tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-141878910793686547.post2818378932931864444..comments2024-03-27T17:16:47.951+01:00Comments on UNDER MATTAN: Svensk "Internetfrihet" i Nordkoreansk stil - Snowden & Greenwald svartlistades från SIF14Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-141878910793686547.post-17647552685785620882014-05-29T13:12:11.867+02:002014-05-29T13:12:11.867+02:00WikiLeaks on SIF ban: ‘How can you exclude Snowden...WikiLeaks on SIF ban: ‘How can you exclude Snowden from internet freedom debate?’<br /><br />May 28, 2014<br /><br />Sweden, which blacklisted Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks from the Stockholm Internet Forum (SIF), plays the role of a US “lapdog” and does not want anyone to speak out against the American government or its agencies, a WikiLeaks spokesperson told RT.<br /><br />Banning leading whistleblowers from the conference undermines its whole concept, WikiLeaks spokesperson and investigative journalist Kristinn Hrafnsson said.<br /><br />“How can you exclude WikiLeaks? How can you exclude Edward Snowden? How can you exclude discussing the explosive revelations by these important whistleblowers that have stepped forward in the last few years, totally changing the entire perception of the internet and raising serious questions of the future of the internet? If you want to discuss internet freedom you have to have these elements there,” he said.<br /><br />The third annual European conference, SIF, opened on Monday in the Swedish capital, where internet activists gathered to have their say on this year’s topic: “Internet – privacy, transparency, surveillance and control.”<br /><br />The forum, organized by the Swedish Foreign Ministry, claims that “freedom and openness” are among its “key concepts.” <br /><br /> However, those concepts seem to have their limits, as major internet rights advocates who opened the public's eyes on the scale of internet spaying were actually banned from attending the gathering. Among those who failed to receive an invite were former CIA employee Snowden (who revealed the NSA's mass spying program), journalist Glenn Greenwald (who broke the story), representatives of WikiLeaks, and hacker Jacob Appelbaum.<br /><br />The move caused a storm of criticism on Twitter, and many participants of the forum aimed to get a clear answer from organizers as to why the most prominent defenders of internet privacy were not invited. <br /><br /> According to German magazine Cicero Online, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said earlier in a comment that a key ambition of the conference was to have an equal number of male and female invitees and that at least a half of them had to be from developing countries.<br /><br />“We’ve seen it as important to not to look into the whistleblowing process as such or to revelations as such. What we believe we should do is to discuss how we can find solutions in order to protect human rights in an environment where surveillance is a reality,” Olof Ehrenkrona, advisor to the Swedish foreign minister, said at the event. [...]<br /><br />http://rt.com/news/162072-wikileaks-internet-forum-sweden/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com