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Snowden Asylum in Germany? Support Grows for NSA Whistleblower After Merkel Cancels Verizon Contract
Revelations by Edward Snowden about U.S. surveillance continue to shake Germany more than one year after he came forward as an National Security Agency whistleblower. Reports based on Snowden’s leaks revealed vast NSA spying in Germany, including on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone. Last week the German government canceled its contract with the U.S. telecommunications firm Verizon. Verizon has been providing network infrastructure for the German government’s Berlin-Bonn network, used for communication between government ministries, since 2010. Meanwhile, the German Parliament is continuing to conduct an inquiry into spying by the NSA and German secret services. Some German lawmakers are calling on Merkel’s government to grant Snowden asylum. We are joined by Snowden’s European lawyer, Wolfgang Kaleck, founder and general secretary for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from the Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany, where outrage continues to grow in Germany over the National Security Agency’s massive global surveillance program. Reports based on leaks by Edward Snowden revealed vast NSA spying in Germany, including on the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone. Last week, the German government canceled its contract with the U.S. telecommunications firm Verizon. Verizon has been providing network infrastructure for the German government’s Berlin-Bonn network used for communication between government ministries since 2010. Meanwhile, the German Parliament is continuing to conduct an inquiry into spying by the NSA and German secret services. This week, NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and William Binney are scheduled to testify before the inquiry in Berlin.
Some German lawmakers are calling on Merkel’s government to grant Edward Snowden asylum here in Germany. Earlier today, Thorbjørn Jagland, the secretary general of the Council of Europe and the chair of the Nobel Committee, addressed the controversy around Snowden during his opening speech at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum here in Bonn.
THORBJØRN JAGLAND: Two of the most significant and complex new challenges to human rights are data protection and secret surveillance. Edward Snowden, who participated in two recent debates on the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, online then from Moscow, has certainly shed light on the scale and dimension of modern secret surveillance. His revelations have also shown the increased potential for states to violate people’s privacy.
But this does not mean that all secret surveillance is illegal, of course. The European Court of Human Rights has built a solid case law on application of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to private life, including the protection of personal data and the protection of personal image. In the landmark case, the court acknowledged the right of states to employ secret surveillance against terrorism, but it also ruled that—and I quote—that "states may not adopt whatever methods they deem appropriate." This, the court said, was due to the danger inherent in surveillance measures of undermining or even destroying democracy on the ground of defending it, as the court said. And this ruling came in 1978, five years before Snowden was born.
So we have clear principles, and we have a clear case law on this coming from the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. So [whether] the state is violating your privacy through sophisticated surveillance or by going through your wastepaper bin, the basic question remains the same: Is the measure proportionate, and is it ultimately necessary?
AMY GOODMAN: Thorbjørn Jagland is secretary general of the Council of Europe. He also happens to be chair of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Last week, Edward Snowden made his second appearance before the German Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—that’s the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. During testimony via video stream, Snowden said mass surveillance is not only unlawful, but also immoral.
EDWARD SNOWDEN: What I witnessed over the course of my career was the construction of a system that violated the rights not just Americans, but of people around the world—and not just constitutional rights, but human rights. And it happened on a massive and unprecedented scale, and it was happening entirely in secret, without the public allowed to know even the barest outlines of the policies.
And I very strongly believed that if the public knew about these programs, these programs would not survive. We would consider them not only unlawful, but simply immoral. And even if they could be shown to be effective in some percentage of cases, we would reject them nonetheless, in the same manner that we reject torture, because even if—even if torture was effective, we reject it regardless of that effectiveness. We reject it because it is barbaric, it is immoral, and it is contrary to our basic principles as a civilization.
Mass surveillance, where we place everybody under constant monitoring, where we watch communications, we watch what books you buy, we watch the purchases you make, we watch your travels, we watch your associations, we watch who you love, and we watch who you are, we watch you develop as a person—these are not the values of Western societies. These are not the values of liberal societies. And I do not believe that America, as a nation, or the West, as a culture, would allow them to continue.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s whistleblower Edward Snowden testifying last week before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. When we come back, we go to Berlin to speak with Edward Snowden’s European attorney. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We’re broadcasting from Bonn and Berlin in Germany.
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from Bonn, Germany, at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. We just arrived here last night from Berlin, where we spoke to Wolfgang Kaleck, Edward Snowden’s European lawyer. Kaleck is the founder and general secretary for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. We sat in his apartment, and I began by asking him if Russia will allow Snowden to stay in Russia when his temporary asylum expires there on July 31st.
WOLFGANG KALECK: Hello, Amy, welcome in Berlin.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you expect that Edward Snowden will have his political asylum extended in Russia?
WOLFGANG KALECK: We expect that Edward Snowden will stay more time in Russia, because this is—as for now, it’s the only safe place for him, and there is no obstacle that he gets a prolonged stay by the Russian government.
AMY GOODMAN: What would he like to do? Where would he like to be?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Look, he expressed a number of times that he would love to return to the U.S., and he considers himself as someone who break the letter of the law, but for good reasons. And so, he thinks that he deserved a chance to come back to the U.S. without serving a long prison sentence.
AMY GOODMAN: The secretary of state, John Kerry, said he should man up, come home to the United States and face trial, face the charges.
WOLFGANG KALECK: Look, I mean, if you see what happened to Bradley, now Chelsea, Manning, I think this is enough explanation for any whistleblower, and especially for Edward Snowden, not to return to the U.S. under these conditions.
AMY GOODMAN: Why? What exactly does he face if he were to come home? What is the charges he faces?
WOLFGANG KALECK: It’s not only about the charges. Yeah, there are charges under the Espionage Act, a very doubtful law which deserves to be reformed very quick. But it’s the treatment, the special treatment, what whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning got in the recent year in the U.S., and that’s special administrative measures in—during the prison time. It’s incommunicado time. It’s inhumane treatment, what he might face, but especially it’s a very long and not appropriate prison sentence he might get. And so, I fully understand, we all fully understand—the German public, the European public fully understands—that he doesn’t return under these conditions.
AMY GOODMAN: When did you last see Edward Snowden?
WOLFGANG KALECK: I saw him a couple of weeks ago in Moscow.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you tell us your impressions of him?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Look, I mean, he is a very sympathetic man. He knew what he had risked, and he’s not lamenting about it. And he tries to explain his decision to us all the time. And I think that’s very important, that he didn’t do anything for egoistic reasons, but he wanted to enable us, not only the public in the U.S., U.S. society, but also us here in Europe, to understand what’s happening in the Internet and what dangers we are facing and that we all have to act not only as European society, but as global society, to face these dangers and to reform as soon as possible the regulation of the Internet. And this is not only about the U.S. secret services. It’s about secret services globally, and it’s about, yeah, the big corporations who are dominating the Internet. And this is not the kind of society we want to live in, in the near future. So, he enabled us to know what’s going on, and now it’s up to us to act.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you summarize the revelations that have most rocked Germany?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Look, I mean, in terms of the media, they were—they were all most shocked about the wiretapping of Angela Merkel’s cellphone.
AMY GOODMAN: The German chancellor.
WOLFGANG KALECK: The German chancellor’s cellphone, during a time when she wasn’t even a chancellor. But for us—let’s say, the civil liberties and human rights organizations—the mass surveillance conducted by the NSA, under—with a certain participation of the German secret service, was most shocking. And again, it’s not—we are not willing to restrict this discussion to the NSA. It’s not that we are pointing to the NSA as the only evil secret service. We want to talk about our secret services. We want to talk about secret services and their activities globally, because we know that, you know, all secret services in the world tend to use their technology whenever they have the chance to, and so it’s up to us to close the door and to establish a stronger regulation for secret services, wherever they are.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk more about the German intelligence relationship with the NSA?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Look, since a couple of months, we established an inquiry commission in the German Parliament, and the mandate of this inquiry commission is to investigate not only the activities of the NSA in German territory, but also the cooperation, the level of cooperations of the German secret services. So, we’re at the beginning of a maybe year-long investigation. And we assume that there were a number of information given by the BND, the foreign secret services, to the NSA, but the details have to be investigated.
So there are a number of, you know, smaller items already revealed, like they have been given in Frankfurt a number of data in former years—I think it was until 2007. We know that there is a level of cooperation between Germans and U.S. authorities regarding cases of targeted killing. But as I said, this has to be investigated in this inquiry commission and, if necessary, also in criminal procedures, because the inquiry commission on the level of the Parliament is one thing, and the other important procedure is a criminal investigation conducted by the federal prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe.
AMY GOODMAN: Will Edward Snowden be invited to Germany to testify before this inquiry?
WOLFGANG KALECK: It doesn’t look so for now, because—
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Because they—as the U.S. is the most important ally of the Germans and as the German government is fearing that the level of cooperation—military cooperation, secret service cooperation—will be affected when they invite Snowden, and probably he will stay here for a certain time, so they are not willing to stand this confrontation, which is a, let’s say, pattern we knew already from couple of other incidents in the last 12 years.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, you would think, because he exposed that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor’s cellphone was being tapped, before she became German chancellor as well as during, that there would be a great deal of appreciation for the person who revealed this. Or do you think German intelligence knew this full well before?
WOLFGANG KALECK: I’m not sure. They say they didn’t know, but I won’t buy into that too easy. But, of course, there is a certain level of appreciation, especially amongst German society—German intellectuals, media, civil liberties, human rights organizations, but also German public—and not only German, and it’s the same situation in France or in Belgium or in Spain, where similar inquiries will be conducted soon. We all appreciate what he did, but the governments are not willing to stand any confrontation with the U.S., even not as—you know, as a united Europe. They feel themselves too weak to confront the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: The German government is ending its contract with Verizon—this just came out in the last week—for cooperating with the U.S. government, with the NSA, in spying on Germans. Can you explain the significance of this?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Yes. I mean, the significance of this is that there were some members of the Parliament who raised their concern that when Verizon is organizing the internal communication within the German Parliament on one hand, and on the other hand they are known for their cooperation with U.S. secret services, there is a danger that internal communication within the German Parliament will be kind of wiretapped by U.S. secret services. You know, no matter if this concern is right or not, but, I mean, this is a strong signal to all U.S. corporations, telephone corporations and Internet corporations, to do something about this problem, because they are going to lose more contracts than this if they are not willing to establish firewalls between, you know, their clients and the secret services.
AMY GOODMAN: Wolfgang Kaleck, we’re here in Berlin, not far from the wall that was torn down between West and East Berlin, and you have represented victims of the Stasi.
WOLFGANG KALECK: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, it’s a particularly sensitive issue in Germany, the issue of mass surveillance. Can you talk about the case you represented and why people here feel so strongly about this issue?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Look, I was a young lawyer when I had the opportunity to open my first law firm in East Berlin in the headquarter of—yeah, for the former dissidents of East Germany. And so, we heard a lot of stories from them about them being persecuted by the Stasi and by the East German police. And the interesting thing for me—of course, some of the stories we knew, because this was about well-known dissidents, but what was really striking to me was the level of everyday surveillance.
So it was, you know, a girlfriend from mine going into school and being surveilled there, and later on she had the opportunity to look into her files, and she got to know why she was fired from school. So, a couple of years later, she had the chance to go back to school and go to university, but others didn’t have the opportunity. So, it was not only political dissidents, what was, you know, on the radar of the Stasi, of the East German secret service, but it was cultural dissidents, as well. It was daily dissidents, as well. So that was really something, you know, very interesting, very interesting experience.
And we were—as Westerners, we weren’t aware of this level of interference in everyday life of East German people. And the Stasi was not only surveilling, but they also tried to interfere in the lives of the people. So they conducted investigations, they arrested people, they interrogated people, and, you know, decades before, they even tortured people.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, how does this story tie into that and renew the feelings about what the Stasi did and the victims that came from that?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Yeah, I mean, like, we had not only the Stasi; we had a much worse secret service, and that was the Gestapo, the National Socialist secret service, who was—yes, which is still very infamous here. So, you know, we had a very cruel dictatorship. And so, there is a certain—what should I say—suspicion amongst Germans, even amongst younger Germans, about state misconduct. And it’s not that we are claiming that, you know, every secret service is automatically close to Gestapo or to the Stasi. That’s not the point. The point is, once a secret service has these technological resources and has the power to do so, they are in danger to do so. And if this comes together with a regime change, even a slight regime change, this is a very dangerous mixture.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you give non-Germans a little history lesson on the Gestapo and then the Stasi, for those aren’t familiar with both?
WOLFGANG KALECK: The interesting thing about both the Gestapo and the Stasi was—I don’t want to compare them, because, I mean, the DDR, the East Germany, was an authoritarian system. They committed a number of human rights violations. But they didn’t exterminate six million Jews and, you know, raid the whole European continent, so that there is a big difference.
But on another level there, you can compare them because what they did is they were secret service and police in one body. And so, that’s a very dangerous—that was a very dangerous combination, that they not only collected information, but they collected the information and acted on the basis of this information, especially to persecute political dissidents. So that was their main task. But as I said, the Stasi went further and also at some point started to chase cultural dissidents.
AMY GOODMAN: Is there any truth to Edward Snowden wanting to get political asylum in Brazil?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Look, Edward Snowden, while he was together with Sarah Harrison from WikiLeaks in the transit zone of the Moscow airport in summer 2013, wrote a number of letters to a number of countries asking for—yeah, for a safe haven. And amongst those countries was Brazil. But he didn’t renew that demand, because it’s obvious that the Brazilian government, as for now, is not willing to give him asylum. But as we always state, that this is a long-distance run. I mean, like, we are now at the end of the first year after the revelations of Edward Snowden, and as for now, Russia might be the only place where he has security, but this might change in one year, in three years or in five years. And I’m really hoping that he finds a way back to the U.S., and if not, we do everything here in Europe that—European countries, or give him asylum or enable him to find a safe place somewhere else in the world, and that may be Latin America.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what is the most important revelation you think so far has come out of the documents that Edward Snowden released to journalists?
WOLFGANG KALECK: No, I mean, I think it’s not one document. It’s the series of documents released all over the last 12 months. There is no way out. There is no excuse possible. All what we were suspecting over the last decade, many people were criticizing, but without real evidence, and now this evidence is out. And so, nobody can deny that this practice of mass surveillance, not only of so-called terrorists, not only of so-called dangerous people, but massive surveillance against many of us is taking place. And I think that’s the biggest—the biggest revelation, the most important.
AMY GOODMAN: We are coming up on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November. Do you think there’s any possibility, since many thought that wasn’t possible, that Germany would grant Edward Snowden asylum?
WOLFGANG KALECK: You know, I am trying to be a patient person, although, as a lawyer, you have to be patient and impatient at the same time. Of course I’m inpatient, because I’m really criticizing the German and other European governments that they are profiting from Edward Snowden’s revelations on one hand, but they are not giving him anything back on the other hand. No, they are calling him a lawbreaker. But this might change, and this is politics. I mean, politics is that we have to win a political majority in our countries, that the governments feel obliged to change their attitude and—or grant him asylum or, you know, are part of a, let’s say, solution somewhere else.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the coming down of the Berlin Wall could be seen as a kind of metaphor for what Edward Snowden has accomplished?
WOLFGANG KALECK: Of course, because, you know, we were living in this country—you know, in 1988, the wall was a fact for us. And, you know, we went there, and I think none of us thought that one year later that this—the wall is teared down. So it shows you that history is open, and it’s about us to obtain our roles in those struggles for more justice, not only in our country, but on a global level.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Wolfgang Kaleck, Edward Snowden’s European lawyer. I spoke with him in Berlin this weekend. Wolfgang Kaleck is the founder and general secretary for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we’ll be joined by the news director of Al Jazeera English to talk about what’s happening in Egypt with three of their reporters sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. Stay with us.
Al Jazeera News Director: Prison Terms for Journalists in Egypt are Chilling Start to Sisi Era
It was six months ago Sunday when Egyptian authorities raided a hotel room in Cairo used by reporters at the global TV network Al Jazeera. The journalists Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were arrested December 29, and they have been held in jail ever since. Last week they were sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison for allegedly "spreading false news" in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, deemed by the government a "terrorist group." The sentence has shocked journalists and supporters of press freedom around the world. And the Al Jazeera reporters are not alone. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Egypt is currently holding at least 11 other journalists in prison. We are joined by Salah Negm, director of news at Al Jazeera English. "We were reporting in Egypt objectively and accurately," Negm says. "Throughout the trial there was not one piece of evidence against them of falsifying information or supporting any group which is outlawed. That was all false. The sentence came as a real shock."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We are broadcasting from Bonn, Germany, at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. I’m Amy Goodman.
It was six months ago on Sunday when Egyptian authorities raided a hotel room in Cairo used by reporters at the global TV network Al Jazeera. The journalists Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were arrested that day, December 29. They have been held in jail ever since. Last week, they were sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison for allegedly "spreading false news" in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, deemed by the government a "terrorist group." The sentence has shocked journalists and supporters of press freedom around the world. And the Al Jazeera reporters are not alone. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Egypt is currently holding at least 11 other journalists in prison.
Here in Bonn, Germany, we’re joined by Salah Negm. He’s the director of news at Al Jazeera English. He formerly was the director of BBC Arabic news service in London. He’s here in Bonn for the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum.
I just heard you speak. This is very dire times for Al Jazeera. You recently had another reporter released from prison, Abdullah Elshamy, after 10 months. Can you talk about what is happening to your reporters in Egypt?
SALAH NEGM: Well, as you know, the three Al Jazeera English reporters were sentenced, as you said, to between seven and 10 years, and there are six other Al Jazeera journalists who were sentenced in absentia for 10 years each. Some of them are Egyptians. They cannot go back to Egypt. They lost their property, their contact with their families. And that’s only for being journalists. We were reporting in Egypt objectively and accurately. And actually, throughout the trial there was not one piece of evidence against them of falsifying information or supporting any group which is outlawed. That was all false. And the sentence came as a real shock and surprise to everyone, because it was out of law totally.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about the evidence they showed. I mean, in one of the sequences, the observers in the courtroom said, they showed—was it Peter Greste’s family on vacation?
SALAH NEGM: Yes, yes, and it was weird and absurd. They got things, I think, from the laptops of the correspondents. Some of them were just clips from Sky News Arabia, which is a totally different channel. Some of them were about football matches, and one of them was about a vacation, family vacation.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Baher Mohamed was sentenced to 10 years, the other two, Fahmy and Greste, to seven years, because he had a shell casing. I mean, as reporters, we pick up many things on the streets. Some talk about having souvenirs, but often, if you find ammunition like that, it is evidence. It’s something that you can see, for example, where ammunition comes from.
SALAH NEGM: Of course. That’s part of our jobs of investigating and trying to verify facts. If that ammunition, for example, was a government issue, that will direct the finger to, let’s say, the police force. If it is not, then it will be an opposition group or a lone operator in a demonstration or something like that. I covered news myself in Iraq and other places, and I used to do that. That’s part of what we are doing. And sometimes—I will not deny that—we take things like this sometimes as a souvenir for great coverage from a very dangerous situation or a danger zone.
AMY GOODMAN: But the court said in the verdict and the sentencing, where he got an extra three years—
SALAH NEGM: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —this was possession of ammunition.
SALAH NEGM: They considered it ammunition. And I don’t know how can you consider a shell, a bullet shell, an ammunition. It’s not used, but—it can’t be used by anyone.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what happens now? What is Al Jazeera doing to get these journalists out of prison?
SALAH NEGM: We are continuing our solidarity campaign throughout the world and, actually, asking the Egyptian government to take action and release them immediately, because their sentence was unjust to start with. There is an appeal process, but after the sentence and seeing the whole process of trial, we are not very confident that it will really go in the right path.
AMY GOODMAN: Is Al Jazeera speaking to the Egyptian government?
SALAH NEGM: No, we have our legal team who is representing us there. But I don’t know—
AMY GOODMAN: The president, Sisi, has the power to pardon or to commute these sentences, is that right, at this point?
SALAH NEGM: Yes. Yes, the president has the power to pardon anyone who’s sentenced. But we shouldn’t only think—I mean, Al Jazeera journalists are very important to us, but we think about other journalists who are detained, as well, and who will be sentenced for their work as journalists trying to convey the facts and truth to the people. But apart from that, also there were some very illogical sentences in Egypt of hundreds of people to execution. And I think the government has to take an action. You cannot think about, for example, executing 300 people or imprisoning journalists just for doing their work.
AMY GOODMAN: Secretary of State—the U.S. secretary of state—John Kerry was in Egypt the day before the sentences came down. In fact, one of the reporters, Mohamed Fahmy, shouted from his cage as the verdict came down, "Where is John Kerry?" The U.S. is resuming, at this point, something like $500 million in military aid to Egypt. What is your comment on this?
SALAH NEGM: It’s difficult to comment on this because politics between countries are different. But what we expect from the United States is to defend the freedom of speech as one of its basic principle embedded in the United States Constitution and foreign policy. And we expect that its action will follow the principle, really.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken to the U.S. government? I mean, the timing of this trip, the day before the journalists were sentenced—now, the U.S. government has, and John Kerry has, conveyed that they are upset with these verdicts—
SALAH NEGM: Yes, he did.
AMY GOODMAN: —but the actions are different. What have they said to you?
SALAH NEGM: He had strong comments afterwards. I think it was in a press conference in Iraq the second day. And actually, we appreciate his comments. We speak to officials from different governments, and we are seeking their support, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: How are you covering Egypt now? Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera America, Al Jazeera Arabic, the local Al Jazeera, the kind of C-SPAN for Al Jazeera—for Egypt that Al Jazeera ran, none of these networks can operate?
SALAH NEGM: In the current, current atmosphere of news, being banned from one country wouldn’t stop you from covering this country. There are several ways, and technology and actually help of other journalists will help us in covering the events in Egypt. So we didn’t stop covering the events in Egypt. What we are lacking is our own correspondents, which are the eyes and ears of the viewer. But we have correspondents helping us from other networks, which showed really good solidarity with us.
AMY GOODMAN: In fact, we just got word from Al Jazeera that there was a bomb that went off near the presidential palace in Cairo. I believe two police officers were killed, and news is developing. Reuters has confirmed this. But how do you protect your reporters around the world?
SALAH NEGM: We take very strict measures when we send reporters to areas of tension or war. We provide them with all protective gears, armored cars, trackers if they want to go to somewhere that we lose contact by telephone or whatever, so there are satellite trackers. We do risk assessment. We have extraction plans, extraction teams, security advisers with them. So we take every possible precaution for that. But first of all, the reporter himself has to be convinced and believe in the mission he is about to do. And it’s a voluntary thing. We cannot ask someone to go against his will. It has to come from the reporter himself.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the #FreeAJStaff campaign?
SALAH NEGM: #FreeAJStaff campaign, it’s a campaign for collecting support for actually telling the Egyptian government that what happened was unjust, and they have to free the reporters immediately, as soon as possible. Think about Abdullah Elshamy, who is the Arabic reporter who stayed 10 months, was on hunger strike for so many days, and then he was released for—just a few days ago.
AMY GOODMAN: And he tweeted out a picture of himself holding that sign—
SALAH NEGM: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: "#FreeAJStaff." Salah Negm, I want to thank you very much for being with us, director of news at Al Jazeera English. He is usually in Doha, but he’s in Bonn today for the Deutsche Welle Media Forum that we’re both covering and attending.
Egyptian Comedian Bassem Youssef Says His Satire Has Inspired Youth to Reject Military Propaganda
In a development many are linking to the Egyptian regime’s crackdown on dissent, Egypt’s most popular satirist announced this month that he was taking his program off the air. Bassem Youssef’s broadcast had been compared to Jon Stewart’s "The Daily Show" for its comedic take on politics in Egypt and the Middle East. The show was incredibly popular — reaching as many as 30 million views per episode. Youssef said he was ending his program rather than face censorship and threats on his life. Yousef was vague on the pressure he has faced, but suggested the military regime has made it impossible for him to continue. Speaking at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, Youssef said his decision to suspend the show could be seen as a new beginning. "We have inspired a whole generation to go out there and express themselves in their own way," Youssef says. "Satire and comedy might be one of the few antidotes against fear. It liberates your mind. It sets your judgment free. That is why it is a threat."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In a development many are linking to the Egyptian regime’s crackdown on dissent, Egypt’s most popular satirist announced earlier this month he’s taking his program off the air, just days after General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was elected president. Bassem Youssef’s broadcast has been compared to Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show for its comedic take on politics in Egypt and the Middle East. The show was incredibly popular, reaching as many as 30 million views per episode. Bassem Youssef said he was ending his program rather than face censorship and threats on his life. Youssef was vague on the pressure he has faced but suggested that the military regime has made it impossible for him to continue. Earlier today, Bassem Youssef, who is a heart surgeon by training, spoke here at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum.
BASSEM YOUSSEF: Fear sells. Fear works. Fear makes you get away with anything. And when people are afraid, they will not accept logic, let alone satire. Fear can drive the masses. Fear can turn them into ruthless organisms devoid of human mercy and intellectual logic. Fear can drive humans to give up their best-ever given trait: humanity. Under fear, they accept taking away the right to object, to oppose, and even applaud taking away other people’s rights. Under fear, fascism becomes coveted, and "human rights" becomes an indecent word.
Our job was to expose those irrational fears, to dissect through the unfair use of such human basic instinct in order to give up basic human rights and needs. This might sound strange, but again, let me remind you that fear sells, fear delivers. Fear is much, much more stronger. Fear might be the greatest mover of masses ever. You have experienced this during your history. The world has experienced Nazism, fascism, McCarthyism. All were movements that used fears and phobia and empty, vicious rhetoric in order to control the masses.
Sixty years later, those techniques are still valid. We saw how the most advanced democratic countries used fear to drag the whole world into war, like the Bush years in America. Their main weapon was not state-of-the-art aircraft carriers or stealth fighters, but good old national scare fear. Fear is the favorite weapon of all—democratic countries, autocratic countries, religious states and terrorist groups. It’s the favorite brand of all. Fear sells. Fear works. Fear is a winner.
Satire and comedy might be one of the very few antidotes against fear. It liberates your minds. It sets your judgment free. And that is why it is a threat. And that is why people who use satire will be alienated, marginalized or even scared off. It doesn’t matter if it was a government who thinks that they are closer to God than you or a regime that believes that they are more patriotic than you. You, as a satirist, has no place in the world. It is a world where fascism is celebrated and where fear rules. But satire comes to disrupt such an equation, because when you laugh, you cannot be afraid anymore, because—and thus the system will make sure to eliminate that powerful weapon of laughter, in order for fear to set in.
But maybe there is a small beacon of hope. Maybe change will come from the most unexpected places. The world today is a young world. Youth are connected now more than ever. The Internet and the open skies offers an opportunity that was not there many years ago, when regimes can get away with anything. When we started on the Internet three years ago, we might be the—at that time, the only one in our country who did that with such a unique idea and format, but now the Internet is full of young people coming up every single day to combat fear, intimidation and media deception. We were too big to be allowed to continue, but by the time we were banned, the change has already happened. Stopping the show might be viewed as a sad ending, but we would like to look at it as a new beginning. We have inspired a whole generation to go out there and express themselves in their own way.
The old techniques of the '40s and ’50s won't cut it with those youngsters. The propaganda that worked for their parents’ generation won’t be able to control them anymore. The plethora of fascism that plagues certain regions on the planet right now is only a temporary and transient moment of time that will be soon washed away by the upcoming generation. Fascism now is overwhelming, that you might think that the long-coveted freedom is stillborn. But that is not true. As Bevan once said, "Fascism is not a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born." But I tell you that the future is already here. It is just warming up. So fear might sell. Fear might work. Fear might win. But it will eventually face its defeat. And the battlefield for that glorious victory will be no other than the hearts and minds of vibrant, inspired young people who will not give in to fear.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Bassem Youssef, Egypt’s most popular satirist, speaking here at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany. The Committee to Protect Journalists awarded Bassem Youssef the International Press Freedom Award in 2013. He received the award from Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, the comedian to whom he’s most frequently compared in Egypt.
And that does it for today’s broadcast. I’ll be speaking tomorrow morning at the Deutsche Welle Media Forum here in Bonn, as well on—later in the week, I’ll be speaking in Visby, Sweden. I’ll be speaking at the Church of Sweden on the island of Gotland. You can check democracynow.org for details.
Happy birthday to Isis Phillips.
Democracy Now! has two job openings. We have a job opening for an administrative director, as well as a Linux systems administrator, and fall internships. Visit democracynow.org/jobs for more information.
•Obama to Seek Congressional Waiver for Speedier Deportation of Migrant Children
President Obama is asking Congress for fast-track authority and additional funding to speed the deportation of migrant children fleeing violence and poverty in Central America. The White House says Obama will submit an emergency request to waive anti-trafficking rules that prevent children from being immediately deported. If approved, the government could avoid regulations mandating the children’s transfer to the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, which is tasked with acting in the children’s "best interests," not forcing automatic deportation. The waiver would apply to children from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the home countries for most of the 52,000 unaccompanied children seized on the border since October. Obama will also ask lawmakers for at least $2 billion to pay for more immigration judges and faster deportations. Speaking to ABC News, President Obama made an appeal to the parents of unaccompanied children.
President Obama: "Our message absolutely is don’t send your children unaccompanied on trains or through a bunch of smugglers. We don’t even know how many of these kids don’t make it and may have been waylaid into sex trafficking or killed because they fell off a train. We have no way of tracking that. So, that is our direct message to the families in Central America: Do not send your children to the borders. If they do make it, they’ll get sent back. More importantly, they may not make it."
Obama is expected to formally seek the fast-track deportation authority in a letter to Congress today. According to the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, 58 percent of unaccompanied children detained by the United States could be entitled to refugee protections under international law.
•Sunni Militants Declare Muslim "Caliphate" in Seized Iraqi, Syrian Territory
The Sunni militant group leading a rebellion against the Iraqi government has declared a Muslim caliphate in the parts of Syria and Iraq under its control. In a statement, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS or ISIL, said it will now be known as the "Islamic State." The group also called on Islamist factions worldwide to pledge allegience, a potential challenge to its former ally, al-Qaeda. Iraqi lawmakers are holding a key session on Tuesday to begin selecting a new government. This comes as the Iraqi army has launched a new offensive to retake the northern city of Tikrit. Speaking in Geneva, a spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency said aid officials have been unable to reach tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis.
Christiane Berthiaume: "There are hundreds of roadblocks which not only prevent us from joining people who need help to bring them assistance, but which also prevent people from getting out in order to join a distribution point. There is no freedom of movement. We can’t join them, and neither can they join us."
•State Dept. Dropped Blackwater Probe After Manager Threatened to Kill Investigators
The State Department abandoned a probe of the private military firm Blackwater in Iraq after a company official threatened to kill the government’s chief investigator. The New York Times reports investigators began looking into Blackwater’s Iraq operations just weeks before company operatives shot dead 17 Iraqi civilians in the 2007 massacre at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The investigators found widespread misconduct and warned of an "environment full of liability and negligence." But according to government documents, the previously undisclosed investigation was quashed after Blackwater’s project manager in Iraq, Daniel Carroll, issued a threat "that he could kill" the chief investigator, Jean Richter, and "no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq." The U.S. Embassy in Iraq ended up siding with Blackwater, ordering Richter and a colleague to leave the country and calling them "unsustainably disruptive" and "unnecessarily hostile" to "contract personnel." The New York Times says the investigators’ unheeded warnings "make clear that the [State] Department was alerted to serious problems involving Blackwater and its government overseers before Nisour Square." The trial of four Blackwater operatives accused in the massacre began this month after years of delay.
•Israel Bombs Gaza After Militant Rocket Fire
Israeli warplanes have killed one Palestinian and injured three in strikes on the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militants in Gaza have launched rockets on southern Israel over the past day amidst escalating tensions over an Israeli crackdown following the apparent kidnapping of three teenagers from a West Bank settlement.
•U.S. to Abide by Land Mine Treaty, but No Immediate Ratification
The Obama administration has signaled its intent to eventually sign an international convention banning the use, stockpiling, production or transfer of antipersonnel land mines. The White House initially announced in 2009 it would continue U.S. policy of rejecting the treaty, but then walked back its stance by saying the treaty was under review. Five years later, the administration now says it intends to eventually sign the treaty, but not in the near future. In a statement Friday, the administration said it will immediately stop adding to its stockpile of nine million landmines and take further steps that would eventually allow for ratification. In a statement, Human Rights Watch welcomed the new stance but added: "It makes no sense for the U.S. to acknowledge the weapons should be banned because of the humanitarian harm they cause while retaining the option to use them for years to come."
•Obama Admin Taps Ex-Procter & Gamble Exec to Head VA
The Obama administration has tapped a former Procter & Gamble executive to head the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs. Bob McDonald would replace Eric Shinseki, who was forced to resign earlier this month following outrage over the cover-up of lengthy delays at VA facilities.
•Chicago Teachers Accuse Mayor "War on Educators" Following New Layoffs
The city of Chicago has announced the firing of more than 1,200 teachers and support staff at public schools. It is the fourth time in the last five years that Chicago has fired more than 1,000 people. In a statement, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis accused Mayor Rahm Emanuel of waging a "war on educators."
•Indigenous Groups Stage Final "Tar Sands Healing Walk"
Indigenous groups have led a gathering of hundreds of people in the western Canadian province of Alberta for the annual "Tar Sands Healing Walk." Participants staged a march and healing ceremony this weekend to mark the damage of tar sands oil mining on the land and on local communities. The indigenous-led ceremony was in its fifth and final year.
•Civil Rights Activists Join Nissan Worker Protest During "Freedom Summer" Commemoration
Civil rights activists who traveled to Missisippi to register African-American voters half a century ago reunited to mark the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer. In June 1964, some 1,000 out-of-state volunteers risked their lives as part of the massive voter registration campaign. Late last week, veteran activists including Julian Bond, Marian Wright Edelman and Bob Moses gathered at Tougaloo College to celebrate the milestone and mark the continuation of the civil rights struggle. As part of the celebration, a group of student activists joined with workers from a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, who say they are facing threats and intimidation in their attempt to unionize. The actor and activist Danny Glover addressed the crowd at the rally.
Danny Glover: "So these students, we veterans of the civil rights movement, we are here right now to demand that we want justice right now. Not tomorrow, right now. The concentration of wealth in this country among the most powerful people in this country is just as bad as it was in 1846! 1846! 1846 was in the beginning stages of the Industrial Revolution, before the abolition of slavery. So we’ve got to challenge that, and we can only challenge by organizing. We’re going to create another Nissan, a Nissan that respects us as human beings, that respects our human rights! Workers’ rights are civil rights!"
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had also seen the connection between workers rights and civil rights. He was in Memphis, Tennessee, to support striking sanitation workers when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
•Justice Dept. Drops Prosecution of Sami Al-Arian
The Justice Department has dropped its criminal prosecution of Palestinian professor and activist Sami Al-Arian. Al-Arian was first accused of ties to the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but a Florida jury failed to return a single guilty verdict on any of the 17 charges against him. After prosecutors refiled charges, Al-Arian chose jail time and then deportation rather than face a second trial and a lengthier sentence. Defense lawyers argued prosecutors then violated his plea deal by subsequently charging him for refusing to testify in cases that had nothing to do with his. On Friday, prosecutors said they would drop the contempt case "in light of the passage of time without resolution," and in order to begin deportation proceedings. In a statement, the Al-Arian family said: "We hope today’s events bring to a conclusion the government’s pursuit of Dr. Al-Arian and that he can finally be able to resume his life with his family in freedom."
•New York City Finalizes Central Park 5 Settlement
New York City has finalized a $40 million settlement with the Central Park Five, who were wrongfully convicted of raping a female jogger in Central Park 25 years ago. The five black and Latino men were convicted as teenagers. Media coverage at the time portrayed them as guilty and used racially coded terms to describe them. But their convictions were vacated in 2002 when the real rapist came forward and confessed, after the five had already served jail terms of up to 13 years. On Friday, three of the five appeared at City Hall to thank their supporters. Defense attorney Michael Warren said the five’s ordeal has left them with injuries that will last a lifetime.
Michael Warren: "In spite of the fact that they are here and in spite of the fact that they have fought for all these years, in spite of the fact that you may see smiles on their face, there are scars inside which will last forever as a result of them having their youth stolen from them and, even more importantly, having their youth stolen from them and being put into prisons facing the type of charges that they were faced with."
•LGBT Pride Parades Held Worldwide
LGBT pride parades were held across the United States and around world on Sunday. In New York City, participants marked the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which helped launch the modern LGBT movement.
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