The People's Record

91 FACTS TWEETED BY CHRISTINE ASSANGE

Christine Assange, mother of WikiLeaks founder and Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, has spent many long months reaching out to supporters and urging them to contact their local political representatives. Recognising that many politicians still do not know the true story behind WikiLeaks and her son’s legal battles, she asks supporters to give them the facts and request their assistance.

Christine has been using her @AssangeC Twitter account and the #fact4mp hashtag to post the following important talking points for supporters to disseminate:

1. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have not been charged with any crime in any country in the world. See http://justice4assange.com

2. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have been recognized for quality investigative journalism with many prestigious awards, including:

- Julian was unanimously given the Sam Adams Award in 2010, for Integrity in Intelligence (Iraq War Logs) by a panel of retired senior U.S. military and intelligence officers.

- Julian won the Amnesty UK Media Award in 2009 for the “Cry of Blood” report into extrajudicial killings and disappearances in Kenya.

- Julian won The Economist magazine’s Freedom of Expression Award in 2008.

- Julian won the Sydney Peace Foundation’s Gold Medal in 2011 “For exceptional courage and initiative in pursuit of human rights”. The Sydney Peace Foundation has only awarded 4 Gold Medals in 16 years, with Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama being 2 of the other 3 recipients.

- Julian won the Martha Gellhorn Prize For Journalism in 2011: “He is brave, determined and independent and a true agent of people not power… [WikiLeaks’] goal of justice through transparency is in the oldest and finest tradition of journalism.”

- Julian won a Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism in 2011.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange for more.

3. WikiLeaks has a perfect record regarding information reliability. No government has denied the authenticity of any documents.

4. WikiLeaks redacts its documents, so to date not one person has been physically harmed by its publications.

5. WikiLeaks exposes government and corporate corruption, fraud, shady deals, war crimes, torture, and kidnapping. It is in the public interest to know these things.

6. WikiLeaks partnered with The Guardian, New York Times, Der Spiegal, Le Monde, and El Pais to publish Cablegate. Why target only WikiLeaks?

7. WikiLeaks acts in accordance with traditional journalism. It publishes information given by various sources.

8. WikiLeaks acts like traditional media but protects its sources with a secure anonymous Drop Box.

9. WikiLeaks is a legal, legitimate, online news publisher, recognized as such by other journalist organizations worldwide. In 2012, WikiLeaks is partnering with nearly 100 media organisations around the world.

10. WikiLeaks is a non-profit independent publisher funded by donations from ordinary citizens from around the world. Because WikiLeaks believes in transparency its financial records are publicly accountable.

11. WikiLeaks goal is altruistic: “Justice Through Transparency.” WikiLeaks is a catalyst for democracy movements around the world.

12. WikiLeaks launched in 2006 to provide safety for whistleblowers in Third World regimes and dictatorships, and to inform the world of their plight.

13. For the first four years, WikiLeaks published government and corporate wrong-doings from many countries.

14. In 2010 WikiLeaks received files for the U.S. Collateral Murder video, Afghan War Diaries, Iraq War logs, and U.S. Embassy cables.

15. The U.S. war videos and documents revealed war crimes, rorting, and lying by the U.S. government, regarding civilian casualties and war progress.

16. U.S. cables revealed government and corporate exploitation, bullying, and manipulation of other governments (as well as good actions by U.S. officials).

17. The cables revealed and confirmed to people WHO in their own governments and corporations was involved in shady wrong-doings.

18. WikiLeaks exposed the attempted ALP “Clean Feed” internet censorship plan for Australia.

19. The Australian government promoted “Clean Feed” as a way to filter child porn. The police opposed this as the images were peer-to-peer (not websites).

20. WikiLeaks published the “Clean Feed” blacklist, which included politically contentious sites, anti-abortion sites, and euthanasia sites as well as WikiLeaks.

21. “Clean Feed” was abandoned as a direct result of WikiLeaks’ exposure of its fundamentally undemocratic political nature.

22. WikiLeaks exposed ALP Senator Mark Arbib as a protected source for the U.S. government for 4 years. Arbib was involved in an ALP coup that overthrew an elected Australian Prime Minister.

23. A 2007 WikiLeaks cable showed that the Australian government was risking the Great Barrier Reef, and secretly wavering penalties for U.S. tankers breaching laws in Torres Strait.

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