Media Malpractice: Blacking Out Genocide and Disenfranchising Palestinian Pain

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Original article by ZACK KALDVEER and FATINAH JUDEH republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Pro-Palestinians in New York City join “Shut down colonial feminism” rally in front of Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s office, U.N. Women office and New York Times building on Friday, January 12, 2024. (Photo: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Now more than ever, Americans deserve objective, diverse, trustworthy, and contextualized coverage of Gaza.

America’s corporate media serves as a key cog in the machinery of genocide.

Rather than providing the kind of objective, fact-based reporting integral to an informed citizenry, our mainstream press bombards us with explicit and implicit biases, false narratives, dehumanization, and misdirection, serving to stifle public dissent and justify, rationalize, and conceal the systematic oppression and extermination of the people of Gaza.

As dependable propaganda tools for Israel’s aggression, our news censors truth not only by what they choose to cover and how they spin it—but what they deliberately omit. This orchestrated disinformation campaign helps ensure the ongoing and unconditional support of the U.S. government and its continued role as Israel’s dutiful genocidal benefactor.

This isn’t war. It’s mass murder. But this isn’t what most Americans are watching, reading, and hearing on the news.

How does a Palestinian-American with family in the region reconcile the disconnect between “reality” and the “story” our press is “telling”?

Consider a day in the life in Gaza: Palestinian schools, hospitals, universitiesplaces of worship, and heritage sites are being systematically destroyed. Civilians, nearly half children, are being murdered on a mass scale (over 30,000 dead, nearly half children). The calculated deprivation of food and water is literally starving families to death. Babies are being born into a living hell, with screams of terror, the ear-piercing explosions of limb-searing U.S.-made bombs, and the painful moans of their parents among the first sounds they hear. The electricity powering the oxygen machines keeping sick patients alive cut off, leaving them to struggle to gulp each of their final breaths. Amputations of children’s limbs without anesthesia with barbed wire have become obscenely routine. Broken, but alive, Palestinian bodies riddled with shrapnel require each piece to be pulled from their flesh. Hungry children are found dead with single Israeli sniper shots to the head because they made the mistake of seeking out food from an aid truck. The deliberate decimation of Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure has left families unable to communicate with one another, or with the world, allowing daily atrocities to become increasingly invisible and unreported.

For those fighting for survival in Gaza, there is nowhere left to run, nowhere to turn, and no one to turn to. This isn’t war. It’s mass murder. But this isn’t what most Americans are watching, reading, and hearing on the news.

American Media’s Israel Bias and Censoring Journalists

Quantitative analyses conducted by The InterceptFairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and an independent collective of U.S. journalists, writers, and media makers of coverage in The York TimesWashington Post, and Los Angeles Times lay bare our news media’s dramatic pro-Israel bias. The litany of press failings are disturbing in their sheer scope and intention. Findings included the systematic undermining of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim perspectives and the invocation of inflammatory language that reinforces Islamophobic and racist tropes. Misinformation spread by Israeli officials is commonly printed along with consistent failures to scrutinize Israel’s indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza. Israeli deaths are disproportionately emphasized, and more humanizing language is used to describe them than Palestinians. This is to name just a few.

Case-in-point: In what’s now being called the Flour Massacre, at least 112 Palestinians in Gaza were killed and hundreds more injured after Israeli forces opened fire on civilians while waiting for food from desperately needed aid trucks. Leading news media descriptions referred to the slaughter as “food aid deaths,” “food aid-related deaths,” “chaotic incident,” and “reported killed in crowd near Gaza aid convoy.”

Do these headlines properly convey the massacre of starving civilians?

The New York Times: “As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll

The Washington Post: Chaotic Aid Delivery Turns Deadly as Israeli, Gazan Officials Trade Blame

The Guardian“Biden Says Gaza Food Aid-Related Deaths Complicate Cease-Fire Talks”

BBC: “More Than 100 Killed as Crowd Waits for Aid, Hamas-Run Health Ministry Says

Sadly, censored journalists who speak out are paying the price. The Los Angeles Times recently banned 38 journalists from covering Gaza for at least three months after they signed an open letter criticizing Western newsrooms for their biased reporting on Israel and their role in dehumanizing rhetoric that has served to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

But it’s not just print that is to blame. The Guardian reported the accounts of six CNN staffers from multiple newsrooms, including more than a dozen internal memos and emails, finding that daily news decisions are shaped by a flow of directives from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta that have set strict pro-Israel guidelines on coverage. Every story on the conflict must be cleared by the Jerusalem bureau—which has close ties with Israel’s military—before broadcast or publication.

In light of these exposes, it’s no wonder then, that after four months of some of the most indiscriminate and brutal attacks on civilians in human history, a global public outcry, and overwhelming support for a cease-fire in the United Nations, the U.S. continues to fund the slaughter and block international efforts to end it.

Holding Media Accountable, Supporting Journalists, and Promoting Independent News

There is no shortage of ways people can help bring this nightmare to an end. Among them should include pressure campaigns on the corporate media to commit to journalistic integrity and truth. Outlets like CNN and The New York Times have a unique opportunity to educate millions by providing rigorous, evidence-based reporting that could serve to end the ongoing genocide—rather than enable it.

Petitions to hold CNN and The New York Times accountable deserve support. But petitions aren’t enough. Direct actions (including protests, boycotts, and sit-ins) and strategies that target these institutions’ advertisers, revenues, and reputational interests are also required.

Israel’s ongoing genocidal annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza will be reviled by history—rendering the once solemn rallying cry “Never again!” cruelly hollow.

Over 122 journalists, more than any war in history, have been killed in Gaza. Journalists seeking to put their own lives at risk to report the truth must be protected. And journalists who have stories to tell about the censorship they have endured must be encouraged to tell them, anonymously if necessary.

Finally, independent, non-corporate news serves as dependable sources of fact-based information and a powerful check on the official narratives of their corporate counterparts. Now more than ever, Americans deserve objective, diverse, trustworthy, and contextualized coverage of Gaza. Thankfully, these alternatives exist, and need our support, from Pacifica radio to a long list of independent news sites.

Israel’s ongoing genocidal annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza will be reviled by history—rendering the once solemn rallying cry “Never again!” cruelly hollow. “Never again” is not meant to be a phrase of remembrance, but a call to action. Let’s not let the corporate media forget it.

Original article by ZACK KALDVEER and FATINAH JUDEH republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingMedia Malpractice: Blacking Out Genocide and Disenfranchising Palestinian Pain

PM warned not to stir up fear of peace demos

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/pm-warned-not-to-stir-up-fear-of-peace-demos

Protesters during a National March for Palestine in central London, January 13, 2024

JEWISH campaigners accused the government of exploiting fear for its own political purposes today.

The backlash came after the government’s counter-extremism commissioner said London has become a “no-go zone for Jews” during weekend pro-Palestinian marches. Around 145,000 Jews live in the city.

Robin Simcox, previously a Margaret Thatcher fellow at the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, said protests were “becoming ever more vociferous” in an article in the Daily Telegraph.

He said that the government had “more power to tackle extremism than it sometimes thinks” and that it should “move faster, be bolder and be willing to accept higher legal risk if it means implementing policies that keep us safer.”

In response, Downing Street said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was taking the concerns “extremely seriously.”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/pm-warned-not-to-stir-up-fear-of-peace-demos

dizzy: Football or rugby matches are also no-go zones on weekends for others. It’s a matter of simply staying out of the way of huge numbers, not applying apartheid by banning sporting events at the behest of a privileged class.

Continue ReadingPM warned not to stir up fear of peace demos

Judgment day for free press

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/judgment-day-for-free-press

People protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London, to step up demands for the release from prison of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, June 24, 2023

Assange’s appeal against extradition to the US set to begin

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange’s appeal against extradition to the United States will be heard in the High Court on Tuesday in a final leg of the legal battle for free journalism.

Mr Assange, who exposed US war crimes in Iraq and leaked thousands of military secrets, will face court on Tueday and Wednesday.

He is wanted by US authorities on 18 counts, relating to WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents.

Mr Assange has been in Belmarsh prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019 where he was given political asylum for nearly seven years.

If Mr Assange is denied permission to appeal, he will be at risk of extradition to the US and prosecution under the century-old 1917 Espionage Act, and faces a 175-year prison sentence.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/judgment-day-for-free-press

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Global media freedom at risk as Julian Assange back in UK court facing possible extradition to USA

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In advance of Julian Assange’s next hearing in the UK courts ahead of his possible extradition to the US, Amnesty International reiterates concerns that Assange faces the risk of serious human rights violations if extradited and warns of a profound ‘chilling effect’ on global media freedom.

“The risk to publishers and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance. Should Julian Assange be sent to the US and prosecuted there, global media freedoms will be on trial, too,” said Julia Hall, Amnesty International’s expert on counter-terrorism and criminal justice in Europe.

The US must drop the charges under the espionage act against Assange and bring an end to his arbitrary detention in the UK.

Julia Hall, Amnesty International’s expert on counter-terrorism and criminal justice in Europe

“Assange will suffer personally from these politically-motivated charges and the worldwide media community will be on notice that they too are not safe. The public’s right to information about what their governments are doing in their name will be profoundly undermined. The US must drop the charges under the espionage act against Assange and bring an end to his arbitrary detention in the UK.”  

If Julian Assange loses the permission to appeal, he will be at risk of extradition to the US and prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917, a wartime law never intended to target the legitimate work of publishers and journalists. He could face up to 175 years in jail. On the less serious charge of computer fraud, he could receive a maximum of five years.

Assange would also be at high risk of prolonged solitary confinement in a maximum security prison. Although the US has offered ‘diplomatic assurances’ to the UK, allegedly guaranteeing his safety if imprisoned, the authorities’ assurances include so many caveats that they cannot be considered reliable.  

“The US assurances cannot be trusted. Dubious assurances that he will be treated well in a US prison ring hollow considering that Assange potentially faces dozens of years of incarceration in a system well known for its abuses, including prolonged solitary confinement and poor health services for inmates. The US simply cannot guarantee his safety and well-being as it has also failed to do for the hundreds of thousands of people currently imprisoned in the US,” said Julia Hall.

Worldwide threat to media freedom

If Julian Assange is extradited, it will establish a dangerous precedent wherein the US government could target for extradition publishers and journalists around the world. Other countries could take the US example and follow suit. 

“Julian Assange’s publication of documents disclosed to him by sources as part of his work with Wikileaks mirrors the work of investigative journalists. They routinely perform the activities outlined in the indictment: speaking with confidential sources, seeking clarification or additional documentation, and receiving and disseminating official and sometimes classified information,” said Julia Hall.

News and publishing outlets often and rightfully publish classified information to inform on matters of utmost public importance. Publishing information that is in the public interest is a cornerstone of media freedom. It’s also protected under international human rights law and should not be criminalized.

“The US’ efforts to intimidate and silence investigative journalists for uncovering governmental misconduct, such as revealing war crimes or other breaches of international law, must be stopped in its tracks.

“Sources such as legitimate whistle blowers who expose governmental wrongdoing to journalists and publishers must also be free to share information in the public interest. They will be far more reluctant to do so if Julian Assange is prosecuted for engaging in legitimate publishing work.

It’s not just Julian Assange in the dock. Silence Assange and others will be gagged

Julia Hall

“This is a test for the US and UK authorities on their commitment to the fundamental tenets of media freedom that underpin the rights to freedom of expression and the public’s right to information. It’s not just Julian Assange in the dock. Silence Assange and others will be gagged,” said Julia Hall.

Background:

The High Court in the UK has confirmed a two-day hearing on 20 and 21 February 2024. The outcome will determine whether Julian Assange will have further opportunities to argue his case before the UK courts or if he will have exhausted all appeals in the UK, leading to the extradition process or an application to the European Court of Human Rights.

sourced from an Amnesty International press release

Continue ReadingGlobal media freedom at risk as Julian Assange back in UK court facing possible extradition to USA

Elon Musk accused of silencing marginalised workers after deletion of union’s social media account

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/elon-musk-accused-silencing-marginalised-workers-after-deletion-unions-social-media

Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk during the opening plenary at the AI safety summit, at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, November 1, 2023

BILLIONAIRE Elon Musk was accused of silencing the voices of marginalised workers today after grassroots union United Voices of the World announced that their Twitter account had been officially deleted.

The account, which had amassed over 20,000 followers, was suspended in December, erasing a decade of work.

The platform ignored multiple requests to restore the account, which had been used to amplify the voices of low-paid, migrant and precarious workers represented by the union.

Union general secretary Petros Elia said: “Elon Musk isn’t interested in free speech for workers.

“Under his ownership, Twitter has reinstated the accounts of neonazis and racists while silencing workers’ and progressive voices.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/elon-musk-accused-silencing-marginalised-workers-after-deletion-unions-social-media

Continue ReadingElon Musk accused of silencing marginalised workers after deletion of union’s social media account

Morning Star: Starmer’s promise of national reconciliation is a mask for worsening repression

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-starmers-promise-national-reconciliation-mask-worsening-repression

Starmer’s project is to reconcile a turbulent people to a system that neither represents nor serves them. It’s a restoration project, an attempt to put a decade of political unrest behind us and reconcile the ruled to their rulers.

That explains the horror of “protest” politics, the paranoid vetting of candidates for public office and the determination to return decision-making to a narrow professional caste, whether by preventing ordinary party members from choosing their representatives or by establishing new fiscal oversight bodies to stop elected politicians departing from Treasury and Bank of England orthodoxy, however disastrous that orthodoxy is proving.

His authoritarian instincts, visible in his harsh record as director of public prosecutions, have been on full display as a Labour leader who meets every dissenting voice with silencing orders, bans on debate, suspensions and rigged disciplinary procedures.

Britain is on this trajectory already: Tory governments since 2019 have dramatically curtailed protest rights, while state and corporate censorship are getting worse.

But Labour’s complete commitment to that agenda — and Starmer is on record saying he will maintain Tory policing laws — is a threat the left has yet to take seriously enough. Capitalism in Britain now maintains itself through the steady dismantling of our democratic rights.

Starmer’s appeal for an end to class conflict may be couched in the language of reconciliation but its reality means disarming citizens and working-class organisations oppressed by an ever more authoritarian state. It is a project that must be resisted to the hilt.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-starmers-promise-national-reconciliation-mask-worsening-repression

Continue ReadingMorning Star: Starmer’s promise of national reconciliation is a mask for worsening repression

Palestine campaigners censored from using ‘apartheid’ in Labour conference

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/palestine-campaigners-censored-using-apartheid-labour-conference

PALESTINE rights campaigners have urged Labour to “confront the reality” of Israel’s crime of apartheid rather than to avoid naming it following the party’s decision to censor the terminology.

Labour administrators refused to allow Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PCS) to use the word apartheid in the group’s annual party conference stall or fringe meeting description in the event brochures, the group said today.

PCS said that when it asked why, Labour replied it would not publish content that “we believe to be detrimental to the party.”

PCS director Ben Jamal said that injustice “cannot be tackled unless you are prepared to name it.”

He said: “A Labour government should be fully committed to the upholding of international law and the principle that respect for human rights should be central to all relations with foreign states, including trade relations.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/palestine-campaigners-censored-using-apartheid-labour-conference

Continue ReadingPalestine campaigners censored from using ‘apartheid’ in Labour conference

Skwawkbox Exclusive: Starmer regime removes all Corbyn-era videos but one

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Image of Keir Starmer with the ghostly residual appearance of Jeremy Corbyn. Image thanks to the Skwawkbox.
Airbrushed out: Starmer’s Stalinesque move betrays insecurity and vacuum. Image thanks to the Skwawkbox.

Original article republished from The Skwawkbox.

Starmer cannot allow voters to see what might have been or how he is outshone by his predecessor

Keir Starmer’s cowardly purge of the Labour left has extended even to the party’s YouTube page – every Jeremy Corbyn-era video but one (Corbyn’s 2019 conference speech) has been deleted from the channel in an attempt to airbrush Corbyn out of history, leaving a staggering nine-year gap in the video record:

Labour's censored YouTube videos. Image thanks to the Skwawkbox.
Nine years of party videos… gone

Starmer is right to be afraid: Corbyn’s sincerity, authenticity and actual vision for the UK backed by actual policies shed a merciless light on the craven, empty and deceitful moral vacuum that is Keir Starmer.

The move is reminiscent of the infamous image in which Soviet leader Josef Stalin had a lackey who had fallen out of favour airbrushed out of a photograph as if he had never existed:

Image of Keir Starmer with the ghostly residual appearance of Jeremy Corbyn. Image thanks to the Skwawkbox.

The UK has been robbed of the prospect of real change for the better, for the many – and has had an Establishment ventriloquist’s dummy foisted on it instead, to create the clearly inauthentic illusion of choice in this broken democracy.

And the spinelessness and dishonesty of Starmer and his ghoulish hangers-on know no bounds.

Original article republished from The Skwawkbox.

Continue ReadingSkwawkbox Exclusive: Starmer regime removes all Corbyn-era videos but one

When governments can decide what journalists say, we should all be worried

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Original article by Peter Geoghegan republished from openDemcracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

OPINION: UK National Security Bill is latest in long line of cynical attempts to maintain secrecy and stifle journalism

Journalism, as George Orwell famously said, is “printing what someone else does not want printed”.

But what happens if the someone who doesn’t want your story printed also has the power to put you in prison?

That sounds like the kind of question journalists in places like Iran or North Korea might have to contend with. But it’s a dilemma someone like me, living and working in the UK, could be asking soon, too.

The National Security Bill currently going through Westminster contains a clause saying that “providing” information that may “materially assist a foreign intelligence service” can be punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Here at openDemocracy we pride ourselves on publishing stories that the government and others in power would much rather never see the light of day.

We’ve revealed how the Treasury helped Putin’s sanctioned warlord to sue a British journalist in London, how Russian oligarchs have bankrolled the Conservatives, how dark money flows into British politics and more.

Investigative journalists like us at openDemocracy often receive sensitive information. Could our reporting be used by foreign powers to embarrass the British government?

The honest answer is ‘yes’. But does saving our government’s blushes mean the public shouldn’t know that the British army was aware of the dangers of ‘Snatch Land Rovers’, associated with the deaths of over 34 British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or how the UK’s corporate secrecy vehicles are used to hide oligarchs’ ill-gotten gains?

Crucially, Sharpe’s promise that journalists won’t get caught in the security bill’s dragnet will not be enshrined in law

In recent days, Rishi Sunak’s ministers have made some minor amendments to the National Security Bill in the face of organised opposition by openDemocracy and other media outlets. (A huge thank you to the more than 8,000 oD readers who sent emails to their MPs demanding changes to the bill.)

The government has been at pains to say we shouldn’t be worried. In the Lords this week, one minister, Andrew Sharpe, said that it is “almost inconceivable that genuine journalism will be caught within the threshold for criminal activity”.

But it’s the “almost” that should worry all of us.

The National Security Bill replaces older secrecy legislation, and is supposed to counter the activity of hostile foreign powers in the UK. But the bill’s provisions are so wide-ranging that it is not hard to see how journalists – and whistleblowers – could be caught by it.

Crucially, Sharpe’s promise that journalists won’t get caught in the security bill’s dragnet will not be enshrined in law.

Why can’t we just trust our leaders when they say that hacks like us have nothing to worry about?

Well, their track record isn’t good. This is a government that ran an Orwellian ‘Clearing House’ that vetted Freedom of Information requests from journalists and others. When we revealed what was happening, Michael Gove, the minister in charge, smeared us and our journalism.

The Clearing House has now been closed down, but journalism is still under threat.

London’s libel courts are still being used by the world’s rich and powerful to silence public criticism. Last year, Dominic Raab pledged to legislate to end so-called “strategic litigation against public participation” cases, or SLAPPs.

But Raab’s rhetoric has not turned into reality. openDemocracy is currently subject to a SLAPP case, as are many of our journalistic allies.

Rishi Sunak has allotted no parliamentary time for anti-Slapp legislation – which means it’s very unlikely to happen. Should we be surprised when one of Sunak’s own appointments, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, issued legal threats against journalists and campaigners who asked questions about his tax affairs?

Sunak and his ministers are fond of saying how much they care about free speech and the freedom of the press. But when the government gets to decide what information journalists can – and can’t – report, we should all be worried.

Original article by Peter Geoghegan republished from openDemcracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingWhen governments can decide what journalists say, we should all be worried

Because ‘Publishing Is Not a Crime,’ Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Assange Charges

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Original article from Common Dreams republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” The Guardian, The New York Times, and other media outlets warned.

JAKE JOHNSONNovember 28, 2022

The five major media outlets that collaborated with WikiLeaks in 2010 to publish explosive stories based on confidential diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department sent a letter Monday calling on the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange, who has been languishing in a high-security London prison for more than three years in connection with his publication of classified documents.

“Twelve years after the publication of ‘Cablegate,’ it is time for the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets,” reads the letter signed by the editors and publishers of The New York TimesThe GuardianLe MondeDer Spiegel, and El País. “Publishing is not a crime.”

The letter comes as Assange, the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, is fighting the U.S. government’s attempt to extradite him to face charges of violating the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. If found guilty on all counts, Assange would face a prison sentence of up to 175 years for publishing classified information—a common journalistic practice.

Press freedom organizations have vocally warned that Assange’s prosecution would pose a threat to journalists the world over, a message that the five newspapers echoed in their letter Monday.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” the letter reads. “Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.”

The “Cablegate” leak consisted of more than 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that offered what the Times characterized as “an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world.”

Among other revelations, the documents confirmed that the U.S. carried out a 2009 airstrike in Yemen that killed dozens of civilians. Cables released by WikiLeaks showed that then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh assured U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus that the Yemeni government would “continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.”

The media outlets’ letter notes that “the Obama-Biden administration, in office during the WikiLeaks publication in 2010, refrained from indicting Assange, explaining that they would have had to indict journalists from major news outlets too.”

“Their position placed a premium on press freedom, despite its uncomfortable consequences,” the letter continues. “Under Donald Trump, however, the position changed. The [Department of Justice] relied on an old law, the Espionage Act of 1917 (designed to prosecute potential spies during World War One), which has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster.”

Despite dire warnings from rights groups, the Biden administration has decided to continue pursuing Assange’s extradition and prosecution.

In June, the United Kingdom formally approved the U.S. extradition request even after a judge warned extradition would threaten Assange’s life.

Assange’s legal team filed an appeal in August, alleging that the WikiLeaks founder is “being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions.”

Original article from Common Dreams republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Additional video is a little dated: Jun 17, 2022 and refers to former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Continue ReadingBecause ‘Publishing Is Not a Crime,’ Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Assange Charges