Persecution of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France is by no means a coincidence, but part of the disturbing trend of curtailing free speech, investor and host of the largest show on X, Mario Nawfal, told Sputnik. | X giant Mario Nawfal sat down with Sputnik on Friday to discuss Telegram CEO Pavel Durov's arrest, globalist attack on free speech, and what's next for X and Elon Musk. According to the entrepreneur, Pavel's arrest is "a reminder that free speech and even privacy is becoming more and more of an illusion, rather than reality."

💬 "We’ve seen the censorship that happens in every single country around the world, including... Europe, the US, Brazil. Pavel’s arrest takes another social media platform off the list of those who want to censor, those who want power," Nawfal said, suggesting that Rumble and X could become the next targets.

💬 "We’ve seen in the UK recently as well with the riots what happens when free speech is cracked down [on], and it’s not pretty. We’ve seen people arrested and go to jail for months and years for things they said online," Mario said, referring to warnings from the UK Crown Prosecution Service against "online violence" earlier this month and subsequent arrests over online posts.

The X Spaces host doesn't rule out that he also has a target on his back. Commenting on reports that in fact Durov came to France at the invitation of Emmanuel Macron, Mario revealed that he himself was invited to interview an unnamed country’s president just days before Durov’s arrest. Nawfal now believes that it could have been a trap

The French Ministry of Defense reacted to some news about the UAE freezing the implementation of the contract of purchasing 80 fighter jets from this country. | The statement of the French Ministry of Defense said that the claims published on social networks about the UAE's opposition to the purchase of 80 fighter jets due to the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France are baseless. [...] "The United Arab Emirates is considering the possibility of a complete blockade of military-technical cooperation with France after being detained in Paris of Telegram founder Pavel Durov," Avia.pro reported with reference to the media. The media also report that after Durov's arrest, the UAE has already frozen the implementation of the contract for the purchase of 80 fighters from France, the portal noted.

■ Kremlin monitoring developments surrounding Telegram CEO Durov's arrest, charges brought against him (Anadolu)
■ Serbia inks 'Rafale' deal with France while dodging Western pressure for Russia ties (Drago Bosnic)

Journalists waiting outside the court building failed to reach him for comments | Co-founder of the Telegram messenger app Pavel Durov has left the court building after being charged with numerous offences related to Telegram administration, a TASS correspondent reported. He left the territory of the court in a black minivan. Journalists waiting outside the court building failed to reach him for comments. ● Earlier, the court charged him with six offences out of 12 named previously, the capital prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The charges include the refusal to cooperate with the authorities, complicity in dissemination of child pornography, complicity in drug trafficking and in a fraud, committed within an organized group. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, he may face a prison term of up to ten years and a fine of 500,000 euro. ● The judge in charge of Durov’s case placed him under judicial control with an obligation to post a bail of 5 million euros, to report to the police station twice a week and he is forbidden to leave the territory of France.

■ Durov under investigation for child abuse (Big News Network/AFP)
■ Telegram CEO Durov Released From Custody, Says Telegram Complies With The Law (Sputnik News)
■ Pavel Durov’s Naivete Was His Achilles’ Heel (Andrew Korybko)
■ UAE freezes fighter jet purchase contract with France (08/28/24)

The ban applies to some reporters from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times, according to the statement | Russia permanently banned entry to 92 US nationals in response to the Russophobic policy of US President Joe Biden's administration, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

💬 "As a reaction to the Russophobic policy pursued by the Joe Biden administration with the stated goal of ‘inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow,’ an integral part of which were ‘blanket’ sanctions against Russian politicians, members of the business community, scientists and cultural figures, journalists and media organizations, entry to the Russian Federation is banned on a permanent basis for 92 US citizens," the ministry said.

💬 "In addition to officials at the top and other levels in security agencies and special services, heads of key defense enterprises and financial institutions that supply arms to the Ukrainian armed forces and sponsor the regime in Kiev, the ‘stop list’ includes editorial staff and reporters of leading liberal-globalist publications involved in the production and dissemination of false stories about Russia and the Russian armed forces and propaganda that covers up the ‘hybrid war’ unleashed by Washington," the ministry went on to say.

💬 "As a response to the insane sanctions frenzy of the American ruling elite, the practice of expanding the list of people under entry bans will be continued with determination and consistency by including those who are directly involved in anti-Russian activities," the ministry said. "We remind the current US authorities that punishment is inevitable for hostile acts, whether they directly encourage [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky and his sidekicks to commit acts of aggression and terrorist attacks or represent attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation."

The UAE has frozen the implementation of the contract of purchasing 80 fighter jets from France and is also considering the possibility of blocking military cooperation with the European state due to the arrest of Pavel Durov. | Media outlets reported that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is considering the possibility of a complete blockade of military-technical cooperation with France after the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in Paris. "The United Arab Emirates is considering the possibility of a complete blockade of military-technical cooperation with France after being detained in Paris of Telegram founder Pavel Durov," Avia.pro reported. The media also report that after Durov's arrest, [that] the UAE has already frozen the implementation of the contract for the purchase of 80 fighters from France, the portal noted.

■ Durov taken to French court – media (RT.com)
■ The arrest of Telegram’s billionaire boss shows that big changes are coming (Fyodor Lukyanov)

Pepe Escobar | In a nutshell: Paris got a fateful heads up he was flying into France – could have been via Durov’s Dubai-based, post-obsessive, social climbing girlfriend – and laid out the trap in a flash. | The Pavel Durov saga is a gift that will keep on giving for a long time to come. This is what hot information war is all about. So let’s attempt to connect several loose ends. ■ A high-level Russian analyst makes the case that Durov’s arrest is connected with “anti-French protests in its former colonies, withdrawal from its traditional 'sphere of influence' where Telegram infrastructure was used to push anti-colonial and anti-Macronist narratives”. ■ Add to it an “attempt to influence narratives on Ukraine both in Russian and the international media field, which is highly dependent on Telegram infrastructure.” ■ Paris is indeed desperate to make itself relevant when it comes to psy ops and influencing/special warfare in Ukraine.

John Miles | Western governments are increasingly seeking to deepen their control of online platforms while looking to discredit those like TikTok and Telegram which they perceive to be beyond their control. [...] This weekend’s arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, then, can be seen as the latest development in the trend after Durov provoked the ire of Western officials earlier this year by revealing the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s attempts to install a backdoor in the popular encrypted messaging application.

■ Durov arrest exposes ‘upside-down’ West – Serbian leader (RT.com)
■ US orchestrated Durov arrest – former spokesman (RT.com)
■ How prominent Russians reacted to arrest of Telegram founder Durov (RT.com)
■ France wants to ‘shut down’ Telegram – Russian human rights chief (RT.com)
■ Russian billionaire Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested in Paris (08/25/24)

Chris Pavlovski’s video hosting platform has been embroiled in a long-running legal battle with the French authorities | France has crossed all boundaries by arresting Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, Chris Pavlovski, the CEO of video-sharing platform Rumble, has said, adding that he left Europe after the news broke. ● Durov was taken into custody at a Paris airport on Saturday evening after arriving from Azerbaijan by private jet. While the French authorities have yet to publicly announce the reason for detaining the Russian tech mogul, reports indicate that the charges are related to his alleged complicity in drug trafficking, pedophilia offenses, fraud, as well as failure to address criminal activity on the messenger. Telegram has denied any wrongdoing, adding that it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

■ US orchestrated Durov arrest – former spokesman (RT.com)
■ How prominent Russians reacted to arrest of Telegram founder Durov (RT.com)
■ France wants to ‘shut down’ Telegram – Russian human rights chief (RT.com)
■ Russian billionaire Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested in Paris (08/25/24)

The Russian billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, was arrested on Saturday evening upon arrival at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, according to French TV channel TF1. | The 39-year-old businessman, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, was reportedly met by police officers at around 8pm on Saturday after flying to the French capital on his private jet from Azerbaijan. ● According to the French authorities, Durov, who is estimated to be worth €13.9 billion by Forbes, is being charged as an accomplice to crimes including drug trafficking, fraud, terrorism and crimes against children over Telegram’s alleged “lack of moderation and cooperation with law enforcement’, as well for Telegram’s use of disposable numbers, and for allowing cryptocurrency transfers that cannot be monitored by the authorities. ● The arrest has surprised many, as Durov had long proven himself to be a canny operator in terms of ensuring his personal safety, leaving Russia in 2014 when he refused demands by Russian intelligence services to censor the VK social media platform, which he owned at the time. Since 2017, Durov and Telegram have been based in Dubai. [...] Neither Durov nor Telegram has either confirmed his arrest or commented on it. However, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Sunday that Russian diplomats in Paris were working to learn more about Durov’s arrest.

■ Snowden slams Macron for taking Telegram's Durov 'hostage' (Al Mayadeen)
■ US trampling on free speech – David Sacks on Durov’s arrest (RT.com)
■ RE.: задержание российских граждан местными властями (Maria Zakharova)
■ Durov’s detention raises question if Western NGOs demand his release — diplomat (TASS)
■ Elon Musk believes Europeans to be executed for social media likes soon (TASS)
■ #FreePavel: Elon Musk reacts to Durov’s arrest (RT.com)
■ ‘Darkness descending’: Tucker Carlson reacts to reports of Durov’s arrest (RT.com)
■ US is behind Durov’s arrest – senior Russian official (RT.com)
■ Censorship, Suppression of Free Speech at Heart of Telegram Crackdown – Ex-CIA Analyst (Sputnik News)
■ 'Demons are Losing Control': Influencers React to Pavel Durov's Detainment (Ekatrina Blinova)

Dmitry Medvedev (Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council) (Дмитрий Медведев) | Some time ago, quite some time ago, I asked Durov why he didn't want to cooperate with law enforcement on serious crimes. "This is my principled position," he stated. "Then there will be serious problems in any country," I told him. ■ He thought he had the biggest problems in Russia, and left, then got citizenship/residence permits in other states. He wanted to be a brilliant "man of the world" living perfectly without a homeland. Ubi bene ibi patria! ■ He miscalculated. For all our common enemies now, he is Russian - and therefore unpredictable and dangerous. Of a different blood. Certainly not Musk or Zuckerberg (btw., actively cooperating with the FBI). Durov should finally realize that the Fatherland, like the times, cannot be chosen...(DeepL + Grammarly)

Paul Craig Roberts | We can add Richard Medhurst to Tulsi Gabbard, Scott Ritter, Amb. Craig Murray, Julian Assange, and many others who are harassed, arrested, imprisoned by police state authorities in the US, UK, EU, and Canada for practicing the disappearing profession of journalism. | When Richard Medhurst can be arrested in a London airport for “expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization,” we know freedom is dead and journalism no longer exists. All that Western journalists are permitted to do today is to support the official lies in the official narratives that are used to construct the false reality in which we live. ■ We no longer have the BBC, the New York Times, the London Times, ABC, NBC, CBS to hold government accountable. What we have are propaganda ministries that support official narratives. The job of the Western media is to lie to the people in behalf of the establishment that rules them.

Alexander Mercouris | In the wake of the Medhurst arrest, Alexander Mercouris looks back at the genesis of the Terrorism Act under which the journalist was held. | At the time when Prime Minister Tony Blair brought in the Terrorism Act 2000 — note that this was before 9/11 – I was working in the Royal Courts of Justice. As I remember the lawyers were buzzing about it, worried about its vague and sloppy language, and its overt authoritarianism and capacity for abuse. There was general incredulity that Blair, who is himself a lawyer, as of course is his wife, and his Home Secretary Jack Straw, who is also a lawyer and a former adviser of Barbara Castle, one of the most revered figures in modern Labour history, would bring in a law like that. Looking back and thinking of those days, it’s amazing how naive we were. Here we are and this terrible law is now being used against journalists, and is being used in a way which violates fundamental human rights.

■ ‘Can’t Make This Up’: Journalist Arrested Under UK Anti-Terror Law Hours After Criticizing It (Brett Wilkins)

💬 The New York Times: “American authorities intend to conduct new searches of the homes of U.S. citizens who cooperate with Russian media.” Maria Zakharova: What have Reporters Without Borders, UNESCO Director-General Madame Azoulay, and the OSCE commissioners to say about this? I hope they'll not remain silent. ● I am sure that this shameful fact will also be recorded in the State Department's report on the degradation of the situation with human rights and freedom of speech in the United States. We are waiting for an angry rebuke to the American authorities for the backsliding from democracy, performed by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. ● Did they forget anyone? Right, we also need a tweet from McFaul about the attack on liberalism in the United States and press releases from American embassies around the world threatening to impose sanctions against Biden.

The Rai News 24 journalist recently interviewed a Ukrainian serviceman who was wearing SS insignia | The Italian journalist who recently interviewed a Ukrainian soldier wearing Nazi insignia has apologized. ● Ilario Piagnerelli, a reporter with the Italian state broadcaster Rai News 24, said he “deeply regrets” the interview but called the uproar on social media a tool of pro-Russian propaganda. ● In an extract from a report circulating online, Piagnerelli can be seen talking to a man wearing a khaki cap adorned with the insignia of the ‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’ SS division, a unit that was convicted of war crimes by the Nuremberg Tribunal following World War II. The video is watermarked ‘Rai News 24’. As of Monday morning, however, the footage was no longer visible on Piagnerelli’s X account. [Ilario Piagnerelli:]

💬 I grew up with a partisan grandfather, the real kind, who today would have no doubt in distinguishing between invader and invaded, between those who resist and those who occupy. I was educated in the values of the Constitution. ● I deeply regret having given voice, even if for a few seconds, to a Ukrainian soldier whom only after the reportage aired did I notice wearing a patch with a Nazi symbol. ● There is a network of Moscow-linked pro-invasion profiles in Italy that devotes its resources to discrediting the work of me and other reporters. They feign dismay, but have found in that image a formidable anti-Ukrainian propaganda argument. ● The one just concluded was my 15th trip to Ukraine. In two and a half years I produced dozens of reports and hundreds of live broadcasts. Among European public services, RAI is probably the one that is reporting on the conflict most assiduously. Our reports are often distributed on Eurovision. This is also why we suffer attacks, such as the very recent ones that followed Stefania Battistini's worldwide scoop. ● Our work will continue to be free from bias and marked by the utmost rigor. (Translation: DeepL)

■ RE.: Criminal Case Against Italian Journalists (Aug 19)(2) (M.V. Zakharova)
■ RE.: Criminal Case Against Italian Journalists (Aug 19) (M.V. Zakharova)
■ Criminal Case Against Italian Journalists for Illegally Crossing the Russian Border (Aug 18) (M.V. Zakharova)

Commentary by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Ms. M.V. Zakharova. | Media: “A journalist of the Italian state broadcaster Ilario Pianenerelli, who last week released a report with an AFU soldier wearing a cap with the SS division insignia, said that he ‘deeply regrets’ it, but called the social media hype a tool of pro-Russian propaganda”

■ First, no one has the right to insult anti-fascists by suspicion of bias and non-self-importance.
■ Secondly, believing that it was Russia that drew attention to the terrible informational pandering of the Italian media to the Kyiv neo-Nazis, the Italian journalist records the historical role of our country and our people in the fight against fascism, Nazism, racism, and all their derivatives. What Ilario Pianenerelli calls “pro-Russian propaganda” is the propaganda of anti-fascism - this was bequeathed to us by our ancestors who liberated the world from the brown plague at the cost of their lives.

Yes, we propagandize the fight against fascism and Nazism. And we will always propagandize! (Translation: DeepL + Grammarly)

Commentary by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Ms. M.V. Zakharova | An Italian lover of Ukrainian neo-Nazis got nervous. Why is that? | Ilario Pianerelli's interview that aired on RAI did not go unnoticed. It couldn't. We helped, of course. Hilario is a vindictive and resentful journalist, so everyone who was involved in it has been on the block for a long time. He blocked me, for example, after I didn't appreciate his blue jacket with Ukrainian symbols on live TV. This morning, everyone on the block is on the block for detailing the interview with those who helped his colleague Stefania Battistini enter Russia illegally. Hilario cleaned up his feed this morning as well. There is no longer such an interview, but he certainly can't delete the screens that are all over the Internet. Meanwhile, the Italian media are “digesting” another “attack” by Moscow on Italy's free press. Maria Zakharova's post from the point of view of the Ansa agency is “criticism of another RAI correspondent.” (DeepL + Gram.)

Even with Elon Musk at the helm, X (formerly known as Twitter) is still censoring people, including Naomi Wolf who was dropped from the social media platform following a powerful interview with Alex Jones. | After Wolf revealed to Jones that there are multiple coups currently underway at the White House, in her view, X decided to axe Wolf from the platform. According to Infowars, Musk is not to blame, but rather "moles ... still in his organization that have yet to be purged" are responsible. ● Wolf wrote a piece that Infowars published explaining how it all went down. What she sees happening inside the White House as warring factions fight to the death for power was aired to viewers, revealing the political turmoil that is happening behind closed doors.

The bar just got even lower. | The BBC reports that a 40-year-old man has been arrested and criminally charged for social media posts that contained “anti-establishment rhetoric.” — Yes, really. Wayne O’Rourke becomes the latest example of the wave of authoritarian hysteria to impact free speech in the UK following the recent anti-mass migration riots. O’Rourke was arrested on Sunday in connection with “posts made from a social media account,” according to Lincolnshire Police. “Nottingham Magistrates’ Court heard the posts were alleged to contain anti-Muslim and anti-establishment rhetoric,” reports the BBC. O’Rourke had nearly 100,000 followers on X and predicted his own arrest days beforehand. So now apparently posting “anti-establishment rhetoric” in the United Kingdom is enough to get you locked up.

■ UK’s crackdown on free speech in light of migrant crisis should not be viewed in a vacuum; It contains the globalist model to collapse U.S. and all of Western civilization (Leo Hohmann)

UK police commissioner threatens to extradite, jail U.S. citizens over online posts: 'We'll come after you' | UK police commissioner threatens to extradite, jail U.S. citizens over online posts: 'We'll come after you' | 9 Aug 2024 | London's Metropolitan Police chief warned that officials will not only be cracking down on British citizens for commentary on the riots in the U.K., but on American citizens as well. "We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News. Riots have broken out across the United Kingdom in recent days over false rumors spread online that an asylum seeker was responsible for a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three girls dead and others wounded. The murders, allegedly committed by a now 18-year-old British citizen born to Rwandan parents, sparked a series of violent protests that tapped into broader concerns about the scale of immigration in the U.K. [Haha! Good luck with that. I don't comply with sociopaths' orders issued at the behest of the WEF with the goal of destroying the West from within.]

Séamus Malekafzali | Even as their colleagues in Gaza are deliberately massacred, Western journalists continue to play along with the IDF. | On July 31, Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul was murdered. He had been reporting from the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza, covering the reaction from residents to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier that same morning. While he was with his cameraman Rami al-Rifi, their car was directly targeted in a strike by the Israel Defense Forces. Video soon emerged of the two journalists dead in the vehicle. The force of the blast had decapitated al-Ghoul. His press vest was still clearly visible. ■ Al-Ghoul and al-Rifi were just two of over 160 journalists who have been killed while covering the war in Gaza, by far the deadliest conflict for journalists in recorded history. But while Israel usually leaves their strikes on journalists unacknowledged, the IDF has instead openly gloated about killing al-Ghoul. In a statement, the IDF accused al-Ghoul of being a Hamas fighter–specifically, a member of the Nukhba special ops force. (No evidence was provided for this assertion.) Moreover, his filming of Hamas operations against IDF troops—otherwise known as doing his job as a correspondent for a major television network—was specifically detailed as the reasoning behind his murder.

Authorities in the UK are now arresting people for posting “inaccurate information” on social media, according to a new report. | Sky News reports that a woman has been arrested by Cheshire Police for posting “inaccurate information on social media” about the attacker who stabbed three girls to death in Southport last week. ● The 55-year-old woman was arrested near the northern town of Chester on “suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and false communications.” ● Chief Superintendent Allison Ross gave a statement explaining how the post is alleged to have “fueled” the protests and riots in the UK over the last week, which she asserts started as a result of “malicious and inaccurate communications online.”

Denmark’s $3.7 billion carbon tax plan to cost farmers almost $100 per cow | Denmark is set to launch the world's first carbon tax on livestock, charging dairy farmers about $96 per cow beginning in 2030 to reduce methane emissions. Search for "you will eat bugs". There are hundreds of articles promoting the benefit and wisdom of eating bugs and not one article critical of the globalist agenda. This is the degree to which information is now controlled. (TPV/NN)

The antivirus platform has acknowledged that a bug in an update was to blame for Friday’s global Windows 10 outage | SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed that his companies have stopped using web/cloud-based antivirus platform CrowdStrike, following Friday’s global Windows 10 outage. ● The controversial cyber-security firm has admitted that the massive failures were caused by a recent update it instigated that conflicted with Microsoft systems. ● The IT meltdown affected Windows 10 users around the world, including airports, banks, and broadcasters. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, at least 4,295 flights were grounded globally due to the outage. The worldwide glitch also hit a number of media outlets, including the UK-based Sky News – which went off the air for a while – as well as the Australian-based ABC, SBS, Channel 7, Channel 9, and News Corp Australia. ● Responding to a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, Musk wrote: “We just deleted Crowdstrike from all our systems.”

■ Microsoft IT outage latest: Security firm Crowdstrike finds cause of global IT 'disaster' - as cyber attack ruled out (07/19/24)

The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.

The other platforms accepted that deal.

𝕏 did not. https://t.co/4lKsaRsYoA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2024

■ Musk: EU Wanted "Illegal Secret Deal" to "Quietly Censor Speech" (Pirate Wires)(X)
■ New E.U. landmark law targets Big Tech firms over hate speech, disinformation (NBC News)
■ EU offered X secret censorship deal – Musk (RT.com)

Moscow will work on breaking through the “hysteria” of some of the foreign media, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said | Russia will continue to “speak the truth” to the world, despite Western governments and media refusing to allow their citizens to hear what Moscow has to say, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Tuesday. ● Peskov was asked by the VGTRK broadcaster about Ukraine’s claims that Russia struck a children’s hospital in Kiev. Moscow has insisted that its forces targeted a nearby missile plant and that the hospital was actually hit by a stray Ukrainian air defense missile. ● Ukraine’s version of events was quickly backed by its Western supporters. Moscow and Kiev further traded accusations during an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday.

💬 “It is very difficult to get our point across to the Western world right now. They do not want to hear anything,” Peskov said. “We see the hysteria in [Western] newspapers, TV channels,” the Kremlin spokesman added. “This is likely due to the monopolistic dominance of Anglo-Saxon media there.” Nevertheless, Moscow will continue to “tell the truth about what has happened, both domestically and in countries where the audience is ready to hear us and where we have technical means to reach them."

Since 2022, the EU has banned several Russian news broadcasters, including RT, citing “systematic information manipulation and disinformation.” YouTube similarly began to crack down on Russian-linked content, removing more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels related to the Ukraine conflict, according to The Guardian.

■ Russia’s UN ambassador responds to Ukraine hospital attack accusations (RT.com)
■ Kremlin responds to Kiev hospital attack allegations (RT.com)

Lance D Johnson | UN declares war on FREE SPEECH to censor the TRUTH, subvert accountability, control populations | Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, (UN) just released the globalist’s latest game-plan for population control, surveillance and censorship. The game-plan, titled Global Principles for Information Integrity, seeks to put an end to “harmful misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech” online, all while “upholding human rights such as the freedom of speech.” ■ Guterres presented the game-plan with a sense of urgency, commanding governments, technology companies, the media and advertisers to take control and establish official narratives, while quashing opposition voices. The UN supports Big Tech’s algorithmic control over the information stream online and seeks to control online speech further. A global body of elites seek to delete what they believe is the disinformation, and they seek to discredit and demonetize the voices of dissent. All the censorship coming from global power systems is war on free speech, but it’s also a war on truth, so that these power systems cannot be held to account for their abuses.

Jonathan Cook | Western governments, politicians, the judiciary, and the media all failed Assange. Or rather, they did what they are actually there to do: keep the rabble – that is, you and me – from knowing what they are really up to. | [The media's] job is to build narratives suggesting that they know best, that we must trust them, that their crimes, such as those they are supporting right now in Gaza, are actually not what they look like, but are, in fact, efforts in very difficult circumstances to uphold the moral order, to protect civilisation. For this reason, there is a special need to identify the critical role played by the media in keeping Assange locked up for so long. The truth is, with a properly adversarial media playing the role it declares for itself, as a watchdog on power, Assange could never have been disappeared for so long. He would have been freed years ago. It was the media that kept him behind bars.

A requirement as part of the plea deal is that WikiLeaks remove any unpublished material on the US that they or their affiliates hold. | Australian journalists are being asked by WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange's wife, Stella, to file freedom of information (FOI) requests with the US government to obtain details on its criminal case against him - as his plea deal prohibits him from doing so. In a statement released on Julian Assange's first full day back in Australia, his wife and legal team thanked legislators, the prime minister, and supporters locally and globally whose 14-year effort led to his release. [...] A requirement as part of the plea deal is that WikiLeaks remove any unpublished material on the US that they or their affiliates held. According to Assange's US attorney Barry Pollack, WikiLeaks' published material was over ten years old, and he was unsure whether they still had unpublished records but noted that Assange fulfilled his obligations.

■ COERCED INTO A FELONY...FOR EXPOSING ATROCIOUS U.S. MILITARY-PERPETRATED WAR CRIMES (SOTN)

⚡️Julian Assange reunites with his wife and father in Canberra pic.twitter.com/Y41hQ0377J

— RT (@RT_com) June 26, 2024

Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a free man after taking plea deal in a US court. | A US judge has sentenced WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to time served, with no supervised release, following his guilty plea to a charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information related to the national defense of the United States. Assange has been imprisoned in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019 after British police were allowed to raid the Ecuadorian Embassy where he had secured asylum since 2012. [...] The United States has sought to put Assange on trial for publishing US military secrets and evidence of war crimes in the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is accused of publishing some 700,000 confidential documents relating to US military and diplomatic activities, starting in 2010.

■ All 20,000 Leaked Democrat National Committee Emails DELETED form Wikileaks Server; Part of Assange Plea Deal
■ Assange freed as part of plea deal: As it happened (RT.com)
■ US Federal Judge Accepts Assange's Plea Deal, Declares Him 'A Free Man' - Reports (Sputnik News)
■ ⚡ Assange released from a British prison and left Britain on plane (06/25/24)
■ America's Dark Day (Scott Ritter)
■ Pursuit of Assange Shows ‘Every Citizen on the Planet’ Subject to US Persecution (John Miles)
■ Journalism under fire: Jailed for exposing Jordan (The Cradle)

WikiLeaks confirmed the information of the American court on the conclusion of the transaction on the pleading of guilt between Assange and the Prosecutor's office of the United States | "He (Assange - approx. TASS) left the prison of the maximum security regime Belmarsh on the morning of June 24, after 1,901 days in its walls. The High Court of London released him on bail, and in the afternoon he was released to Stansted airport, where he boarded a plane and flew from the UK," - stated in the message of the organization in the social network X (formerly Twitter). WikiLeaks also confirmed the information of the American court on the conclusion of a plea deal between Assange and the US prosecutor's office. At the same time, according to the organization, it was not yet "officially finalized."

■ After Bangkok Stopover Julian Assange Will Be Heading To A Little-Known Pacific Island Next (Forbes)
■ Julian Assange 'pays $500,000 for chartered flight to Australia' as free man after striking US plea deal
■ Julian Assange's wife Stella 'elated' he is set to be freed (Reuters)