PRISONERS OF DISSENT – Locked Up for Exposing Crimes

About

A growing number of whistleblowers, activists and truth-tellers have been charged with leaking or mishandling classified information under the Terrorism Act, Espionage Act, or theft of government property. The list of whistleblowers and truth-tellers that have been imprisoned for blowing the whistle is much longer today than in the past. PRISONERS OF DISSENT analyses this phenomenon to better understand this legal grey zone and presents political and technological countermeasures.

Speakers:

John Kiriakou (CIA anti-torture whistleblower, USA); Annie Machon (former MI5 intelligence officer, UK/BE); Annegret Falter (Chair Whistleblower Netzwerk e.V., DE); Magnus Ag (Senior Programm Officer, Freemuse, DK/DE); Silvanos Mudzvova (artist and activist, ZWE).

Further Information: http://www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent

John Kiriakou is considered the first CIA officer to reveal information about the US intelligence community’s use of torture techniques. He will talk about the effects and costs of national security whistleblowing in the United States, presenting his new book, Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison, to be released in May 2017.

On May 17 Chelsea Manning will walk free after seven years of prison detention: we connect our conference to this important event discussing repression and detention in the framework of whistleblowing and truth-telling.

Our speakers will analyse and critically discuss the legal and personal consequences of revealing classified information, and the meaning of Terrorism Act, Espionage Act, or theft of government property in the current legal, political and activist terms. Furthermore, we will discuss with the public tactics and strategies to engage in a democratic process of social justice towards the development of a participatory society.

Is the rule of law an illusion as Icelandic activist and politician Birgitta Jónsdóttir points out? Can we imagine interventions that will put pressure on politicians to introduce a collective universal law that protects whistleblowers? Can we think of different models to humanise and modernise our societies?

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Eleventh event of the Disruption Network Lab series by the Disruption Network Lab e.V.. Directed by Tatiana Bazzichelli. | In cooperation with the Whistleblower Netzwerk e.V. and with the Chelsea Manning Initiative Berlin. | In collaboration with Wau Holland Foundation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), and the Resistance Study Initiative, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.

Funded by the Reva & David Logan Foundation, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and the Open Society Initiative for Europe, part of Open Society Foundations