Assange Handed Sydney Peace Medal 199
hihihihi writes "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation's Gold Medal for 'exceptional courage in the pursuit of human rights.' It is only the fourth time in the organization's 14-year history that the prize for extraordinary achievement in promoting peace with justice has been given out. Previous winners are Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Japanese Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda. Foundation director Professor Stuart Rees accused the Australian government of demonizing Mr Assange and aiding US efforts to behave like a totalitarian state."
yes (Score:5, Insightful)
i find your disgust at exposition of such information, disgusting.
now scram.
Awarding the idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Iraq war documents, for example.
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:3, Insightful)
leaked diplomatic cables have been instrumental in the "arab spring"
Re:WHO THE FUCK DOES HE THINK HE IS? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you think every other government doesn't do exactly the same thing, then you're a fucking retard.
Everyone hiding secrets doesn't make hiding secrets the right thing to do, so you gotta start somewhere. Also, I don't think he claimed that nobody else was doing it.
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Showing how great of pains the US government goes through to prevent us from learning that their military doesn't live up to their propaganda.
And if you think every other government doesn't do exactly the same thing, then you're a fucking retard.
There is a scale of 1 to 10. Most countries is somewhere around 3, but USA, North Korea, Libya and some other countries is set to 11.
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Add to this that the US has dragged other nations into their criminal wars. More people have died at the hands of US forces committing war crimes than any other nation over the last two decades.
Again, this is not to say other countries aren't doing this, but to claim that taking down Sadam for gassing 30 000 people by killing more than 10 fold people is fine is just wrong.
I know I'll get modded down by the US patriots, but war crimes are war crimes. No escaping it, no matter how just you think they are.
Bradley Manning? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm just saying.
Re:Hateful and Evil Organization (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a big difference between hating Jews and hating an oppressive regime. Not all Jews support Israel. I think that deserves to be pointed out every once in a while.
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
What about them?
Maybe I got it all wrong, but in amongst all the info exposed, didn't US forces kill a couple of Reuters reporters? Didn't they lie about it? Didn't they say there wasn't any film of the incident when approached (FOI request) for the footage? Didn't that footage then miraculously appear? Ditto for a number of 'friendly fire' incidents?
Accidents happen, and when you're at war they can be bad, but you don't lie and cover it up or it's far more difficult to work out what happened to try and stop it happening again! It's like a four year old saying "it wasn't me", then wikileaks pointing out the chocolate all around your mouth!
Now the US (and others!) are trying to make Wikileaks out to be the bad guy - continuing the analogy, the US is saying "yer, but Wikileaks smells of wee!".
Re:Manning? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to disagree with you on Manning being a hero, but why should the criteria be how much they "risked" rather than how much they accomplished? Wikileaks has released more than just Manning's material.
Re:Hateful and Evil Organization (Score:4, Insightful)
But it also kicks families out of the house where they've lived for generations. It built a wall that separates farmers from their fields. Israel goes out of its way to disrupt the lives of normal Palestinian families. It's not oppressive to the people it likes, but it is oppressive to the people it oppresses. The fact that there are also people who are not oppressed by the Israeli government doesn't change this simple fact.
Swedish Court System - A medieval political circus (Score:5, Insightful)
The Sweden "court system" for this issue is almost a regular medieval political circus [wlcentral.org]. Look at what Sweden has all but promised Assange in his "fair" trial: Solitary confinement before trial without access to his lawyers. Closed door secret court - no one will hear let alone be able to refute any testimonies. Three of the four judges to be (or appointed by) politicians! Not to forget that the case was closed [radsoft.net] before being reopened by, you guessed it, a politician - apparently because they say the girls did not know they were being raped at the time and it is up-to their court of laypersons to decide (I kid you not, crazy system Sweden has, huh). The rabbit hole of deceit by Swedish authorities goes way deeper than most would like to see however - in this case starting with the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, lawyer Mr Claes Borgström and their relationship with the Swedish Democrat party [justiceforassange.com] which stands to gain from this circus.
Who in the right mind would not try to fight for a fairer trial than this? I don't care if it is Assange or anyone else, Sweden should be ashamed of these "courts", if you can even call them that.
The only good thing coming out of this abuse is the increased scrutiny on the very broken European extradition laws [wlcentral.org] - and perhaps some Swedish rethinking their leaders (although the last election shows this to be unlikely).