Tag: Julian Assange

Celebrating Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s Legacy, Part 4

Posted on by kathiemm

 

Martin Luther King Jr, at a press conference / World Telegram & Sun photo by Walter Albertin, 8 June 1964. No known copyright restrictions

One Hundred Contemporary Exemplars of Peace Advocacy and Activism: The First Fifty

by Kathie Malley-Morrison & Anthony J. Marsella

During this week, while we are honoring one of America’s greatest heroes, a man who personified many of the highest ethical values for which human beings can strive, we want to honor other activists promoting peace, social justice, and preservation of the earth. We are proposing 100 names — 50 today and 50 in the next post — for your consideration.    It is a diverse list–with men and women from a broad range of nations,  a variety of religious faiths, and a rainbow of skin colors.

Some of the names are likely to be familiar to you; others may not be.  You can click on each name to learn about that person and what he or she has done to earn our recognition.  Please send us your own nominations for membership in this group of leaders, with links to sites describing their efforts.

Here are our first 50 names; 

  1.  Abdul-Jabbar: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
  2.  Adams: David Adams
  3. Albertini: James Albertini
  4.  Assange: Julian Assange
  5.  Atzmon: Gilad Atzmon
  6.  Avnery: Uri Avnery
  7.  Bacevich: Andrew Bacevich
  8. Baroud: Ramzy Baroud
  9.  Benjamin: Medea Benjamin
  10.  Berrigan: Frida Berrigan
  11.  Binney: William Binney
  12. Blum: Willam Blum
  13. Burrowes: Robert J. Burrowes
  14. Caldicott: Helen Caldicott
  15. Caputi: Ross Caputi 
  16. Castro: Gustavo Castro
  17. Chiponda: Melania Chiponda
  18. Chomsky: Noam Chomsky
  19. Coates: Ta-Nehisi Coates
  20. Cole: Juan Cole
  21. Cook: Michelle Cook
  22. Dalai: Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)
  23. Davis: Angela Davis
  24. De Rosa: Antonio de Rosa
  25. Ebadi: Shirin Ebadi
  26. Eidelson: Roy Eidelson
  27. Ellsberg: Daniel Ellsberg
  28. Engelhardt: Tom Engelhardt
  29. Falk: Richard Falk
  30. Feeley: Tom Feeley
  31. Fonda: Jane Fonda
  32. Galtung: Johan Galtung
  33. Garza: Alicia Garza
  34. Giroux: Henry A. Giroux
  35. Goodman: Amy Goodman
  36. Gorbachev: Mikhail Gorbachev
  37. Greenwald: Glen Greenwald
  38. Guevara-Rosas: Erika Guevara-Rosas
  39. Haugen: Gary Haugen
  40. Hedges: Chris Hedges
  41. Hersh: Seymour Hersh
  42. Hightower: Jim Hightower
  43. Ikeda: Daisaku Ikeda
  44. Jamail: Dahr Jamail
  45. Jones: Van Jones
  46. Kalaygian: Ani Kalayjian
  47. Karman: Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman
  48. Kelly: Kathy Kelly
  49. Killelea: Steve Killelea
  50. Kiriakou: John Kiriakou   

 

Iceland: Unlikely haven for whistle-blower Snowden

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Dr. Michael Corgan

National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance whistle-blower Edward Snowden is in limbo, unable to return to the U.S. Might Iceland offer asylum as payback for the way the U.S. treated Iceland in 2006?

Hong Kong protest in support of Snowden
Hong Kong protest in support of Snowden. Photo by Voice of America, in public domain.

The Bush administration in 2006 arbitrarily and unilaterally pulled all U.S. forces out of Iceland even while the State Department had a negotiator at the prime minister’s office supposedly talking about how many U.S. forces we would keep there.

Of course a good number of Icelanders never wanted the U.S. there in the first place and were opposed to NATO membership altogether. The majority, however, did favor a U.S. presence, and the sitting government was led by the rightist, pro-U.S., Independence Party. The prime minister (PM), David Oddson, had been in power for 13 years, longer than any other European PM. His response to the pullout: “We’ll be the only NATO capital without air defense.”

Thus the U.S. treated Iceland rather dismissively as the tiny state it was. Many politicians who had long careers supporting U.S. positions were at least embarrassed.

Would taking in Snowden be a chance for Iceland to show it is still a sovereign state and can make that status count on occasion? Most of my sources said no. Among other things, too much trouble.

Some outside journalists made comparisons to Iceland’s granting citizenship to chess champion Bobby Fischer against U.S. desires–but remember, Fischer put Iceland on the map in 1972.

Everyone spies on everyone else. But so far Snowden (and Julian Assange of Wikileaks) are mostly leaking American secrets. The U.S. government has been warning others to mute their outraged reactions since, I am sure, we could reveal what others have been up to.

Mr. Snowden is a hot potato and carries much more baggage with him than his inside information. Russian leader Vladimir Putin won’t give Snowden citizenship unless he stops spilling secrets. After all, who would be next? Nevertheless, word is out that Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua—all of which have their own reasonable gripes against the U.S. government–have extended invitations to him. Tensions run high.

Preferring secrecy: Guantanamo

Posted on by kathiemm

Transparency is a term seen increasingly in the media. Wikileaks, founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, is best known for releasing secret documents provided by Bradley Manning. Wikileaks, like many of the progressive online media sources, strives for transparency when people in power would prefer secrecy.

Consider this recent story from Al Jazeera: For over three months, more than 100 of the detainees at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, most of whom have never been accused of a crime and/or were actually cleared for release three years ago, have been on a hunger strike.

As one prisoner, Musa’ab Omar Al Madhwani, said, “Indefinite detention is the worst form of torture….I have no reason to believe that I will ever leave this prison alive. It feels like death would be a better fate than living in these conditions.”

Consider also the issue of forced feeding. In its Declaration of Malta on Hunger Strikers, adopted in 1991 and revised in 2006 (in large part due to issues at Guantánamo), the World Medical Association states: “[f]orcible feeding is never ethically acceptable. Even if intended to benefit, feeding accompanied by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment”—and “inhuman and degrading treatment” violates the United Nations Convention on Human Rights, which the U.S. helped develop and has ratified.

Some people argue that it is more humane to force feed prisoners than to let them die in protest of their treatment. But are there not alternatives to these two extremes, alternatives that are consistent with human rights principles?

If Americans want to live in a truly democratic society, we need:

  • Information about inhumanity and injustice being perpetrated by Americans
  • The opportunity to reflect on the inhumanity and injustice and its alternatives
  • The will to consider and promote alternatives.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology