Title: Locked up for Exposing Crimes · Kiriakou & Annie Machon
Show: Disruption Network Lab
Date: 2017-06-06
URL: https://youtu.be/tOxuJ8bpSv4
Duration: 98:00

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[00:21] so I would like to go on with our day today and to announce the next speaker that we will have with us animation madness argh again that you already saw before on stage and the panel is moderated by under grace falter and also probably also on the flyer that we have another name silvano mu Java in a supposed to be on our panel but unfortunately due also to really

[00:54] difficult visa regulation we were not able to have him here with us and also because we needed to provide the insurance that has a small organization without fixed funded we were not able so again we agree with Silvano's that he could be here in spirit with us and we also prepare a video about his case that is also really important because it's related to torture in Zimbabwe and we

[01:25] asked a bank news Algar to speak about him so in a sense we will be a bit with us even if he is not and by the way I also wanted to say that at the moment is in residency at the University of Manchester so if you are interested in this case is totally up for speaking about that so so for interviews so he totally told me that we would be happy to speak with people if you are interested to contact him so in a sense

[01:55] is not here but I also hope that perhaps in the future or other organization in Berlin would have the possibility to invite him and now we go on with our panel and I would say I would like first of all to introduce the panel through a video because as we mentioned before the 17 of May chess remaining we work free after seven years of prison detention and this is really an important moment

[02:27] so since initially she was supposed to serve 35 years since reason and for that especially here in Berlin we want to thank a lot to the Chelsea Manning initiative Berlin for their work they did since 2011 until now that was really a work with a lot of passion a lot of effort and I think that also from the disruption lab I want to give really special thank because they've been with us really for men

[02:58] events doing a wonderful work so I really would like to thank all together the Chelsea Manning initiative Berlin and so because of that I think this panel should start with the video that the initiative prepared especially for this location of celebration of Chelsea and before also watching the video I

[03:28] would like to announce the moderator of the panel and a great falter that is the chair of the wizard global network if I'll also the cooperation partner of this event and the Annegret from 1999 to 2014 was a member of the jury bestowing the German whistleblower award and among the winners are indeed Chelsea Manning in 2011 it was knodel in 2013 Brandon Bryant in 2015 and I'm also really happy

[04:01] to say that since Brandon was here with us that our very first event in April in 2015 and so I also want to thank a lot of the whistleblower Network a foul because they do a really important job in Germany for advocacy and protection and the knowledge dissemination about whistleblowing and I also speak a lot about the case of whistleblowers in Germany that are also not so well known international as the one that everybody

[04:33] always mentioned so they do also really an important job so I would like to thank them too so now we go down on stage we will start with the video by the Chelsea Manning initiative and then we will have the people on stage and for the questions will John Kiriakou will also come back on stage and do the final rounds with the public so thanks a lot again for

[05:04] staying longer year and the please let's show the video thank you turn down the lights please today today before I learned that

[05:41] Washington never told a lie I learned the soldiers told I mean you're homeless everything you not easy for a person in what healthy by this nobody my sister jean-yves Danny Bennett or the back of a helical yeah you will now see the same anatomical class and 2002 economy everything else is tiata or in the policemen are my friends I learned that justice never and I learned that murderers die for the crime beautiful

[06:12] make a mistake somehow he had to join he had been tried to tell the people measures to any country or to anywhere to any organization and he it is not for himself not for his own father yeah he did this because he think this is it is long to public yeah

[06:43] give Yadav um the human factors potentially broke is abuse China finder to forgiveness from God even posits a German identity channel mentioned here gajeel Museum time at Lana's pattern for outside for me that's why give it imagine you not a devi kannada carbonyl McKean and von Karman would invite from ip3

[07:17] important hotel or the Buddha of my later time very cozy here was or Marilyn and we're here to support breath any trials to try - three of the creatures / classify every minute information that comes out of this government long-headed time to both slide through random and even helping us do that and I create random American Europe

[07:49] we need free Bradley Manning because to extend us free set us free and solve our line if the world free with the truth and we need to listen [Applause] [Music] you know helping even the United States for a process in our country by the

[08:21] smoke monkey noises to show me he's got you they need orthography responsible Connie everything else is Giada so try he hasn't tried to sell this information to

[08:51] any country or to anywhere to any organization and he it is not for himself not for his own father Yahoo this is because he thinks this is it is belong to puzzle yeah he senator [Applause] [Music] [Applause] subjective treatment describes 183

[09:24] strength yeah okay now yeah keep them in one line people keep coming online as for Chelsea needs to go a little bit write them down a nice week pay attention people you're going to be here forever dhts go write a little bit to my right stage right [Music]

[09:56] here's [Music] [Applause]

[10:34] really bright yes John John Kiriakou would you please oh good so I have been asked to say a few words about Chelsea Manning to start out with and I wonder whether all of you have read his statement which was just now published on the website of his legal team have

[11:07] you read his statement otherwise I would very quickly read it out to you that okay okay so I will so that is the statement of Chelsea Manning upon her upcoming release from present for the first time I can see a future for myself as Chelsea I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world freedom used to be

[11:40] something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine now freedom is something that I will again experience with friends and loved ones after nearly seven years of bars and Salmond of periods of solitary confinement and of my health care and autonomy restricted including thorough routinely forced haircuts she lived as a

[12:17] transgender female in an all-male present and I'm forever grateful to the people who kept me alive President Obama my legal team and countless supporters I watched the world change from inside prison walls and through the letters that I have received from veterans trans young people parents politicians and artists my spirits were lifted in dark times reading of their support sharing

[12:48] in their triumphs and helping them through challenges of their own I hope to take the lessons that I have learned the love that I have been given and the hope that I have to work toward me to work toward making life better for others so that's what she wrote as of May 9th few days ago and so what we saw

[13:19] off in this video we're snapshots basically and it's once again it was our friend Nadine who did it and I too want to thank you very much for her steadiness and kindness and the snapshots that come to my mind are basically three when I hear the name Chelsea Manning and it's the Colet it's the Collateral Murder video

[13:50] it's the unlawful pre-trial pretrial treatment in prison and it's the Espionage Act the Collateral Murder video killing civilians non-combatants like in the video game a helicopter crew I mean you probably on all know the video calling calling killing engagement

[14:21] it's also this incredibly violent and brutal language and all that under the oversight of their superiors it's not just it's not just a helicopter crew doing that but they are in constant contact with their superiors and it's clearly a crime it's an it's against international law on the Geneva Convention and once

[14:51] again like in John's case only Chelsea Manning was prosecuted for that and nobody else and no one from the helicopter crew so the second thing I remember is the unlawful cruel confinement in the Quantico present his

[15:25] attorney David Coombs had said he was almost gone at that time and I think the condition the conditions there are best described by Graham Nash in a song he said he sang locked up in a white room underneath the glaring light every five minutes they're asking me if I'm all right locked up in a white room naked as the day I was born 24 bright light 24 all alone and all

[15:59] legal experts were agreed that this was an unusual cruel treatment before any trial and the goal and thinking about the goal why they were so terribly cool with bread with Chelsea for one thing of course they wanted to set an example they wanted to intimidate other whistleblowers and they were pretty

[16:30] successful I guess with that and there one could also assumed that they were pressuring Chelsea to testify against WikiLeaks and so that they could file charges against him and what they now do by the way I think you all heard about the charges that the State Department that the

[17:02] Department of Justice is supposed to bring forward soon and indict in Julian under the Espionage Act - and also some other charges it's also theft theft of government of government belongs whatever so the third thing I the third thing I am thinking of is the Espionage

[17:36] Act and it is important to realize that Chelsea Manning was the first to be not only indicted but also convicted under the Espionage Act and that means and the major points about that are there is no public interest defense possible no exonerating arguments like the motives and intentions of a whistleblower and whether he caused harm or damage or not

[18:08] played no role none of the documents that Chelsea published resulted in personal or military strategical strategic harm and the Center for Constitutional Rights as well as Ellsberg very early in the 1970s of the year published the Pentagon Papers it claimed that this right was unconstructive law was unconstitutional being applied to whistleblowers and they

[18:40] and right now Chelsea from all that I know and I'm informed about Chelsea is going to challenge the constitutionality of the Espionage Act before right now before the upload at the Appalachian court and after that I think everybody is has decided to proceed to the Supreme Court so that is the state of the art right

[19:13] now Chelsea has been commuted his sentence of Chelsea has been commuted he wasn't pardoned he was commuted it was commuted and that is probably also due to an outpouring of support from the public over her mistreatment in prison and they what I learned from the from

[19:44] the website of her legal team is that he will go on fighting in her appeal to clear her name to clear her name right now Chelsea is not being ready for interviews the legal team will answer interviews and I there's a few weeks ago I talked to her former attorney David Coombs and he said if I if anybody wants

[20:15] an interview they have to turn to her agent so obviously there are so many people who want to talk to her that she needs somebody to handle that for her I now introduce have the honor to introduce the panel and it's my very pleasure to present to fabulous one fabulous with Laura and both of them distinguished speakers and it first of for the first to speak is any muscle

[20:47] sitting next to me here Andy Marshall was an intelligence officer for the UK security service mi5 before resigning to help blow the whistle on the primes and in competences of the British spy agency agencies she is now a writer medium pundit and international public speaker on issues like war on terrorism on whistleblower because of the ways of whistleblowing on drugs and on the internet and she's also

[21:20] a member of the Sam Adams Association Annie is there anything you're going to speak about the secrecy laws in the UK is there and is anything comparable to the Espionage Act yes in fact I'm going to you'll probably gather I'm British from my accident and I'm going to blush yet again I've been blushing a lot this year since or ever since last year with the brexit vote now I'm going to blush

[21:51] again because in fact I think it was the UK that gave the world the notion of such laws as the Espionage Act 1917 in the United States so Britain once again set a wonderful example because in 1911 they produced the first Official Secrets Act which was put in place before the First World War to try and root out German spies sorry Germany assessment put them on trial and shoot them if necessary now this law is

[22:22] stayed in place it is still there to prosecute traitors and in fact we've had a number of traitors throughout the 20th century most notably the Cambridge spy ring which has urges Philby MacLean and a few others who were establishment figures who betrayed the country egregiously for decades and yet all of them somehow magically were allowed to slip away to Russia their establishment however if you're a whistleblower the treatment is somewhat harsher so we

[22:52] have the 1911 act and it was upgraded a couple of times in the 1920s and 1930s but then there are a series of whistleblowing cases in the 1980s most notably the very notorious book called spy catcher written by a disgruntled former senior mi5 officer called Peter Wright and because of all these spies scandals in the 1980's the Sacher government at the time decided to upgrade the Official Secrets Act to specifically bar whistleblowing and that

[23:24] became known as the 1989 Act and under that act it says that anyone who is or has been an intelligence officer for any of the three key spy agencies in the UK and who speaks to anyone outside that agency automatically faces two years in prison because they've blown the whistle they've disclosed information they shouldn't have and there is no defense there is no Public Interest defense there is no opportunity to put in front

[23:54] of a jury of your peers why you did what you did and the evidence you are allowed to present about your disclosures is severely limited so it's a very one-sided Act and I'm now going to just move on a little bit to some personal reminiscences before bringing the current legislation that they are proposing in the UK which is getting worse and worse and worse in the face of more whistleblowers just to sort of fill you in on quite how bad it is in the UK

[24:24] and I have a sense that where the UK leads and they did in 1911 the rest of the world begins to follow and I say that with knowledge because this year as well on the first January we had a new law put in place called the investigatory powers act and this legalized what we've previously illegally done by our snooping agency GCHQ for the last 17 years this is put in the most draconian sweeping new surveillance powers including metadata

[24:54] bulk hacking data collection and that applies not just to the UK but they will use it against everyone across Europe as well by the way and this law went in against huge opposition and yet it was still forced in and now we're seeing that those well-known Zipit liberal democracies such as Russia and China are now beginning also to copy the UK new legislation they're saying well if the UK can do it what's wrong with that

[25:24] let's do it ourselves so I'm sure that any new secrecy legislation the UK brings in will also be copied by other countries both our allies and our notional adversary's but first of all I just want to say it's wonderful to finally get a chance to meet John Kiriakou as an intelligence whistleblower of 20 years standing now got it so old I can't believe it's 20 years ago that we ended up blowing the whistle because of that I've been very

[25:54] very interested in following every subsequent whistleblower case of course I follow John's case with interest and with great concern so I just want to pay tribute to his courage fortitude then and also for his continuing courage for what he's doing now so please give him a round of applause Annegret mentioned the Sam Adams associates and this is a loose affiliation of whistle blows from around the world from the intelligence the

[26:25] military in the diplomatic corps and every year were given award to those who display integrity in intelligence and last year we gave that award to John and I think I can't it was very very well deserved but it was interesting as well to listen to what he was saying earlier because it brought back a lot of memories for me because back in the 1990s we probably started around the same time actually not intelligence careers but mine was much shorter back in the 1990s I was recruited to work for mi5 which is the UK domestic security

[26:55] service and I was there only for six years and I was there in it's only marginally ethical decade in its hundred year existence I know it's also there that I met a man who became my partner as well as my colleague my former partner a man called David Shayler and after only six years we've seen so many things going wrong but again we felt compelled to speak out about them we had tried to raise our concerns worried on the inside and we were repeatedly told do not rock the boat and just follow orders so after six years of

[27:29] this we resigned and we went public and it was a whole range of different things that caused concern for us including files on our government ministers files and hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens for their political activism illegal telephone taps IRA bombs that could and should have been prevented going off on UK streets and then mi5 crucially lying to the government to cover their mistakes there's a case of two innocent students going to prison when mi5 had evidence of their innocence and

[28:00] it culminated in an illegal assassination plot against Colonel Gaddafi of Libya in 1996 where mi6 are sort of James Bond wing of British intelligence what they like to think so anyway where mi6 had funded a branch of al-qaeda at that time known to be our terrorist enemies even in 1996 mi6 had funded these people to try and assassinate Gaddafi and the operation was illegal under UK law because they didn't get the prior written permission of their political master and it went

[28:32] wrong because Gaddafi obviously survived to be assassinated another day in 2011 but innocent people died so at this point we felt compelled to try and do something about this so as I said we resigned we went public and we preemptively went on the run around Europe to avoid automatic arrest under the draconian terms of the 1989 Official Secrets Act so we literally had one month on the run around Europe we then had another year living in hiding in a

[29:02] remote and very primitive French farmhouse and then David was arrested because the British tried to extradite him from France where he'd taken refuge to take him back to the UK to stand trial under the Official Secrets Act and we're in Paris at that time talking from journalists and he just disappeared he was snatched off the street and the first I knew of his arrest was when I had a knock on the hotel door from the French security service the DST at the

[29:32] time and they said we have Monsieur Shaila and I said well we know is he under arrest no no we're just taking the way for questioning and I asked if I could see him they said no and that was the last I saw of him for almost two months he disappeared into the French prison system and even his lawyers couldn't track him down for 72 hours and when they eventually did track him down only the lawyers were allowed to see him because the French had been told by the British that he was a traitor a super spy selling secrets to enemy powers so

[30:06] they put him under very stringent secrecy laws effectively almost solitary confinement and I wasn't allowed to see him and it's only after the paperwork finally emerged from the British government requesting his extradition after two months but they realized what they had in their prison cell with a whistleblower not a traitor and under French law you cannot be extradited for whistleblowing the creditors deemed was deemed at the time to be a political act so he was released and that was fabulous and in fact we had taken prior legal

[30:37] advice before we went on the run of which country would be best to hide in and ironically back in 1997 we were told France will be good because they protect whistleblowers and so with the USA and he's talking what the hell happened there luckily we settled on France because it was easier to get a bit closer to the UK so he was released and we had another two years living in Paris relatively free although he could not

[31:08] leave France because if he went to any other European country at that point he too would face another extradition request and probably would have been extradited but he went back in the year 2000 to face trial to say this is what I said I stand by it I want it read into the public record I want my day in court to justify what I did so you went back voluntarily and of course was immediately arrested when he set foot on UK soil and we thought the

[31:39] trial would be fairly rapid I mean you know everything had happened almost three years ago surely the Metropolitan Police are concluded their investigation after three years right instead we were dragged through a whole series of pretrial hearings which were designed to inhibit increasingly what he was actually finally allowed to say during his trial and this went on for over two years so by the time he was able to stand up in front of a jury of his peers he was not allowed to say why he'd done

[32:10] what he'd done he was not allowed to use a public interest defense and in fact he wasn't allowed to ask any questions without the prosecuting lawyer vetting them ahead of time and crossing them all out it was a kangaroo court and some of it was conducted in secret - so inevitably he was convicted and he was facing three charges each carrying two years in prison however the only time either of in this

[32:41] whole legal process were ever allowed to say anything about why we had done what we done ironically was after his conviction but before his sentencing when rather stupidly I talked myself into giving what was known as a mitigation plea so I could explain our reasons I could explain what had happened and the judge at that point just gave him six months instead of six years so that was a good issue result having said that though there is also the reputational rape that happened in

[33:13] the newspapers and the media after his conviction so the judge also said in his final official ruling he accepted that Shailja had done what he'd done in what he thought was the public interest not that that was a legal defense that there was no financial motivation and that no agent lives had ever been put at risk through his whistleblowing and yet the headlines on all and newspapers the next day said precisely the opposite Shane Lascelles agent lives down the river for money as I think where the hell did that

[33:45] come from I was sitting in the courtroom watching the journalists write down the judges words which it makes you we can just speculate along very paranoid and interesting lines about quite how much control the spies can exert over our wonderful Free Press so David went to prison again he'd spent four months in prison in Paris in a very primitive and draconian prison which has now been shut down on humanitarian grounds by the way and then he was sent to prison in the UK

[34:15] now he was a low security risk he should have immediately gone to a low security prison oh no they took almost a month to decide on what his official category would be and in that month he was put in the notorious Belmarsh prison which is the highest security prison in the UK housing terrorists crime lords all the rest of it and he was day under physical threat and he was very stressed about it and I said well how did you try and get

[34:45] these the threats to back off and again you know thinking hearing what John was saying brought back a lot of memories of what David would told me and he said there was one point where there's some huge guy came up to him and tried to push him off the one public phone he was allowed to use and he put around this rumor that he could kill with his bare hands because that was his training in li5 which is absolutely not the case by the way and I can't do that either I promise and this huge guy just backed off in subject terror but it's an

[35:16] incredibly stressful thing to go through I mean the whole case will start finish went for seven years from when we took the decision in 1996 to when he was finally a free man who had paid his so-called debt to society and in those years in the media you are pilloried as a traitor or you are supported as a hero and it's a very difficult dichotomy to live with as an individual I think and in fact unfortunately I think that

[35:47] stress did get to him we separated over ten years ago now and he's a happily a scholar in his new life as an reincarnation of Jesus Christ I think which I know sounds funny but if you think this guy has such a sharp brain here's such good officer such a good man and this is what living with those years of stress can do to someone so that's the price that whistle blows pay and I know many other whistle blows you have been destroyed either financially or psychologically and by

[36:19] what they go through and it's wonderful see some of us still help though some of us still thriving and John obviously still very much kicking butt which is what we all need to do so that was the case then I just want to conclude with a few remarks about what's going on in the UK now because I've been watching in horror at what is mound called the war on whistleblowers in the USA you know there's overuse of this bogus law the Espionage Act illegally to prosecute people who are blowing the whistle but the UK is also trying to reform its

[36:51] Official Secrets laws so we have the old osa in 1911 for traitors osa 1989 for whistle blows now they're getting their knickers in a twist in the British government about loosing parent increasing threat of the insider threat like a whistle blows and organizations like WikiLeaks which publish those disclosures so they are reviewing all these old laws and they come up with some wonderfully stupid proposals first

[37:21] of all they're going to clump the early Official Secrets Act into something new called the Espionage Act strangely enough I wonder where they got that idea from and then for the whistleblowing they're going to create a new law called the Disclosure Act now this will apply to whistle blows and raise the prison tariffs from 2 years to 14 this will also mean that organizations that help disclosure such as the media and one thinks particularly probably they're

[37:52] thinking along the lines of WikiLeaks can also be prosecuted and face the same tariffs and also they're going to expand it at the moment to the Official Secrets Act only apply to British citizens however they're going to expand it now to any national who facilitates the publication of official secret Official Secrets so of course again they're thinking Julian Assange one presumes and finally for example I'm a former

[38:24] intelligence officer if I go out and talk about stuff that is already in the public domain such as a lot of very detailed information in my old books that was cleared by mi5 or other information that I learn from other whistle blows such as John Kerry a coup or any of the other Sam Adams whistleblowers they want to criminalize me again by taking away what is known as the pub of the public domain defense ie that information is already in the public domain for anyone should be able to talk about it and they are saying now

[38:55] or proposing that if I do that or if John talks about something I discuss any other UK with four blow does that then we are in a situation where because we're serving or former intelligence officers we are amplifying the gravitas of repeating that information giving it credibility so they're going to try and take away that defense for me and others as well so this is sliding precipitously down an incredibly dangerous half and my

[39:26] big fear is that other European countries particularly will no doubt start to follow as they have already started to follow with the investor powers act the snoopers Charter and it's not just Russia and China that have picked up on that countries like Germany and Norway Norway are also following suit so Britain unfortunately is blundering again down diametrically wrong paths that it should be going and many of us

[39:58] in the UK have been advocating for years there should be a formal whistleblowing channel for those with meaningful ethical concerns coming out of central government the intelligence agencies the military the diplomatic corps where they can go without jeopardizing not only their professional life but their liberty with the assumption and trust that what they disclose will be properly investigated and if crimes have indeed been committed those criminals will be held to account not the whistleblower and I would suggest just to conclude that that would be the most obvious

[40:29] win-win situation that any intelligence agency or any government could possibly suggest because you avoid the whistleblowing scandal you don't have inquiries you don't have hearings and after the event you don't have the press building itself up into a media frenzy and the spies loads that but also the whistleblower doesn't have to turn their lives inside out upside down go through prison and deal with that trauma so if if they suggest in Germany some sort of

[40:59] equivalent Official Secrets Act please push back rally activate fight it and suggest the alternative the win-win scenario because it will help everyone it will save the whistleblower it will improve the works of the spy agencies and it will allow them therefore to protect all of us much better thank you [Applause]

[41:33] thank you so much Annie and he may I ask a quick question what about the public what about the general public remember slowed and he said it's not me who decides how much freedom we are trading in for security he wanted to inform the public he wanted to have a democratic discourse going on and the solution that you have proposed it excludes that and I

[42:05] think one should think twice about that well I'm suggesting actually that if there is a proper channel for potential whistleblowers to go down and they do disclose crime and there is a proper investigation and there a trial then of course that informations going to come out but via the trial rather than via a blaze of publicity is probably not perfect but it's either that will more whistle blows coming out more whistleblowers risking their lives in many cases and

[42:38] you know ruining their futures and for going to prison so I think you know that would be good first step and put the whole concept of whistleblowing very much in the public consciousness again but give it legal backing or maybe to try to to strengthen the possibilities of defense in the public interest like the European Council proposed later predatory to whoever private discussion here and I'm now I have the pleasure to

[43:08] introduce Magnus out actually was introduced already and so I say maybe for those who came a little later let me just mention that Magnus AG is a berlin-based international human rights and freedom of expression advocate he works at free news an international civil society organization defending and promoting the right to artistic freedom and work

[43:39] freedom worldwide prior to joining cream in 2015 Magnus spent five years with a committee committee to protect journalists in New York and right now here he is going to speak about why art is not a crime and he is going to speak about free muse and how they defend artistic freedom and before doing that

[44:11] he told me he was going to change hats and he will now introduce he'll Vanna Smith Silva and who is and I regret and I think that Jana has already said that that he couldn't come and so a madness is going to speak with his head on now yeah so I'm back again but yeah and I really wish to Sylvanas could be here I think you would have loved this I talked

[44:41] to him earlier this this week he says hi and thank you very much to Chiana for her work and the whole team's of getting him here and giving the opportunity to at least show show this video and I Pajama asked me to introduce a my Mets Alana's first time a couple years ago in Harare Zimbabwe and was so impressed with his work and have stayed in touch with him he is described himself as a performing arts activist and I don't go into too many details about him because he does a much better job about

[45:12] explaining his own project in in this video but I thought they may be a bit of a background on Zimbabwe might be helpful since it's not top of mind for everyone here and they have a few slight first of all here is same Bob them and I wanted to ask you guys how many here are 37 years old or younger finish your hands a lot of hands and can you

[45:45] remember or do you know who was president when oh yeah when you use our 37 were born so in 1980 in your respective countries anyone remember just there here's the slide the next one that kind of gives you an idea about the situation in Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe he was president or he was Prime Minister in 1980 he won an election in 1979 the first free election in - Bob way after they gained independence from it from the United Kingdom he was part of the

[46:17] liberation movement he merged that into a presidency a few years later as we see other people do these days and then he stayed in power ever since and he has a stronghold of power and there's been some elections with questionable results there's very limited freedoms to talk about these things there's a state-owned press for the most part and I just to really appreciate what this Cervantes is doing it's important to understand how

[46:48] that has dominated society for a generation right to think of not having had anyone else as head of state and not seeing any alternative you can imagine like expressing yourself about these things are very very tricky it would be like having Margaret Thatcher still in power yeah and just some contact on what he's done like you said he introduced these land reforms among other things probably what he's most famous for internationally because Zimbabwe when it

[47:20] was relatio there's a lot of white farmers that owned huge partial and made a lot of money but also produced a lot of goods and these land reforms were highly controversial and they made all the or not all but a significant part of the white farmers leave and then the farms were taken over by by black Zimbabweans who didn't have the resource or didn't manage to keep the same level of the productivity so what was once known as the breadbasket of the region

[47:50] it's a very fertile area is now or has had trouble even feeding its own population and maybe with the next slide one of the things that that has come across it this hyperinflation I don't know if you remember 2008 they had insane inflation I think I have an inflation rate for November mid November 2008 the inflation rate was 79 billion percent you can imagine like

[48:20] this is a picture of course of a guy stopping Billy and you could not use your money you couldn't get a piece of bread for the build with the infinite amount of zeros on it it is complete direct economy and Lukas managed to stay in power throughout this and by repressing any kind of opposition having very like have a new constitution that is actually fairly well written from 2013 and like the words are good but guaranteeing freedom of expression the right to artistic freedom which

[48:52] affects the vanos media right but then you have a censorship law you have it censorship board you have practices by the police but they target journalists or artist and activist jailing them and kind of a real sense of insecurity and a lot of self-censorship about around everyone that tried to express anything so that's that's the quick run-through of sandpaper and then I think if we can show the video of this Alanis you'll see how cool he is my name is savannas motorola I'm a

[49:25] performing arts activist Taren Zimbabwe yes a little give you a little bit of background so that you are in the clear picture um our country Zimbabwe is with 14 million citizens they've been rode by one president since 1980 until today we only have what one television station that is catering for 14 million citizens and they have lost confidence in terms of receiving a propaganda that is being turned out on that TV station so the theater is actually become the other

[49:55] alternative that is available for people to access information lastly yeah I decided to actually take my theatre from the traditional theatre and bringing it to the ground what others would call hit and run theatre others would want to call it guerrilla theater or just know mostly theatre what I've been doing since last year is the president openly come up in the open inside the country lost the 15 billion the United States dollars of German revenue and Noah was arrested not even a

[50:28] single investigation all done into this game then I started to say the pediment is silent about this issue how basic in actually be part and parcel of this whole process and then I created the pleasure of state roads missing diamonds whereby are after creating the plate was a shock thing that I just wanted to do quickly and then make sure that I do it in front of development MPs get the message so that admitted a debate about this issue inside the hotel so when I actually performed and I was arrested it also brought a lot of

[50:58] attention to the suburban community to say I think we we need to start talking about this issue and then the MPS that are deliberating the issue in Parliament the same day that I was arrested theatre is absolutely a catalyst of absolute provoking the bed from the parliamentarians the citizens themselves but what I got was really straight and Vine the police office has the central intelligence when they arrested me they turned me with the disappearance like

[51:29] what it happened to a colleague of mine who went missing on the ninth day of March 2015 and he hasn't been found until today so I thought it was like one of the the things that they always do to say that they would actually want to stop me I started receiving strange phone calls I was being followed at times but I thought I its natural him mainly when you're actually operating in him in an environment led to babble then on 13 September I'm in the middle of the night they came they knocked down the door they possibly took me um they went with

[52:03] me some 40 kilometers outside our alley they tortured me I'm the at the end they injected me with an unknown substance I stayed in hospital for about four weeks and after that I was operated on my stomach was I was actually being like stumped on my stomach so they wanted to construct my mine in this time and after that like this there was a lot of fear that was put in citizens in terms of what had happened to me then I said to

[52:34] myself when I get out of hospital how best can I make sure that I do not become part and parcel of the people while for the third thing and then they ran away so I created this situation whereby I started putting on mud on myself moving in town we're going towards Parliament we attended like a huge following that was following me and when I reached the Parliament I started performing in front of the Parliament MPs came they watched the play and when like the police only duty to arrest me the citizens they stood with me and say

[53:05] no you're not done anything is absolutely highlighting the problems that are happening in this country so it was like one of the things that I could say it motivate it gives me that motivation to say the people like they are so interested in what is happening and if they are also willing to be part and parcel of this thing from to say we need to like fight for freedom of information we need like to fight for freedom of expression and then lastly I did another performance all this time we were like 400 um human

[53:36] rights activists were arrested randomly so there was nothing that was being done in actually bringing them out they just arrested and taken to court and remanded in custody it was like three weeks now yet they were still inside the custodian then I said the entries are silent again against this issue the minister responsible for justice is silent against this issue how then do I actually contribute so that is the bed again starts happening about these people we've been away arrested and then I put myself in prison grab leg irons and end chains I started like moving

[54:08] again in town going towards Parliament it's got so much in terms of Attraction that even the police when they send to Central Intelligence of his officers later arrested me they couldn't because the MPs we're watching if the place was watching so it was one of the ways that we have actually tried to use to make sure that we actually reach the people as many as we can to hide behind numbers it has good consequences I am now disabled I am now living separately from my family I am now a fellow at University of Manchester cases of the

[54:40] artistic protection funds creative dissent is one of the ways for actually for me to actually believe that we can do more in terms of using ads to change the issues that are happening in the world globe is using the ads for achieving change in the world thank you [Applause]

[55:19] so madness how do you or does your organization how does free muse work on cases like that yes sir my third hat of the night that now it's my day job working for a previous defending the right to artistic freedom and we have the privilege of course once in order to work with wonderful people like Silvano's and then when I knew him because we did a workshop in Harare about the like for a UN record we were

[55:50] doing and then they stayed in touch with him and followed in on Facebook he's very active on social media I would definitely encourage you to find him and and then one day he texted me from his hospital that like the day after he was tortured and health for like 72 hours or something and then he was in hospital and he texted me and said this happened and then we reached out to context is of course with small organization based in Copenhagen and I'm here and we don't

[56:21] have anyone in Zimbabwe but we have a network of other activists and organizations at least on the continent and someone Zimbabwe and he's in Manchester now and we can make some credit connected some people and vouched for him being a real activist doing this kind of work is so some other organizations with more funds could support him financially and then not to me the Arctic's Protection Fund set this made this set up with the Manchester University where he is now for a year in this residency and then then we'll see

[56:54] but how that ties into all our work I thought I would just run through some of our strategy and the findings we have as an organization defending the right to artistic freedom and so um maybe the first slide is fairly self-explanatory let me defend the right to artistic freedom of your human rights organization that comes from the human rights declaration and under the right to freedom of expression and cultural rights of course artists and audiences very important has the right to express

[57:25] themselves artistically and when Tatyana asked me to do do this part of it I kind of try to think about the concept of truth in relation to the arts and we don't say that the art that it's true what we are like we defend art because we think art is important and out has a value in itself so also a catalyst would change but not necessarily and who knows and who's to judge what piece of art today will have an effect down the line right but I I went back to this old quote by a Picasso

[57:59] I know some of you might have seen it I butchered a little only to the shortest sentence like it's part of a sentence but art is a lie that makes us realize the truth and I really appreciate that and I from my perspective and our work and kind of leave it at that right we need the arts it's hard to pinpoint exactly for what and does it change things does it not but what we need it and it makes us realize things about the world we live in so that's why I'm very happy and privileged to do this kind of work that we do and aside for some

[58:32] muscle homage of course work with a bunch of other artists and I wanted to show a quick video that kind of gives you a an idea of the range of people we work with this band is desired right I was stopped over there my car was

[59:02] blocked no he can't shoot me because of the back in the drawing they were kidnapped and taken to the victors dole Food Company want to stop that story from red shouts they can torture you they can kill you there's a sensor should practice by the state whenever you go anywhere my work was withdrawn last minute I spent 11 years energy for

[59:33] the first time there's been a gathering like this we're bringing together 50 artists from around the world they've suffered enormous Lee for their work there are people who've been in exile they've had death threat in order to carry on their work we've overcome these obstacles and kept on going it's an extraordinary tribute to their creativeness that's what so great about this conference you see all these brave people who risked everything events like this are creating networks that can support even better likes pressing ourselves is how the world will change

[1:00:08] the most dangerous thing is silence when there's no conflict when nobody's put in jail it means that the human spirit is dead yes that's some of the people we work with and then my next slide is very simple it's always like should I put it together but how we work as many many

[1:00:39] other human rights organizations we do a lot of put a lot of energy and research trying to figure out what is happening on the ground around the world in our own societies and other societies and getting that and verifying that is of course tremendously difficult then we do campaigning can be everything from the very specific we want this artist released immediately to the broader advocacy strategies of getting a new UN process implemented or changing a law on a country and then our third pillar is kind of the network and why I'm here to

[1:01:11] engage more people to help with this and to share information share knowledge and I really appreciate the disruption network lab approach and this bringing for example whistleblowers and it won't claim to be an artist but the artistic perspective into the same room and have this conversation I think is really great and wonderful and so going back to the research just to give you an idea of how we see the world this is our statistics for 2016 every we can't like

[1:01:42] every day we register new cases and every year we do an annual report called a learner's let we documented the three killings in 2016 to artistic ducted 16 attacked 84 artists imprisoned 43 persecutions 40 persecutions or threats and 840 acts of censorship and this is we use the cliched tip of the iceberg as it's very hard to verify so I'm sure there's cases in particular censorship

[1:02:13] cases is toast impossible to count but but we try but I'm sure there's others and just to dive in a little bit and on what kind of cases now you know Sylvanas but some of the other cases we see for example these guys through five the Tibetan musician Tibetan monks singing about a free Tibet or that about the Dalai Lama very the lyrics I've seen very peaceful and non control or to an ordinary ear but to the Chinese state that is something that I can lend

[1:02:44] you up to like nine years in prison for this ridiculous charge of seditious lis splitting the state so there's many legal regimes around the world that have weird judges against good people yeah these guys are serving between three and a half and nine years in prison and it's again one of those cases was really hard to figure out are they still in how are they being treated we do some awareness-raising but it's very limited and the Chinese obviously don't really listen to us even we have the UN sent a formal request for

[1:03:14] information they ignore that as well another case that I I wanted to highlight from last year with this Turkish musician good Sal V's min hand sorry if I butchered hiddens name I'm not that good in Turkish he performed a song about a baby donkey and in the turkey that is the kind of a term for calling someone a fool like an insult but not really works just like a mild

[1:03:46] insult he was then subsequently charged and sentenced to 11 month and 20 days in prison for insulting president Erdogan and the funny part about this is that he didn't mention the name arrogant he didn't mention anything about president he was just thinking about a donkey and it made me think of that Picasso quote of the little thing little lies that make us realized the truth right it is incredible what Chris Denari and how spin skin T is and how many libel charges in the charges he put against

[1:04:18] all kind of people that criticize him or it may be even just thing about donkeys so to zoom out a little bit again we of course aggregate all this data and these are the numbers you saw first before I just changed them into a bar graph and organized them by violation types so you have furthest to the left I know it's a little small killed then abducted the red dot there in is Silvano's right because he's in theater and he was abducted in 2016 then attacked

[1:04:50] imprisoned secured persecute and threatened and then you see the censorship one going really high up and it's a bit of an animal this year because in Ukraine we saw this ban of 500 Russian films and they were like specifically named and then we counted as one act of censorship if it's a specific art piece that is banned from another country so that's why that one is so high censorship is of course always high and the next chart it's kind of flipped around so now it's

[1:05:21] organized by art form you'll see because of that Ukraine ban film is obviously very very high and censorship in general all across all the platforms music is the second highest and if you look at what we like to call that the serious violations not saying censorship and not serious but the really like physical harm or you put in front of a judge one or another attacker threatened then music is the the hardest hit art form and the next slide I just divided the

[1:05:54] doubt on on countries and took away the censorship cases so this again only the what we call the serious violations and here you kind of have the usual suspects when you look at human rights violations Iran tops with 30 violations in 2016 turkey with 23 Egypt with 18 Nigeria was a bit of surprise for us and maybe you can go into that in Q&A if you want to but we and then Russia and and China or China and Russia sorry that order so

[1:06:25] publishing similar maps with them with other human rights violations in the past and just I don't want to skip to then what we try to do about this and our approach and I go back to that very simple slide I had before and down to kind of the campaign advocacy side of things now we know this is the situation that with similar trends in past years and we see similar trends sentient of the human rights field and our basic idea is on a national level we want to

[1:06:57] raise the cost of governments of doing this so if a government in person someone we want to make sure it's costly for them I have no illusions that some Indian government is going to change his mind and suddenly oh that was a bad idea to imprison this artist or this whistleblower what is going to get people out is that it's such an annoyance for the government to have them in jail if they get met with that question why is this musician in jail when they meet with foreign governments when they turn on the TV or if they go to social media that is eventually what is going to change that it's a more

[1:07:29] expedient strategy for the government not people in prison so that's kind of standard human rights but our approach on a national level on a global level I mentioned already we engage a lot with the Human Rights Council at the UN and make it's a bit tricky our the Universal Periodic Review process is some of you know that it's a process where every country every member state of the UN is up for review every four and a half years so Germany is up ISM Bob way is up and other of other member states can

[1:08:00] critique and have constructive dialogue around their human rights record so that's been a good vehicle for us to address artistic freedom Human Rights Watch Amnesty will also submit reports about torture about women's rights about the whole thing and we then come in with our reports analyzing what laws and practices are violating the right to freedom expression artistic freedom in that country at a regional level being based in Europe we engage with the European Union as much as you can both on a like the European Member State

[1:08:32] should respect the Cystic freedom the neighboring and enlargement countries is we see as a way in Turkey for example to push our message and try to influence that they use that that as a standard negotiating with other countries about becoming a member that you at least respect human rights freedom of expression and of course also in partnership agreements with the third countries as they call it a new language so when you have a trade agreement with Vietnam that there's also some kind of

[1:09:02] acknowledgment that Vietnam needs to respect human rights and freedom of expression at a cities and institutions level is kind of lack of a better word what I call it we work with these residences and others so Silvano's for example he's in Manchester via they are protection point and there's this icon city of refuge where cities can kind of host an artist or journalist or writer started by Salman Rushdie or like that whole way when this battle against him

[1:09:33] was issued and then finally there's the artistic and activist community and kind of you guys and us and all and I think one of our key missions is to get everyone on board to collaborate around these things and make sure there's solidarity among us so when an artist is targeted or an activist or whistleblower somewhere in the world that we collectively stand up and show solidarity and raise awareness make sure they're not forgotten those stories about being forgotten in prison is of

[1:10:04] course something we all we hear a lot and that's maybe my my last slide just to go back and be specific this case with from Iran that is really close to my heart and two brothers methi's Rajab Ian and Hussein Rajab Ian maybe as a musician who sign as a filmmaker they had this underground day and music distributor together an online platform where you can listen to music traditional Iranian music that the

[1:10:35] method my mother's played on his sitar so not even any lyrics that criticized the regime or a very profane and in or anything and these guys were first detained Mehdi was allegedly tortured during interrogations and then this was back in 2013 last year they were then sentenced first their six years now to three years in prison for insulting the sacred at propaganda against the state and then on June 5 last year they were

[1:11:05] put in jail and even present if some of you know the Iranian prison system that's a pretty horrific place to be a lot of political prisoners but also a lot of drug addicts and drug crimes like average criminals rough situation to be in that prison they've been on a hunger strike several times to protest their situation specifically their medical leads and so I just wanted to finish off with that in on June 5 been there for years we kind of do a big

[1:11:35] push to raise awareness itself to engage with the Iranian government but but this is how how governments kind of suppress artistic freedom and of course it ties into all kinds of other opposition voices in Iran being treated the same way so to kind of round up and conclude I just want to again this is something you see over time that governments and others in the position of power they want to secure like a single dominant narrative right and I think that might be the common denominator for us up here

[1:12:06] and artists and other Sarge's and annoyance to that they are not they don't fit into one frame they don't stay the same at the government right they say the opposite or they say something third and I think with the rise of populism and nationalism as we see now in many places of the world like I am even more concerned because that is very much the dominant agenda right is to define that one narrative who we are we don't want to respect human rights

[1:12:36] because that is a limitation on the will of the majority right I won I can do whatever I want kind of logic where the human rights regime is of course to protect the rights of the minority but these populist and nationalist movements kind of seem to get that wrong so I think it's important that we do things like that we share information we document these cases and go out and get people out of jail thank [Applause]

[1:13:13] Thank You Magnus and as it is getting really late and we're a little behind our schedule I was asked to open the panel to the flow right away and I would like to ask you to concentrate a little on countermeasures of the question what can we do and maybe some of your questions questions that years

[1:13:44] contribute to that okay so as here right ahem oh please run now see first I have to earlier now I nearly forgot you John would you please come to this would you please come here if you're still there which I hope very much Oh indeed so see okay so maybe we start out without him

[1:14:14] and I see a hand right there in the middle and maybe we ask one question or make one comment after the other relatively short so that one of the two speakers here can precisely answer them yes hello hi thank you very much my name is Gisela I work for a Latin American NGO called very to the hit Alice I am Mexican and I just want to thank Marcos for his intervention because I just want to be honest this was a bit too white

[1:14:46] for me I believe that John's intervention was good but he was still speaking of a prison that was less worse than Afghanistan whereas in Mexico we have prisons controlled by drug cartels so I think I still think it's a position of privilege I mean this is its in terms of class of race and gender maybe so I just want to say that as a comment and then my particular question regarding that because it's so much horrible to get that more than a question I have a come

[1:15:17] right so I do actually have a question how do we make how do we approach this and I also acknowledge that the British government I mean Latin American governments are going to do what the British government is doing now in five years so how do we and I really like your intervention because of that so how do we address these problems for my Universalist perspective without being too white but just acknowledging that it is a trend and that power tends to behave the same

[1:15:49] in terms of co-opting narratives and distort perceptions about it so I don't know whoever wants to respond that I just felt I needed to say that thank you I suppose it's the British I should go get a blush again I suppose this one faint hope they're the post-breakfast Britons just going to fade or fake to a certain extent and stop exerting this malign influence but then I suppose is good to then be The Fountainhead of all things secrecy I don't think the USA is

[1:16:20] a particularly good example either I don't know I mean ever the last decade or so I've seen I've been encouraged to see greater independence or sort of break or a spirit across Latin America are many issues most notably of course things like the drug issue or breaking away from the Western financial hegemony as well the idea of Brazil getting involved in the Russian Chinese new investment bank and things like that so there is hope but I suppose as always in

[1:16:51] Latin America we tend to see America then trying to meddle and keep control of what it can see confused to be its own backyard rather than sovereign national states you know after the unrest fermented in Venezuela a potential coup in Ecuador that might be brewing what happened in Brazil so I think actually probably got more to worry about from America than Britain but yes I think Britain does set a very bad track to other countries and America knows knows they're going to abuse and you yeah and I maybe want to

[1:17:24] take your first point and I really appreciate about privilege and also use that to flip it and say with everything happening with Trump for example is one of the best comments I saw a commentary on it was Turkish journalists telling you as journalists how they should now try to counter this right that thick we can learn us white people in the global North some people around the world and we're in it together and we are facing similar issues right it's not this us and them

[1:17:56] kind of logic it is people have gone through situations with repressive governments through history and they do in all parts of the world and if we as a community that believe in human rights and these freedoms work together their sum up like it's idealistic but there's some hope there please I mean we can't see you from here so somebody just get up there back there okay plea my hi thank you everyone for

[1:18:27] the nice presentations my question would be to - and I think Giselle's comment is really important thank you for pointing that out I just saw a question I'm here I thank you for the work you've done so far and I was just wondering if you're doing anything or do you know anything about therapy or a support group for the artists were

[1:18:59] suffering from also censorship asking for a friend yeah I guess it depends on where in the world and and support group specific for self-censorship or author censorship I think groups like us that's what we work with and one of our big challenges in our research is to document this how do you document like all these numbers I

[1:19:30] show like you can't say this is one case of self-censorship of outer censorship which makes it really hard to deal with that issue and what we then try to do is talk to artists on and off the record get them to describe the situation when they feel they might fail sensor of men they might not and often they don't want to say this on the record and then if if that is because they're scared of the police which is in many states if it's they're scared for like economic consequences that's definitely also an aspect of it that is

[1:20:01] interesting and very complex if it's cuz Apple like iTunes has limb that you can't say [ __ ] in the title on iTunes right like then your music won't be published there and that will have a kind of consequences so it's because you're afraid of the Chinese regime coming every other there's a lot of different issues in that and depending on where in that the question you are I think that we could help find someone that would know more about this situation but I think it is very country specific or local how the specific

[1:20:31] situation is but as a global organization we kind of tried to address this as best we can and work with a lot of people on this okay are there any more questions yes back there please so I have a question for any you talked about how you wanted to start an organization that whistleblowers could go to with their concerns that would then investigate those concerns but a lot of whistleblowers talk about how

[1:21:02] they've exhausted internal channels and that didn't work so what would make this different from other internal channels and also how would this group we kept accountable and who would check that this group was investigating things as they said that they were doing absolutely I think I mean this idea is because of the British setup where there are intelligence commissioners who have designed to oversee the intelligence agencies and have done a particularly good job but there's also a committee in Parliament called the Intelligence and Security Committee which is absolutely crap it's useless it's had no power

[1:21:35] meaningfully for 23 years now but having something external like Commissioner or committee but with real investor powers and who really does their job and of course they'd only be trusted if they do that job and it seemed to be done and there are court cases resulting out of it then that I think would be a better path for both the agencies and also the staff you know the potential was suppose to go down because it would be win-win it doesn't mean everything's brushed

[1:22:05] under the carpet it doesn't mean that those who have committed crimes on the inside get away with it as happens now as we all know because there would be result in court cases if the evidence were found of course that doesn't obviate the need for whistle blows if they feel blocked and it's not working then of course they're going to get back to doing that but I think it's always worth exploring potential other options because at the moment particularly in the UK there is what's called a clear bright line against disclosure you cannot talk to anyone outside your agency or you go to prison that's it

[1:22:36] there's no defense no nothing the current review of the Official Secrets Act has specifically excluded the need for reintroducing the public interest defense which was removed in the 89 act so it's very messy it's increasingly draconian Britain is the most secretive intelligence community in any Western notional democracy they are the most legally protected of any intelligence agencies so it's trying to think what might be acceptable I was talking in terms of the UK what might be an

[1:23:07] acceptable first step I don't think whistle blows are going to go away I don't think organisations like WikiLeaks are going to go away that genie is out of the bottle technologically so this is really trying to minimize the damage and improve the work of the agencies because lots of good people do go and work there they want a job that will make a difference and protect their fellow citizens and for that initiative to be stifled or to be corrupted or to be crushed it's a crying shame I think so it's really trying to find an avenue to these people any was their trail against

[1:23:43] yours your partner was its public key yes the trial against David Shayler was largely public but they would go in-camera when the prosecutor said we can't talk about this but what they're proposing now under the new Official Secrets Act is entirely secret trials they're not even reported I think you said the public will learn about all that when the thing when the case comes to trial and do you really

[1:24:14] think that given I mean all empirical evidence is against that that secret document and given the secrecy the secretive 'ti of the agencies and that anything will ever come out and you said yourself they can if they provide a channel like that they can it can prevent getting information into the public and I think there is information

[1:24:45] where the public has a right to know and so may I ask you as a to constitutional Patriot as you turn in the home and what do you think about public whistleblowing um I I think that whistleblowing should be public man I comment on the trial aspect as well my trial actually was not public I mean I didn't make it up to trial I took a plea but in the United States

[1:25:16] we have this thing called the cipa the classified information Protection Act and so the entire courtroom is cleared when when I walk in I'm allowed only my attorneys there's the prosecution the judge and a clerk and we're not even allowed to use certain words so there's a list of words and then substitute words so if I want to say a classified

[1:25:46] word I have to say instead swimming pool so we intercepted the swimming pool as the place and and you have to constantly refer to this list of words so you don't accidentally say a word that the CIA has deemed to be classified and then get another charge on top of what you've already been charged with add to that as well during them the Schaller trial the key story and the reason we went public

[1:26:16] was the Gaddafi assassination plot and this actually made international global headlines actually and was a big course filler but there are calls for inquiries proper public inquiries into what spies been doing the government denied it blah blah blah so the six weeks duration of David's trial this disclosure this story was banned it was banned under something called the Public Interest immunity certificates which is a gagging order by the British government and this was a super gagging order so the press could not even say they were not allowed to talk about it in case that might

[1:26:49] influence the jury even though this had been headline news for years by that point particularly in the UK so it was a little calf caress in the sense that we weren't allowed to breathe that word during the trial journalists weren't allowed to write about that and some of them actually quite close to it trying to say in it we are being gagged and was prison for it but yeah it is Kafka resk it's frightening watching it in action this is the experience with the court martial of Bradley matters Chelsea

[1:27:19] Manning I mean it was the public was literally excluded from most of their of their trial this is an ongoing theme actually if I hope you don't mind my interjecting Chelsea Manning went through this Tom Drake went through this Jeffrey sterling in spades the only way I could defend myself was to have 72 classified documents Declassified and so we pored through 15 or 20,000 classified

[1:27:51] documents we found 72 that we believed proved my innocence and we made seventy two separate motions to the court to order these documents to be declassified we blocked off two days two full eight-hour days in order to argue our case so we walked into the courtroom and before we even sat down in the chairs the judge said let me save everybody some time I'm denying all 72 of these motions we were in and out in a few

[1:28:22] minutes and on the way out my attorney turned to me and said we have no defense if she won't let us have these documents we simply can't defend you I said so what do I do and he said we take a plea Jeffrey sterling went through the same thing he ended up going all the way to trial all the way to a jury decision without the ability to defend himself Chelsea Manning the same thing so that's why you end up looking at these draconian sentences of 30 and 35 and 45

[1:28:54] years you just don't have any way to win yes thank you and now we have heard this night different cases and all I related to human rights expression of freedom and so on either directly the artists who are persecuted or ever as you were

[1:29:30] you are telling about the the the the thing thing is you know in in court where which makes it difficult to defend what an ordinary citizen would would call the human right now there is an international organization Amnesty International and I wonder why it has not been mentioned one time is it

[1:30:03] because it's this international organization is so weak or is it sort of bought by the power the government in power what is the reason or is it just I don't know just not of any importance why didn't you mention Amnesty International thank you thank you for that question I begged Amnesty International to release even a one-sentence statement

[1:30:35] about my case I I wrote to MSD headquarters in London and several I wrote to Zeke Johnson the the director of Amnesty International USA who was kind enough to send me a subscription to The New Yorker magazine along with a letter saying I'm sorry but they don't want to have anything to do with your case and after about a year I got tired of begging I got zero help from Amnesty

[1:31:06] International nothing can I just add to that as well exactly the same experience after shayla's conviction I went with them our lawyer who was the head of the equivalent to the ACLU in the UK to argue that amnesty in London should declare David to be the first political prisoner in the UK in the UK's history I think a lot with modern history and we won that argument and the political committee that was listening to have agreed and recommended he should be but then it was stamped on from a great height by the controlling

[1:31:37] committee so yeah I perfectly understand where you're coming from with that and yeah it can we work with Amnesty some sense I think I might mention them once and I know some of the critique and we were aware of the human rights movement of course is this bureaucratization over time it came out they were going to depending on when this whole movement right involved and now those big organizations they are huge bureaucracies with a lot of rules a lot of lawyers everything goes up the chain

[1:32:07] down the chain several times before they say anything and of course when they then say something it's verified and it's like credible in many many ways but it also makes them very inflexible and taking up cases that are a little odd like they are big bureaucracies by now which I think the best intentions but that is the limitation of the human rights regime so to say I think so the next time you all turn to us was the one network Germany because we do have we

[1:32:39] managed to set up a legal aid fund which may provide professional advice to you before you go public if you want to go public as John mentioned it's always better to ask two for two professional help especially with a complicated German situation where there is no whistleblower protection law at all so our our flier is and the possibility is to check in with us waiting for you at

[1:33:12] the desk at the entrance desk and we would be pleased if many of you would make that decision and support us and I think that Yanis is telling me that I should wrap up this part of our event and let me quickly say and before she does it and let me quickly say that I have the feeling that we have to be

[1:33:42] grateful for what whistleblowers for what we and the civil society that is the civil society what we have learned from widowhood what we are still learning from them from those being here and from those who are not here and all the others who blew the whistle because that gives us the possibility to act and decide upon what we then know speaking and now speaking

[1:34:19] you we're speaking about the US and the UK and I must say Germany we have pretty much the same problems with the lowers are not or even less protected in the UK as in the u.s. at least last year we have also passed several so-called security laws that's the new speak I realized that Annie is righteously speaking of secrecy laws and whereas in

[1:34:50] Germany they are called security laws so we have passed the we have passed several security last laws and the parliamentary control of the executive of the military and the secret agencies secret services is insufficient - and we know attempts to intimidate the press - so let us not accept that and to

[1:35:21] say it in Norman Solomon's word the other day he said let's be a pain in the neck he said let's be a pain in the neck and let's publish everything the public has a right to know and let's not forget to ask why is that secret why the first question to ask we have the human right the freedom of its present as the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press and let's ask why is that secret

[1:35:54] in the first place and not try to legitimize why we speak out and most of all and please keep in mind what Hannah Adam the philosopher or the social scientists on an errand has said nobody has the right to obey [Applause]

[1:36:26] I just want to conclude but I don't want to give you my back and I wanted to thank you very much for this great panel and also this great moderation and a degree so and so I just wanted to mention the people that curvy arrow so that we can stay a bit longer and use the bar so if you still have

[1:36:56] energy please stay with us and also I wanted to say remember to buy the book of John that's even signed personally so that is really a unique piece and I finally also wanted to thank other people of the team that I didn't think Hank yes of course I wanted to thank the theme of the Gruner salon that helped us a lot with the technology with the cash desk and also with the bass and the Jonas Frankie that did a great visual design that we saw at the event there

[1:37:29] are photo cream crew that's documenting our video and so much meet the photographer and so high oppa we will meet soon and you can also follow us later on our TV see if you want to subscribe the newsletter that is the paper at the axis so now these little technicalities and I want to thank again all the great speaker bin with us today and the public for saying goes on TV so late thank you

[1:38:00] [Applause] thank you most of all [Applause]
