What is Biden waiting for on the Julian Assange case?
The US case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange took another blow last weekend after one of the key witnesses admitted to fabricating evidence.
Icelandic hacker Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, also known as “Siggi the hacker”, recently told Icelandic outlet Studin that Assange did not instruct him to hack into any government agencies nor private companies in Iceland.
The admission is important: the US government case against Assange — which could result in a 175-year prison term for the Wikileaks founder — relies on Thordarson’s claim that Assange recruited him to hack Icelandic both public and private entities and provide Wikileaks with the classified material.
With this allegation debunked, the Biden administration is left with even less of a reason to continue the Trump-initiated case against Assange and a free press.
Assange and Siggi Meet in Iceland
Assange arrived in Iceland and worked with government officials there in 2010 and 2011 in hopes of creating an “offshore haven” for whistleblowers to leak information about corruption within governments as well as private organisations.
Siggi Thordarson, an Icelander nicknamed “the hacker” (a joke since, apparently, he cannot actually hack computers), volunteered to work for Assange and Wikileaks. Things went bad quickly.
According to the StudIn article, Siggi admits to exaggerating his influence in the organisation. Referring to himself as Wikileaks “chief of staff”, Thorardson encouraged fellow hackers to commit denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) against websites based in Iceland.
This, admitted Thordarson, was not done at the instruction of Assange or anyone within Wikileaks.
Nor was the alleged request by Assange to hack into the phones and emails of Icelandic parliament members to record their conversations. While Thordarson did receive files, he admits they were not of his own doing or anyone in the Wikileaks organisation, including Assange. Instead, he now says they were given to him by a “third party.” Thordarson even admits that he is not sure what was contained on the files.
The Icelander additionally walked back his assertion that Assange and he tried (and failed) to break into an encrypted file from a bank in Iceland. Thordarson now admits the file was publicly available, not stolen from the bank.
A Case Built on Deceit
The Trump Department of Justice, believing Thordarson’s then-claims that Assange was instructing him to hack the classified material of governments and private enterprises, built their case around the Icelander’s testimony.
Yet Thordarson’s work for the US government goes back further.
In 2011, Thordarson was noticed by the FBI after planning a DDoS attack against an Icelandic website with Hector Xavier Monsegur, nicknamed “Sabu”, a hacker-turned-FBI informant who was posing as a member of the hacking group LulzSec.
Seeing that Thordarson was allegedly connected to Wikileaks, the FBI made contact with the hacker to provide evidence against Julian Assange.
Meanwhile, the relationship between Thordarson and Wikileaks could not have been more at odds. Thordarson had been embezzling money from the organization, up to $50,00. This lawlessness extended into the hacker’s personal life as well. Charges were intiated by various Icelandic companies against Thordarson for theft, fraud, and forgery.
Flash forward to 2019
Thordarson has served some time, Donald Trump is in his third raucous year of the White House, and Julian Assange has been in the Ecuadoran embassy in London for over seven years.
Seeking to prosecute the Wikileaks founder, the US—after, according to the UN, years of “collective persecution” against Assange — contacted Thordarson. If Assange had instructed him to hack governments and private companies in Iceland, that would be illegal.
This testimony would give the Trump administration a solution to what is known as the “New York Times Problem”, a conclusion made by the Obama Justice Department, when developing their own case against Assange, that said prosecuting Wikileaks would raise the same concerns as prosecuting newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post for doing what they do every day: publish leaked material.
Said another way, it would censor the ability of the press to report on anything without fear of lawful prosecution.
Thordarson’s testimony became part of the Trump administration’s superseding indictment, released two months after the initial indictment was, ironically, leaked by a government official.
The Trump-Biden War on the Free Press
The case against Julian Assange endured what many thought would be a death knell on January 4. UK Judge Vanessa Barasiter ruled “no” to extradition to the United States.
The ruling, made not on free speech grounds but humanitarian grounds, noted that Assange would likely not receive a “fair trial” and more than likely commit suicide if he entered into the US prison system.
The US was now faced with a choice to drop the case or appeal. The Biden administration, through Trump-appointed Justice Department spokesperson Marc Raimondi, announced the new administration would indeed appeal Barasiter’s ruling and seek to assure the judge that Assange would be safe in a US jail cell.
With Thordarson’s testimony now recanted, the US case against Assange now relies on the claim Assange told Chelsea (then-Bradley) Manning to commit “intrusion” of government computers to show US war crimes. The case also still maintains the controversial Espionage Act charges (or the New York Times problem) that indite Assange as a publisher of classified military and diplomatic documents.
All Quiet in the Western Press
Since the story broke about Thordarson’s admission, Western media has paid scant attention. At least say, relative to the Alexei Navalny case; which, we all know, is equally a sham and reprehensible.
I recently asked the journalist who spoke with Thordarson and broke the story, Bjartman Alexandersson, in a recent interview about the media blackout on the revelations outside of Iceland. He pointed out that the case is complicated and bigger sources have to verify the claims made in his story. He also noted that places like The Guardian and others outlets are writing reports.
To me, the silence is intentional after years of demonisation against the Wikileaks founder, despite publications like the New York Times, Guardian, Der Spiegel, and others working with Wikileaks in the past to expose corruption such as war crimes and financial mismanagement
Hopefully the charm offensive played by the Biden administration on the press will result in policy changes rather than simply words. The recent pardon of Reality Winner gives hope.
DiEM25 stands in solidarity with Assange, Wikileaks, and the right of whistleblowers and the free press to expose corruption. Join us for events around Europe on July 3 as well as for a DiEM Voice TV exclusive event on July 5. #FreeAssange!
DiEM25 takes to the streets on Julian Assange’s 50th birthday
Celebrate Julian Assange’s 50th birthday on the streets of a European city close to you!
DiEM25 Advisory Panel member Julian Assange has been deprived of his freedom – freedom of life, freedom of speech, freedom of the press – for almost 10 years.
It is urgent to continue to fight for Julian Assange and for all whistleblowers who are deprived of their freedoms and rights in so-called democratic states.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Wikileaks founder, and to support all those who, like him, have had their lives compromised for defending the truth, DiEM25 members will take to the streets in front of UK and U.S embassies in several European cities such as in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, London and Vilnius.
DiEMers from across Europe will protest with masks, and hold artworks from the “Raise your Voice for Assange” exhibition in their hands (an initiative of DiEM Voice, DiEM25’s cultural and artistic platform), and by standing on chairs, a replica of Davide Dormino’s #Anythingtosay project (learn more about it here).
Each protest will mark the day that gave birth to the man who radically changed the way of thinking about citizens’ right to information in our democracies and the duty to bring to court, not whistleblowers, but those who commit the real crimes against humanity.
In addition to these protests, DiEM Voice, DiEM25’s cultural and artistic platform, is preparing a special event on Voice TV, taking place on July 5 at 8 PM CEST, featuring artists Angela Richter and Davide Dormino, with moderation by Maja Pelevic. Throughout the event there will be some surprises, so stay tuned.
List of DiEM25 protests in Europe taking place on Saturday, July 3:
- Athens, Greece
- Berlin, Germany
- Bremen, Germany
- Brussels, Belgium
- Corfu, Greece
- Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Iraklio (Crete), Greece
- Lisbon, Portugal
- London, UK
- Rhodes, Greece
- Thessaloniki, Greece
- Vilnius, Lithuania
- Zakynthos, Greece
Credits: Aidan Clark (Raise your voice for Assange Campaign)
What we can learn from the online public shaming trend
Online public shaming is having a moment. Well, a decade.
I’m talking about the social media-driven tactic of trying to ban/censor people/organisations, after they have done/said something considered objectionable/offensive. It originated in the US, and it’s now coming to Europe.
But let’s not go into whether this practice represents long-overdue accountability or McCarthyite censorship. Let’s not argue about whether it achieves lasting social change, accomplishes nothing, or helps the Establishment maintain power. And let’s not quibble over its precise definition.
Let’s instead acknowledge this: it’s here. It’s real. And it’s very effective.
Ask author J.K. Rowling, whose tweets on transgender people created a firestorm. Journalist Don McNeil, who was ousted from the New York Times after using a racial slur. Senator Al Franken, who was forced to resign after sexual misconduct claims. The software company Basecamp, which lost a third of its staff after trying to limit political discussions at work. Or The Muppets, who were slapped with an ‘offensive content’ warning for ‘perpetuating cultural stereotypes’. The list gets longer every week.
And so perhaps — as activist citizens, as organisers — we should be asking ourselves what we can learn from this surge of social justice activity.
No, I’m not suggesting we all start online public shaming, or that we direct our campaigns towards the same goals. Rather, I’m wondering: can the success of this tactic offer us anything to run better campaigns? To increase our impact?
I think it can. Seen dispassionately, as purely a tried-and-tested tactic, it provides us with pointers we can use for our radical actions.
Let’s look at some of its elements.
Elements of online public shaming in a campaign cycle
A sense of outrage at a perceived injustice
The first step for any campaign is picking an issue you can win, and backing it up with proof points. If you’re confronting a company that’s dumping toxic sludge in a river, for example, you’ll need evidence. Ideally from experts.
But online public shaming goes further. It uses moral outrage as a trigger for action — OMG that is so wrong! Individuals, rather than institutions, are the usual target. And what those people say publicly takes on an outsized significance.
This approach of personifying your target is worth considering. It’s easier to get mad at a person than an organisation, or an idea. And personifying your target can whittle an issue down to its essence: “powerful person X is doing Y, which screws over powerless people Z.”
So if your campaign is targeting an institution, put forward the person responsible prominently in your messaging. Don’t make the campaign all about them, but use their name, their face, and their public statements in your materials (think Bezos in anti-Amazon campaigns). And if you can find comments that suggest this person has been arrogant or callous in the injustice they are perpetrating, work those in too.
A clear, achievable goal
Online public shaming usually offers its adherents a simple goal: cause the offender to lose their platform or position.
This is classic best practice for campaigns, in that it makes your Ultimate Goal clear and achievable. If you know what winning looks like, it’s easier to rally people to your cause. And you can measure whether you succeeded. ‘The university brings down the offensive statue’ and ‘the author’s publisher cancels her contract’ are examples of precise goals.
The take-away here is to ensure your own campaign goal follows the same form. A supermarket is failing to protect its workers by not giving them masks against COVID? Your goal could be: “the company gives them protection.” Your local administration is making wasteful investments? “The municipality puts at least 50% of them into sustainable energy.”
Or to go back to our toxic sludge example: “The factory stops pumping it into the river”. Explicit and clear.
Low barriers to entry
Online public shaming actions are a numbers game. And social media, with its built-in audience, are their organising tool.
When people with large online followings start spreading information that creates a PR problem for a target, that target usually takes notice. For people who want to support the action, the cost of joining is just a retweet or a share.
This mechanism works because while the barriers to entry to an online public shaming action are nil, the potential damage to the target is huge.
Not all campaigns need large numbers of supporters to win. But if yours does, make it as easy as possible for others to join it and get active. That means: no membership needed. And have a clear path to onboarding and empowering new people.
A belief that you’re part of something historic
One of the drivers of online public shaming actions is that people engaging in them feel they’re righting old wrongs. They have the sense of being part of something bigger — a civil rights movement for the modern age.
A move to rename schools with ties to controversial figures, for example, is cast as a struggle against racism and white supremacy. A drive to ban a film with questionable content as confronting misogyny.
So, set your campaign in context. Our toxic sludge action could be part of the battle to save our environment. A push to stop a mall development could be seen as a struggle against the excesses of capitalism. Or the crushing of Main Street and small town life. Or local corruption.
Giving your supporters a worthy context can give your campaign wings.
A feeling of seeing justice done
Everyone loves to see the bully get his ass handed to him. And any online public shaming action thrives on the promise that if it succeeds, you might get to witness that justice done.
The cocky comedian with the cruel jokes loses his network contract. The racist provocateur gets banned from Twitter. The sexist boss is forced to repent… and gets fired anyway.
So, factor this promise of justice into your campaign materials and call-outs to members. And if your campaign ‘wins’, don’t gloat, but shout about it – smartly.
Promote the win, both inside the campaign and out. Illustrate how you’ve given the bully a black eye. If you’ve personified the target, well-chosen photography of them before and after your win can speak volumes. And if they issue a frustrated-sounding statement in reaction to your win, even better.
Done right, this kind of communication can help you to publicly close the circle on your campaign. And motivate your supporters for the next action.
Source: Rob Brucker
OK, so that’s a tour of what I think we can learn from the success of online public shaming. Let me end with a few disclaimers.
As mentioned, I’m looking at this tactic through a practical lens. Debate on it is polarised — either it’s killing free speech or evening the score for the powerless. This discussion is raging; there’s no need to have it again here.
Also, there are many other aspects of online public shaming that don’t apply to our analysis. Sometimes it can create real harm, and ruin lives. So I’ll repeat: I’m not advocating that we implement this tactic as-is. I am interested only in what we can learn from its success, for better or worse.
And: the suggestions above will only work for radical activist actions, where you don’t mind antagonising your target. If you’re planning a lobbying campaign, for example, this piece probably isn’t for you.
Wherever your stand on online public shaming, though, its dominance provides some valuable lessons. It’s having a moment. And if we want to grow as activists, it deserves our attention.
Feeling inspired to make some radical actions of your own, but not sure where to start? The Campaign Accelerator programme offers DiEM25 members the chance for support and guidance in their activist projects. It will be opening again later this year. In the meantime, check out this behind-the-scenes look at a successful campaign we worked on recently as part of Campaign Accelerator.
More than 500 people gather in Vigo to welcome the Zapatistas
On Tuesday, June 22, “Squad 421” with the seven Zapatistas (4 women, 2 men and 1 non-binary other) finally disembarked at “Praia de Bouzas”, next to the city of Vigo in Galicia, Spain.
Their trip with the boat “La Montaña”, which started on May 3 from Isla Mujeres in Mexico, finally ended after almost 50 days at sea. Now a new trip begins for them and for all of us!
Despite the difficulties that they faced during this period, before and during the trip, and the extremely complicated obstacle of the pandemic, the Zapatistas managed to “invade” and “rediscover” Europe.
They proved once again that whatever they decide to do, they do it no matter what, even when circumstances and conditions are perceived to not be mature enough. They waited 500 years for this “invasion”. Nothing would stop them from fulfilling their perfectly designed plan, not even the pandemic
This is only the beginning
This is just the first group of the Zapatistas to arrive in Europe by boat in a symbolic action that is connected with the “invasion and the rediscover” of Europe 500 years after the invasion of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) from Hernán Cortéz, back in 1521: a symbolic action that proves that the Europeans never really conquered them, despite all the massacres, endless genocides and the extreme racism seen till today against indigenous peoples, who have managed to continue to resist and rebel, to fight and win back their dignity.
But there are many more groups and hundreds of Zapatistas who will come over the next months, but by plane this time. They will visit each and every European territory. From the Iberian Peninsula to Siberia, from the Balkans to the Nordic region and from the British Isles to Cyprus. But instead of invading or taking revenge, they are coming to listen, talk and interact with progressive movements in an attempt to learn from each other’s struggles.
Collectives and people from all over Europe responded to the Zapatistas’ call and came to Vigo to welcome and receive them. They began organising last October in order to welcome the “compas” in their geographies, as soon as the Zapatistas informed them of their ambitious plan.
More than 100 people gathered in Vigo during the last week to prepare the welcome events, together with the hospitable comrades from Galicia. Eventually around 500 people gathered on the day of their arrival (June 22) to welcome “Squad 421” and to participate in the welcoming events that included Galician traditional music with bagpipes and Mexican cumbias, as well as poetry and rock and hip-hop concerts.
DiEM25 was also there to welcome the Zapatistas
One week of intense emotions, of unique experiences, of countless hours of assemblies, preparations, meeting and mingling with some of the most progressive and healthy parts of our societies. How couldn’t we be there, since the Zapatistas are representing the other alternative that we in DiEM25 believe in?
How could we not participate in an initiative, and be absent from an event, that has gathered and united so many progressive collectives and individuals with different backgrounds?
I can say now with certainty that the Zapatistas have already managed to do something that hadn’t happened for so many years: to bring together and unite fragmented progressive movements of Europe. To make Europeans believe that another world is possible, a world where many worlds fit.
DiEM25 is inspired by this and also tries to inspire through this, in order to create the strong and united progressive front in our society which now is more necessary than ever. I can assure you that we are one step closer!
Bienvenid@s compañeras, compañeroa y compañeros!
Corporate greenwashing: the case of Shell
The Anglo-Dutch oil and gas corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, has been in the news recently due to a ruling from a court in the Hague that has ordered the company to cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030, compared with 2019 levels.
The case is unprecedented, as “it is the first time a judge has ordered a large polluting corporation to comply to the Paris climate agreement”, according to Roger Cox, a lawyer for Friends of the Earth Netherlands, one of the organisations that took Shell to court.
However, whilst this ruling is something to celebrate, it is worth asking ourselves if telling the big corporations to go green and make their portfolio eco-friendly is the way to go in order to face the environmental crisis of which they are largely guilty?
At the beginning of his book titled “Energy and Equity”, the Austrian thinker Ivan Illich presents us with an interesting thesis. It states that believing in the idea that massive amounts of clean energy is the solution to our (environmental) problems represents an error of political judgement.
It does so, according to him, because imagining that energy production and political participation can grow vis a vis is an illusion. It is the fundamental illusion that makes us believe that the industrialised society can grow without restrictions, while at the same time allowing for democratic participation of this growth.
According to Illich, beyond a certain point, “more energy means less equity in a society”, mainly for three reasons: the increase of energy complexifies a system to such an extent that it requires technocracy to manage it, the amount of energy consumed depends on your social status, and the infrastructure to support energy increase modifies unevenly the physical and social environment.
We face a similar illusion when the shareholders of Shell voted positively (a few days before the mentioned court ruling) for an advisory vote on its Transition Strategy, instead of a more ambitious plan put forward by the green shareholder’s group ‘Follow this’. According to the company, its strategy is about “how we will navigate the transition profitably and in line with our purpose – to power progress together with more and cleaner energy solutions”.
As Timothy Mitchell argues in his book Carbon Democracy. Political power in the age of oil, our collective dependence on oil has shaped the political mechanisms that we have as a society to regulate ourselves. Oil dependence has undermined democracy and our capacity to address the problems it has created. Giving the shareholders of a multinational corporation the power to be the ones having the last word in a matter that concerns the whole world, is with no doubt not only a fantasy but a subversion of true democracy.
Corporate energy transition
After decades of being one of the most polluting companies on Earth, in February, Shell presented its Transition Strategy. It is not only Shell that has taken the path of Green Energy transition. Lately, we have seen more and more corporations greenwashing their projects as part of the emergence of a corporate energy transition regime. As explained by the Transnational Institute, this corporate energy transition regime has three main characteristics. First, it operates guided mainly by an energy efficiency principle, where the main objective is to emit fewer greenhouse gasses while keeping and even increasing the energy production.
Second, in this regime most elements of the transition (machinery, projects, regulations, research, etc.) are controlled, owned, or work in favour of transnational corporations. Third, the corporate energy transition regime governed by elitist technocrats does not address the question of distribution or access to energy of populations or citizen participation in decision-making processes.
The Transition Strategy report of Shell outlines its intended transitionary path. It states that in order to become a net-zero emitter of carbon by 2050, one of its objectives must be to scale up what they call “low carbon energy solutions” to a point where they are producing eight times more low-carbon fuels (biofuels and hydrogen) than today.
The focus on biofuels, however, has the potential to be especially problematic, due to the social and environmental costs that an approach like this has, particularly with regards to its impact on land use and biodiversity. Two examples of these environmental impacts can be found in Indonesia were “80 per cent of the rainforest has already disappeared, largely due to timber exploration and massive expansion of palm oil” and in Europe where “the European Union biofuels policy has triggered speculative land investments in the oil palm sector worldwide”.
Furthermore, the “transition strategy” presented by Shell is inherently environmentally unsustainable, as “land and freshwater depleted by industrial agriculture and tree plantations, biodiverse ecosystems converted to sterile monocultures and diverse forests logged for bioenergy certainly won’t be replenished in the time it takes to consume the energy derived this way”. It is also likely to be destructive for the communities based in the areas in which monocultures for biofuels will be grown. We are, in fact, already seeing communities that are being affected by the global land rush that the high demand for “green lands” has created.
Land grabbing and green initiatives
Without an environmental justice approach, people that were affected by non-renewable energy are at high risk of being affected by renewables projects. Research on Green Sacrifice Zones alerts us to the social and environmental costs of green energy transitions that are already taking place. The Environmental Justice Atlas is also an important tool that has mapped many of the places around the world where conflicts for the use of the territory have emerged between corporations and communities where renewable-energy plans are being carried on.
One example of this kind of conflicts can be found in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, where transnational corporations are building ten thousands of windmills, and where “Local citizens criticise that the corporations and the Mexican State are ignoring agrarian laws and indigenous rights”.
A capitalist global economy that is constantly growing without limits will constantly need more energy to function. Shell promises that it will provide some of this energy in a cleaner way by producing eight times more low-carbon fuels. However, the Anglo-Dutch company does not address the potential social or environmental impact of such a change.
According to an analysis of the company’s report, the only big difference between the new plan presented by Shell and its previous scenario is the use of “extensive scale-up of nature-based solutions”, specifically planting trees over an “area approaching [a size] that of Brazil”.
The production of biofuels requires massive amounts of land to meet the constantly increasing energy demands. This need for land dedicated to bioenergy production will stress even more the already conflictive competition for land in the rural areas of the world. According to Andrew Steer and Craig Hanson, “roughly three-quarters of the world’s vegetated land is already being used to meet people’s need for food and forest products, and that demand is expected to rise by 70% or more by 2050”. And they add that as reported by the World Resources Institute (WRI), “providing just 10% of the world’s liquid transportation fuel in the year 2050 would require nearly 30% of all the energy in a year’s worth of crops the world produces today”.
This places the world in a scenario where the pressure on lands for biofuels could increase the risk of land grabbing processes all around the world. One of the many examples is the case of Kamara in Sierra Leone: “Kamara is one of several thousand farmers in Sierra Leone whose lands have been taken over by the Swiss company Addax Bioenergy for a 10,000 hectares sugar cane plantation to produce ethanol for export to Europe”.
We are entering into an era of Green Grabbing. An era in which transnational companies like Shell in their transition, will start pressuring the economies of the Global South for massive amounts of land for their green projects. Shell will carry out this transition not only without addressing its actual ecological debt with the countries of the Global South but with a high chance of producing more damage to the ecosystems and communities of it. Now that is “transitioning” to renewables, what would make Shell focus on the ecological debt that it owes to people from the Global South?
That a group of shareholders of an energy company can represent the people of the world in deciding on the future of the planet, and that green energy doesn’t have social and ecological impacts are both illusions and conveniently ignored facts. Land grabbing for biofuels is a severe threat to the livelihoods of millions of peoples in the Global South. It is impossible to think that an energy transition strategy that relies so much on the production of biofuels will be just. Without an environmental justice approach, the victims of the operations of Shell will not change, only the way in which they are affected.
There will be no more oil spilling but now we will have green sacrifice zones, millions of hectares grabbed, and millions of inhabitants displaced. We don’t have enough time to sit and wait to see whether the clean energy business model of Shell will work. We have enough research to know it will not, so it’s time to demand that this company pay its long-standing ecological debt and contribute to dismantling Shell by any means necessary.
Photo (c) Annelien Nijland
DiEM25 welcomes the Zapatistas in Europe
The Zapatistas have arrived in Vigo, Spain, to start their tour of Europe where they will meet up with several progressive organisations. At DiEM25 we are excited to welcome the Zapatistas and wish them a wonderful journey.
500 years after the invasion of Tenochtitlán (Mexico City) by Europeans, and while the Mexican government is now working on the disastrous anti-developmental and unsustainable “mega projects” in the southern part of Mexico, the Zapatistas are “invading” and “rediscovering” Europe.
They are coming to listen, talk and interact with the progressive movements in Europe, to learn from each other’s struggles and to create a global progressive front, and to prove that there is a different alternative and that another world is possible. Does this sound familiar? How could DiEM25 be out of this magnificent initiative?
Read our previous correspondence with the Zapatistas here and here. Below is our latest response:
Hi comrades,
Thank you very much for your letter and your questions. Our members from various geographies in Europe are very excited to welcome you and we have created a special group within DiEM25 to coordinate this project. It is called DSC Democracy in Action-Zapatista Tour to Europe.
Since we are a group with members in various geographies, we thought that it would be better if we joined the existing coordination groups in order to be part of the trip. This is already the case in the Netherlands and Sweden, where we have members participating in the national coordination groups and we are also in contact with the coordination groups in the territories of Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. In addition, we participate and contact the working groups of the European coordination and we are seeking to connect with more solidarity groups in Europe and make this trip successful for everyone.
These are some of the events that we would like to organise in collaboration with the networks that DiEM25 is in and to which we would like to invite you:
- Arts:
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- Europe: We will participate in the initiative of the European coordination of the collective art exhibition “a mountain sailing at dawn”.
- Sciences:
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- Sweden: An event at Stockholm University with the Nordic Institute of Latin American Studies
- Feminism:
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- Sweden: A rugby match with an LGBTQ team from Stockholm and an event with feminist organizations
- Environment:
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- Sweden: An event with Fridays for Future (Friday for the future) and workers-communities-collectives against mines in Sweden and communities and collectives that fight against deforestation in Sweden
- Indigenous populations:
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- Sweden: An event with the Sami and the Mapuches
- Autonomy / free spaces:
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- Europe: we are part of #Rentvolution, a campaign that seeks that people can have a decent home and we can organize an event based on this campaign.
Also, we would be very happy to organise meetings with our activists in Berlin, Germany and in Brussels, Belgium. We are in contact with the coordination groups in these geographies and as soon as we know of the dates of your arrival there, we could coordinate and help with accommodation and necessary logistics.
Additionally, we can also support by organising digital events through our platforms and through our social media, which are active throughout Europe. Last year we launched DiEM TV which reached several million views across the world and we would be excited to host a special online show with some of you.
It can be either in Spanish or English. Best would be to propose some comrades whom we can contact directly and find a suitable date.
We hope we can support your important trip to Europe with logistics, translation and dissemination of news and with whatever may be needed. We are at your service and we are very happy to talk, learn and listen to you and share some beautiful and fruitful time together.
A hug and have a very nice trip.
Neoliberalism is feeding a culture of individualism and the pandemic is making it worse
Tension, pressure, anxiety, and strain, etc. are increasingly felt by many of us. While the precariat is always growing, many are discovering a new dimension of capitalist pressure that, for most, has hitherto been confined to a more private sphere.
In our current political economy, capitalist social relations have been gaining momentum at an accelerated rate, and since the COVID-19 crisis, a new reality has emerged; one in which time and space cease to exist.
As a result of the pandemic, face-to-face social interaction has largely been eradicated, which has exacerbated symptoms of already-increasing social disintegration.
In the name of cushioning the weight of loneliness due to de-socialisation and enforced self-isolation, and in the name of the preservation of the imperative of profit, the digital world has been promoted to an unprecedented degree. The accrual of capital is a restless movement that cannot be stopped or questioned, for fear of preventing its inexorable march forward. Pandemic or not, profit was paramount, and digital penetration was the way.
The digital sphere was the only escape in a world of mandatory self-isolation and house-arrest. However, continuous online engagement cannot replicate the experience of in-person interactions, nor facilitate the creation of enduring social bonds. Social media have indeed enabled people to keep in touch with one another during the restrictions imposed over the last year, however, the replacement of physical social interaction with a digital kind represents not an augmentation of the former, but an entirely new social existence.
Neoliberalism has destroyed the collective force of social relations that constitute our social lives. Social atomisation or, in other words, the reduction of individuals into consumers, has shattered social association. In its place, a purer, less complicated relationship between individuals and commodities has emerged. Products have ceased to be objects used by human beings, instead, human beings have become the product itself. Whereas once the product was the subject and the person the object, the roles have now been reversed.
This consumer identity and culture of individualism is a self-reinforcing relationship, and when a group is fragmented into merely a collection of individuals as opposed to an interconnected and deeply bonded community, it becomes weak and easily dominated by the prevailing powers.
The capacity for empathy is inversely proportional to the deepening of de-socialisation. The more lonely and the more isolated one becomes, the more unable one is to feel another’s pain and perceive one’s self relative to that person. Empathy is not an unconditional human quality, but one that arises as a result of a particular kind of human relationship, one that requires physical socialisation and reciprocity. Digital relationships are effectively now merely relationships between autonomous, inorganic entities, with people their mere fuel.
The supposed remedy to capitalist relations through digitalisation as a result of a crisis that, as it was claimed, would bring the eternal movement of capital to a halt, now appears simply, and far more tragically, the greatest act of human alienation to date.
“Anything to Say” art exhibition inaugurated in Geneva in support of Julian Assange
On June 5, on the edge of Lake Geneva, Davide Dormino’s bronze sculptures, depicting the two whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and journalist Julian Assange, were officially inaugurated.
Prior to the exhibition’s unveiling, the Swiss Press Club held a press conference on June 4, which was presented by Pierre Rueschi (Executive Director of the Geneva Press Club) and hosted speakers such as Nils Melzer (UN Special Rapporteur on Torture), Stella Morris (Julian Assange’s fiancée), Christophe Deloitre (Secretary General, Reporters Without Borders World), Jean Rossiaud (Former Geneva parliamentarian, initiator of the Swiss visa idea for Assange), Davide Dormino (Sculptor of “Anything To Say?“), Sarah Ducret (Association des usagers des Bains des Pâquis), Frédérique Perler (Mayor of Geneva -from June 1st), Yves Daccord (Former Director General of the the International Committee of the Red Cross and former journalist), Carlo Sommaruga (State Councillor, Swiss Parliament), Antoine Vey (Julian Assange’s attorney), Blaise Lempen (President of Press Emblem Campaign) and Joseph Farrell (WikiLeaks ambassador to the UK). *
The press conference was also an official call by the city of Geneva, for the UK government to release Julian Assange from Belmarsh prison in London. There was no doubt amongst the many speakers of Assange’s innocence nor of the unlawfulness of his imprisonment.
Former Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Yves Daccord, said:
“If you want to tackle a system, especially when you want to tackle a system, that is put in place, to put pressure on the people, to torture, to dehumanize people and I am really talking about a system, you need to have public disclosure.“
Joseph Farrell, WikiLeaks ambassador to the UK, said about Assange’s case,
“We hear about press freedom constantly, especially from the global political establishment, who support it, yet, the name that seems to haunt it, all the time, is Julian’s name, Julian Assange. Despite having won his case against extradition, he remains detained in a maximum security prison, whilst the USA try to persecute and prosecute him with 175 years using an outdated law, that has ever been previously used on a journalist, on a publisher before…This case is so well known, his name was trending during world press freedom day, every major NGO, every major press freedom group has taken up his case. Every major media outlet opposes his extradition and they do this not just because it is the right thing to do, but they do it because they see the ramifications that this case will have in the world, in fact, is having in the world. The case hasn’t even been concluded and already we are seeing the precedent set and employed. Governments are going after journalists. We saw it with Bolsonaro in Brazil going after Greenwald, Macri going after journalists in Argentina, Russia going after Navalny. Planes have been dragged out of the sky.“
Julian Assange’s fiancée Stella Morris also commented the upcoming meeting between Presidents Biden and Putin in Geneva on June 16, “Biden is coming to this city in a few days’ time and everyone should tell him to stop this lunacy. It is an aberration that Julian is not a free man. In no sane world can this be normalised.“ Artist Davide Dormino’s suggested that “It would be awesome, if they [the presidents] would stand up on the empty chair.“ Let’s not get our hopes up.
The actual lives of the three figures Dormino has depicted in his art do not provide great cause for optimism. Edward Snowden still lives in exile in Russia, Julian Assange sits isolated in a cell in Belmarsh Prison in the UK, and Chelsea Manning, though free, has previously attempted suicide and is in a great deal of debt due to legal costs.
It is clear that the fight for Julian Assange‘s freedom has become a fight for his life, and this knowledge gave the otherwise hopeful event an undeniable weight of sombreness. Evidently, the very same institutions that are supposed to act in accordance with human rights, human dignity and our International jurisdictional system, are rejecting their responsibilities.
UN Special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer said at the press conference:
“I can’t even motivate other governments, friendly governments, the German government, to support my call. And what pains me most, it’s the first time I say this publicly, I cannot convince the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations to have a meeting with me, to talk about Julian Assange. I’ve asked for that meeting in writing, in January last year. She has always found a reason not to meet with me. And that’s not because they are bad persons, but because the pressure is so huge. You have to know, that is the reality .”
A possible conclusion is that, if people from within the institutions have no power to change the outcome, only a critical mass of people on the outside can make the difference. Only the united voice of a majority can demand justice and pressure the Institutions. Prominent figures build platforms so that we can speak up. They give us the opportunity to stand behind them, while they cover the frontline.
Experts write books to equip us with knowledge, so we can safely speak the truth based on facts and lose the fear of being wrong about something that is absolutely right, which is this: journalism is not a crime and whistleblowing is an indispensable duty to society if the information is in the public interest.
Of course we need to know if our governments break laws or kill innocent people. Not supporting the people who expose government misconduct is, in effect, not supporting the very rights and freedoms upon which we so depend. The ones who “blow the whistle“ and sound the alarm have become the focus of the argument, while the real criminals walk free – their crimes forgotten as quickly as they were revealed.
On July 3 will be Julian Assange’s 50th birthday. To mark this occasion DiEM25 will organise collective actions during that time and an exclusive DiEM TV event on July 5, especially dedicated to him, featuring Davide Dormino and Angela Richter, who have been fighting over the years for Assange’s freedom, and for the future of the free press.
They will discuss how the silencing of whistle-blowers, including cancel culture, hinders progressive change, and how art can have an impact in the defence of freedom of expression. More information coming soon!
If you would like to support the cause and place pressure on the UK government to release Assange, please sign and share this petition.
Being on the autistic spectrum in Europe, care challenges, employment and solutions
Today is World Autistic Pride Day, an international celebration, promoting understanding and acceptance of autism, established in 2005.
Autism Spectrum Disorder is a condition that has recently been a subject of cultural debate following the release of the music video “Music” by the global, semi-anonymous superstar, Sia. The video and the response to it highlighted the difficulty that filmmakers experience in attempting to accurately capture the experience of a person with a condition such as autism spectrum disorder, which varies considerably from one individual to another.
Portraying an extreme case of autism arguably does more damage than good by perpetuating unhelpful stereotypes. However, this controversy might have been avoided had the singer not cast a non-autistic actor to play the role, which seems to have been the root of most of the backlash.
What is autism?
Autism Spectrum “Disorder” is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that can manifest as early as three years of age, with between one and two per cent of the population in Europe having been diagnosed with it. However, because of conservative practices, only 15% of all autistic people are diagnosed in France, when compared with the expected number of autistic people in the population, 700,000.
Stereotypes of autistic people have existed for centuries. For example, autistic people were described by a Brit, John Langdon Down, in 1887 as “idiot savants“. The term “autistic” was first coined in 1908 by the Swiss Eugene Bleuler, to describe another condition. In Russia, 1925, Grunya Sukhareva was the first to associate the term ‘autistic’ specifically to the autism condition, using accurate scientific terminology, though she is yet to be credited for this work. And to say that the use of the word autism to describe this condition, whose etymology means “self-enclosure”, is the usual mark of contempt shown by the medical profession. Given its diversity of symptoms, the word “autism” fails to accurately encapsulate the range of experiences that autistic people have.
Furthermore, “Autism Spectrum Disorder”, as defined by the medical community, is classified as a mental health trouble. But, if many autistic people have comorbidities of mental health troubles, like depression or anxiety, some have no mental health issues at all.
Autism is a term that encompasses a spectrum of symptoms. Half of all autistic people have a cognitive disability, 30% have minimal verbal skills, 70% have (the abandoned label) Asperger’s syndrome and half of autistic people have varying difficulty interpreting their emotions.
Furthermore, the image of autism as a “disorder”, and the connotations associated with that framing, is one that is commonly portrayed by the media, the scientific community and, sadly, many non-government organisations. As a response, the autistic movement has empowered itself through the promotion of the concept of neurodiversity developed by Judy Singer, representing all the diverse ways of thinking present in humans, with celebrities such as Temple Grandin and Stephen Wiltshire advocating for more accurate representations of autistic people in the public space.
Gender, gender orientation and ethnicity discriminations
For women, ethnic minorities and LGBTQIA+ autistic people, the challenges are even greater. They often experience delays in being diagnosed compared to their white and/or male counterparts, and in some cases remain undiagnosed for life.
Worldwide, girls are three times less likely to be diagnosed on the spectrum than boys. Although these diagnostic biases were observed as early as 1995, the problem is still yet to be addressed. This diagnostic imbalance may be largely as a result of an as-yet unexplained potential genetic trait, which better allows girls to camouflage their social communication difficulties. Failing to diagnose an individual as autistic can have severe consequences for their wellbeing.
By their very nature, undiagnosed women are not included in official statistics about autistic people, which can often downplay the scale of the need of the autistic community. For example, only 22% of autistic people are in work, compared with 80% of people who are not autistic. However, this 22% isn’t even taking into account the likely many undiagnosed people, which would make the figures far more sobering than they already are.
In some cases, this can be the difference between life and death. For this woman, (trigger warning) making the connection between her autism diagnosis and her Patau’s Syndrome could have helped her to receive adequate medical care. Instead, she died of starvation in hospital.
Unfortunately, the UK is currently the only country in Europe that collects data on ethnic minority autistic people, meaning that there is a gaping deficit of data for the rest of the continent. Based on the evidence that we do have, however, it seems that in the UK, ethnic minorities are frequently misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed in special schools. And although there are no studies as of yet in Europe, in the USA ethnic minorities children have more difficulties in being diagnosed and thus do not receive adequate support.
About transgender and gender diversity, LGBTGIA+ autistic people face increased discriminations. Since autistic people are simply more comfortable identifying as trans and gender diverse, there is no need to systematically pathologise what does not fit into the norm. And this is unfortunately the case in too many studies.
For ethnic minorities, misdiagnosis occurs frequently with other conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity “disorder” – ADHD or conduct “disorder”. For women and girls, misdiagnosis in part occurs because of the assessment method: selected criteria have been chosen on male interests only. In both cases, misdiagnosis is likely to be due conjointly to the specialist and the family/teachers describing the children or the childhood.
How do autistic people communicate and feel?
To begin with, autistic people have very different conditions, but there are some common characteristics, and these characteristics may change over time, depending on the child’s intellectual abilities. For example, as children age, many mental tasks become automated in the non-autistic population. This is not quite the case for autistic people.
As a useful guide, the upper part of this figure (see below) summarises the main characteristics of autistic individuals.
And the circles illustrate the differences we have in communication and social skills (language, executive function) and sensory skills (senses, perception, motor skills). Illustration courtesy of Nina Skov Jensen.
Communication and social skills
Each region of our brains are devoted to special tasks, such as speech recognition, the process of identifying specific sounds as messages and then remembering them, and later recalling that information, and associating it with specific movements on a speaker’s face.
From childhood onwards, specialised areas of the brain have to connect to each other to do the job. Some “wiring” is very fast, whereas some is slow. That is the distinction between white or grey matter. On the autistic spectrum, there is a difference in the way that grey matter and white matter is distributed in the brain, which affects information processing in autistic people.
Senses
The senses include sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, balance and self-perception of one’s organs, because equilibrium, ability to catch things etc, and sensitivity to colour can be modified in autistic people. On the autism spectrum, certain senses are enhanced or inhibited, depending on the context.
For example, when listening, the brain usually filters out unwanted noises that may affect a conversation. Autistic people, however, filter out sounds to a lesser degree, which in fact leads to better musicianship; in other words, it becomes easier to feel the music. Difficulties arise, though, when confronted with loud, sudden and unwanted noises and when trying to distinguish speech in a noisy environment, such as an open plan office.
Most of the repeated movements that autistic people sometimes make or the concentration on particular subjects, are, in some way, a means of distracting one’s senses and thoughts to relieve emotions, or to better focus.
Later in life, it seems that these differences and attention-to-detail allow for positive traits such as systemisation of information, and an enhanced capacity to see the bigger picture.
What has to be done?
In its Green New Deal for Europe, DiEM25 promotes both a minimum standard for affordable public health care as well as care income (GNDE section 3.1.1 and 3.4.3). Although there is no specific mention of autistic people, support may be necessary, as though not all autistic people require care or support, some do, and this should be accounted and provided for.
To enable access to work, as with all disabilities, companies must respect their obligation to employ disabled people. In France, Italy and Spain, the laws are too lenient and companies prefer to accept the minor inconvenience of a small fine. Furthermore, the diagnoses of many autistic people who consider themselves to be disabled are not recognised by administrations.
Making public education (i.e. schools, universities etc) more adaptable and “neurodiverse-friendly” is also essential. In the UK, the legal requirement is to consider autistic people “disabled” and therefore public bodies and employers must make “reasonable adjustments” to their services to accommodate them. But this is far too weak a requirement.
We need a revolutionary approach that starts with the assumption that all are entitled to equity of access; designing schools, universities around the needs of people, rather than “adapting” ableist spaces and services, only when disabled make a fuss.
As we have seen, the failure to diagnose autistic women, ethnic minorities and adults is a glaring problem that is yet to be addressed. This problem cannot be addressed solely by compensatory incomes or job positions where skills are undervalued. Diversity has to be based on acceptance, of our differences and our complementarities, at the workplace and outside the job. In other words, it is not only a working class issue.
An individual may be oppressed or stigmatised for a variety of reasons, however, responses to oppression tend to focus solely on a singular identity characteristic. It is precisely at the intersection of identity groups that we must look for what unites us. The queer, physically disabled Korean transracial and transnational adoptee writer Mia Mingus calls it interdependence, and it has always applied to all of us.
If you want to know more about the topic, there are many activists on social networks who help both diagnosed and undiagnosed people, as sometimes diagnosis or support is a cost not covered by the authorities. We recommend that you follow the disability advocate Tiffany Joseph.
Contact of the DiEM25 Task Force on Feminism, Diversity, and Disabilities: [email protected]