Tag: whistleblowers

Assange verdict branded as ‘travesty of justice’

Human rights and press freedom activists have fiercely condemned a UK court ruling paving the way for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be extradited to the US where he faces espionage charges.

The UK High Court on Friday granted the US’ request to extradite Assange, a request it had previously blocked due to Assange’s declining mental health. While the ruling is not final and can be appealed by Assange’s legal team, it brings the former WikiLeaks boss one step closer to a trial on US soil, where he faces a possible 175 years behind bars if convicted of espionage.

“These proceedings, and today’s ruling, are a black mark on the history of press freedom,” wrote Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “That United States prosecutors continued to push for this outcome is a betrayal of the journalistic principles the Biden administration has taken credit for celebrating,” Timm, who previously testified in Assange’s defense, continued.

Reporters Without Borders joined in the condemnation, with Secretary-General Christophe Deloire stating that Friday’s ruling “will prove historic for all the wrong reasons.”

“We fully believe that Julian Assange has been targeted for his contributions to journalism, and we defend this case because of its dangerous implications for the future of journalism and press freedom around the world,” Deloire wrote.

Assange’s plight has long been recognized by free speech and press freedom activists, and the deprivations endured by Assange during his years in detention have been criticized by human rights organizations. Amnesty International’s Europe Director Nils Muiznieks described the court’s decision as “a travesty of justice.”

Keep reading

Julian Assange Loses Appeal: British High Court Accepts U.S. Request to Extradite Him for Trial

In a London courtroom on Friday morning, Julian Assange suffered a devastating blow to his quest for freedom. A two-judge appellate panel of the United Kingdom’s High Court ruled that the U.S.’s request to extradite Assange to the U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges is legally valid.

As a result, that extradition request will now be sent to British Home Secretary Prita Patel, who technically must approve all extradition requests but, given the U.K. Government’s long-time subservience to the U.S. security state, is all but certain to rubber-stamp it. Assange’s representatives, including his fiancee Stella Morris, have vowed to appeal the ruling, but today’s victory for the U.S. means that Assange’s freedom, if it ever comes, is further away than ever: not months but years even under the best of circumstances.

In endorsing the U.S. extradition request, the High Court overturned a lower court’s ruling from January which had concluded that the conditions of U.S. prison — particularly for those accused of national security crimes — are so harsh and oppressive that there is a high likelihood that Assange would commit suicide. In January’s ruling, Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected all of Assange’s arguments that the U.S. was seeking to punish him not for crimes but for political offenses. But in rejecting the extradition request, she cited the numerous attestations from Assange’s doctors that his physical and mental health had deteriorated greatly after seven years of confinement in the small Ecuadorian Embassy where he had obtained asylum, followed by his indefinite incarceration in the U.K.

In response to that January victory for Assange, the Biden DOJ appealed the ruling and convinced Judge Baraitser to deny Assange bail and ordered him imprisoned pending appeal. The U.S. then offered multiple assurances that Assange would be treated “humanely” in U.S. prison once he was extradited and convicted. They guaranteed that he would not be held in the most repressive “supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado — whose conditions are so repressive that it has been condemned and declared illegal by numerous human rights groups around the world — nor, vowed U.S. prosecutors, would he be subjected to the most extreme regimen of restrictions and isolation called Special Administrative Measures (“SAMs”) unless subsequent behavior by Assange justified it. American prosecutors also agreed that they would consent to any request from Assange that, once convicted, he could serve his prison term in his home country of Australia rather than the U.S. Those guarantees, ruled the High Court this morning, rendered the U.S. extradition request legal under British law.

What makes the High Court’s faith in these guarantees from the U.S. Government particularly striking is that it comes less than two months after Yahoo News reported that the CIA and other U.S. security state agencies hate Assange so much that they plotted to kidnap or even assassinate him during the time he had asylum protection from Ecuador. Despite all that, Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde announced today that “the court is satisfied that these assurances” will serve to protect Assange’s physical and mental health.

Keep reading

Former Pfizer Employee Says COVID-19 Vaccine Causes Recipients to Become More Susceptible to the Virus

A former Pfizer employee, now working as a pharmaceutical marketing expert and biotech analyst, has provided evidence in a public meeting in September suggesting that Pfizer is aware that these shots can cause those vaccinated to be more prone to contracting COVID-19 and infections.  

Whistleblower Karen Kingston, the former Pfizer employee appeared together with medical freedom rights attorney Thomas Renz who presented the data in a public meeting at Clay Clark’s ReAwaken America Tour.

According to the whistleblower, “So, when they weren’t injected, their infection rate was 1.3% and when they got injected, it was 4.34%. It went up by over 300%. They had less infection when they had no protection. So, that’s a problem.”

Keep reading

CRT Whistleblower Banned From School Because Staff Have “Clinical Anxiety” Over Working With Him

Tony Kinnett, A public school administrator in Indiana, exposed that critical race theory is being taught in public schools.

According to Kinnett, what is being taught “suggests to all of our students who aren’t black or brown that they are responsible for centuries of horrible oppression that the United States has built.”

He added, “we do have critical race theory in how we teach.”

Now, he’s being punished.

Fox News reported:

A public school administrator in Indiana went viral after posting a video explaining that Indiana schools are teaching Critical Race Theory and intentionally deceiving concerned parents about whether or not their children are being subjected to it.

“When we tell you that our schools aren’t teaching Critical Race Theory, that it’s nowhere in our standards, that’s misdirection,” Indianapolis district science coordinator, instructional coach, and administrator Tony Kinnett posted on Twitter Thursday.

Kinnett explained that he is an administrator in the largest school district in Indiana which means he is present in “dozens of classrooms a week” so he “sees exactly what we are teaching our students.”

“We don’t have the quotes and theories as state standards per se,” Kinnett said. “We do have Critical Race Theory in how we teach.”

Kinnett continued, “We tell our teachers to treat our students differently based on color. We tell our students every problem is a result of ‘white men’ and that everything Western Civilization built is racist. Capitalism is a tool of white supremacy. Those are straight out of Kimberle Crenshaw’s main points verbatim in ‘Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement.’”

For exposing this he has been placed on leave and denied access to the school email and all buildings.

Keep reading

Leaked Documents Show Apple’s Attempts to Silence Whistleblowers

Tech giant Apple previously told the SEC that it does not attempt to silence employees in relation to workplace harassment or discrimination, but a whistleblower’s nondisclosure agreement is bringing new scrutiny to this claim.

Business Insider reports that on October 18, tech giant Apple made a number of statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) including claims that the company does not attempt to silence former employees or whistleblowers in relation to the company’s working conditions.

Now, a new nondisclosure agreement given to a company whistleblower is bringing greater scrutiny to these claims. Apple’s lawyers reportedly wanted former engineer Cher Scarlett to state only the following words upon her departure from the company: “After 18 months at Apple, I’ve decided it is time to move on and pursue other opportunities.”

This language was included in an extremely strict nondisclosure and non-disparagement agreement as part of a separation agreement that Apple offered Scarlett last month. Scarlett, who spent months working to improve pay equity at Apple allegedly resulting in harassment and intimidation from the company, said that when she received the nondisclosure agreement she was “shocked.”

She added: “In my mind, I should be able to say whatever I want as long as I’m not defaming Apple.” Scarlett refused to sign the gag order but was reminded of the agreement upon seeing Apple’s statements to the SEC.

Apple claimed that when it comes to NDAs “in the context of harassment, discrimination, and other unlawful acts,” its “policy is to not use such clauses.” Scarlett filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC on October 25 in which she claims Apple made “false statements or misleading statements” to the SEC.

Keep reading

New Files Detail Level Of Julian Assange’s Prison Torment

Documents provided exclusively to The Grayzone detail Canberra’s abandonment of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, and provide shocking details of his prison suffering… Was the government of Australia aware of the US Central Intelligence Agency plot to assassinate Julian Assange, an Australian citizen and journalist arrested and now imprisoned under unrelentingly bleak, harsh conditions in the UK?

Why have the country’s elected leaders refused to publicly advocate for one of its citizens, who has been held on dubious charges and subjected to torture by a foreign power, according to UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer? What does Canberra know about Julian’s fate and when did it know it?

The Grayzone has obtained documents revealing that the Australian government has since day one been well-aware of Julian’s cruel treatment inside London’s maximum security Belmarsh Prison, and has done little to nothing about it. It has, in fact, turned a cold shoulder to the jailed journalist despite hearing his testimony of conditions “so bad that his mind was shutting down.”

Not only has Canberra failed to effectively challenge the US and UK governments overseeing Assange’s imprisonment and prosecution; as these documents expose in stark detail, it appears to have colluded with them in the flagrant violation of an Australian citizen’s human rights, while doing its best to obscure the reality of his situation from the public.

Keep reading

ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN skip DOJ whistleblower revealing ‘threat tag’ targeting parents at school board meetings

The media have largely ignored the explosive allegation made by a DOJ whistleblower about the counterterrorism targeting of outraged parents that appears to undercut sworn testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

On Tuesday, a whistleblower revealed the FBI created a “threat tag” to aid in tracking alleged threats against school board officials, teachers, and staff as part of its implementation of a controversial memo issued by Garland last month.

An Oct. 20 internal email from the FBI’s criminal and counterterrorism divisions, released Tuesday by House Republicans, instructed agents to apply the threat tag “EDUOFFICIALS” to all investigations and assessments of threats directed specifically at education officials.

“The purpose of the threat tag is to help scope this threat on a national level, and provide an opportunity for comprehensive analysis of the threat picture for effective engagement with law enforcement partners at all levels,” the email stated.

The email also directs FBI agents to consider whether the criminal activity being investigated is in violation of federal law and what the potential “motivation” is behind it. 

Keep reading

She told the truth about Wuhan. Now she is near death in a Chinese prison.

China committed one act of barbarity when it prosecuted the citizen journalist Zhang Zhan for her revealing look at Wuhan in the first stages of what became a global pandemic. Ms. Zhang was sentenced in December to four years in prison on the specious charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which China uses to suffocate free speech. Now her health has deteriorated, and relatives say she is near death. China will compound the barbarity unless it sets her free and saves her life.

Ms. Zhang, a former lawyer, made an indelible contribution to our understanding of what happened in Wuhan. Over three months there, she posted 122 YouTube videos, the first of which she titled “My claim for the right of free speech.” When she got to Wuhan on Feb. 1, 2020, she later recalled, “There was not a single soul. It felt as if I stumbled on a movie set right after the shooting was over and everybody has left the set. The world didn’t feel real.” Her videos confirmed chaos inside a hospital. Ordered to stop filming, she moved around the city in February and March, posting what she witnessed.

Her arrest and imprisonment are part of China’s larger coverup. In December 2019, officials in Wuhan attempted to hide information about the outbreak of a new disease; when eight doctors expressed concern about the sickness, they were reprimanded. A second coverup occurred in early January 2020, when top Chinese officials remained silent, although they knew of human transmission of the virus, and informed the public only on Jan. 20. A third coverup has involved their repeated attempts to frustrate investigation into the origins of the pandemic and their campaign to blame it on sources outside China.

Keep reading

‘Another nail in the coffin of democracy’: Tulsi Gabbard slams Biden administration’s ‘crusade’ against Julian Assange

Former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has called out the “Biden-Garland administration” for its “vindictive retaliatory crusade against Julian Assange,” warning it was a slippery slope to the demise of American democracy.

“If they succeed in [extraditing Assange], this will be yet another nail in the coffin of democracy here in our country and around the world,” Gabbard warned in a video posted to social media on Thursday. 

The Democratic representative slammed what she referred to as the “increasingly authoritarian Biden-Garland administration,” dodging any mention of Vice President Kamala Harris in favor of Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Gabbard’s dislike of the VP is well known and her debate-stage takedown of Harris’ controversial record as attorney general of California is pointed to by some as the moment the senator’s own presidential campaign went up in flames.

In its continued persecution of Assange, Gabbard declared, the Biden administration was “doubling down on its crusade against our constitutionally protected rights,” specifically those protected by the First Amendment: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. 

Keep reading