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Gericht akzeptiert Freilassung von Assange

Schwedische Justiz legt Berufung ein

Punktsieg für Wikileaks-Aktivist Julian Assange: Ein Londoner Gericht akzeptierte am Dienstag seine Freilassung gegen eine hohe Kaution. Doch vorerst bleibt er hinter Gittern. Die schwedische Justiz legte Berufung ein.

Juristisches Gezerre um Wikileaks-Ikone Julian Assange: Der in britischer Untersuchungshaft sitzende Australier kann nach der Entscheidung eines Londoner Gerichts auf baldige Freilassung gegen Kaution und strenge Auflagen hoffen. Die schwedische Justiz legte allerdings umgehend Berufung ein. So muss der High Court bis spätestens Donnerstagnachmittag endgültig entscheiden. Mindestens solange wird Assange hinter Gittern bleiben.

Hunderte Anhänger von Assange, darunter die Menschenrechtlerin Bianca Jagger und andere Prominente, jubelten am Dienstag (14. Dez.) vor dem Londoner Gerichtsgebäude. Zu den Unterstützern des Internet-Aktivisten zählt auch der US-Filmemacher Michael Moore. Assange muss im Falle seiner Freilassung eine elektronische Fußfessel tragen. Unabhängig von der Haftfrage verlangt Schweden die Auslieferung des 39-Jährigen. Die in bar zu hinterlegende Kaution soll 200 000 britische Pfund (rund 240 000 Euro) betragen. Hinzu kommen weitere 40 000 Pfund an zusätzlichen Sicherheitsgarantien. Das Geld ist nach Angaben von Assange-Anwalt Mark Stephens noch nicht zusammen. "Ein unschuldiger Mann bleibt im Gefängnis", bis die Summe in bar zusammengetragen sei, sagte er. "Sie scheuen keine Mühen, um Herrn Assange im Gefängnis zu halten", sagte Stephens mit Blick auf die schwedischen Behörden. Assange wird von der britischen Justiz auf der Grundlage eines in Schweden ausgestellten, EU-weiten Haftbefehls festgehalten. Der Australier war vor einer Woche inhaftiert worden. Die schwedische Strafverfolgung wirft ihm sexuellen Missbrauch zweier Frauen vor. Die Anhänger des Internetaktivisten halten dies für vorgeschoben und vermuten politische Motive hinter der Inhaftierung.

* Aus: Neues Deutschland, 15. Dezember 2010


Michael Moore bietet 20.000 Dollar für Kaution von Assange

Der US-Dokumentarfilmer Michael Moore hat 20.000 Dollar für die Kaution des inhaftierten Wikileaks-Gründers Julian Assanges geboten. Er habe die britische Justiz darüber informiert, dass er diese Summe von seinem eigenen Geld für die Kaution Assanges zur Verfügung stelle, erklärte Moore auf thedailybeast.com am Dienstag. Ein Gericht in London verfügte am Dienstag die Freilassung Assanges gegen Kaution, doch legte die schwedische Justiz, die gegen den 39-jährigen Australier wegen Vergewaltigung ermittelt, Berufung gegen die Entscheidung ein.

Moore, der mit seinen Filmen Politik und Wirtschaft verärgert hat, bot Wikileaks auch "die Unterstützung meiner Webseite, meiner Server, meiner Domain-Namen" an, damit die Enthüllungsplattform fortfahren könne, "die Verbrechen aufzudecken, die im Geheimen geplant und in unserem Namen und mit unserem Steuergeld ausgeführt wurden". Offenheit und Transparenz seien die besten Waffen der Bürger, um sich vor "den Mächtigen und Korrupten" zu schützen, sagte Moore. Die Unterstützung von Wikileaks sei daher "ein wahrhaft patriotischer Akt".

AFP, 14. Dezember 2010

Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange (A statement from Michael Moore)

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

Friends,

Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.

Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.

We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.

So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the truth. The assault on them has been over the top:
  • Sen. Joe Lieberman says WikiLeaks "has violated the Espionage Act."
  • The New Yorker's George Packer calls Assange "super- secretive, thin-skinned, [and] megalomaniacal."
  • Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
  • Democrat Bob Beckel (Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign manager) said about Assange on Fox: "A dead man can't leak stuff ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."
  • Republican Mary Matalin says "he's a psychopath, a sociopath ... He's a terrorist."
  • Rep. Peter A. King calls WikiLeaks a "terrorist organization."
And indeed they are! They exist to terrorize the liars and warmongers who have brought ruin to our nation and to others. Perhaps the next war won't be so easy because the tables have been turned -- and now it's Big Brother who's being watched ... by us!

WikiLeaks deserves our thanks for shining a huge spotlight on all this. But some in the corporate-owned press have dismissed the importance of WikiLeaks ("they've released little that's new!") or have painted them as simple anarchists ("WikiLeaks just releases everything without any editorial control!"). WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job. There's no time or money anymore for investigative journalism. Simply put, investors don't want those stories exposed. They like their secrets kept ... as secrets.

I ask you to imagine how much different our world would be if WikiLeaks had existed 10 years ago. Take a look at this photo. That's Mr. Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it and went fishing for the next four weeks.

But if that document had been leaked, how would you or I have reacted? What would Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone, somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending attack using hijacked planes?

But back then only a few people had access to that document. Because the secret was kept, a flight school instructor in San Diego who noticed that two Saudi students took no interest in takeoffs or landings, did nothing. Had he read about the bin Laden threat in the paper, might he have called the FBI? (Please read this essay by former FBI Agent Coleen Rowley, Time's 2002 co-Person of the Year, about her belief that had WikiLeaks been around in 2001, 9/11 might have been prevented.)

Or what if the public in 2003 had been able to read "secret" memos from Dick Cheney as he pressured the CIA to give him the "facts" he wanted in order to build his false case for war? If a WikiLeaks had revealed at that time that there were, in fact, no weapons of mass destruction, do you think that the war would have been launched -- or rather, wouldn't there have been calls for Cheney's arrest?

Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt. What if within days of August 4th, 1964 -- after the Pentagon had made up the lie that our ship was attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin -- there had been a WikiLeaks to tell the American people that the whole thing was made up? I guess 58,000 of our soldiers (and 2 million Vietnamese) might be alive today.

Instead, secrets killed them.

For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the "official story." And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in putting up the bail money -- and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release today.

Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.

And that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done. WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions. And any of you who join me in supporting them are committing a true act of patriotism. Period.

I stand today in absentia with Julian Assange in London and I ask the judge to grant him his release. I am willing to guarantee his return to court with the bail money I have wired to said court. I will not allow this injustice to continue unchallenged.

Yours, Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. You can read the statement I filed today in the London court here.

P.P.S. If you're reading this in London, please go support Julian Assange and WikiLeaks at a demonstration at 1 PM today, Tuesday the 14th, in front of the Westminster court.

Source: www.michaelmoore.com




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