Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange is in the headline again having been accused in Sweden of rape and molestation.

The transparency group’s initial reaction to the accusations was that they were ‘dirty tactics’ being used to discredit Julian and Wikileaks as a whole. See Wikileaks’ twitter channel. And now the charges have been abruptly dropped, raising further questions about the source of these accusations.

The strange circumstances surrounding the appearance and dismissal of the rape charges against Assange certainly gives strength to hacker turned journalist-activist’s belief that the authorities are out to get him.

But stepping away from the conspiracy theories, which are as easy to invet as they are difficult to prove, there is an irony that Julian was in Sweden to get a publishing certificate from the Swedish authorities to allow Wikileaks to take advantage of the country’s stringent whistleblowing laws, and he’s now been attacked by the country’s equally stringent sexual crime laws.

In 1998 Sweden introduced its Violence Against Women Act, heralded as many as a positive step in addressing the difficulties around prosecuting rape and sexual crimes, and Sweden has led the way in the debate on how to combate prostitution, passing a law in 1999 that criminalised the buying of sex rather than the selling- Denmark and Norway have since followed suit and other European countries are considering it.

Whether this is an attempt by ‘officials’ to discredit Wikileaks, an unfortunate mistake by Julian or complete fiction, the accusations’ timing, moments after the Pentagon have started chuntering about pressing criminal charges against Julian and Wikileaks for the War Log leak, and the circumstances are interesting.

Whatever’s going on, this certainly doesn’t help Wikileaks.

Entering The Gambia as a journalist is ill-advised.

This tiny West African country, nestled within Senegal, a may be inconspicuous on the map but it is a world leader on abuses of press freedom.

During President Jammeh’s 15 year reign he has executed a carefully crafted attack on freedom of expression.

I was recently in The Gambia, and I went to speak to some journalists at The Point, the leading oppositon newspaper. The paper was noticed by the international media in 2004 when its editor-in-chief and joint-founder, Deydra Hydara, was assassinated on the eve of the newspaper’s 13th anniversary. His murder has yet to be solved. In December 2006 the paper was awarded an International Press Freedom Award in Germany.

The opposition journalists, while being very pleased to see me, were very guarded in what they said to me. We spoke a lot about my experiences as a journalist in the UK, and as they decided that I was who I said I was, they began to open up.

They spoke of the difficult conditions under which they work: the ambiguous media laws that can be used to silence them at President Jammeh’s whim. The other newspapers published in The Gambia exacerbate the problem. Mostly government owned, the newspapers act as a mouth-pieces for pro-Jammeh propaganda. Editorials, titled “Another positive move”, praise Jammeh in hyperbole, and letters titled “Congraluations, Mr President” applaud Jammeh with such sycophantic words that it is hard to understand how anyone could believe it.

But people do. Talk to most Gambians and they will be full of praise of their president, who has provided them with 3 roads in his 15 years in power. “Because human development is stagnant,” one of The Point’s editors told me. Though a carefully orchestrated suppression of the opposition, a healthy propaganda mill and the prohibitive taxes on telecommunications that prevent any company from setting up decent internet, Jammeh is keeping the population of that tiny West African nation just stupid enough to prevent revolution.

I spent 2 weeks in The Gambia, and was left with the distinct impression that it was slowly going to collapse in on itself, not dramatically, but quietly, like a house of cards. And, suppression of free speech will be one of the biggest contributing factors to the collapse.

Jammeh’s propaganda is far-reaching
A billboard welcoming Lybia’s President Gadhafi: “Welcome brother leader Moamar Gadhafi leader of the revolution & chairman of the african union & king of kings of Africa”

According to Evgeny Morozov in his post Doubting the Sincerety of Google’s Threat Google are playing the innocent card:

Here is my very crude and cynical (Eastern European) reading of the situation: Google was in need of some positive PR to correct its worsening image (especially in Europe, where concerns about privacy are mounting on a daily basis). Google.cn is the goat that would be sacrificed, for it will generate most positive headlines and may not result in devastating losses to Google’s business (Google.cn holds roughly 30 percent of the Chinese market).

Jeff Jarvis responded in his post What Google Should Do?, saying that 30 per cent of the Chinese market is no bad thing:

Name one other company that finally said “enough!” and put ethic, morals, and company standards over its lust for the Chinese market. Not Yahoo. Not Cisco. Not Nokia. Not Siemens. Not The New York Times Company. Google has.

And he goes on to say:

I can well be accused of being a Google fanboy; I wrote the book. But I have been consistent in my criticism of Google’s actions in China. And so now I have not choice but to become even more of a fanboy. I applaud Google for finally standing up to the Chinese dictatorship and for free speech.

Charlie Beckett, in his post Google and China: cynical ploy or a principled stand?, says that Google was naive “because it doesn’t make 100% sense either as an idealistic gesture or a cynical ploy to exit a difficult market.”

Larry Dignan points out that “there may be a regulatory payoff” to Google’s exit from China. In his post, Assessing Google’s showdown with China: Does it make sense?, Dignan points out:

Google needs a lot of government approval on many fronts. Google has to worry about antitrust regulators meddling in little purchases such as the search giant’s acquisition of AdMob. European Union watchdogs are increasingly eyeing Google. Taking a hard line against China can win over a lot of fans in Washington D.C. It’s hard not to like a company taking a stand against China—especially since the U.S. government can’t right now (China is our banker).”

James Fallows at The Atlantic decsribed Google’s decision as “significant”, and continued to liken the Chinese government to Bush and Cheney:

In a strange and striking way there is an inversion of recent Chinese and U.S. roles. In the switch from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, the U.S. went from a president much of the world saw as deliberately antagonizing them to a president whose Nobel Prize reflected (perhaps desperate) gratitude at his efforts at conciliation. China, by contrast, seems to be entering its Bush-Cheney era. For Chinese readers, let me emphasize again my argument that China is not a “threat” and that its development is good news for mankind. But its government is on a path at the moment that courts resistance around the world. To me, that is what Google’s decision signifies.

The New York Times pointed out that while Google’s departure from China may have many of us up in arms (on one side or the other of the opinion spectrum), that Google’s decision is having very little impact in China itself. Why? Because China has heavily censored the news within its borders.

AP took Google’s stance as a “rare show of defiance”.

The response on Twitter has been mostly positive:

Google’s decision to pull out of China has provoked a mixed reaction across Twitter, the Blogoshere and in the mainstream media.

Some people are heralding Google’s decision as a brave response to China’s systematic censorship of the internet. Others, are applauding Google for finally sticking to their “Don’t be Evil” moto. The rest are saying that Google’s sudden about turn in their attitude towards China’s censorship policy has nothing to do with anyone’s, least of all Google’s, ethical conscience over China’s suppression of free speech, but that the decision is the result of hackers attacking google.

According to Wikileaks, the gossip inside Google is that is Chinese government hackers were found to be infiltrating Google’s source code repository. (The gmail attacks that a number of mainstream media outlets have comments on, are an old issue, says Wikileaks.) And that this was the real motivation behind Google’s pull out.

Late last year, WikiLeaks began lobbying the Icelandic parliament to consider a series of bills, which if passed would transform Iceland into a journalistic haven.

The new laws would be modeled on the kind of shady tax laws that tax havens offer the rich. Under the WikiLeaks’ proposal, Iceland would offer sources and journalists a strong package of legal protections thereby establishing itself as a sanctuary for free speech.

Wikileaks’ proposed laws are based on a pick-a-mix approach to the freedom of speech laws around the world: “So we could just say we’re taking the source protection laws from Sweden … the First Amendment from the United States, (and) Belgium’s protection laws for journalists,” said WikiLeaks’ Daniel Schmitt at the Chaos Communication Congress (26C3) that took place last week in Berlin.

If Iceland passes Wikileaks’ laws they will be setting a precedent for press freedom in a time of tumultuous debates about the rights of bloggers and the role of the internet in journalism. They will also further legitimise WikiLeaks’ position within that debate, and guarantee them a prominent place within the future of journalists.

Islam4UK is creating a stir in the UK over their planned march through Wootton Bassett.

Islam4UK are an British Muslim groups who seek to propagate the Islamic ideology within the United Kingdom. But their planned march has prompted a public outcry due to its planned location: Wootton Bassett is famous for the informal public mourning held as hearses containing the bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan pass through the town from RAF Lyneham. Islam4UK plan to parade through the streets of the small market town in North Wiltshire with empty coffins to “represent the thousands of Muslims who have died” as a result of the West.

While the planned march may be deliberately provocative it is not, as the groups leader Anjem Choudray pointed out in an interview with SkyNews, against the law.

And, the most concerning aspect of the entire episode is that Islam4UK’s website is now “403 forbidden”: The 403 error is equivalent to a blanket ‘NO’ by the Web server – with no further discussion allowed.

The debate that is raging between Islam4UK and the “NO TO THE PLANNED ISLAM4UK MARCH THROUGH WOOTTON BASSETT” facebook group was always going to inspire strong responses, anti-muslim sentiments and accusations of racism, but it is a very worrying development if Islam4UK’s online platform is being silenced, while Jo Clearly’s Facebook group is allowed to explain its position.

The leader of Islam4UK, Choudary, has written an open letter to families of the dead soldiers, saying the proposed march was not “merely an act of incitement or provocation”.

“The procession in Wootton Basset [sic] is therefore an attempt to engage the British public’s minds on the real reasons why their soldiers are returning home in body bags and the real cost of the war,” the letter says.

If this is indeed is a suppression of one side of the debate, there are worrying implications for freedom of expression in Britain, and on the internet.

2009 has seen many countries step up their efforts to censor the internet. The Internet has been the driving force for pro-democracy campaigns in Iran, China and elsewhere, sparking desire in authoritarian governments to severely punish Internet users.

2009s top “Internet Enemies” according to Reporters without Boarders are:
Burma
China
Cuba
Egypt
Iran
North Korea
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Tunisia
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

And one step down, Reporters without Boarders ‘countries under surveillance’:
South Korea
Australia
Bahrain
Belarus
Eritrea
Malaysia
Sri Lanka
Thailand
UAE
Yeman
Zimbabwe

China continued to be the leading Internet censor of 2009. Iran, Tunisia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan have also resorted to frequent blocking of websites and blogs and surveillance of online expression. The Turkmen Internet remains under total state control.

A few notable cases of 2009:

Two Azerbaijani bloggers were sentenced to two years in prison for making a film mocking the political elite.

South Korea, a blogger was wrongfully detained for commenting on the country’s disastrous economic situation.

Around six bloggers in Thailand were arrested or harassed just for making a connection between the king’s health and a fall in the Bangkok stock exchange.

The media in Dubai had their reports on the country’s debt repayment problems censored.

Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer is coming to the end of his second on three years in jail for his blog posts that were considered to be anti-religious and insulting to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Burmese comedian Zarganar, whose name translates to “tweezers”, still has 34 years of his prison sentence to serve. Zarganar was arrested on 4 June 2008 for speaking to foreign media about the situation of millions of people left homeless after a cyclone devastated the Irrawaddy delta. In November 2008, he was sentenced to 59 years in prison, convicted of “public order offenses”, much more than the anticipated maximum of two years. His sentence was then reduced.

Perhaps most worryingly is how close behind many so-called democratic countries are. Several European countries are working on new steps to control the Internet in the name of the battle against child porn and illegal downloads. Germany’s former family minister (now labour minister) Ursula von der Leyen launched a pre-election champaign to introduce an internet block site to counter child pornography. Her battle against the internet was based on misplaced concern and a lack of understanding of the internet, and if it had succeeded it would have actually only pushed users and producers of child pornography further underground.

Earlier this year, the controversial whistleblowing website Wikileaks embarrassed the Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, when it published his government’s list of banned websites, which incriminated 2,602 sites – including that of a Queensland dentist.

Turkey’s courts have increased the number of websites, including YouTube, that are blocked for criticising the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

“The number of countries affected by online censorship has doubled from one year to the next – a disturbing tendency that shows an increase in control over new media as millions of netizens get active online,” said Lucie Morillon, head of the Internet and Freedoms Desk. “That is why Reporters Without Borders will launch a new campaign against the Enemies of the Internet on 12 March.”

See full Reporters without Boarders report

As Canada changes its libel laws to focus on ‘responsible journalism’ (see previous post) over on the other side of the Atlantic a different argument about the responsibility of journalists is raging.

Two cousins of Akmal Shaikh, the British man executed by the Chinese on 29 December for smuggling heroin, have accused the British media of failing their cousin. Amina and Ridwan Shaikh wrote a letter to The Guardian stating that the “sporadic media attention” that his case received during his two years in prison contributed to his execution.

They stated:

We were shocked that, apart from Sky News, his case received only sporadic media attention during his two years in prison. Only when news was released of his imminent execution did it get the coverage it deserved. Wouldn’t more media attention at an earlier stage have applied more pressure to the Chinese authorities? Wasn’t this lack of coverage an injustice in itself?

But is Shaikh’s eventual death the responsibility of the media? And, as Amy Stillman wrote in her blog post, Did the media fail Akmal Shaikh?, “should the press function as an international pressure cooker” for cases such as Shaikh’s?

The Shaikh’s are confusing the role of advocacy groups, such as Reprieve, and the media. For the media to maintain its integrity, and by extension its role within any functioning democracy, it cannot start agenda bashing. The responsibility of journalists needs to be maintaining this integrity, not championing causes. The one would destroy the other.

The Supreme Court in Canada has overhauled the country’s libel laws and ruled that a journalist cannot be sued for libel if they can prove that they have taken every step to check the veracity of their story. The ruling has placed an emphasis on responsible journalism.

In a statement, the court said that free expression does not “confer a licence to ruin reputation,” but argued society is best served by fearless commentary and investigative journalism.

The new law also covers bloggers and citizen journalists.

I was amazed when I came across the cartoon of Putin and Medvedev, which was aired on state TV after Medvedev’s address to the nation on New Year’s Eve. The ability to laugh and poke fun at the political establishment, and for the government to see the funny side as well, is a sign of a government that is confident of its position within society.

One of the best things about British politics is the abundance of satirical TV and radio shows: Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You on the BBC, the Friday Night Comedy Show on Radio 4. They laugh at the politicians and ridicule the way the media that portrays them. Serving and ex-politicians regularly appear on Have I Got News for You and are forced to laugh at themselves and the establishment they work for. Boris Johnson, current Mayor on London and Tory MP, appeared on Have I got News for You a number of times.

If the Russians are catching a bit of British humour it can only be a positive things for politics, both domestic and international. The ability to laugh at yourself goes hand in hand with the ability to take criticism, and both also lead to a free and open press.

I hope that 2010, and the new decade, brings a little more of that for us all to chortle over.