UN rights chief concerned about 'cyber war' against WikiLeaks

While the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed concern about the pressures and intimidation being used to close down credit and Internet facilities used by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, the UN Special Rapporteur on the protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression has expressed the view that there are no grounds for prosecuting the website's founder, Julian Assange.

Kanaga Raja

THE United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, on 9 December expressed concern over reports of pressure being exerted on private companies to close down credit lines for donations to, as well as to stop hosting, the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

Taken as a whole, she said, this could be interpreted as an attempt to censure the publication of information, thus potentially violating WikiLeaks' right to freedom of expression.

'If WikiLeaks has committed any recognisable illegal act, then this should be handled through the legal system, and not through pressure and intimidation, including on third parties,' Pillay told a media briefing.

The human rights chief was speaking on the eve of UN Human Rights Day, which was commemorated on 10 December. The theme this year is 'Human Rights Defenders Acting to End Discrimination'.

Asked at the briefing if she believed that WikiLeaks deserved the same whistleblower protection that journalists enjoyed, particularly when they uncover human rights abuses, Pillay said: 'I think that what is happening here is truly what the media would call a cyber war. It is just astonishing what is happening.'

[WikiLeaks has been headlining the news around the world ever since it posted in late November confidential US embassy diplomatic cables, highlighting the overseas activities of the US government. It had previously posted nearly 400,000 reports by US soldiers that documented the war and occupation in Iraq in the period 2004-2009, as well as a separate set of documents relating to the war in Afghanistan.

[Since the release of the US diplomatic cables, the website and its founder Julian Assange - who is currently being detained in the UK and is facing possible extradition to Sweden to answer charges of alleged sexual abuse - have come under intense pressure. According to media reports, US-based PayPal, which operates an online payment service, blocked payments to WikiLeaks in early December, with leading credit card companies Visa and MasterCard following suit by also terminating their relationship with the website. In response to this, according to media reports, supporters of WikiLeaks launched an online counter-attack dubbed 'Operation Payback' against PayPal, Visa and MasterCard.

[According to an editorial (9 December) in The Hindu, India's leading English language daily, the high-profile arrest of  Assange could, in normal times, have been explained away as a bona fide step taken in furtherance of the due process of law. 'But these are extraordinary times, and the talented Editor-in-Chief of the whistleblower website is the target of right wing and lunatic fringe politicians in America, some of whom want him assassinated. The charges against Mr Assange will convince only the credulous. The accusations, of two women, of unlawful coercion, molestation and rape in Sweden are highly suspect because of the timing and the way they have been pursued...'

[Across the Atlantic, of course, said the editorial, the campaign against WikiLeaks has been constructed around not concerns over women's rights but the website's sensational disclosures of highly embarrassing diplomatic cables. 'Repressive measures against WikiLeaks - such as booting it from Amazon's cloud computing servers, cutting off PayPal, Visa and MasterCard payment gateways, denying it an Internet domain name, and freezing an account held by the website in a Swiss bank - have been achieved through private, extra-judicial manoeuvres. This is what makes the arrest appear vindictive.'

[According to the editorial, the vicious campaign to silence WikiLeaks through distributed denial-of-service attacks and threats of prosecution for espionage in the United States has produced the opposite effect, by provoking supporters of the website to mount a counter-offensive against the companies involved. 'The net outcome is a cyberwar where militant responses to continued repression are guaranteed. Western governments, especially those involved in calamitous wars abroad, could then succumb to temptation and institute authoritarian controls on Internet access...'

[At a broader level, said the editorial, 'the WikiLeaks challenge presents a clear choice to leaders and governments of western countries: to crack down on free speech in the name of official secrecy and national security or to make government more transparent and accountable. After all, tolerating what pleases you, or at least does not displease you strongly, is no big deal. How l'affaire Assange gets resolved will be the acid test for free speech in countries that claim to be liberal democracies.']

At the media briefing on 9 December, Pillay said: 'Let me say that the WikiLeaks case raises complex human rights questions about balancing freedom of information, the right of people to know, and the need to protect national security or public order. This balancing act is a difficult one.'

Noting that Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides for the right to freedom of expression, which includes the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, Pillay said: 'Well, the right to seek, receive and impart information may be restricted; restriction clauses must be (a) necessary and (b) proportional, and must be provided by law and should be justified strictly on the need to protect national security or public order.'

'So who is best to judge or strike at the balance but courts of law. Courts of law are equipped to address the delicate issue of balancing competing rights and values,' she added.

'If Mr Assange has committed any recognised offence, then the judicial system following fair procedures should be able to address how these rights can be balanced. It is important to note that the current charges against him do not relate to leaked information.

'I am concerned about the reports of pressure exerted on private companies, including banks, credit card companies and Internet service providers, to close down credit lines for donations to WikiLeaks, as well as to stop hosting the website or its mirror sites.'

While it is unclear whether the individual measures taken by private actors directly infringe on states' human rights obligations to ensure respect of the right to freedom of expression, taken as a whole, they could be interpreted as an attempt to censure the publication of information, thus 'potentially violating WikiLeaks' right to freedom of expression', the UN human rights chief stressed.

'If WikiLeaks has committed any recognisable illegal act, then this should be handled through the legal system, and not through pressure and intimidation, including on third parties. So, I would say there is currently no clarity at the moment about the source of the cyber attacks and counter-attacks.

'They nevertheless raise concerns about the effective protection that concerned states should provide in relation to the right of the WikiLeaks founder to freely share information, as required in Article 19.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,' she said.

In response to a follow-up question on WikiLeaks documents concerning Iraq, the High Commissioner said: 'Obviously, we were very concerned when we read those documents. The files reportedly indicate that the US knew, among other things, about widespread use of torture and ill-treatment of detainees by Iraqi forces, and yet proceeded with the transfer of thousands of people who had been detained by US forces to Iraqi custody between 2009 and 2010.'

In her view, 'this could potentially constitute a serious breach of international human rights law.'

She further said that she fully supported all efforts that are being made by several independent UN experts - known collectively as Special Procedures mandate holders - who are seeking clarification from the US, from the Iraqi authorities and from the Afghan authorities concerning the circumstances regarding the torture and ill-treatment described in the WikiLeaks documents. 'I urge all countries to take necessary measures to investigate the allegations made in these reports, and to bring to justice those responsible for human rights abuses.'

Highlighting the theme of this year's Human Rights Day that focuses on human rights defenders, the High Commissioner, in her opening remarks at the media briefing, said: 'When it comes to human rights, we sometimes forget how much we owe to others, the hundreds of thousands of unsung heroes known as human rights defenders.'

'They have changed the course of history, tackling injustice and discrimination wherever they find it. The great majority are unknown to the world at large,' she added.

'While combating discrimination and other important human rights causes, they themselves are often subject to discrimination,' she noted, pointing out that 'every year, thousands of human rights defenders are harassed, abused, unjustly detained and even murdered.'

'This is why this year, Human Rights Day is dedicated to human rights defenders and their magnificent struggle to stop discrimination,' said Pillay.                                                         

Kanaga Raja is the Editor of the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS), which is published by the Third World Network. The above is reproduced from SUNS (No. 7059, 13 December 2010).

*Third World Resurgence No. 244, December 2010, pp 28-30