Number of journalists in jail reaches global high | Hacker News Reader

Number of journalists in jail reaches global high

cpj.org

323 pointssamizdis125 comments

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/

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Moreover, how is this really different from the CPS in the rest of the UK?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prosecution_Service

"The Attorney General for England and Wales superintends the CPS's work and answers for it in Parliament, although the Attorney General has no influence over the conduct of prosecutions, except when national security is an issue or for a small number of offences that require the Attorney General's permission to prosecute."

So yeah, it's much more arms-length than Scotland.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Usual problem - how do you define a journalist and how do you say whether they've been jailed for being a journalist or not.

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.

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?

"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.

"It's important to remember how vulgar early (and pre) 20th century journalism was. Largely opinion, hearsay and sensationalism."

Luckily today, that drastically improved.

It's a bit like "cyclist": someone currently engaging in an act of journalism, like a cyclist is someone riding a bike.

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.

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.

Don't we all comment on public affairs online?

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).

> 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?

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.

Yeah. I would make a simple common-sense addition, that this commenting is their primary source of income.

> people who ... comment on public affairs in any media

I mean... I do that, but I'm clearly not a journalist.

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.

Professional organizations are extremely effective gatekeeping mechanisms.

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?”.

If you deliver information to the public, that the public needs to know to make informed decisions your a journalist.

Yes, consider it a role and not a guild.

Wait, it's doxxing a witness a bad thing?

This seems like a legitimate crime.

Accusers, who in Scotland are afforded legal protection from being named in the press in cases of sexual assault.

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 ?

Not to notpick, but while Khashoggi was a US resident, he was not a US citizen.

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.

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!

His billionaire uncle Adnan also sold a yacht to Donald Trump.

How is that relevant?

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.

Hilarious is a strange adjective to use. So to you a person is defined largely by their extended family.

A “US journalist” who was a friend of Bin Laden, and worked with many Saudi royal family members from head of Intelligence Agency, Al Faisal to billionaire Al Waleed Bin Tallal "He also served with the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Agency, and possibly worked with the United States, during the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan." Wikipedia https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/from-travels-with-bin-l...

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...

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?

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.

Unless there was some other Jamal Khashoggi killed in a Saudi embassy, he was not a US citizen. Judging by the Tim Kaine's letter [1], he was not even a permanent resident of the US but a temporary worker on O-1 visa.

1. https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/connolly-kaine-l...

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?

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.

>> > 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.

The vast majority of this article consists of the exact thing you're claiming to ask for.

I wasn't criticizing this article, so I'm not sure how that's relevant?

> 4x vs 1%

Very true, but the _discrete_ counts of journalists involved are also miniscule, presenting (the aforementioned) large error bounds on exactly how great the driving force is on journalist incarcerations. 4% isn't meaningfully distinct from 1% given the actual data. It's not that unlike a fun xkcd [0]

[0] https://xkcd.com/1102/

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.

So jail is fine for people you disagree with?

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.

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?

Miller deserves censure, but what do you think makes her reporting criminal?

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.

Per capita naturally maps to the idea that people's behaviors are innate in aggregate -- given a particular context you would expect the same distribution of people to behave in a particular fashion (become journalists, become journalists who question authoritarianism at the wrong place and wrong time, have a fetish for murdering journalists, ...).

That isn't always a relevant idea, but it's a useful model that adequately describes a wide variety of phenomena. On the surface it seems applicable to journalist jailings; the count of journalists increases per capita, and if their behavior is independent of world population then you would expect (absent other information or constraining factors) for behaviors leading to imprisonment (not assigning blame -- this could be as simple as wrong-place-wrong-time "behaviors") to also increase per capita.

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.

I don't see how it is different from what Iran or China is doing! Wow

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?

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

Yeah, I would expect the number of journalists in jail to be at an all time high if the number of journalists (and, in fact, the number of humans) is at an all time high.

Not that it's good, of course.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What I am wondering is - how much corruption would be uncovered if journalists investigating corruption did not fear going to prison or dying?

Dated number for Brazil, which counts 3 imprisoned journalists in 2021, not 1.

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)

A supreme court whose members are engaged political activists is "jaw dropping" by itself.

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.

this is in no way a good thing, the world is supposed to be moving forward towards greater freedoms

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.

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

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...

But we do classify others who wrote a few blog articles as “journalist” when they were/are much more obviously engaged in other activities.

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...

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.

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.

>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.

Not sure i see your point.

I wasn't making a rebuttal to the GP, just noting that the Russian government doesn't always go through the trouble of a show trial before conviction.

That point shouldn't be taken as me ignoring similar tactics by other world powers, I'm aware of those too. The US planned & tried some creative assassinations against Castro. Realpolitik is messy and cynical and hypocritical.

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_incident

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_cont...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

>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.

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

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.

>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.

>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.

Project Veritas was recently raided by the FBI and had material taken as well.

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 exposé 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...

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 exposés 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...

==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.

What strawman would that be?

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...

He himself says he is on the left. I think you get two kinds of activists/journalists (on the left or right) - those that are right/left wing, and those that are hacks for the left/right wing party.

I would say Glenn Greenwald (and Rose MacGowan as another example) are not party hacks, and won't hesitate to call out their "own side" for wrong doing.

I provided a clear example of him not being "unbiased" or "independent" and you just moved right past it. When a report was released that negated his narrative, he ignored it and moved on to the next narrative. There are plenty more examples from which to choose, like how he completely accepted Tucker Carlson's claims of NSA spying without any of the evidence he constantly demands from his opponents (media, DNC, NSA, FBI).

==He himself says he is on the left.==

Which is my entire point. North Korea calls itself a democratic republic, fortunately we can look at their actions and conclude they are neither democratic nor a republic. Creating a persona of "being on the left" is different than actually being on the left.

That said, I agree with Greenwald on a many of his points (the US has an awful human rights record and props up multiple violent dictators). My problem is his constant whataboutism and deflecting everything back to Assange and Snowden. He has a clear bias and it's ok to accept that for what it is.

Anyways, my original claim was about the dubious classification of Project Veritas as journalism, not Greenwald.

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.

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