Melbourne WikiLeaks Forum Update

The Age newspaper has two items today that follow up Thursday's Melbourne WikiLeaks Forum.

A MELBOURNE lawyer and former boss of Prime Minister Julia Gillard has criticised her government for its handling of WikiLeaks and its Australian founder, Julian Assange.

Peter Gordon, whose legal firm made Ms Gillard the first female partner of Slater and Gordon, said her comment that Mr Assange had broken the law was baseless.

He said the fact that people such as Ms Gillard and Attorney-General Robert McClelland - both of whom he knew to be good lawyers and decent people - could be driven to behave in this way was a sobering reminder of ''the seductive and compulsive draw of power''.
Click here to find out more!
Legal fury at 'war on free speech' (The Age 11 Sep 2010)

There is also an opinion piece by Peter Gordon:

If the WikiLeaks disclosures tell us anything, it is that no political leader, whatever their colour, is going to hesitate for a nanosecond to conflate the notion of ''national security'' with ''my own career security''. It's time to provide genuine protection for people who take the bold step of coming forward with important information. It's time to make the process cheaper and speedier.

...I always admired John Brumby. To hear him say that he needed to know certain information about the desalination plant, but we didn't, was a disappointment. Likewise Attorney-General Robert McClelland and Prime Minister Julia Gillard. I have worked with both of them and know them to be decent people. It is disappointing to me that their approaches to the WikiLeaks disclosures have seemingly lost sight of three of our democracy's real ''foundation stones'': the presumption of innocence, the right to free speech and the protection of the rights of Australian citizens abroad.
Insidious attack on free speech (The Age 11 Sep 2010)

The political implications of the Australian government's response may be far reaching. Watch this space for some reflections.

Melbourne WikiLeaks Forum Condemns Politicians

Julian Burnside, well known and respected human rights lawyer, has condemned calls by United States politicians and media commentators for the assassination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He spoke at a forum hosted by the Law Institute Victoria in Melbourne on Thursday 9 December.

He also attacked the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and Attorney General Robert Mcclelland, for their responses to Cablegate:

It is extraordinary that our government can so lightly abandon one of our citizens.

...It is the primary obligation of any country to protect its citizens.

According to Julian Burnside, WikiLeaks has:

...cast a light into some dark corners of what governments get up to when they think no one is watching.

...if they want to avoid being embarrassed by that maybe they need to learn to stop doing embarrassing things.

Julian Assange's Australian lawyer Robert Stary chaired the crowded meeting. Jon Faine of ABC 774 radio's Mornings (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), solicitor Peter Gordon, and Liberty Victoria President Spencer Zifcak also spoke in defence of WikiLeaks.

They focused on freedom of speech, freedom of the media, and the rights of Australian citizens.

Last night Mr Stary convened a meeting of lawyers, human rights activists and criminal law advocates in Melbourne to discuss the legal issues surrounding Mr Assange and his arrest - and particularly relating to the presumption of innocence.
Lawyers demand protection for Assange (The Age 10 Dec 2010)

This newspaper report by Nick McKenzie and Paul Millar has the usual inaccuracies, naming Peter Gordon as President of Liberty Victoria. It also refers to a "small group of protesters outside". In fact a couple of people were handing out leaflets about a WikiLeaks rally in Melbourne and selling a political paper. The rally is at State Library Lawns on Friday December 10 - 4:30pm - 7:30pm.

Peter Gordon has been a legal colleague of both Gillard and McClelland and a political supporter of the PM. He expressed astonishment that power can change "good, decent people" so much.

Julian Burnside's complete speech is contained in the video above. (A link if you're not sure of the references to Philip Ruddock) Liberty Victoria has issued a media release condemning the Australian PM and Attorney General:

The civil liberties organization, Liberty Victoria, today criticized the Prime Minster and the Attorney-General regarding statements that each have made about the legal situation of the Director of Wikileaks, Julian Assange.

...The President of Liberty, Professor Spencer Zifcak, said today that it was wrong for the Prime Minister in effect to declare Mr Assange's guilt before any law he may have broken had even been identified.
Liberty Victoria Criticizes PM and AG over Julian Assange comments

One Story from Madagascar

"Just one story to represent over 1.4 billion poor rural people who live on less than $1.25 a day. This is the story of Séraphine and her daughter Maria who live in rural Madagascar."



For more from the International Fund for Agricultural Development: IFAD

Cancún COP16 Live

For Cancún COP16 Live, follow the OneClimate Channel:

Julian Assange: Outlaw in His Own Country

Julian Assange is being treated like an outlaw, even by his own country. Melbourne's Sunday Age newspaper reports:

AS THE net closes around WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the notorious whistleblower has accused Prime Minister Julia Gillard of betraying him as an Australian citizen in her eagerness to help the United States attack him and his organisation.
PM has betrayed me: Assange

It's interesting that the journalist Josh Gordon doesn't seem to know the difference between the whistleblower (the person with access to the documants who leaked them) and the publisher (WikiLeaks). Media outlets such as The Guardian, the New York Times and online sites such as this one have presumably broken the same laws, if any, as Assange. And The Age!

My crosspost at Th!nk4: Climate Change and Global Voices: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: Oz Hero or Villain looks at the Oz blogosphere's reaction:

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange is either a hero or a villain in his home country of Australia. Many people, both here and abroad, are demanding the head of the WikiLeaks founder. Others see him as a peoples' champion.

Local bloggers have focused less on the content of the cablegate disclosures and more on ethical issues and possible consequences for effective governance.

More

Global Voices WikiLeaks Special Coverage

Global Voices Special Coverage of WikiLeaks

State secrets exposed this year by whistle-blower website Wikileaks keep causing the world to shudder. A video showing Iraqi civilians killed by U.S forces; a compilation of tens of thousands of documents about the war in Afghanistan; hundreds of thousands of documents about the war in Iraq; and now 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables.


On Global Voices, we have looked at worldwide online citizen media reactions. The leaked documents contain so much information, both journalists and bloggers have struggled to make sense of them. The initial excitement is huge. What happens next?

Selected posts about WikiLeaks on Global Voices

03 Dec - Brazil: blogosphere reacts to WikiLeaks
02 Dec - Azerbaijan: First Lady responds to Cablegate criticism?
01 Dec - Latin America & Cablegate: Analysis, Reactions & Questions

30 Nov - Africa: Cablegate: Does the US care about Africa this much?
30 Nov - Caucasus: Revelations & Confusion over Cablegate
30 Nov - Central & Eastern Europe: Initial Reactions to WikiLeaks' Cablegate
29 Nov - South Asia: The Morality Of Exposing Others' Secrets
29 Nov - Jordan: Wikileaks' “Cablegate” Raises Questions
29 Nov - Middle East: The Not-So-Secret US Embassy Secret Cables

12 Aug - Afghan Bloggers on Wikileaks War Logs
26 Jul - Liveblog of global reactions to Wikileaks Afghanistan war logs

This will be updated here: WikiLeaks and the World 2010

Climate Cablegate: Lowering Expectations at Copenhagen

Climate Cablegate

Benno Hansen and myself are blogging about Cancun at Th!nk4: Climate Change. We are working together on climate change revelations in Wikileaks’ Cablegate. Benno has an introductory blog in Danish: Hvad Wikileaks lægger til COP15-skandalen

I’ve been looking at some of the cables and will post in detail later. Below are 3 cables sent in the lead up to COP15 at Copenhagen. Numbering refers to cable order. It's quite clear that the backroom game was 'lowering expectations' at Copenhagen.

More

It is just a sample of the behind-the-scenes geo-politics of climate change action. There is plenty more in the pipeline.