Source: The Guardian
Credits: Luke Harding
Dated: 2010-12-11

[ Emilie says : China says the same, see the end of the page :-) ]

Julian Assange should be awarded Nobel peace prize, suggests Russia

Russia urges Assange nomination in calculated dig at the US over WikiLeaks founder's detention

Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder.

In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate".

"Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him," the source from inside president Dmitry Medvedev's office told Russian news agencies. Speaking in Brussels, where Medvedev was attending a Russia-EU summit yesterday , the source went on: "Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate."

Russia's reflexively suspicious leadership appears to have come round to WikiLeaks, having decided that the ongoing torrent of disclosures are ultimately far more damaging and disastrous to America's long-term geopolitical interests than they are to Russia's.

The Kremlin's initial reaction to stories dubbing Russia a corrupt "mafia state" and kleptocracy was, predictably, negative. Last week Medvedev's spokesman dubbed the revelations "not worthy of comment" while Putin raged that a US diplomatic cable comparing him to Batman and Medvedev to Robin was "arrogant" and "unethical". State TV ignored the claims.

Subsequent disclosures, however, that Nato had secretly prepared a plan in case Russia invaded its Baltic neighbours have left the Kremlin smarting. Today Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Nato had to explain why it privately considered Russia an enemy while publicly describing it warmly as a "strategic partner" and ally.

Nato should make clear its position on WikiLeaks cables published by the Guardian alleging that the alliance had devised plans to defend Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia against Russia, Lavrov said.

"With one hand, Nato seeks agreement with us on joint partnership, and with the other, it makes a decision that it needs to defend. So when is Nato more sincere?" Lavrov asked today. "We have asked these questions and are expecting answers to them. We think we are entitled to that."

Lavrov said his attitude towards the leaked US state department cables was "philosophical". "It is interesting to read, including what ambassadors write to provide a stream of information to their capitals," he admitted.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's hardline ultra-nationalist ambassador to Nato, also today voiced his support for the embattled Assange. He tweeted that Assange's arrest and incarceration on Monday at the City of Westminster magistrates' court demonstrated that there was "no media freedom" in the west. Assange's "fate" amounted to "political persecution" and a lack of human rights, the ambassador said.

In London, meanwhile, Russia's chargé d'affaires and acting ambassador in the UK, Alexander Sternik, said relations with Britain had improved since the coalition came to power. He complained, however, about the hostile reaction in the British media after Fifa's executive committee voted that Russia – and not England – should host the 2018 World Cup.

In a briefing to journalists this morning, Sternik said: "While the English bid was technically a strong one, the Russian bid was in line with the well-known Fifa philosophy of opening new frontiers for world football. The vote result was therefore quite logical, and while the disappointment of many in England is understandable, the media outrage was a step too far. It's not cricket, as the English say."

Source: The Guardian
Credits: Matthew Weaver
Dated: 2010-12-11

9.05am: First Russia, and now China suggests nominating Julian Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The China Media Project reports:

It was an editorial in Beijing Daily, the official Party mouthpiece of the Beijing city leadership, criticizing the Nobel Peace Prize as a "tool of Western values and ideology," and snidely suggesting that this year's prize be given instead to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Here's part of its translation of what the paper said:

If we want to talk about someone who is now a figure in the global spotlight, then who, if not Julian Assange? The founder of the Wikileaks website has been the subject of a worldwide manhunt by Western nations led by the United States, and all because he wanted to release a number of secrets that could not be spoken. Based on what we know, Assange, who was arrested in London on December 7, will have to face a two-year jail term . . .

Assange's misfortunes tell us that the freedom of speech that America advocates is not an absolute freedom, that it is a matter of kind and degree, and that it has its limits. Ordinarily, if you say vicious things about the American government, talk about its problems, or even openly critical the American government, this is nothing very remarkable. But this time Assange has dared expose the truth, airing out before the world a number of things and remarks that the American government wouldn't dare make public, make transparent or share with others — and this has stepped over the line of America's freedom of expression. And the worldwide manhunt [for Assange] is no surprise.

The writer Clay Shirky warned this would happen. In a prophetic article on Monday he predicted the kind of argument repressive regimes would use following the US's approach to WikiLeaks.

Democracies have a process for creating such restrictions, and as a citizen it sickens me to see the US trying to take shortcuts. The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia, can now rightly say to us "You went after Wikileaks' domain name, their hosting provider, and even denied your citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant and all targeting overseas entities, simply because you decided you don't like the site. If that's the way governments get to behave, we can live with that."