WIFP supports the Nuclear Ban Treaty.

Nuclear weapons are an existential threat to sentient life on our planet. Urge President Biden to sign the U.S. onto the treaty. We call on all world leaders to eliminate nuclear weapons. Do not modernize, eliminate!

Press Conference, June 22. The event was livestreamed and broadcast to Vienna, where the State Parties to the Treaty are meeting for the first time.

Promote the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the U.S.

Support the Norton Bill H.R.2850.

Already signed the ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) Pledge AND co-sponsored the Norton Bill:

Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)
Jim McGovern (MA-2)
Barbara Lee (CA-13)
Carolyn Maloney (NY-12)
Pramila Jayapal (WA-7)
Mark Pocan (WI-2)
Rashida Tlaib (MI-13)
Ilhan Omar (MN-5)

Signed the ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) Pledge but still needs to co-sponsor the Norton bill:

Earl Blumenauer (OR-3)
Ro Khanna (CA-17)
Betty McCollum (MN-4)

Co-sponsored the Norton bill but still needs to sign the ICAN Pledge:

Ayanna Pressley (MA-7)
Peter Welch (VT)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14)
Andy Levin (MI-9)
Mondaire Jones (NY-17)
Raúl Grijalva (AZ-3, Tucson)

NUCLEARBAN.US

WIFP and DC Action For Assange reject today’s announced decision of the UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to extradite Mr. Julian Assange to the United States, the country that plotted to assassinate him.  Mr. Assange is a journalist and publisher, who told the truth about US crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.  The US Government now seeks to extradite Assange to the US, with a range of charges that could bring up to 175 years in prison.  Assange’s extradition was initially blocked by UK courts, on the grounds that a US prison sentence would constitute “cruel and unusual punishment”; however, subsequent appeals have cleared the way for extradition.  (More details at www.assangedefense.org)  

Tens of thousands of people signed petitions, and dozens of journalism and civil liberties organizations wrote to Patel, asking her to stop this extradition of an innocent journalist. They expressed concern for his human rights and the worldwide chilling effect on media freedom caused by this indictment.

On May 10, 2022, Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic called on Priti Patel not to extradite Julian Assange:

He wrote: […] it is my view that the indictment by the United States against Mr Assange raises important questions about the protection of those that publish classified information in the public interest, including information that exposes human rights violations. The broad and vague nature of the allegations against Mr Assange, and of the offenses listed in the indictment, are troubling as many of them concern activities at the core of investigative journalism in Europe and beyond.Consequently, allowing Mr Assange’s extradition on this basis would have a chilling effect on media freedom, and could ultimately hamper the press in performing its task as purveyor of information and public watchdog in democratic societies.

Among other statements of support, a group of more than 300 doctors from around the world, known as Doctors for Assange, called on the UK to block extradition. In a letter to Patel, the group says the WikiLeaks founder suffered a mini stroke last October and that his overall health is continuing to deteriorate in prison. The doctors write, “The extradition of a person with such compromised health … is medically and ethically unacceptable.”  

Other statements supporting Assange have come from Nobel Peace Prize winners, celebrities such as musician Roger Waters and actress Susan Sarandon, and many others.

Priti Patel’s decision to extradite Mr. Assange has shown a total disregard of the human rights watch groups and experts who warned her that his extradition to the USA would be illegal under international human rights law and create a severe threat to media freedom. 

What does it tell us when the United Nations, press freedom, and civil liberties organizations are ignored by powerful governments? It shows us that these supposedly democratic governments have much to hide, that investigative journalism is vitally needed more than ever, and that the gathering of “buried” truth is the only tool we have to defend against corruption and totalitarian rule.

We, along with hundreds of thousands of people around the world, will continue to protest and demand justice and freedom for Julian Assange.  Members of DC Action for Assange will continue to rally at the US Department of Justice and in bi-weekly vigils calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the charges (the next vigil will be Sunday, June 19, 2022 from 5-7 pm, near the Bethesda, MD home of AG Garland).

DC Action for Assange 

Call on the U.S. and U.K. to say NO to Extradition

WIFP and other supporters of Julian Assange will gather at U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, 1 pm – 3 pm. Please join us.

Supporters of the First Amendment will gather to protest the continued persecution of Julian Assange, a publisher who exposed war crimes, and calling on the U.S. to drop attempts to extradite Assange to the U.S.   We will gather at the corner of 10^th Street and Pennsylvania Ave, NW, for a program of speakers & music. 

Speakers at the rally will include:  journalists Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil of The Grayzone; Leonardo Flores of CodePink; Louis Wolf of Covert Action Quarterly; Esther Iverem of WPFW and Marsha Coleman-Abedayo of the No Fear Coalition.  Music and cultural performances will be presented by Luci Murphy of the Black Workers’ Center chorus.

We protest the Biden administration’s continued efforts to prosecute a publisher and criminalize journalism. It is the first case of a publisher being tried under the Espionage Act. Trump’s prosecution has become President Biden’s and AG Merrick Garland’s legacy.

On May 17, at the same time as our rally at the DOJ, supporters of Assange will be gathering in London (6 PM)  – calling on U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel to refuse to “rubber-stamp” the High Court’s approval of the extradition of Assange (announced on Dec 10, 2021).  The High Court overruled an earlier court decision blocking the extradition, largely on humanitarian grounds.  (Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser had ruled that Julian Assange would be subjected to cruel and extreme conditions if extradited to the US for further proceedings).

Julian Assange has been jailed for over 3 years in the U.K. Belmarsh prison despite not being convicted of a crime. Assange may be the one indicted, but it is anti-war journalism that is on trial in the U.K. In this case of extra-territorial over-reach, the US wants to extradite Assange – a non-U.S. national for journalism outside the U.S. For revealing accurate information about serious war crimes, Assange faces a sentence of 175 years in a U.S. supermax prison under conditions of extreme isolation.

We protest the punishment by process and torture of Assange by not granting him bail during this drawn out appeal process, and depriving him of much needed medical attention during the past 3 years of his incarceration at Belmarsh. He is being treated so harshly for one reason only: to freeze disclosure and to freeze dissent. Injustice to Assange is an injustice to us all.

Our loyalty as citizens should not be to government, but rather to the principles of democracy and freedom. Assange publishing classified information reinforced our right to know what the government was doing in our name. The WikiLeaks publications were never a threat to our freedom but revealed a systemic coverup of military secrets.

We call on the Biden administration to immediately drop all charges against Julian Assange and end efforts to seek his extradition to the U.S., for further trial proceedings.

DC Action For Assange

Update: Some of us during the protest at the Department of Justice 5/17/22.

Presented to Six Outstanding Women

The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press announces recipients of the 2021 Women and Media Award! 

WIFP’s “Women and Media Award” is granted annually to women who have made outstanding contributions seeking media democracy and toward expanding women’s voices. It has been annual since 2013. Recipients receive the Award, $100 and deep appreciation for their crucial contributions to women and media. The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press was founded in 1972 by Donna Allen, Ph.D. ww.wifp.org

Six outstanding women each are receiving the 2021 Women and Media Award.

Laura Flanders

Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, a nationally syndicated radio and television program also available as a podcast. A contributing writer to The Nation, Flanders is also the author of six books, including The New York Times best-seller, BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species. She is the recipient of a 2019 Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalism, the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing women’s and girls’ visibility in media and a 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship for her reporting and advocacy for public media. lauraflanders.org    

Margaret Kimberley

Margaret Kimberley is a co-founder and Executive Editor and Senior Columnist for Black Agenda Report, a recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism, and a board member of Consortium News.  

Ms. Kimberley is author of the book “Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents.” She is also a contributor to the anthologies “In Defense of Julian Assange,” “Capitalism on a Ventilator: the Impact of COVID-19 on China and the U.S.,” and “Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence.” Her activism includes membership on the interim steering committee of the Green Eco-Socialist Network, the Administrative Committee of the United National Antiwar Coalition, the Coordinating Committee of Black Alliance for Peace, and the Board of Directors of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation.

She has appeared in national and international media including CGTN, RT, Al Mayadeen, Deutsche Welle (DW), Al Jazeera English, and Sky News. Ms. Kimberley co-hosts Black Agenda Report Presents: the Left Lens on Youtube. 

Margaret Kimberley is a graduate of Williams College and lives in New York City. 

https://www.margaretkimberley.com

Jennifer L. Pozner

Jennifer L. Pozner is a journalist, media critic, and Founding Director of Women In Media & News, a media analysis, education, and advocacy group dedicated to increasing women’s diversity, presence and power in public debate. Prior to founding WIMN in 2001, Pozner was Women’s Desk Director at Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), writing for Extra! magazine and contributing to CounterSpin! Radio. Previously, she was Media Watch columnist for Sojourner: The Women’s Forum. She has provided hundreds of feminist, anti-racist media literacy keynotes, workshops, and trainings throughout the U.S., Canada, Ireland and Turkey. 

Her first book, Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, was called “required reading for every American girl and woman” by then-MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry. Her graphic novel Breaking (The) News: Using Media Literacy To Decode What We Watch, Read, Hear, Play, Post, Buy, Believe and Enjoy is forthcoming from First Second. She has written for the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Village Voice, Newsweek, Ms. Magazine, Bitch, Bust, In These Times, Macleans, Elle Canada, Los Angeles Review of Books, Women’s Review of Books, The Daily Beast, The Establishment, Politico, and Salon, among other outlets and anthologies. 

Pozner was an adviser and featured analyst for the award-winning documentary Miss Representation, appeared in Bullied and I Was a Teenaged Feminist, and wrote, produced, and starred in the media literacy satire web series, Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn. She has offered media commentary on CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, HLN, NPR, CBC, and The Daily Show. An incurable comedy nerd, the most fun she ever had as a political organizer was co-leading the satirical Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) and Billionaires for More Media Mergers as “Mya Cash, media mogul.” 

Barbara Ransby, Ph.D.

Dr. Barbara Ransby is the John D. MacArthur Chair, and Distinguished Professor of History, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Black Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She directs the campus-wide Social Justice Initiative, a project that promotes connections between academics and community organizers doing work on social justice. She is also the Editor of Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, and author of three books, including the award winning, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement. The Ella Baker book was the recipient of 8 national book awards and recognitions including the Liberty – Legacy award from the Organization of American Historians; the Joan Kelly prize from the American Historical Association; and the James A. Rawley Prize (also from the AHA). Dr. Ransby is a longtime Black feminist activist, author and scholar, and has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work. She publishes regularly in various scholarly and popular venues and is past president of the National Women’s Studies Association (2016-2018). In 2017 Dr. Ransby was honored as “one of the top 25 women in higher education,” by the publication, Diverse Issues in Higher Education. 

Nayoung Kim Park

Nayoung Kim Park is an adult survivor of child sexual abuse. She grew up in Seoul, South Korea and studied law and cultural anthropology at Yonsei University. She began her feminist activism with Korea Women’s Hotline, which is the oldest and largest organization combatting violence against women in South Korea. In 2014, she went to the United States to attend law school, because she wanted to learn from Catharine A. MacKinnon. She had read about how she and Andrea Dworkin tried to use civil rights law to empower those who have been victimized by pornography. During law school she was Catharine A. MacKinnon’s research assistant, taking all of her courses, and writing an independent research paper for her. Through volunteer work, internships, and clinical courses, she learned how to provide assistance to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and sexual harassment in employment. Nayoung Kim Park pursued a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan. In 2016, she was named a Dean’s Public Service Fellow by the University of Michigan Law School and received the Julia D. Darlow Award from the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan. She is also involved in the South Korean women’s movement and the global women’s movement, on stage, behind the scenes, and in spirit. 

linkedin.com/in/nayoung-kim-a7537597

Carolyn LaDelle Bennett, Ph.D.

Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is a lifelong nonfiction writer with interests in politics, public affairs and international relations. Her worldview is informed by her U.S. Peace Corps years teaching in West Africa and engaging with native peoples and multinational expatriates. Bennett’s ethics and humanity are fundamentally informed by her formative years growing up with parents in the U.S. South and in later years traveling across the United States and to some countries of Western Europe. Having a belief in basic values of nonviolence, sovereignty of all nations and rights of all peoples to protections under law and universal conventions, she has become increasingly alarmed not by foreign threats but by internally-rooted threats to global society — Americans’ proud domestic and international code of violence manifest in endless wars and fighting words; their excused pandering, entrenched viciousness, and incompetence of public officials who have severely damaged America’s world standing and virtually destroyed any vision of The Union. 

Bennett’s teaching and government experience, her credentials in educational philosophy and ethics, teaching and learning theories, journalism and public affairs (Michigan State University, PhD; American University, MA) make hers the heart of an educator who delights in sharing ideas. Her major published include: Betrayal, Public Welfare Abandoned for Private Wealth (2020); Alphabetic SOLUTIONS (2016); Unconscionable: How the World Sees Us (2014); No Land an Island: No People Apart (2012); Same Ole or Something New (2010); Breakdown (2009); Women’s Work and Words Altering World Order (2008); Missing News and Views in Paranoid Times (2006); No Room for Despair . . . Mary McLeod Bethune’s Cold War, Integration-Era Commentary (2005); Talking Back to Today’s News (2003); America’s Human Connection (1994); An Annotated Bibliography of Mary McLeod Bethune’s Chicago Defender Columns, 1948 -1955 (2001); and You Can Struggle without Hating, Fight without Violence (1988). 

WIFP calls on the Biden Administration and the Department of Justice to end the prosecution of publisher Julian Assange and to support freedom of the press.

The Assange Defense released the following press release:

Bombshell investigation reveals CIA plots to kidnap, assassinate Assange.

Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”

Yahoo! News has uncovered the incredible and disturbing range of actions the CIA was considering against WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Zach Dorfman, Sean D. Naylor and Michael Isikoff spoke to more than 30 former U.S. officials to confirm that the agency seriously considered and debated abducting Assange from the embassy and even mentioned the possibility of assassinating him. 

“Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”

The conversations were part of an unprecedented CIA campaign directed against WikiLeaks and its founder. The agency’s multipronged plans also included extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group’s members, and stealing their electronic devices.”

U.S. officials allege that in 2017 they believed that Russia was working to sneak Assange out of the embassy—which, as Assange’s partner Stella Moris reminds, was a fabricated pretext —and they were willing to go to extreme lengths to thwart such a plot: 

“In response, the CIA and the White House began preparing for a number of scenarios to foil Assange’s Russian departure plans, according to three former officials. Those included potential gun battles with Kremlin operatives on the streets of London, crashing a car into a Russian diplomatic vehicle transporting Assange and then grabbing him, and shooting out the tires of a Russian plane carrying Assange before it could take off for Moscow. (U.S. officials asked their British counterparts to do the shooting if gunfire was required, and the British agreed, according to a former senior administration official.)”

The Obama administration, as has been widely reported and discussed at length during Assange’s extradition hearing, declined to prosecute Assange on publication charges on Constitutional grounds, finding no way to do so without running afoul of the First Amendment. So the intelligence community worked to redefine WikiLeaks to circumvent the problem and to expand their range of targets:

“Still chafing at the limits in place, top intelligence officials lobbied the White House to redefine WikiLeaks — and some high-profile journalists — as “information brokers,” which would have opened up the use of more investigative tools against them, potentially paving the way for their prosecution, according to former officials. It “was a step in the direction of showing a court, if we got that far, that we were dealing with agents of a foreign power,” a former senior counterintelligence official said.

Among the journalists some U.S. officials wanted to designate as “information brokers” were Glenn Greenwald, then a columnist for the Guardian, and Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker, who had both been instrumental in publishing documents provided by Snowden.”

While the abduction and assassination plans were ultimately rebuffed by White House lawyers, they sped up the Department of Justice’s legal case against Assange, merely by virtue of being so outrageous:

“Some National Security Council officials worried that the CIA’s proposals to kidnap Assange would not only be illegal but also might jeopardize the prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder. Concerned the CIA’s plans would derail a potential criminal case, the Justice Department expedited the drafting of charges against Assange to ensure that they were in place if he were brought to the United States.”

Assange remains imprisoned in maximum security Belmarsh prison for two and a half years, despite winning his extradition battle in the UK’s District Court. The ruling, which declared that sending Assange from the UK to the U.S. would put him at risk of suicide, was immediately appealed by the U.S. to the High Court, which will hear appeal arguments in London on October 27-28.

Reactions

Barry Pollack, Assange’s U.S. lawyer:

“As an American citizen, I find it absolutely outrageous that our government would be contemplating kidnapping or assassinating somebody without any judicial process simply because he had published truthful information,” Barry Pollack, Assange’s U.S. lawyer, told Yahoo News.
…
“My hope and expectation is that the U.K. courts will consider this information and it will further bolster its decision not to extradite to the U.S.,” Pollack added.
…
“the extreme nature of the type of government misconduct that you’re reporting would certainly be an issue and potentially grounds for dismissal.” He likened the measures used to target Assange to those deployed by the Nixon administration against Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers, noting the charges against Ellsberg were ultimately dismissed as well.

Laura Poitras: 

“In a statement to Yahoo News, Poitras said reported attempts to classify herself, Greenwald and Assange as “information brokers” rather than journalists are “bone-chilling and a threat to journalists worldwide.” 

“That the CIA also conspired to seek the rendition and extrajudicial assassination of Julian Assange is a state-sponsored crime against the press,” she added.

Glenn Greenwald:

“I am not the least bit surprised that the CIA, a longtime authoritarian and antidemocratic institution, plotted to find a way to criminalize journalism and spy on and commit other acts of aggression against journalists,” Greenwald told Yahoo News.

Freedom of the Press Foundation: “After shocking story about CIA illegal acts, Biden admin must drop Assange charges immediately”

“The CIA is a disgrace. The fact that it contemplated and engaged in so many illegal acts against WikiLeaks, its associates, and even other award-winning journalists is an outright scandal that should be investigated by Congress and the Justice Department. The Biden Administration must drop its charges against Assange immediately. The case already threatens the rights of countless reporters. These new revelations, which involve a shocking disregard of the law, are truly beyond the pale.” — Executive director Trevor Timm

Defending Rights & Dissent: DRAD Condemns Outrageous CIA Attacks on Assange and Press Freedom

“Regardless of the targets, such actions are illegal and immoral. That the CIA seriously considered resurrecting some of its most criminal tactics of the Global War on Terror and Cold War is cause for serious alarm. That the target was an award winning journalist, however, makes these revelations all the more chilling,” said Chip Gibbons, Defending Rights & Dissent’s Policy Director.

Assange Defense Committee
Co-Chairs: Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, and Daniel Ellsberg