What is the Purpose of Journalism if War Crimes Are Not Allowed to be Published?

At Georg Büchner Buchladen · Live here, on YouTube & Facebook

With Stefania Maurizi, John Goetz, Christian Mihr

Organised by Assange Support Berlin in cooperation with Reporters without Borders, Georg Büchner Buchladen, Disruption Network Lab & Boiling Head Media

What is the purpose of journalism if war crimes are not allowed to be published? More and more secrecy among those in power, more and more surveillance of journalists.

80 press freedom and human rights organizations from across Europe appeal to the Council of the European Union in a joint letter to protect journalists against surveillance software. The long-awaited regulation against Pegasus and similar spywares is now to be softened: with the justification of "national security" as an exception, state Trojans against the press will now ultimately be legalized.

The German investigative journalist Gaby Weber has been suing the Federal Intelligence Service for years for the release of the Eichmann files: The BND extended the legal secrecy period first from 30 to 60 years and then indefinitely. The public and the guild of historians are to be kept away from the true circumstances of the so-called Eichmann abduction.

Like her German colleague Gaby Weber, it costs Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi a lot of energy, time and (donations and her own) money to sue the authorities for secret documents with the Freedom of Information Act. It is thanks to Maurizi that we know to some extent which authorities maintained the detention of Julian Assange and how. Nils Melzer also worked with her research.

Her book, now published in English, explains how Wikileaks changed journalism and what the current state of journalism is, at a time when publishing secret war crimes is criminalized for all by the endless detention of Julian Assange. Maurizi ends her book with the following conclusion:

"I want to live in a society where it is possible to reveal war crimes and torture without ending up in prison and on the brink of suicide three times, as happened to Chelsea Manning. Without being forced to live in exile, like Edward Snowden. Without losing my freedom for over ten years and risking suicide, like Julian Assange. I want to live in a society where secret power is accountable to the law and the public for its atrocities. Where those who go to jail are the war criminals, not those who have the conscience and the courage to expose them, and the journalists who reveal their crimes. Today, such an authentically democratic society does not exist. And no one is going to create it for us . It is up to us to fight for it. For those who are with us, for those who are not and even for those who are against us."

We want to discuss steps towards this together this evening. With Stefania Maurizi, John Goetz and representatives of Reporters Without Borders.

Stefania Maurizi Is an experienced and award-winning Italian investigative journalist. since 2009 she has worked with Julian Assange, his organisation "WikiLeaks" and large teams of international media on the secret documents about the war in Afghanistan, the Guantanamo detainees, revelations about the European military operation against boats carrying migrants and refugees from Libya to Italy, as well as espionage activities against French and European leaders by the National Security Agency (Nsa). About her profession, she herself says: "I believe in the strength of journalism, which I think only makes sense when it is able to investigate and expose injustice and corruption." https://stefaniamaurizi.it/en-idx.html

John Goetz, born in New York City, lives and works in Berlin, is an NDR investigative research editor, freelance writer, reporter, investigative journalist and director. He has already worked for numerous English and German media, including the ARD programme Panorama and Der Spiegel, has published several books and directed the documentary “Snowden's Great Escape“, for which he won the German Academy of Television Award in 2015

Christian Mihr is a journalist, human rights activist and expert on international media policy. Since 2012, he has been the executive director of Reporters without Borders e. V. His thematic focus is on internet surveillance and censorship circumvention, internet governance, media pluralism and intelligence control in the digital age. He is a member of the board of trustees of the German Institute for Human Rights, a board member of the Spanish organisation Access Info Europe and an appointed member of the expert committee on communication and information of the German UNESCO Commission. In the German Bundestag, he was an expert in various committees, including "Digital Agenda", "Arms Export Control" and "Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid".