Turkey’s Erdogan Joins In on Vilification of Soros

(Bloomberg) – An Istanbul court acquitted prominent businessman Osman Kavala of charges of plotting to overthrow the government during mass protests that shook the country in 2013.

Nine defendants were cleared, and arrest warrants for others living abroad have been rescinded. Others accused in the case include actor Mehmet Ali Alabora and journalist Can Dundar, who have both left the country.

Kavala spent two years in jail while his case was tried. He was the only defendant to be incarcerated.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has alleged that Kavala was the “local collaborator” of a foreign conspiracy led by billionaire George Soros to divide Turkey by backing the demonstrations against a planned development in Istanbul’s Gezi Park.

The protests quickly morphed into the biggest challenge to the rule of Erdogan, then a powerful prime minister.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/turkey-erdogan-joins-vilification-soros-122355869.html

Jailed Wikileaks founder Assange's health improving: spokesman

LONDON (Reuters) - Jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is no longer being kept in solitary confinement and his health is improving, his spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson told reporters on Tuesday.

Assange, 48, is in Belmarsh high-security prison in London, fighting an extradition request from the United States where he faces 18 counts including conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law. He could spend decades in prison if convicted.

His supporters had expressed concern about the state of his health after he appeared confused during a court hearing in October, struggling to recall his age and name and saying he was unable to think properly.

Assange was moved from solitary confinement in the medical wing to a different part of the prison with 40 other inmates after his legal team and prisoners complained that his treatment was unfair, Hrafnsson said.

"I saw him about 10 days ago - he has improved thanks to the pressure from his legal team, the general public, and amazingly, actually from other inmates in Belmarsh Prison to get him out of isolation," Hrafnsson said ahead of an extradition hearing that starts next week.

Australian-born Assange made global headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.

WikiLeaks later angered the United States by publishing caches of leaked military documents and diplomatic cables.

Assange has consistently presented himself as a champion of free speech being persecuted for exposing abuses of power. But his critics paint him as a dangerous figure complicit in Russian efforts to undermine the West.

He fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning about allegations of sex crimes which have since been dropped. He spent seven years holed up in the embassy until Ecuador decided to stop giving him refuge and he was dragged out last May.

Earlier, a group of doctors representing 117 physicians and psychologists from 18 nations called in a letter for an end to what they described as "the psychological torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange".

His father, John Shipton, said Assange's long confinement indoors had damaged his health and feared that sending his son to the US would be akin to a "death sentence".

"His situation is dire, he has had nine years of ceaseless psychological torture where false accusations are constantly being made," he told reporters.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/wikileaks-founder-assanges-health-improving-105333749.html

NSA whistleblower who leaked Russian hacking report petitions for clemency

Supporters of Reality Winner, a National Security Agency whistleblower who leaked classified information about Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, petitioned Donald Trump on Monday for her early release from prison.

Alison Grinter, an attorney representing the former US air force intelligence specialist, announced at a press conference in Dallas that she had submitted 4,500 letters of support to the federal office of the pardon attorney, the division of the Department of Justice that advises the US president on executive clemency decisions.

Winner was sentenced to five years and three months in August 2018 after admitting breaching the espionage act by passing top secret documents to an investigative news website about the Russian hacking of voting software and its efforts to disrupt dozens of local election systems ahead of the 2016 election.

“Our country was attacked by a hostile foreign power,” The Intercept quoted Grinter as saying at the press conference.

“Our national healing process cannot begin until we forgive our truth tellers and begin the job of rebuilding what was taken from us: election security, accountability for those who endeavor to undermine our democracy; and safeguarding the American right to government by and for the people. None of this can begin in earnest while we are still punishing those who tell us the truth.”

The petition states of Winner, 28: “Her continued incarceration is costly, unnecessary to protect the public, burdensome to her health and wellbeing, and not commensurate with the severity of her offense.”

Trump called Winner’s sentence “unfair” in an August 2018 tweet attacking then-attorney general Jeff Sessions, describing her actions as “small potatoes” compared to what he alleged his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton had done with classified information while she was secretary of state during the administration of Barack Obama.

A three-year state department investigation cleared Clinton of any wrongdoing in October 2019.

Winner said of Trump in a phone interview with CBS News from Georgia’s Lincoln county jail in 2018 that she “can’t thank him enough” for the tweet, which she said confirmed her lawyers’ view that the sentence was unfair.

The Department of Justice did not immediately return a request for comment from the Guardian on Monday.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nsa-whistleblower-leaked-russian-hacking-200107304.html

>>8173171

>>8173171

>>8173376

Notable

I Ran = IRAN

I Won = AWAN

>>8173552

Tomeka Hart

Senior Program Officer, US Policy, Advocacy & Communications

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Tomeka Hart serves as a Senior Program Officer, US Policy, Advocacy and Communications for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading grant making to civil rights and equity organizations.

She previously served as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Institutional Advancement for the Southern Education Foundation (SEF), leading and supporting SEF’s work to improve student outcomes from early childhood to adulthood, helping the CEO and staff to implement a broad range of advocacy, research, and coalition building activities across the Southern region.

Prior to SEF, she served as the Vice President of African American Community Partnerships for Teach for America, where she was responsible for building alliances within the African American community, including civil rights groups, policy organizations, HBCUs, and media outlets. Prior to joining Teach For America, Hart served as the president and CEO of the Memphis Urban League. She is a former middle/high school teacher, and a former labor/employment lawyer.

Hart served two terms on the elected Memphis City Schools Board of Education, serving 2005-2013. She served as Board President 2008-2009. In 2010, Hart joined with a colleague and led the efforts to merge the Memphis City and Shelby County school systems.

In 2011 Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam appointed Hart as a Commissioner of the Education Commission of the States, a national non-partisan organization that helps states develop education policies. Former Tennessee Governor, Phil Bredesen, selected her for Tennessee’s Race to the Top team, and he appointed her to the state’s Teacher Evaluation Advisory Committee, and the First to the Top Advisory Council.

Hart is an Aspen Institute Rodel-Fellowship in Public Leadership fellow and a Pahara-Aspen Institute Education Fellow, and has served on several non-profit boards.

Tomeka Hart holds a B.S. degree in Marketing Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; an M.B.A. from Kennesaw State University; and a J.D. from the University of Memphis.

https://www.case.org/tomeka-hart