Vandaag is de Freedom of the Press Foundation officieel gelanceerd. Gedragen door gerenommeerde journalisten en voorstanders van vrije expressie zoals Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, John Perry Barlow, Trevor Timm, John Cusack en Laura Poitras. De Foundation is opgezet om onafhankelijke journalistiek te ondersteunen en zo de transparantie te vergroten. Directe aanleiding is de buitengerechtelijke, economische blokkade van WikiLeaks sinds november 2010 door de Amerikaanse bedrijven MasterCard, Visa en PayPal. Door deze bankblokkade is Wikileaks naar eigen zeggen 95% van haar inkomsten misgelopen.
Door de brede opzet hoopt de Freedom of the Press Foundation deze blokkade te breken. Behalve WikiLeaks zijn er telkens drie andere journalistieke organisaties die gesteund worden. Dat wisselt elke twee maanden. Niet dus voor WikiLeaks. Nadrukkelijk stellen de initiatiefnemers dat de bijdrage voor WikiLeaks ten goede zal komen aan journalistieke projecten. En niet dient voor juridische bijstand aan Julian Assange.
Af te wachten valt of MasterCard, Visa en PayPal de Freedom of the Press Foundation zullen blokkeren zoals ze WikiLeaks tot op de dag van vandaag blokkeren. Is hun rugdekking nog onveranderd groot als twee jaar geleden? Overigens zonder dat er een juridisch besluit aan ten grondslag ligt. Feitelijk gaan deze bedrijven hun boekje te buiten. Bizar is dat ondanks dit besef de blokkade nog steeds niet is beëindigd. Gevestigde mediabedrijven hebben hun steun voor WikiLeaks ingetrokken. In een recente ontwikkeling kwam het Europarlement met een wetsvoorstel om voortaan scherpe voorwaarden aan zo’n blokkade te stellen.
Foto’s: Freedom of the Press Foundation
George Knight 
Swedish banks reported for WikiLeaks blockade
Published: 18 Dec 12 07:49 CET
http://www.thelocal.se/45130/20121218/
Sweden’s Pirate Party has filed a complaint with the country’s financial system watchdog alleging Swedish banks have been complicit in a long-running blockade of donations to WikiLeaks.
According to the complaint, filed on Monday with Sweden’s Finansinspektionen (FI), banks in Sweden have broken the law by denying Swedes the ability to make donations to the whistle blower website.
“The blockade is a serious threat to freedom of speech and expression,” Erik Lönroth of the Pirate Party said in a statement.
“It shouldn’t be up to a specific payment service to decide what sort of activities are appropriate and deserve the ability to receive financial support.”
Starting in December 2010, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and other payment service providers stopped processing payments to WikiLeaks, making it difficult for would-be donors to support the whistleblower website.
WikiLeaks claims it has lost 95 percent of its revenue due to the blockade.
The Pirate Party complaint alleges that since banks in Sweden utilize the payment services behind the WikiLeaks blockade, they are breaking Swedish laws by denying Swedes the ability to donate to WikiLeaks.
According to the Pirate Party, Sweden’s banks are “actively participating in blocking transactions without a legitimate reason”.
“It’s frightening that we’re all forced to live by the morals of the American Bible Belt by the companies that handle our payments,” Pirate Party head Anna Troberg said in a statement.
“These companies happily deliver funds to the Ku Klux Klan, but not to WikiLeaks and other companies they view as immoral.”
As the banks singled out by the Pirate Party – Danske Bank in Sweden, Swedbank, Handelsbanken, Nordea, and SEB – all fall under the purview of Finansinspektionen, the party hopes the agency will take action to probe whether the banks are in violation of the law by failing to carry out transactions on behalf of their customers.
Speaking with the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper, the head of Finansinspektionens payments division, Johan Terfelt, confirmed the agency had received the complaint and would assess whether there was reason to act.
“The law says that if there aren’t legal grounds for denying a payment, it should be carried out,” he said.
Examples of legal grounds included being unable to identify the recipient of the payment or if there are reasons to suspect the money may go to finance terrorism.
However, Terfelt refused to elaborate on exactly what responsibility Swedish banks had when a payment service provider like Visa orMastercard decides to block payments.
LikeLike
Pingback: Onstabiele politici als nuttige idioten: WikiLeaks, Karl Rove en VVD « George Knight
Pingback: Journalistiek VS onder vuur moet samenwerking en ambitie tonen | George Knight