17 Jun 2011 | Uncategorized
National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake was supposed to stand trial this week in the United States in an Espionage Act case that seemed to say even more about the Obama Administration than its handling of WikiLeaks has. Drake had watched the agency sideline an intelligence-gathering computer program called ThinThread that insiders believe could have prevented 11 September. And he had early concerns about the legality of what became the NSA’s infamous domestic warrantless wiretapping programme (exposed by the New York Times in 2005), which looked an awful lot like ThinThread with all of its privacy protections deleted. (more…)
17 Jun 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Human rights activist, Mikita Likhavid, is being tortured in prison according to claims made by the Belarus opposition group Youth Front. In March Likhavid, a member of the Za Svabodu (For Liberty) movement, was sentenced to three and a half years for participating in a rally held to protest President Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection last December. According to Youth Front, Likhavid has been held in solitary confinement four times in the last 40 days, an action which is considered torture by international standards.
17 Jun 2011 | Azerbaijan News, Index Index, minipost
American journalist Amanda Erickson and British activist Celia Davies Carys were followed home and beaten by four men on 15 June in Baku. The women are in Baku to train local journalists. Carys sustained a broken arm in the attack.
17 Jun 2011 | Index Index, minipost
A policeman was arrested yesterday (16 June) as the key suspect in the killing of Ibrahim Foday, a journalist for Exclusive newspaper. Foday was stabbed five days ago in Freetown while covering a riot on a land dispute, the cause of his death was not initially made clear. Sierra Leone journalists are now condemning his murder. The president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, Umaru Fofanah, said: “Journalists in Sierra Leone must not continue being the endangered species.”
