Daily Archives: June 22, 2012

WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange has sought asylum in a country notorious for crackdowns on free speech. Brian Braiker reports.

Julian Assange has defied his bail conditions by taking refuge at the Ecuador embassy in London. (Reuters)

Julian Assange may not have had many options when he was considering where to seek asylum, but still, Ecuador is a far from obvious choice. He faces extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes after Britains top court said last week that it had rejected a legal request to reconsider his case.

Assange was on bail and living with friends before his extradition.

Assange interviewed the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, on the Russia Today TV channel last month. During their exchange, the Australian explained that he had been under house arrest in England for 500 days and elicited sympathy from the left-wing populist leader.

But Ecuador, a country with a tenuous respect for international human rights law, is a counterintuitive refuge for the free-speech and transparency crusader.

Ecuadors justice system and record on free speech have been called into question by Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Amnesty International.

Poorest record of free speech It is ironic that you have a journalist, or an activist, seeking political asylum from a government that has after Cuba the poorest record of free speech in the region and the practice of persecuting local journalists when the government is upset by their opinions or their research, said Jos Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watchs Americas division.

He pointed out that in April 2011 Ecuador expelled the US ambassador, Heather Hodges, over diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks alleging widespread corruption in the Ecuadorian police. Maybe Assange feels President Correa owes something to him.

Still, the fact remains that free-speech watchdogs are quick to tick off a laundry list of Ecuadors breaches. In a referendum held in May 2011, President Rafael Correa obtained a popular mandate for constitutional reforms that could significantly increase government powers to constrain the media and influence the appointment and dismissal of judges, Human Rights Watch wrote in its 2011 Ecuador report.

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Ecuador an odd choice for Assange

20-06-2012 14:42 Free speech zones, always controversial and vaguely Orwellian, have been dealt a blow by a federal judge, telling the University of Cincinnati that they must revise their policies of barring protestors from 99.9% of the campus grounds. Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks and John Iadarola discuss on TYT University. Do you think this could be the beginning of the end for these controversial free speech zones? Are Ana and John being too hard on the University? Or is the use of these zones as bad as they think? Let us know! And if you liked this video, "Like" it as well! 🙂 Subscribe to TYT U for more Submit a video to TYT U! We love hearing from students and faculty Follow us on twitter!!! TAGS: "free speech zones" "free speech" "orwellian" "free speech in america" "free country" "university of cincinnati" "cincinnati" "free speech ruling" "the young turks" "tyt university"

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"Free Speech Zones" SLAPPED Down at U Cincinnati - Video

21-06-2012 10:26 ... Simon Singh: The Fight for Freedom of Speech and Against Pseudoscience. Simon Singh is being interviewed by Julia Offe (GWUP) at the 6th World Skeptics Congress in Berlin 2012. Simon Singh talks about his fight for freedom of speech and against pseudoscience in the UK regarding the chiropractic lawsuit: In 2008, The Guardian published Singh's column "Beware the Spinal Trap", an article that was critical of the practice of chiropractic and which resulted in Singh being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA). When the case was first brought against him, The Guardian supported him and funded his legal advice, as well as offering to pay the BCA's legal costs in an out-of-court settlement if Singh chose to settle. Court case: In 2009, Mr Justice Eady ruled in a preliminary hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice that merely using the phrase "happily promotes bogus treatments" meant that Singh was stating, as a matter of fact (rather than as a matter of personal opinion or metaphor), that the British Chiropractic Association was being consciously dishonest in promoting chiropractic for treating the children's ailments in question. Singh denied he intended any such meaning. Singh decided to appeal the ruling, which raised substantially the potential financial liability that he would face if he lost the case. Leave to appeal was granted in October 2009. The pre-trial hearing took place in February 2010 before three senior judges at the Royal ...

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Simon Singh and the Fight for Free Speech - Video

Ecuador is an unlikely place for WikiLeaks mastermind and self-styled free speech activist Julian Assange to seek asylum, given its long history of repression, corruption and human rights violations.

The South American nation is set to decide whether to grant the request to Assange, who has been holed up in its embassy in London since Tuesday. Assange faces extradition back to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning over alleged sexual assaults on two women. But turning to Ecuador for help is a curious choice, according to experts familiar with the nation's history and current regime of Rafael Correa.

"For someone like Julian Assange, it is a remarkably cynical and hypocritical move to make," said Arch Puddington, vice president of research at Freedom House, a New York-based human rights advocacy group. "I don't think he would find life in Ecuador very comfortable. It's a country that does not value freedom of the press or freedom of expression.

"He certainly would be unable to continue his work on WikiLeaks," Puddington added.

Human Rights Watch says Correa has continued a longstanding policy of not allowing dissent.

"Ecuadors laws restrict freedom of expression, and government officials, including Correa, use these laws against his critics," the world watchdog says. "Those involved in protests marred by violence may be prosecuted on inflated and inappropriate terrorism charges.

The Ecuadorean government has an insult law in place known as Descato, which historically has criminalized free speech and expression. Under Descato, which is part of the Ecuadorian Criminal Code, any person who offends the president could be sentenced up to two years in prison and up to three months for offending any government official.

Police corruption and abuses are widespread across the country and murder cases involving criminal gangs never go to trial as they are often attributed to a settling of accounts, according to critics.

Assange told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio via phone that he decided to turn to Ecuador after his native Australia refused to intervene in his planned extradition from Britain to Sweden.

He said Wikileaks had "heard that the Ecuadorians were sympathetic in relation to my struggles and the struggles of the organization with the United States."

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Repressive Ecuador odd pick for WikiLeaks' Assange- OPINION: Hypocrisy of Assange, free speech crusader

By an 8-0 vote, the Supreme Court today threw out fines the Federal Communications Commission filed against Fox and ABC.

The court did not address whether the FCC rules violated anyone's First Amendment right to free speech. Instead, the justices ruled that the FCC "failed to give Fox or ABC fair notice prior to the broadcasts in question that fleeting expletives and momentary nudity could be found actionably indecent."

The justices added that their ruling "leaves the Commission free to modify its current indecency policy in light of its determination of the public interest."

The Associated Press sums up the news this way:

"The justices declined on Thursday to issue a broad ruling on the constitutionality of the FCC indecency policy. Instead, the court concluded only that broadcasters could not have known in advance that obscenities uttered during awards show programs and a brief display of nudity on an episode of ABC television's NYPD Blue could give rise to sanctions."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not take part in the ruling.

Correction at 5:18 p.m. ET. An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the Supreme Court had struck down FCC rules that govern indecency. The Supreme Court did not go that far in its ruling. Instead it decided only to throw out the fines assessed against Fox and ABC.

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Supreme Court Strikes Indecency Rules, Doesn't Address Free Speech Issue