HACKING JUSTICE - Film Screening
Filmgespräch am 23.3. um 19:00 Uhr
Q&A zum Film und Kongress
Infos
Zur Website des Filmes
He was forced to plead guilty to avoid being in prison for life, and for charges he should never have received for carrying out a journalistic act. If WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had been extradited to the US, he would have faced a sentence of up to 175 years in prison for publishing US war crimes, including torture, murder and other human rights violations.
© Disruption Network
In the case against Julian Assange, having used the Espionage Act for obtaining and publishing confidential documents from Chelsea Manning in 2010 is a condemnation against freedom of the press and information. The trial of Julian Assange has set a precedent for the use of the Espionage Act against journalists and publishers. This is an unprecedented attack on press freedom and "anyone who publishes facts about state crimes of the highest order", as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, has stated.
The right to obtain and publish information received from a source should be protected. In fact, the Espionage Act in this case contradicts the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which is supposed to guarantee freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Julian Assange's freedom is certainly a victory, but there are still battles to be fought to prevent such cases from happening again and the Espionage Act from being used to target journalists and whistleblowers.
On the night of July 8, which should have been the day before Julian Assange's appeal against extradition from the UK to the US we will celebrate the freedom of Julian Assange and connect the fight for freedom of information through the work of Assange and WikiLeaks with the fight for climate justice.
In addition to other important revelations, WikiLeaks has published many important documents for the environmental and climate movement (https://wikileaks.org/COP-26.html#fn:1). WikiLeaks is cited in more than 28 thousand academic papers and US court documents, which shows why WikiLeaks’ publications and its criminalisation as a whole are important for social movements: https://wikileaks.org/What-is-WikiLeaks.html.
Big corporations suppress coverage of their scandals with expensive lawsuits. A glaring example of the suppression of reporting by large corporations is the chemical waste scandal involving the oil company Trafigura: the company spread highly toxic chemical waste over a large area in Africa instead of disposing of it safely, which would have been more expensive. The chemical waste had devastating effects on people and the environment. The BBC had reported on the scandal but removed all reports from its website after a lawsuit by the corporation, as the legal battle could have cost £3 million.
Wikileaks has uploaded summaries of the case and the documents from the corporation's lawsuit against the BBC to WikiLeaks, where they can still be read.
On 8 July from 7pm, we will be discussing this connection with Esteban Servat, climate activist and founder of EcoLeaks (a project inspired by WikiLeaks), following the screening of the documentary on the Assange case by director Clara López Rubio, who will be present for the talk. Janine, privacy researcher, investigative journalist and educator, will update about the current situation of Julian Assange. Tatiana Bazzichelli, Founder & Artistic Director of the Disruption Network Lab e.V., will moderate the discussion. The event is introduced by Raja Stutz & Claudia Daseking (Assange Support Berlin).
Join us to celebrate the freedom of Julian Assange and keep up the fight for freedom of the press and information!
19:00-20:30: HACKING JUSTICE (Film Screening)
Directed by Clara López Rubio, Juan Pancorbo (Spain, Germany, 2017/2021, 1h 29m, Language: English, OmU).
With a unique and independent access to a worldwide campaign and to the Ecuadorian embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange found his refuge, the film witnesses the struggle for the control of information, the growing influence of intelligence services, the role of the mass media, and the difficult balance of individual rights and state security.
For his lawyer, Baltasar Garzón, much more is at stake than the freedom of an independent journalist and publisher. As head of Assange’s legal team, Garzón warns that the growing influence of intelligence services puts freedom of information, our right to know what our governments are doing, and democracy at risk.
Since he took on the case in 2012, defending Julian Assange has put judge Baltasar Garzón’s talent and ability to the test. They’ve won a few battles, but nobody knows how the war will end.
More info: https://filmhaus-koeln.de/film/hacking-justice
Speakers
Clara López Rubio (Film Director, ES/DE)
Clara López Rubio is a Spanish film director. Her documentaries “In der Falle: Julian Assange zwischen Politik und Justiz” (2017) and “Hacking Justice” (“Der Fall Assange: eine Chronik”, 2021) have been broadcasted on several European televisions and participated in Film Festivals around the world. Clara López is also a cinema historian. Among her publications is the book “Dreams of aviation and Spanish Earth”, about the cinema based on the Spanish Civil War.
This event is a cooperation between Assange Support Berlin & the director Clara López, ACUDkino and Disruption Network Labs Symposium “Exposing Crimes is Not a Crime: The Real-World Consequences of WikiLeaks” (funded by Hauptstadtkulturfond in cooperation with the WAU Holland Stiftung and HAU Hebbel am Ufer).