#HRA2013 - Global Exchange

Global Exchange staff at 2013 Human Rights Awards gala Photo Credit: Global Exchange

Wow, last Thursday was quite a night!

Global Exchange celebrated its 11th annual Human Rights Awards on May 9, 2013.

Photos from the event are below, plus lots more are posted on Facebook and Flickr.

We had a great time with everyone who came to the Palace of Fine Arts, and we’re grateful for the support of our donors, sponsors, and volunteers.

Together, we helped shine a spotlight on the work of our amazing honorees; People’s Choice Awardee Julian Assange and Wikileaks (chosen by online voters by a wide margin), Grassroots Awardee Crystal Lameman, and Human Rights Awardee Noam Chomsky.

It’s hard to deliver highlights from the night because there were so many! And this, coming from a woman who has been to almost every annual Human Rights Awards gala since its inception.

Grassroots Award Winner Crystal Lameman Photo Credit: Global Exchange

Ok, but if I HAD to pick one, I’d say it was the speeches. They were moving and honest and left listeners wanting to act.

Grassroots Honoree Crystal Lameman delivered a sobering account of how her community and First Nations in Canada is impacted by the Tar Sands and how through determination they’re fighting to stop the Tar Sands.

Daniel Ellsberg accepting award on behalf of Julian Assange and Wikileaks Photo Credit: Global Exchange

Daniel Ellsberg and Jacob Appelbaum accepted the People’s Choice Award on behalf of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. We were excited to welcome back Daniel Ellsberg who accepted Bradley Manning’s People’s Choice Award last year.

Daniel read Julian Assange’s acceptance speech which you can read here. The part about spies in the audience gave attendees quite a chuckle, and this snippet really stood out for me, referring to Human Rights Award Honoree Noam Chomsky:

Noam, you are the sea; relentless and enduring. Crashing wave after wave of understanding into towering cliffs of lies, eroding them at their base. The rotten foreshore of empire has a precipitous overhang as a result. You have inspired and continue to inspire many, including me.

Day of the Dead themed catering staff Photo Credit: Global Exchange

Besides the inspiring speeches, the evening included a silent auction, a Day of the Dead altar with catering staff from Work of Art catering who dressed the part, and musical entertainment by Rupa and the April Fishes.

Global Exchange Executive Director Carleen Pickard speaking at the 2013 Human Rights Awards Photo Credit: Global Exchange

The 2013 Human Rights Awards gala was also an opportunity for us to celebrate our 25th anniversary with many of those who have contributed to our successes over the years. Executive Director, Carleen Pickard, spoke from the podium about Global Exchange’s vision, victories and called for our collective action for climate justice.

Holding the event at the Palace of Fine Arts was perfectly fitting; the first Global Exchange Human Rights Awards gala was held there 11 years ago, adding a full-circle element to the evening.

As we take stock of Global Exchange at 25, despite the daunting challenges we still face, we look forward to celebrating more successes in the years to come.

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Check out the 2013 Human Rights Awards photos— below and on Facebook and Flickr (and a few more on Instagram!)
We’re traveling to Oaxaca, Mexico for a 25th Anniversary Reality Tour, from October 30, 2013 – November 7, 2013! Join us for a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Global Exchange’s Human Rights Awards honor the achievements of groups and individuals whose work embodies the principles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights: peace, justice, and equality.

We celebrated the 2013 Human Rights Awards on Thursday May 9th in San Francisco. This year’s Honorees are:

People’s Choice Award: Julian Assange and Wikileaks
Grassroots Award: Crystal Lameman
Human Rights Award: Noam Chomsky

The award to Julian Assange and Wikileaks was presented by Kiki Kapany of the Julian Assange Defense Fund and accepted by Daniel Ellsberg and Jacob Applebaum.

If you missed this special night, (or were there and want to re-visit a few moments from the program) below is Julian Assange’s acceptance speech (as read by Daniel Ellsberg), along with Kiki Kapany’s introduction.

Kiki Kapany, Julian Assange Defense Fund, speaking at 2013 Human Rights Awards Photo Credit: Global Exchange

Introduction delivered by Kiki Kapany:

Good evening! My name is Kiki Kapany, and I’m here on behalf of the Julian Assange Legal Defense Committee. In 2010, Global Exchange–in true grassroots spirit–decided to add the People’s Choice Award to this event to shine a spotlight on the sung – and unsung – heroes and heroines working for peace, justice and sustainability, as determined by the global community.

This year’s event is particularly important to us because it’s Global Exchange’s 25th anniversary. The response in previous years has been tremendous, and the honorees, from Mu Sochua from Northern Cambodia, to Javier Sicilia from Mexico, to Bradley Manning in prison in Kansas – are all inspiring examples both of this award and the values for which our movement stands. This year, 108 amazing activists were nominated. This year’s honoree won by an overwhelming majority.

In my mind there is no greater pursuit than defending the rights of the defenseless. But in order to right wrongs, in order to alleviate wrongdoing and defend those who need defending, we first need to know about that wrongdoing.

Today governments have unprecedented power to keep their wrongdoing secret. Julian Assange has shown the way to smash through that secrecy and to bare the face of all wrongdoing to the world. Whether exposing Ben Ali’s corruption in Tunisia or releasing secret diplomatic cables — or videos of airstrikes on innocent civilians, Assange and WikiLeaks have made it possible for the people to know about and have proof of these wrongs, and sometimes even to right them—as the Tunisians did when they drove Ben Ali out of power.

The creation of WikiLeaks is a truly revolutionary act and indeed represents a revolution in human rights. By using the internet to shatter the power of governments and large institutions to do their depredations in darkness, in secrecy, Assange has taken a giant step toward the protection of human rights.

Kofi Annan has said, “Business as usual is not an option… No nation can be prosperous without respect for human rights and law. Disruption is the wrecking ball that we must swing against inertia.” And what better exemplifies the swinging of that wrecking ball than the release of critical information?

A few years ago, Julian explained the impetus behind WikiLeaks to by saying, “I looked at something that I had seen going on with the world, which is that I thought there were too many unjust acts. And I wanted there to be more just acts, and fewer unjust acts.” Well, if you don’t imagine change – it won’t happen.

Kiki Kapany and Daniel Ellsberg at 2013 Human Rights Awards Photo Credit: Global Exchange

One person who is living proof of that axiom is here with us tonight: Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times and other newspapers was an act of outright bravery that changed the entire course of history.

So who better to accept Global Exchange’s 2013 Peoples Choice Award to Julian Assange and WIKILEAKS–and to read a statement by its exiled editor in chief, Julian Assange–than another hero of transparency, Daniel Ellsberg.

Julian Assange’s Acceptance Speech read by Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg speaking on behalf of Julian Assange at 2013 Human Rights Awards Photo Credit: Global Exchange

Thank you for this honor.

I am very happy to be sharing it with Noam Chomsky whose generosity and
strength of character I know personally. Noam, you are the sea; relentless and enduring. Crashing wave after wave of understanding into towering cliffs of lies, eroding them at their base. The rotten foreshore of empire has a precipitous overhang as a result. You have inspired and continue to inspire many, including me.

Thank you to the people in this room for supporting this award. I’m going to thank you and Dan in the best way I know. By keeping this speech short. Then you can go and do the important thing. Make alliances to fight for WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning and me. Don’t think you can escape just because I am not there. We have a lot more spies in this room than the FBI.

San Francisco and the Bay Area is important to us. Ideologically, personally and practically. We fought our first big court case in the San Francisco federal courts in 2008; That was no-coincidence. If we were going to have a fight, anywhere in the world, then I wanted it to be in San Francisco. I structured WikiLeaks to encourage attacks on us to be drawn to San Francisco (sorry about that). The EFF, FPF and many of our other defenders are based here. If any state of the Union is going to save the United States from itself, it will be California. Washington sees that too–that’s why we’re being prosecuted in Virginia and Maryland.

Noam’s presence in this room –useful, even if from the east coast–reflects something very special. Cross generational solidarity. From Dan and Noam to Michael Ratner, from Kiki to me, from Jacob to Bradley Manning. The issues of each demi-generation are being understood as a continuation into the present. My fight is right now. But so is Bradley Manning’s. So is Jacob’s. I want Dan, Noam and Jacob, and all of you here, together with me in this fight because I know you understand. Our conflict tests every aspect of character, but it has also brought out the best in many and I am proud of them.

Remember that Bradley Manning’s trial starts on June 3. It’s scheduled to run for 12 to 16 weeks. The prosecution is bringing 141 witnesses. It is a show trial. A 12 week off-Broadway extravaganza being performed at Fort Mead. Its legal and political result will directly feed into the larger prosecution of WikiLeaks.

What is to be done? The answer is easy. It has always been easy. Stop saying “not in my name” and start saying “over my dead body”.

TAKE ACTION!

Re-visit the 2013 Human Rights Awards, check out the photos from the evening on our Facebook page.

At the 2013 Human Rights Awards gala on May 9th, 2013, Global Exchange will be honoring Julian Assange/Wikileaks as its People’s Choice winner.

Tickets are no longer available online. For tickets, please contact Chelsea Weaver at 415-255-6341. Event details: http://humanrightsaward.org/event/ Ticket Price: $115.

Julian Assange Calls on Public to Support Bradley Manning

I had an opportunity to interview WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been granted political asylum since June 2012. Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden over sex allegations, although he has never been charged. Assange believes that if sent to Sweden, he would be put into prison and then sent to the United States, where he is already being investigated for espionage for publishing hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic and military memos on the WikiLeaks website.

Bradley Manning has been in prison for over 3 years now. His trial will begin on June 2. Bradley already pleaded guilty in February to ten charges, including possessing classified information and transferring it to an unauthorized person. Those pleas alone could subject him to 20 years in prison. On top of that, the government has added espionage charges that could put him in prison for life.

What do you think the trial will be like?

It will be a show trial where the government tries to prove that by leaking the documents, Bradley “aided and abetted the enemy” or “communicated with the enemy.” The government will bring in a member of the Navy Seal team that killed bin Laden to say that he found some of the leaked information in bin Laden’s house.

But it’s ridiculous to use that as evidence that Bradley Manning “aided the enemy”. Bin Laden could have gotten the material from The New York Times!

Bin Laden also had a Bob Woodword book, and no doubt had copies of articles from The New York Times.

The government doesn’t even claim that Bradley passed information directly to “the enemy” or that he had any intent to do so. But they are nonetheless making the absurd claim that merely informing the public about classified government activities makes someone a traitor because it “indirectly informs the enemy”.

With that reasoning, since bin Laden recommended that Americans read Bob Woodward book Obama’s War, should Woodward be charged with communicating with the enemy? Should The New York Times be accused of aiding the enemy if bin Laden possessed a copy of the newspaper that included the WikiLeaks material?

What are some things that Bradley Manning supporters can do to help?

They should pressure the media to speak out against the espionage charges. The Los Angeles Times put out a good editorial but other newspapers have been poor. A Wall Street Journal column by Gordon Crovitz said that Bradley should be tried for espionage, and that I should be charged with that as well because I’m a “self-proclaimed enemy of the state.”

If Manning is charged with espionage, this criminalizes national security reporting. Any leak of classified information to any media organization could be interpreted as an act of treason. People need to convince the media that it is clearly in their self-interest to take a principled stand.

What are other ways people can help Bradley Manning’s case?

People could put pressure on Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. These groups briefly protested the horrible conditions under which Bradley was detained when he was held in Quantico, but not the fact that he’s being charged with crimes that could put him in prison for life.

It’s embarrassing that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—Amnesty International headquartered in London and Human Rights Watch headquartered in New York—have refused to refer to Bradley Manning as a political prisoner or a prisoner of conscience.

To name someone a political prisoner means that the case is political in nature. It can be that the prisoner committed a political act or was politically motivated or there was a politization of the legal investigation or the trial.

Any one of these is sufficient, according to Amnesty’s own definition, to name someone a political prisoner. But Bradley Manning’s case fulfills all of these criteria. Despite this, Amnesty International has said that it’s not going to make a decision until after the sentence. But what good is that?

What is Amnesty’s rationale for waiting?

Their excuse is that they don’t know what might come out in the trial and they want to be sure that Bradley released the information in a “responsible manner.”

I find their position grotesque. Bradley Manning is the most famous political prisoner the United States has. He has been detained without trial for over 1,000 days. Not even the US government denies his alleged acts were political.

Human Rights Watch doesn’t refer to Bradley Manning as a political prisoner either. These groups should be pushed by the public to change their stand. And they should be boycotted if they continue to shirk acting in their own backyard.

Another way for people to support Bradley Manning is to attend his trial in Ft. Meade, Maryland, which begins on June 2, and the rally on June 1. They can learn more by contacting the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Thank you for your time, Julian.

—

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of www.codepink.org and www.globalexchange.org, and author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. She interviewed Assange on April 18, 2013. Here’s more information about Assange’s case.

2013 Human Rights Awards in Pictures: Wikileaks and Crystal Lameman and Noam Chomsky, Oh My!