14 Jun 2021 | Croatia, Monaco, News and features, Uncategorized
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An oil industry whistleblower who has been held in Croatia for almost a year on extradition charges has revealed further explosive claims about his former employer.
Jonathan Taylor, who in 2013 revealed a bribery and corruption scandal at the Monaco-based Dutch oil company SBM Offshore, claims the company was also involved in a deal which saw tens of millions of dollars promised to a Panamanian company run by a powerful and allegedly corrupt Angolan official.
Taylor released documents to whistleblowing networks and the media which show that British oil company BP had paid $100 million to cancel a shipyard construction project in Angola. A third of the money owed from the cancellation of the deal to build floating oil platforms was earmarked for Sonangol International Inc, run by Baptiste Sumbe. There was no suggestion this agreement was reached with BP’s knowledge or consent.
Taylor’s revelations come as he approaches the anniversary of his arrest on an Interpol red notice while on holiday in Croatia with his wife and three teenage children. Taylor says he is being targeted as retaliation for his whistleblowing.
In 2013, Taylor gave evidence of bribery by SBM Offshore, for whom he worked as a lawyer, to the UK Serious Fraud Office, as well as investigators in the Netherlands and Brazil as well as the FBI.
Taylor’s allegations were at the centre of what became known as the “Petrobras scandal”, where SBM was accused of paying bribes to Brazilian government officials.
As a result of Taylor’s whistleblowing, SBM Offshore was fined over $827 million after being found to have used bribery payments in excess of $275 million.
Taylor now faces extradition to Monaco. On 18 May this year, despite a 10-month long appeal since his detention, the Supreme Court of Croatia issued a judgement confirming the extradition. In response, 40 legal experts, NGOs and campaigners signed an open letter calling for the extradition to be halted. The decision currently rests with Croatian justice minister Ivan Malenica, to whom the letter was addressed.
Taylor is also being targeted with a defamation suit in the Dutch courts, which many consider to be a strategic lawsuit against public participation or SLAPP. The company sought a public apology and damages of €630,000. The claim was not upheld in the Dutch courts, but Taylor faced lengthy and costly court dealings.
He was released on bail on 4 August 2020 and, although Interpol’s red notice has now been withdrawn, Taylor has been forced to remain in Croatia and is facing extradition to Monaco so he can be “interrogated” over alleged offences.
Taylor has been targeted by SBM ever since he blew the whistle on them.
In 2014, his former employers made a complaint to the authorities in Monaco that Taylor had attempted to extort them but could provide no evidence of this and have since withdrawn the complaint.
Taylor’s situation means there has been concern over his mental health. When British diplomats raised these concerns in response to the lawyer’s own fears, he was held in a psychiatric hospital overnight against his will in May earlier this year.
He described the experience, stating that a substance was “forcibly injected” into him.
“Shortly after this I was taken to a room, still cuffed, where I was strapped to a bed by my feet and legs and my hands,” he said. “I then refused unidentified tablets and was invited to swallow them whilst someone held a cup of water to my mouth. I refused. I was then forcibly turned and something was injected into my upper thigh.”
As the anniversary of Taylor’s arrest approaches, whistleblowing charity Protect has called on the UK government to take further action. It has currently only sought only sought assurances that Taylor will be treated fairly if extradited, but has not called on Monaco to withdraw the extradition request.
Andrew Pepper-Parsons, head of policy at Protect, said “These latest disclosures from Jonathan Taylor show just how vital whistleblowers are to revealing corruption. Despite this, Taylor has been held in Croatia for months facing extradition on baseless claims. It is a clear abuse of process which threatens to set back whistleblowing years and sends a terrifying message to whistleblowers across the continent. The UK government needs to take a more robust stance. It must secure Taylor’s safe return home and call on the Monegasque authorities to drop the extradition”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also like to read” category_id=”256″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Jun 2021 | News and features, United States
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116892″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Fifty years ago this weekend, the New York Times ran a story under the headline “Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing US Involvement”.
The headline is understated and far from the sensationalist language that would be used for a similarly explosive exclusive today.
The article, published on 13 June 1971, was the first of a series that outlined the revelations of what became known as the Pentagon Papers, disclosures from on a 7,000-page report leaked by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a government contractor who worked for the Rand Corporation.
The newspaper revealed how four consecutive Presidents “progressively developed a sense of commitment to a non‐Communist Vietnam, a readiness to fight the North to protect the South, and an ultimate frustration with this effort, with much of it hidden from the public gaze”.
In an interview with Index on Censorship this week, Ellsberg said the huge volume of material did not at first appear to be anything special.
“They didn’t look that effective as they ended in 1968. I assumed that then President [Nixon] would say this is old history and doesn’t have anything to do with me. It was just a fifth president following in the footsteps of four previous presidents,” he said.
Ellsberg faced more than 100 years in prison for leaking the documents but illegal Government evidence-gathering saw the judge in his case declare a mistrial.
In the end, Nixon’s fury over the leaking of documents like the Pentagon Papers led to his downfall in the Watergate Scandal.
Yet little has changed in the past 50 years, says Ellsberg.
“US foreign policy is largely conducted as a covert, plausibly denied, imperial policy,” said Ellsberg. “We deny we are an empire and we deny the means we use, the means which every empire uses to maintain its hegemony – torture, paramilitary invasion, assassination. This is the standard for everybody that seeks a global influence over countries and get involved in regime change the way we do.”
Ellsberg has called on the young to take a stand against government wrongdoing.
“When young people sign agreements [with their employers] under which they will be asked to not reveal any secrets they become privy to in their job, they should take into account that they don’t really have a right to keep that promise in all circumstances,” he said. “Circumstances may well arise where it is wrong to keep silent about information that has come to your attention because other lives are at stake or perhaps the Constitution is being violated and that it is wrongful to keep that promise.”
“It doesn’t occur to you that you could be asked to take part in very wrongful or criminal activities. In your eyes, you are not joining the Mafia yet you make a promise of secrecy like the Mafia without knowing what you are going to be asked to do. This is why you should have your fingers crossed when you make that promise.”
He says, “Young people should remain open to the idea that you may be called on to challenge, to risk your job, your career, your relationships with other people by telling the truth even if you have promised not to do that. It is very unusual advice for young people to hear; it will not improve their career prospects but it will possibly save a lot of lives.”
Ellsberg is in regular contact with other whistleblowers, a club with a very exclusive membership.
“There is something unfortunately quite rare about whistleblowing, and that is not good for the future of our species. It means that when terribly dangerous processes are at work, like wrongful wars or the climate crisis, we can’t count on people to step forward and tell us what we need to know.“
“Very few people get beyond the point of saying this should be known to the point of saying no-one else is going to do it, so I have to do it. That turns out to be an almost unpredictable reaction. It is a matter of personal responsibility and moral courage.”
In a wide-ranging interview published in full in the summer edition of Index on Censorship magazine Ellsberg talks about his views on Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and NSA whistleblower Reality Winner.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Jun 2021 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116887″ img_size=”large”][vc_column_text]Why abusive legal threats and actions against journalists must be stopped.
Journalists are public watchdogs: by bringing information that is in the public interest to light, they help to hold power to account. But what if powerful or wealthy people wanted to keep their wrongdoings a secret? Abusive legal threats and actions, known as strategic lawsuits against public participation – or SLAPPs, are increasingly being used to intimidate journalists into silence. They are used to cover up unethical and criminal activity and to prevent the public of their right to know. SLAPPs have a devastating impact, not only on media freedom, but on human rights, rule of law, and our very democracies. This webinar hosted by Index on Censorship, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) and Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), will examine the issue of SLAPP and why we need to take action in the UK and the EU to stop them.
Speakers:
Bill Browder, Head of Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign (chair)
Annelie Östlund, financial journalist
Herman Grech, Editor in Chief of Times of Malta
Justin Borg Barthet, Senior Lecturer at University of Aberdeen
With contributions from:
Jessica Ní Mhainín, Policy and Campaigns Manager at Index on Censorship
Paulina Milewska, Anti-SLAPP Project Researcher at ECPMF
Susan Coughtrie, Project Director at Foreign Policy Centre
Register for tickets here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Jun 2021 | Academic Freedom, Opinion, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116884″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]It sometimes feels like the world has gone insane. That not only have context and nuance gone out of the window but that issues which are of little, if any, importance end up leading the news and then are twisted and perverted to make them not only apparently relevant but also a matter for national discussion.
This week was definitely a case in point. Students at Magdalen College, Oxford, voted to have a picture of Her Majesty the Queen removed from their common room. They had in 2013 voted to put one up and in 2021 a new set of students decided that they wanted a different picture.
They did nothing wrong. They didn’t break the law. They had a vote (I’d argue that may align with British democratic values) and they then chose to exercise their rights to free expression in the UK. I may not agree with their choice of art – but they, like I, have the right to free expression.
You may have thought that this might have been covered in the university newspaper; it might have led to a few tweets and a little banter, maybe a joke on Have I Got News For You? You’d be wrong. The English secretary of state for education felt the need to condemn the students. It then became a leading story in the national news and op-eds and Twitter mobs duly followed.
A new story in the so-called “culture wars” emerged with various politicians and commentators attempting to suggest that this was the latest woke act to re-write British history. In my opinion it wasn’t – it was a picture of the head of state in a university common room. And it was literally an act of free expression by students (I think this might count as student politics) – which is completely legitimate.
The problem is however we are apparently living in a world where politics and events have to be viewed through the prism of these culture wars. Which is resulting in bad policy and bad politics.
The British Government is currently seeking to legislate to guarantee academic freedom, its stated rationale is to “…protect freedom of speech on campuses up and down the country, for students, academics and visiting speakers”.
In fact, when the new legislation was announced, the education secretary Gavin Williamson stated: “It is a basic human right to be able to express ourselves freely and take part in rigorous debate. Our legal system allows us to articulate views which others may disagree with as long as they don’t meet the threshold of hate speech or inciting violence. This must be defended, nowhere more so than within our world-renowned universities.
“Holding universities to account on the importance of freedom of speech in higher education is a milestone moment in fulfilling our manifesto commitment, protecting the rights of students and academics, and countering the chilling effect of censorship on campus once and for all.”
These are worthy sentiments, which I share. But given the actions this week by the members of the British government, I think we can all be a little confused by the inherent contradiction in their application of these values – that universities must guarantee freedom of thought, speech and debate but only if the Government thinks you’re right. That you can only debate or vote about things they agree with? This isn’t just bad policy, it’s the worst kind of populist and divisive politics which undermines the very fight for free speech.
One of the founding principles of Index was the need to protect academic freedom – universities are cathedrals of learning and of intellectual curiosity. Their work shapes the world and provides new thinking every day – this needs to be protected and cherished. And it’s not for governments or politicians to try and define what is and isn’t acceptable free expression on campus – it’s for the institutions themselves and on this occasion, they chose to remove a picture. And fair play to them![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
