Poitras op-ed about Assange sending cease-and-desist letters regarding "Risk"

[Laura]

> John Newman jnn at synfin.org
> Wed Jun 21 07:31:31 PDT 2017
>
> not breaking links
> giving (((newsweek))) sheckles

Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship
By Brenda Coughlin, Yoni Golijov, and Laura Poitras

6/16/17 at 10:22 AM

We are the producers of Risk , a documentary film about Julian Assange
and WikiLeaks.

We unequivocally defend WikiLeaks’ journalistic right to publish true
and newsworthy information.

The Trump administration’s threats against WikiLeaks and attacks on
press freedom are chilling. As Margaret Sullivan recently argued in the
Washington Post, prosecuting WikiLeaks under the Espionage Act would set
a dangerous precedent for all journalists.

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We were disturbed, however, to learn that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
sent cease and desist letters to our distributors demanding they stop
the release of Risk: “We therefore demand that you immediately cease the
use and distribution of all images of the Named Participants and that
you desist from this or any other infringement of the rights of the
Named Participants in the future.”

In WikiLeaks’ efforts to prevent the distribution of Risk , they are
using the very tactics often used against them – legal threats, false
security claims, underhanded personal attacks, misdirection – and with
the same intentions: to suppress information and silence speech.

GettyImages-460452988 Filmmaker Laura Poitras speaks as former National
Security Agency (NSA) contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden is
seen on a video conference screen during an award ceremony for the Carl
von Ossietzky journalism prize on December 14, 2014 in Berlin, Germany.
Adam Berry/Getty

Since 2016, Assange and his lawyers have repeatedly demanded that we
remove scenes from the film in which Assange speaks about the two women
who made sexual assault allegations against him in 2010 and Sweden’s
investigation which has since been discontinued.

In response to our refusal to remove these scenes, Assange and his
lawyers are now claiming that Risk threatens the safety of the staff who
consented to being filmed, and furthermore, that we are being sexist by
including Assange’s own comments about women in the film.

These arguments are not only false, they are a deliberate effort at
misdirection.

Risk was filmed over the course of many years, beginning in 2011.
Assange and WikiLeaks freely consented to participating in the film,
knowing we were making an independent documentary. Neither WikiLeaks nor
Assange have any editorial control of Risk. There were individuals who
requested from the beginning not to appear in the film, and those
requests were respected.

Wikileaks and their lawyers were shown the film before each public
screening, most recently inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London on
April 1, 2017. Each time, we invited their responses.

WikiLeaks’ comments have consistently been about image management,
including: demands to remove scenes from the film where Assange
discusses sexual assault allegations against him; requests to remove
images of alcohol bottles in the embassy because Ecuador is a Catholic
country and it looks bad; requests to include mentions of WikiLeaks in
the 2016 U.S. presidential debates; and, requests to add more scenes
with attorney Amal Clooney because she makes WikiLeaks look good.

It is only after we declined to make the changes they tried to impose
that WikiLeaks raised objections to Risk . Their attempts to censor the
content of the film are an effort to prevent reporting on Assange’s own
words. They also constitute a saddening break with WikiLeaks’ own ideals.

Last month, WikiLeaks’ lawyers published an op-ed saying they object to
our editing in the United States. However, Assange has known since 2015
that we were editing in the U.S. In 2016, he signed an agreement to
license WikiLeaks’ own footage to us and raised no objection to mailing
a hard drive with footage directly to our editing room in New York City.

WikiLeaks has also repeatedly publicized their participation in Risk ,
most recently re-tweeting a link to the film’s trailer on April 10, 2017
(a tweet that has since been deleted), without raising any concerns.

In their cease and desist letter, lawyers for WikiLeaks and Assange
state: “The unauthorized release of the Film has caused our clients to
suffer ongoing irreparable harm, and exponentially increasing damages
every time a new viewer sees the Film.”

All the participants in Risk agreed for years to be in the film. We have
no obligation to seek WikiLeaks’ or Assange’s authorization to release
the film. In fact, our rights under the First Amendment are protected
precisely because we are engaging in independent journalism. Assange
himself has criticized the media for seeking permission from public
figures before releasing stories.

Like WikiLeaks, our journalism has been the target of U.S. government
investigation, secret grand jury, and threats by elected officials. We
fully understand and empathize with the dangers WikiLeaks is facing, and
we stand in solidarity with all journalists and publishers around the
world currently under attack.