Feb 062016
 

Amy Goodman, I love that woman, covered   “A Significant Victory”: Julian Assange Hails U.N. Panel Calling for His Freedom,

At bottom, the link to the actual UN Report.

In response to  CTV News Coverage  of this important development for democracy,  I used their “Error Report” button to submit THREE FACTUAL ERRORS.

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THREE FACTUAL ERRORS.   (submitted to CTV News.  Three days later the report has not been corrected.)

I hope my input will help improve media coverage:

  1.   RE Assange has consistently denied the allegations but has refused to return to Sweden to meet with prosecutors

Assange has consistently offered to meet with the Swedish prosecutors.  And according to The Guardian, a pact was signed in December whereby Assange will be questioned by the prosecutors in the Ecuadorean Embassy:

Dec 17, 2015, Reuters in Stockholm, The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/dec/17/swedish-prosecutors-new-request-question-julian-assange-rape-allegations

. . .   On Sunday, the Quito government said Ecuador and Sweden had signed a pact after half a year of negotiations that would allow Assange to be questioned at the embassy, where he has been holed up for more than three years.

 2.    RE   British and Swedish officials maintain the panel’s finding has no legal force, but it represents a public relations victory for Assange

Context: the UK and Sweden are both signatories to the U.N. Convention on Civil and Political Rights.  Assange’s lawyers sought remedy within that framework, so I assume any person in a similar situation in any country is free to do that.  A hearing of the case by the duly-constituted U.N. body found that Assange has been “arbitrarily detained”, he should be allowed to walk free, and compensated for his years of arbitrary detention.

Failure to provide the readership with context, and Reuters’ complicity in mere parroting of officials, reducing Assange’s situation to a “public relations victory” amounts to not-so-subtle propaganda.

If this U.N. body had made this finding in similar circumstances, against the Governments of countries in the southern hemisphere, the brave Foreign Secretaries and officials would shout loudly for upholding the outcome of a process they helped to establish.

INSERT, Feb 8th:   See at bottom, excerpt from the actual U.N. Report, their Statement on whether their decisions are legally binding.  The Reuters/Associated Press/CTV Coverage is also propagandist when it quotes officials who announce, without qualification,  that the UN Panel’s findings are not legally binding.

 

3.    RE: The 44-year-old computer hacker’s lawyers

Assange is an investigative journalist and founder of Wikileaks. Reuters chose dismissive words (tool of the propagandist), characterizing Assange as a “computer hacker”.  In spite of  intense surveillance, his work continues.

 

I will check back later  (to the CTV News Coverage)  – – I hope to see these errors corrected. Thanks!

(3 days later no corrections have been made.)

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Full text of UN judgement in Julian Assange’s case (No. 54/2015)  http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/A.HRC.WGAD.2015.docx  (.docx)

More: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17013&LangID=E 

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