also look inwards and hold
| ourselves to a higher standard than we hold others as a beacon
| to a better way.
|
| The problem with being a beacon is that each Julian Assange,
| each Bilal Adbul Kareem, dims the light. It proves that press
| freedom is relative and helps justify future attacks on press
| freedom.
| bvrmn wrote:
| Russian and Belarus government don't protect their people in
| any way.
| RansomStark wrote:
| I'm sorry but that is a absolute statement, verging on
| propaganda. Of course they protect their people. For
| example there is significant crime in Russia, but the
| Russian government fields a police force that enforces the
| laws of Russia, jailing murderers, thieves, etc [0].
|
| Of course there is corruption, of course some are above the
| law (but then is true the world over), and you need to play
| by the local rules, but that is not an absence of
| protection, although it may not be on par with what you
| might expect somewhere else.
|
| You also have to remember that the justification for the
| Russian invasion of Crimea was to protect the minority
| Russian population living in Crimea. So clearly the idea
| that the Russian government protects Russians is believed
| to be true within the state of Russia to the point where
| that idea can be exploited to justify military
| expansionism.
|
| We really need to get past the 'good guy' / 'bad guy'
| version of politics, the whole world is a shade of grey.
|
| [0] https://www.statista.com/topics/5509/crime-in-
| russia/#dossie...
| bvrmn wrote:
| I'm russian by the way. And we can get arrested for
| single like in social media. Please don't tell me about
| propaganda.
| RansomStark wrote:
| I've not see anyone in the UK arrested for a like, but
| there are enough examples of people arrested for a single
| tweet, or retweet [0][1][2].
|
| [0] https://nypost.com/2021/02/08/man-arrested-for-
| offensive-sir...
|
| [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/euro-2020
| -arrest...
|
| [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-
| offensive-...
| bvrmn wrote:
| Russians don't have an option to pay fee to be free. Our
| usual term for "incorrect" speech is starting from 3
| years.
| RansomStark wrote:
| > Russians don't have an option to pay fee to be free
|
| I'm not sure what you mean here, I assume you are
| referring to fines, as the UK doesn't have a paid bond, a
| fine is not a fee, it is a punishment. Fines are also a
| punishment in Russia so the idea should not be entirely
| alien to you. Here is a link that details the Russian
| Federations punishments for financial crimes, lost of
| fines in that area of Russian law [0].
|
| Like I said in my original post, you have to abide by the
| local rules. The Russian government viewing a like as a
| prohibited political speech and the associated punishment
| would be following the local rules.
|
| [0] https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/w-019-7324
| ?transi...
| [deleted]
| bvrmn wrote:
| > You also have to remember that the justification for
| the Russian invasion of Crimea was to protect the
| minority Russian population living in Crimea.
|
| The only justification was to get votes in future
| president elections. We call this phenomenon "Crimea
| consensus".
|
| Current Crimea population have no access to online
| financial instruments (including totally Russian banking
| systems) and this summer was a huge crisis with drinkable
| water. Russian government did nothing.
|
| You known nothing Ransom Stark.
| RansomStark wrote:
| > The only justification was to get votes in future
| president elections.
|
| That is not a justification. It might have been the
| reason for the expansion, but it wasn't the
| justification. You might have some better Russian sources
| but here is an annotated speech by Putin on the subject
| of Crimea [0].
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26652058
| bvrmn wrote:
| It's calculated that around 500 people is under arrest in
| Russia for political reasons. The only thing they did was
| to express disagreement with current policy.
| gdy wrote:
| You could say 500000 just as well. Where is the list?
| RansomStark wrote:
| I'll agree 500 is a lot, but you will find political
| prisoners all over the world, here is a list of US
| political prisoners from 2018 [0].
|
| [0] https://afgj.org/politicalprisonersusa
| [deleted]
| ineedasername wrote:
| Your right about Assange, and the really frustrating thing is
| that if he was a US citizen and did the exact same thing but
| published in a traditional media outlet then we probably
| wouldn't be having this conversation. US journalists have
| received all kinds of awful leaked information and not been
| subjected to this.
|
| Although discussion on assassination? Wow, wasn't aware of
| that.
|
| I'll grant that his organization _might_ have stepped into a
| gray area (apparently the US witness has credibility issues) if
| they provided Manning with a bit of guidance on how to get more
| information (unsuccessfully I think) but I don 't think that
| materially changes things all that much.
| pydry wrote:
| If Assange did precisely the same thing and exposed Russian
| or Chinese war crimes the idea that he was justly imprisoned
| for espionage because of the methods by which he did it would
| be universally mocked and condemned in the west.
|
| Conversely Roman Protasevich's airplane would be downed and
| he would already be in prison on charges of "fighting on the
| front line alongside neonazis" (evidence is that he did
| neonazi azov PR but probably did not fight), while the
| Russians condemned us for imprisoning a valiant journalist.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> Roman Protasevich's airplane_
|
| I don't know, Russia has a long tradition (with the USSR
| before it) to get creative with assassinations. Everything
| from poisoning tea with somewhat exotic isotopes to
| smearing the insides of underwear with neurotoxins, an
| icepick to the head, or simply gunning someone down in the
| street.
| pydry wrote:
| Not sure i see your point.
| [deleted]
| 1cvmask wrote:
| That's actually a EU/US style when they forcibly downed
| the plane in Austria of a hesd of state Evo Morales of
| Bolivia. They then orchestrated a coup against Evo
| Morales, who had non-white indigenous support and over 50
| percent, and replace him with a minority white
| supremacist regimes (5% vote).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incid
| ent
| stickfigure wrote:
| While the grounding incident is shameful, your
| description of Morales' political situation bares no
| resemblance to reality whatsoever:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales#2019_election_c
| ont...
|
| He was term limited out and nearly triggered a revolution
| by choosing to ignore the constitution. His argument was
| "term limits are a human rights violation according to
| the American Convention on Human Rights". If a president
| tried to do that here in the US, the streets would _run
| with blood_ , and rightfully so.
| pydry wrote:
| The Bolivian supreme court shot down the term limits
| constitutional amendment from 2009 and he still won the
| election coz he was well, the most popular candidate.
|
| That didn't fly with the Bolivian opposition who rioted.
| The US wasn't happy either. The real kicker was the
| military and police telling Morales to step down, though.
| Control over the police and military is the key
| determinant of who wins an attempted coup. He lost that.
|
| The US treats its own constitution with a sort of
| theoretical reverence, but e.g. the 4th amendment which
| existed for about 240 years was trashed completely and it
| barely merited comment. If there were violence (e.g. like
| the capital riots) because of, say, the 60 year old 22nd
| amendment being repealed by the supreme court it would be
| less about the reverence to the constitution and more
| about flagrant partisanship.
| pydry wrote:
| The absence of assange et al is notable but it's not a bad
| thing to be campaigning for the release of journalists in other
| countries.
| enriquto wrote:
| The conspicuous absence of Assange is indeed very bad for the
| purported campaign for the release of journalists "in other
| countries". Such other countries can now rightfully point to
| the hypocrisy of this campaign.
|
| What the CPJ is doing (omitting Assange in its list) is
| effectively harmful for the journalists jailed in other
| countries.
| pydry wrote:
| Doesn't seem like they've forgotten him
| https://cpj.org/tags/julianassange/
|
| They seem to be fighting his corner, they're just not
| designating him specifically as a journalist.
|
| I think demanding too much moral purity from campaigners is
| damaging. The perfect is very much the enemy of the good.
| pjc50 wrote:
| I think it's quite a serious problem that people only want to
| talk about one or two very specific journalists that fit into the
| pre-existing culture war, rather than look at this more broadly.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| This is very intentional. Attacking specific journalists and
| broadly claiming that the entire space is corrupt and
| manipulated is what increases the tolerance for things like
| this.
| koheripbal wrote:
| There's also an issue with defining "journalist".
|
| Some people being described as "journalists" are really
| activists who are actively taking part in the movement that's
| being targeted by the government.
|
| It doesn't excuse imprisoning them, but it muddies the water
| when it comes to defending them, and bloats the numbers in a
| way that make the problem more easy to dismiss.
|
| On the other hand - certifying journalists is a non-trivial
| problem.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The hard distinction between "journalist" and "activist"
| collapses if you look at, say, the UK government, where
| plenty of people have either been both or are married to a
| journalist.
| throwaway0070 wrote:
| What if someone is working as both a criminal and a journalist?
| We should not be letting criminals free just because they are
| also journalist. Journalist can be spy, separatist etc.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| The same argument could be made about diplomats. Would you be
| in favor if abolishing diplomatic immunity?
|
| If anything journalists need better protection. Of course they
| can be criminals, in which case they should be prosecuted. In
| countries without rule of law authorities can already arrest
| and imprison journalists for no good reason, so it doesn't make
| a difference. But in more civilized places, it should be made
| more difficult for police to detain journalists without court
| order. And we need programs that encourage more independent
| journalism. News media is in a serious reliability crisis.
| koheripbal wrote:
| This is an apples to oranges comparison.
|
| Diplomats are specifically immune because they prevent war.
| They are certified by the nation sponsoring them.
|
| Journalists are usually members of the country they are
| covering (particularly the ones who are jailed).
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Diplomats prevent war apart from the cases where they
| helped start them of course.
|
| Some may argue that journalism is at least as important as
| diplomacy, if not more so.
| vnchr wrote:
| Why should separatists be treated as criminals?
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