Slashdot Mirror
Assange Handed Sydney Peace Medal
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."
contrary to what you arrogant and self-centered right wingers in america tend to think, the people around the world think good of assange since he is exposing the SHIT that u.s. perpetrates around the world, ranging from bullying germany to prevent prosecution of the cia agents who kidnapped german citizens and tortured them in syria, to bullying spanish government to put out 3 strikes law to censor people for american copyright interests.
i find your disgust at exposition of such information, disgusting.
now scram.
Read radical news here
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.
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!".
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
The Sweden "court system" for this issue is almost a regular medieval political circus. 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 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 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 - and perhaps some Swedish rethinking their leaders (although the last election shows this to be unlikely).