Now that the WikiLeaks releases about Tunisian corruption have directly sparked a peoples' uprising in Tunisia; now that Egypt is in the throes of pro-democracy protest driven in large measure by WikiLeaks' revelation in the Palestine Papers about US manipulation of Palestine, surely one would expect key U.S. news organizations and journalists to rally prominently to the defense of the right to publish that that site represents. One would expect lead editorials supporting Assange's right to publish from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USAToday, not to mention every major TV outlet. But instead, what we have heard is the deafening sounds of what middle-schoolers call 'crickets' -- that is, an awkward silence. As Nancy Youssef in the McClatchy papers reported recently, most U.S. journalists -- and, even more shamefully, journalists' organizations -- decided, regarding supporting Wikileaks' freedom to publish, to "take a pass."
How on earth could this be? This cravenness represents one of American journalism's darkest hours -- as dark as the depth of the McCarthy era. In terms of the question of the legalities of publishing classified information, most American journalists understand full well that Assange is not the one who committed the crime of illegally obtaining classified material -- that was Bradley Manning, or whomever released the material to the site. So Assange is not the 'hacker' of secrets, as People magazine has mis-identified him; he is of course the publisher, just as any traditional news organization is. He is not Daniel Ellsberg, in the most comparable analogy, the illegal releaser of the classified Pentagon Papers; rather, Assange is analogous to the New York Times, which made the brave and correct decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in the public's interest.
U.S. journalists also know perfectly well that they too traffic in classified material continually -- and many of our most prominent reporters have built lucrative careers doing exactly what Assange is being charged with. Any sophisticated dinner party in media circles in New York or Washington has journalists jauntily showing prospective employers their goods, or trading favors with each other, by disclosing classified information. For we all, in this profession, know that seeking out and handling classified information is what serious journalists DO: their job is to find out the government's secrets in spite of officials who don't want these secrets revealed. American journalists also know that the U.S. government classifies information mostly out of embarrassment, or for expediency, rather than because of true national security concerns (an example is the classification of suspicious deaths in Guantanamo and other US-held jails). The New York Times garnered kudos -- as they should have -- in 2005 with the publication of the SWIFT banking story -- based on leaked classified documents, which makes Bill Kellers' recent essay trying to put distance between his newspaper and WikiLeaks all the more indefensible.
Here is what readers are not being told: We have ALL handled classified information if we are serious American journalists. I am waiting for more than a handful of other American reporters, editors and news organizations to have the courage -- courage that is in abundance in Tahrir Square and on the pages of Al Jazeera, now that we no longer see it on the editorial page of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal -- to stand up and confirm the obvious. For the assault on Assange to be credible, they would have to come arrest us all. Many of Bob Woodward's bestselling books, which have made him America's highest-paid reporter, are based on classified information -- that's why he gets the big bucks. Where are the calls for Woodward's arrest? Indeed Dick Cheney and other highest-level officials in the Bush administration committed the same act as Bradley Manning in this case, when they illegally revealed the classified identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
So why do all these American reporters, who know quite well that they get praise and money for doing what Assange has done, stand in a silence that can only be called cowardly, while a fellow publisher faces threats of extradition, banning, prosecution for spying -- which can incur the death penalty -- and calls for his assassination?
One could say that the reason for the silence has to do with the sexual misconduct charges in Sweden. But any serious journalist in America knows perfectly well that the two issues must not be conflated. The First Amendment applies to rogues and scoundrels. You don't lose your First Amendment rights because of a sleazy personality, or even for having committed a crime. Felons in jail are protected by the First Amendment. Indeed the most famous First Amendment cases, the ones that are supposed to showcase America's strength and moral power, involve the protection of speech most decent people hate.
So again: why have U.S. journalists and editor, as Youssef reported, "shunned" Assange? Youssef reports an almost unbelievably craven American press scenario: The "freedom of the press committee" -- yes, you read that correctly -- of the Overseas Press Club of America in New York City declared him "not one of us." The Associated Press itself won't issue comment about him. And even the National Press Club in Washington made the decision not to speak publicly about the possibility that Assange may be charged with a crime. She notes that it is foreign press organizations that have had to defend him.
One answer for this silence has to do with what happens to the press in a closing society. I warned in 2006 and often since that you don't need a coup to close down America's open society -- you need to simply accomplish a few key goals. One critical task -- number seven -- is to intimidate journalists; this is done, as in any closing society, by creating a situation in which a high-profile reporter is accused of "treason" or of endangering national security through their reporting, and threatened with torture or with a show trial and indefinite detention. History shows that when that happens, you don't need to arrest or threaten any other reporters -- because they immediately start to police and censor themselves, and fall all over themselves attacking the "traitor" as well. That way safety lies, whether the knowledge is conscious or not.
Another motive is revealed in the comment that Assange is "not one of us." U.S. journalism's business model is collapsing; the people who should be out in front defending Assange are facing cut salaries or unemployment because of the medium that Assange represents. These journalists are not willing to concede that Assange is, of course, a publisher, rather than some sort of hybrid terrorist blogger, because of their self-interested prejudices against a medium in which they are not the gatekeepers.
In this, paradoxically, they have become just like the outraged U.S. government officials who are threatening Assange: the American government too is in the position, because of the Internet, of no longer being able to control its secrets, and is lashing out at Assange as it faces a future in which there are no traditional gatekeepers, and all institutions live in glass houses.
It is for this reason that the prosecution of Assange -- and his betrayal by his fellow journalists and publishers in America -- is so almost absurdly futile. Even if they lock Assange up forever, the world of the future is a WikiLeaks world. Trying to extradite and to convict Assange is like trying to convict the first person who dared to install a telephone. The WikiLeaks necessity -- for citizens who are upset at government or private sector abuses of power -- to release documents, is not going away, ever. Egypt is showing us that conclusively: they turn off the news and people create the news on their cellphones. The technology of leaking government secrets globally is not going away either. In five years one can expect that every major institution will have its own version of WikiLeaks -- so shareholders, members of university communities, citizens of governments all over the world, and so on, can read the secrets that are in the public interest that the traditional gatekeepers wish to keep under wraps.
History shows that journalists only protect themselves, when bullied like this, by fighting back -- as a group. And history shows that when a technology and its social change are inevitable, it is better to integrate the way the future will work, into an open society -- rather than trying pointlessly to punish it, in this case by seeking to ship the inevitable future off to Guantanamo Bay.
Justice delayed is justice denied UMNO/BN the infidels the supreme purpose of Islamic Law is Justice.
'Justice delayed is justice denied' has become a maxim for legal reformers in many countries who view the courts or government authorities as acting too slowly in resolving criminal and court cases. In some cases and in some countries, the elements of 'outside interference' and corruption of officials cannot be ruled out.
Criminals are aware that the court processes at times do favour them. The legal process is indeed a wearisome one. To begin with, an investigation has to be done by the police on a crime committed and there must be hard evidence before the accused could be brought to court.
Without adequate evidence, cases can be thrown out by the court. Then, there must be witnesses who are willing to testify against the accused in court. To get witnesses to testify in court is not an easy task. Many would decline to do so for fear of reprisal.
At times, court cases can be postponed for 'medical reasons' or for many other reasons. If the accused is found guilty at the lower or high court, he can still appeal against his conviction while on bail and this again takes a lot more time before justice is done. Second or third delays on appeal are quite common.
Lawyers are smart too. If the case does not seem to favour them, they can find legally accepted means to delay the court processes. Those criminals flushed with money could employ the best lawyers in town to defend them in court. It sometimes go a long way before justice could be seen to be done.
How about the legal redress for the party that has suffered? They have to wait and wait and they are the ones who would suffer most. By the time everything is settled in court, this may take months or years if the aggrieved party wants to see justice done for them. By then, some players in the script would have possibly kicked the bucket.
Anyway, these are the court processes in a democracy. Criminals are aware that it is not easy for the court to readily impose a sentence on them. Thus, we see the number of these criminals increasing despite all the measures taken to curb their activities.
What the party that has suffered wants is for the right to a speedy trial and to expedite the legal process. It is unfair for them to keep on sustaining the injury with little hope for quick justice.
The ordinary people on the street may not be judicial experts but they need to know they can depend on the judicial system and the government to gain justice. It is the slowing down of the process of quick justice that has partly made criminals these days more daring to commit crimes.
This, undeniably, is grossly unfair to the victims who need redress. The slowness of our court system, in a way, has considerably failed to punish criminals expediently. Of course, so many cases are pending at all the courts. The backlogs in the supreme and high courts - both civil and criminal – can also be partly blamed.
Even so, how long does a victim have to wait for justice? We strongly urge the government and the judiciary to take the necessary steps to ensure fair and expeditious trials, as well as quick appeal hearings for the sake of justice to the aggrieved party.
Justice delayed is effectively the same as having no redress at all.
That woman used to be me.
In the history of Islam, The Prophet (saw) allowed muta’a twice in his lifetime. The first time the Prophet (saw) allowed it for three days, at the war of Khaiber, and after three days it was made haram. Once Ali argued with a man who believed in Muta’a and told him that the Prophet made muta’a and the meat of donkey haram on the day of Khaiber (Bukhari vol. 7, pg. 287 and vol. 4 pg. 134). This hadith can also be found in shiya hadith books, which I will mention later.
As Egyptian citizens and human rights defenders, we have been on the streets here, including in Tahrir Square, since Jan. 25 to demand dignity and freedom for all Egyptians. There is nothing we want more than an immediate end to the Mubarak era, which has been marred by repression, abuse and injustice. We are heartened by the international community’s shift from demanding “restraint” and “responsiveness” to echoing our call for Hosni Mubarak to step down and for an immediate transition toward democracy.
But for a real transition to democracy to begin, Mubarak must not resign until he has signed decrees that, under Egypt’s constitution, only a president can issue. This is not simply a legal technicality; it is, as Nathan Brown recently blogged for ForeignPolicy.com, the only way out of our nation’s political crisis.
Egypt’s constitution stipulates that if the president resigns or his office becomes permanently “vacant,” he must be replaced by the speaker of parliament or, in the absence of parliament, the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court. In the event of the president’s temporary inability to exercise his prerogatives, the vice president is to take over as the interim head of state. In both cases a new president must be elected within 60 days. Significantly, the constitution prohibits the interim president from introducing constitutional amendments, dissolving parliament or dismissing the cabinet.
If today Mubarak were no longer available to fulfill his role as president, the interim president would be one of two candidates. If he chooses to leave the country, say for “medical reasons,” the interim president would be Omar Suleiman, the former intelligence chief who was recently made vice president. Egyptians, particularly those of us calling for an end to Mubarak’s three-decade rule, see Suleiman as Mubarak II, especially after the lengthy interview he gave to state television Feb. 3 in which he accused the demonstrators in Tahrir Square of implementing foreign agendas. He did not even bother to veil his threats of retaliation against protesters.
On the other hand, if Mubarak is pushed to resign immediately we would have an even worse interim president: Fathi Surur, who has been speaker of the People’s Assembly since 1990. Surur has long employed his legal expertise to maintain and add to the arsenal of abusive laws that Mubarak’s regime has used against the Egyptian people. Since neither Suleiman nor Surur would be able to amend the constitution during the interim tenure, the next presidential election would be conducted under the notoriously restrictive election rules Mubarak introduced in 2007. That would effectively guarantee that no credible candidate would be able to run against the interim president.
So before Mubarak resigns he must sign a presidential decree delegating all of his authorities to his vice president until their current terms end in September. Mubarak issued similar decrees, transferring his powers to the prime minister, when he was hospitalized in 2004 and 2009. In addition, Mubarak must issue decrees lifting the “state of emergency” that has allowed him to suppress Egyptians’ civil liberties since 1981 and ordering the release or trial of those held in administrative detention without charge – estimated to be in the thousands.
Also before Mubarak resigns, an independent commission of respected judges, constitutional law experts, civil society representatives and all political movements should draft language to amend the constitution to ensure that presidential elections are open to all credible candidates; that Egyptians abroad are allowed – for the first time – to vote; that any elected president is allowed to serve only two terms; and that the elections are supervised by judicial and civil monitors. Most of this will be a matter of undoing the damage Mubarak inflicted with his constitutional changes in 2007.
These amendments must be introduced in parliament and put to a public referendum immediately. Suleiman’s claim that time is short is unfounded and disingenuous; four years ago, Mubarak and his ruling party amended 34 articles of the constitution in only two months.
Next, a diverse caretaker government must be appointed to serve the people until a president is elected and, importantly, to oversee the interim president. This broad-based cabinet must include well-respected representatives of all the country’s political forces. Once a new president is elected, we can move toward drafting a constitution that ensures Egypt’s transformation from a dictatorship to a democracy and enshrines full equality and human rights. Free and fair parliamentary elections would follow.
Three additional elements are key for the transition to succeed: First, civilian oversight of the police and security forces will deter abuse, hold abusers accountable, and help ensure the safety of those participating in the democratic uprising. Second, establishing an independent board of trustees for state television and radio would ensure neutrality in programming and representation of all political views. Third, a strong commitment by the army to act as a neutral custodian of the transition, serving the interests of the people and not the delegitimized regime, is critical.
Egyptians have paid a heavy price the past three decades and an even steeper one since this revolution started. Let’s end Mubarak’s rule the right way so we can start building a better future.
The authors Hossam Bahgat and Soha Abdelaty are, respectively, executive director and deputy director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (www.eipr.org)
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