Joseph Kony viral video campaign clouded in controversy



Joseph Kony viral video campaign clouded in controversy

By Allison Cross

As support for the global Kony 2012 campaign emerged swiftly, so did the suspicion and condemnation

A documentary film aimed at exposing the heinous acts of Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony exploded over the Internet Wednesday, drawing praise and condemnation from the millions who viewed it.

The half-hour film Kony 20121, made by the U.S. organization Invisible Children, tells the story of a child soldier named Jacob and the charity's push to have the U.S. intervene to stop the LRA.

The campaign kicked off just as the Lord's Resistance Army, a cultish militia led by Kony that has terrorized parts of Africa for decades, launched a new spate of attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Millions of Twitter users used the hashtag #stopkony, vying for the top trending spot against other popular topics like the iPad 3 and football player Peyton Manning.

"Dear Joseph Kony, I'm Gonna help Make you FAMOUS!!!! We will stop YOU #StopKONY2! All 6,000,000 of my followers RT NOW!!! Pls!" hip-hop icon and fashion mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs said on his Twitter feed3.

"KONY2012 Spread the word!!!" tweeted singer Rihanna4.

Started in 1998, the LRA is believed to have killed, kidnapped and mutilated tens of thousands of people in a reign of terror across some of Africa's most remote and hostile terrain. Young boys are often sent to war and young girls are forced to become sex slaves.

Kony's actions spread to Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Although indicted in 2005 by the International Criminal Court, Mr. Kony, a former altar boy whose movement draws on messianic beliefs and a smattering of Christian motifs, has so far evaded capture.

The film's narrator Jason Russell explains how U.S. advisers to Uganda could train government forces in the technology needed to hunt down Mr. Kony in the jungle. Last October, U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to send 100 troops.

"We've come so far but Kony is still out there," says Mr. Russell in the film. "He's recently changed his tactics, making it even more difficult to capture him."

But the campaign has been met with suspicion and condemnation with some critics denouncing the push to hunt down Mr. Kony as irresponsible and "immoral."

"The immediate question is whether [Kony] is captured or killed," wrote

PhD student Jack McDonald from King's College London wrote5 that while he supports the desire to raise the profile of the "heinous nature" of Mr. Kony's crimes, he considers the Kony 2012 campaign dangerous.

"The idea that popular opinion can be leveraged with viral marketing to induce foreign military intervention is really, really dangerous," he writes. "It is immoral to try and sell a sanitized vision of foreign intervention that neglects the fact that people will die as a result. That goes for politicians as much as for Jason Russell."

Invisible Children did not respond to a request for comment.

A blog post from a Canadian university student opposing the campaign also grew in popularity on Wednesday.

"I do not doubt for a second that those involved in Kony 2012 have great intentions, nor do I doubt for a second that Joseph Kony is a very evil man," wrote Grant Oyston6, a sociology and political science student at Acadia University on his blog, titled Visible Children.

"But despite this, I'm strongly opposed to the Kony 2012 campaign."

Mr. Oyston said he doesn't trust the motivations of Invisible Children, which he calls a "controversial activist group."

Making a criticism video about KONY 2012. Too many people are jumping on the bandwagon without doing their research

- Chris (@unophishal) March 7, 20127

This whole #StopKony8 thing is so bloody disappointing. Of course a totally unethical, untrustworthy group is behind it.

- El (@TheTomasRios) March 7, 20129

Kony is a monster. But if you really want to help child soldiers, give to a real charity like @WarChild10 or @MSF_USA11

- Scott Gilmore (@Scott_Gilmore) March 7, 201212

This idea that Ugandans or Congolese are passive, helpless, and need our voices to solve their problems is insane.

- Laura Seay (@texasinafrica) March 7, 201213

A 2011 Foreign Affairs story14 about the LRA claimed Invisible Children was among several charities that have "manipulated facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA's use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony - a brutal man, to be sure - as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil."

But Resolve, a partner of Invisible Children, and also named in the story, responded to the accusation by saying "this claim [was] published with no accompanying substantiation."15

Writing about a previous Invisible Children film he saw - also about Mr. Kony and the LRA - Yale University's Chris Blattman, an assistant professor in political science and economics, said he felt that film had an uncomfortable tone.

"There's also something inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous, about the idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa. It's often not an accidental choice of words, even if it's unwitting," he wrote on his blog16.

"It hints uncomfortably of the White Man's Burden. Worse, sometimes it does more than hint. The savior attitude is pervasive in advocacy, and it inevitably shapes programming. Usually misconceived programming. The saving attitude pervades too many aid failures, not to mention military interventions."

The LRA rebels currently number several hundred, a fraction of their strength at their peak but still include a core of hardened fighters.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said the LRA was striking again after a lull in the second half of 2011.

One person has been killed, 17 abducted and 3,000 displaced in 20 attacks in Orientale province in northeastern Congo this year.

However, Mounoubai Madnodje, a spokesman for the UN's Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo said the LRA was on its last legs.

"We think right now it's the last gasp of a dying organization that's still trying to make a statement," he said.

Tormenters target Amanda Todd’s online memorials amid police probe

| |

|CTVNews.ca Staff |

|Published Saturday, October 13, 2012 2:10PM EDT |

|Last Updated Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:21AM EDT |

| |

|The RCMP has received tips from around the globe about a teen suicide case in British Columbia that police believe was caused by online bullying. |

|Investigators in B.C. have received approximately 400 local and international tips as of Saturday evening, 24 hours after appealing to the public for |

|information regarding 15-year-old Amanda Todd. |

|Todd was found dead in her Port Coquitlam home on Wednesday, after being subjected to vicious and relentless online bullying. |

| |

|PHOTOS |

|[pic] |

|Amanda Todd, a bullied teen who committed suicide, is seen in these images taken from her YouTube video. |

| |

|[pic] |

|Members of the Meadow Ridge Knights football team, former classmates of Amanda Todd, wear pink at a football game in Maple Ridge, B.C. on Saturday, Oct. 13, |

|2012. |

| |

|More than 20 full-time investigators are working on the case, conducting interviews, scouring social media and reviewing contributing factors into Todd’s |

|death, police said. |

|Police have set up an email account, AmandaTODDinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca, for the public to email tips on the case. |

|However, the online bullying that police believe pushed Todd to take her own life shows no sign of letting up. |

|While more than 475,000 Facebook users had “liked” Todd’s memorial page on the social media website by Saturday evening, strangers and even former classmates |

|interrupted the condolences to post vile comments and images. |

|Posts include one, by a woman who identified herself as Todd’s classmate, who wrote: “I’m so happy she’s dead now.” |

|Police said they will be monitoring the negative posts that have turned up online in the days since Todd’s death. |

|“We want to gather enough evidence to eventually identify an individual that may, in some way, have played a role in her ultimately making this terrible |

|decision,” RCMP Sgt. Peter Thiessen told CTV News. |

|“I am finding now that young women are contacting us and are extremely upset with what they are seeing on social media sites,” said Thiessen. |

|Thiessen said police are trying to combat online bullying but, it is “extremely difficult.” |

|“It’s sad to have these discussions with these young girls that are reaching out,” said Thiessen. |

|One psychologist told CTV News that online bullying gives the perpetrator a certain anonymity that makes it easier to bully. |

|“I don’t need to see the facial expressions and the hurt on someone’s face. But when I do it online, I can feel somewhat removed,” said Joanne Cummings of |

|PREVNet, an organization that raises awareness about bullying.  |

|Todd shared her story about being tormented by online bullying in a moving video she posted on YouTube in early September. Since then, the video has been |

|watched more than 1,600,000 times. |

|Todd explains in her video that the trouble began when she was in Grade 7 when she used to use a webcam to go online with friends to meet new people. After |

|being told she was beautiful she agreed to flash her breasts during a webcam chat, but unknown to her, she was recorded and a still image was created. |

|That image was used over and over by her alleged tormentors. |

|“I can never get that photo back, it’s out there forever,” she says in the video. |

|The same images have resurfaced on the Facebook memorial pages dedicated to the teen, with one individual even adding “laugh out loud, end the search.” |

|Invesitgators have already said bullying could have played a role in the teen’s death. |

|Potential criminal charges could be laid against the individuals who tormented Todd, said Thiessen, but noted it was too early to speculate what area of the |

|criminal code this would fall under. |

|Amanda’s mother, Carol, broke her silence Friday in hopes that her daughter’s video is a legacy to others as well as a teaching tool. |

|“She wanted people to know if you’re being bullied that you have to share it with others and tell someone, otherwise it becomes invisible and nobody knows. She|

|didn’t want anyone to feel the pain that she felt,” Carol told CTV British Columbia. |

|Carol is setting up an anti-bullying trust fund in the hopes the suffering will finally stop. British Columbians are also being asked to wear pink or blue on |

|Monday in honour of Amanda. |

|“She had the biggest heart,” said Carol. |

|British Columbia Premier Christy Clark is calling for change, hoping to make cyberbullying a criminal offence. As it stands, no laws specifically addressing |

|cyberbullying exist in Canada. |

|The Maple Ridge School district said that there have been “significant and appropriate consequences” dealt out to Amanda’s bullies. But the school district has|

|not released what these consequences were. |

|Coroner Barb McLintock said the investigation will be complex and comprehensive. McLintock added the investigation will look into everything from the school |

|and mental health supports that were offered to Todd, and the effects that social media bullying and blackmail put on Amanda. |

|With a report from CTV’s Omar Sachedina and files from The Canadian Press |



Rehtaeh Parsons, Canadian Girl, Dies After Suicide Attempt; Parents Allege She Was Raped By 4 Boys

04/09/2013 03:17 pm ET | Updated Apr 11, 2013

A 17-year-old Canadian girl died Sunday following a suicide attempt last week. The family of Rehtaeh Parsons said that their daughter never recovered from an alleged rape by four teenage boys in November 2011 that left her deeply depressed and rejected by her community.

Placed on life support last Thursday at a local hospital, Rehtaeh Parsons died on April 7 after her family made the decision to take her off the life support.

In a Facebook memorial page, the girl’s mother, Leah Parsons, wrote that Rehtaeh had been shunned and harassed after one of the boys allegedly involved in the rape took a picture of the incident and distributed it to their “school and community, where it quickly went viral.”

“Rehtaeh is gone today because of the four boys that thought that raping a 15-year-old girl was okay, and to distribute a photo to ruin her spirit and reputation would be fun,” Parsons wrote.

According to Canadian news outlet CBC, the alleged sexual assault happened at a small gathering at which teenagers consumed alcohol. One of the boys in attendance reportedly took a photo of another boy having sex with Rehtaeh Parsons and sent it to friends.

Gawker writes that the bullying got so bad after the photo circulated that the family was forced to relocate.

“She was never left alone. She had to leave the community. Her friends turned against her. People harassed her. Boys she didn’t know started texting her and Facebooking her asking her to have sex with them. It just never stopped,” Leah Parsons told the CBC.

Canada’s Chronicle Herald reports that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police completed a yearlong criminal investigation of the sexual assault, but “there was insufficient evidence to lay charges.” A police spokesman told the newspaper that authorities are now “investigating a sudden death involving a young person.”

In an interview on CBC Radio program “Maritime Noon,” Leah Parsons said that the family was “devastated” when they learned criminal charges would not be filed.

“[The police] said that they would go talk to them and that [the boys] realized what they did was wrong, but [there was] nothing they could do, criminally,” Parsons said. “It was a slap in the face.”

Although Rehtaeh was a 15-year-old minor at the time of the alleged rape, “because she was on the cusp of not being underage” prosecutors thought the accused could claim that they did not know she was under the age of consent, Parsons told Maritime Noon. According to Parsons, the four boys accused of rape were younger than 18 at the time of the incident.

As described by Parsons, the shaming and harassment stemming from the incident had long-lasting psychological and emotional effects on her daughter. Parsons also told Maritime Noon that Rehtaeh suffered from depression and had checked herself into a hospital after having suicidal thoughts last March. A Twitter account that appears to have belonged to Parsons features references to drug culture, as well as what appears to be drug paraphernalia.



Toronto streetcar shooting changes 2 lives forever

Lawyer says officer devastated after shooting of Toronto teen Sammy Yatim

CBC News Posted: Jul 31, 2013 9:13 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 31, 2013 7:40 PM ET

As the family of Sammy Yatim prepares to say goodbye to the teenager whose death has outraged many Torontonians, the life of the police officer who shot him has been changed forever as well.

Const. James Forcillo has been suspended with pay following the shooting that ended the 18-year-old Yatim’s life on a downtown streetcar four days ago.

The officer's lawyer, Peter Brauti, told CBC News in a brief telephone interview on Wednesday that Forcillo is devastated by what happened.

Like any officer who has been involved in a fatal shooting, Brauti said it is something that Forcillo will deal with for the rest of his life.

Brauti said the public must wait for all the evidence to come out. He also said there are many things the public hasn't seen yet, including the TTC video and other witness accounts.

Teen came to Toronto from Syria

Yatim came to Toronto from Aleppo, Syria, five years ago. He recently graduated from a Toronto high school.

[pic]

A funeral will take place Thursday for Sammy Yatim, the teenager shot by police on a Toronto streetcar. (Facebook)

His best friend, Zouher Amir Baurak, first met Yatim nine or 10 years ago, when they were in school in Syria.

He found out about Yatim’s death from a text he received from the slain teen’s sister.

"First, I thought it's a joke or something, but then I realized that it's actually true," Baurak told CBC News in a telephone interview from Dudley, England.

He said that Yatim's family is in shock.

Baurak said he last spoke to Yatim by telephone just over a week before he died.

The two talked about the future. Baurak said Yatim talked about wanting to focus on his education.

After Yatim’s death, hundreds of people participated in a protest march that moved through downtown Toronto to the part of the streetcar line where the teenager was shot.

On Wednesday, Joseph Nazar, a friend of the Yatim family, said the teenager’s sister and parents are still in shock.

"They are trying to cope under the circumstances in the best way they can, but it's very hard and very difficult," Nazar told reporters on Wednesday evening.

As hard as it is to believe, Nazar said there is no changing the reality that Yatim is dead.

"We have to accept the fact he’s gone. He’s no longer here," Nazar said.

A funeral for Yatim is planned for Thursday morning and a visitation is taking place on Wednesday night.

Ombudsman says police co-operation rare

Ontario Ombudsman André Marin said that despite promises from Toronto's police chief and union that they will co-operate with the provincial investigation into Yatim's death, that is typically "the exception, not the norm."

Ontario's police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, is looking into the incident. The SIU investigates any incident involving police when someone is killed or seriously injured, or when allegations of sexual assault are raised.

Marin, a former head of the SIU, is taking a close look at this case to determine whether a wider investigation by his office is warranted, and says it may even be time for the province to direct the Toronto force about how to deal with calming crisis situations.

"I think we've reached a point where I'm going to be assessing whether, if the police as Big Brother can't fix the problem, is it time for the province as Bigger Brother to direct the police on how to do their job?" 

Marin told CBC Toronto's morning radio program Metro Morning that he reacted in disbelief to the killing of Yatim.

Yatim was alone on a stopped streetcar and armed with a knife when he was shot at nine times, then stunned with a Taser. The confrontation was caught on video and has been viewed more than a million times, sparking anger at what many see as a disproportionate response by police. 

Marin said Toronto police are not under his direct purview, but provincial police training facilities and the SIU are. If he launches an investigation — a decision he'll likely make within two weeks —  he'll look at how the province is dealing with training. 

"There have been literally dozens of inquests that have recommended measures to de-escalate this kind of conflict — better training for the officers, for example," he said. "What has the Toronto Police Service done with the results of those inquests? What has the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, the provincial government, done with the results of these inquests?" 

He'll also monitor the co-operation between the SIU and the Toronto police, but said for now he wants to keep out of the SIU's way while it investigates.

A two-part investigation dealing with each issue separately is possible, he said.

Lawyer Peter Rosenthal has dealt with many police shooting cases, including the death of Michael Eligon of Toronto, who was shot last year while holding scissors.

Rosenthal said that police still haven't learned how to deal with these kinds of situations.

"Until they really police the police, it's not going to change, it appears," he said.

With reports from the CBC's Steven Bull, Ivy Cuervo and Steven D'Souza



How a Single Match Can Ignite a Revolution

By ROBERT F. WORTH

JAN. 21, 2011

WHAT drives an ordinary man to burn himself to death?

That question has echoed across the Arab world and beyond in the weeks since an unemployed Tunisian, Mohamed Bouazizi, doused himself with paint thinner and lit a match on Dec. 17. His desperate act set off street clashes that ultimately toppled the country’s autocratic ruler, and inspired nearly a dozen other men to set themselves on fire in Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania.

Those serial self-immolations have provoked horror and wonder, with some Arab commentators hailing the men as heroic martyrs of a new Middle Eastern revolution, even as others denounce them under headlines like “Do Not Burn Your Bodies!”

Yet burning oneself as political protest is not new. Many Americans remember the gruesome images of Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon during the Vietnam War in 1963, his body eerily still and composed amid the flames. Many other monks followed his example as the war intensified. In Europe, Jan Palach, a 20-year-old Czech who burned himself to death in Prague in 1969 a few months after the Soviet invasion of his country, is remembered as a martyr of the struggle against Communism. Less well-known protesters have died in flames in Tibet, India, Turkey and elsewhere. In China, Buddhists have set themselves alight for at least 1,600 years.

Perhaps what is new about the latest self-immolations is their effectiveness. Mr. Bouazizi, a fruit vendor, set himself on fire in front of the local governor’s office after the authorities confiscated his fruit, beat him and refused to return his property. He is now seen as the instigator of a revolution that forced out President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years of authoritarian rule. Mr. Bouazizi’s imitators hope to generate similar revolts in other Arab countries, where corruption and stifling autocracy have led to a similarly vast gulf between rulers and the ruled.

In the past, many people recoiled from such protesters as attention-seeking lunatics. Or the authorities were too powerful. Few people today remember Homa Darabi, the Iranian child psychiatrist who set herself on fire in a crowded Tehran square in 1994. A month earlier, a 16-year-old girl had been shot to death for wearing lipstick, and Darabi — who had lived in the United States and refused to wear the veil — had seen enough. “Death to tyranny, long live liberty, long live Iran!” she shouted, as flames engulfed her. Iran’s official attitudes toward women’s rights have scarcely changed.

Photo

[pic]

A Buddhist monk ablaze in Saigon in 1963. The image shocked Americans.

Credit

Keystone/Getty Images

One striking feature of the passionate discussion about Mr. Bouazizi and his imitators — at least for Westerners — is the relative absence of religion. Most Americans are used to hearing about Muslim suicide bombers who are impelled in part by the promise of salvation. The recent Arab self-immolators appear to have been motivated more by anger and despair at their social and economic plight.

Even some clerics have kept the debate on a secular level. Yousef al-Qaradawi, for instance, a prominent and influential Egyptian cleric who lives in Qatar and has a TV show on Al Jazeera, spoke sympathetically about Mr. Bouazizi and others who attempted suicide, saying that they were driven to it by social injustice and that the responsibility for their deaths lay with the rulers of their countries.

“People call these men brave, and mostly they don’t use the word ‘suicide’ in describing them,” said Tarik Tlaty, a Moroccan political analyst. “They don’t use the word ‘martyrs’ either. They call them ‘sacrificers,’ and they speak of an ‘uprising.’ It is not a religious language.”

Others, including many clerics, disagree. Al Azhar, the Cairo university that is the oldest and most prestigious center of learning in the Sunni Muslim world, issued a fatwa last week reaffirming that suicide violates Islam even when it is carried out as a social or political protest.

A similar debate has often taken place among Buddhists over self-immolation. Many Buddhist authorities say suicide cannot be reconciled with their religious tradition. But an ascetic strain among Chinese and Korean Buddhists includes gestures of painful self-sacrifice, from the burning of fingers to self-immolation, said Robert Sharf, chairman of the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. The practice is rooted in the Lotus Sutra, a relatively late Buddhist text that speaks of a magic king who douses himself with fragrant oil and allows his body to be burned as a sacrifice.

“Full-body immolation is rarely done solely as a religious practice,” Dr. Sharf said. “It is more typically a form of political protest at the same time. For instance, it has been used repeatedly in Chinese history to protest anti-Buddhist state policies, such as the mass defrocking of priests.”

In Afghanistan, some women burn themselves to death to escape abusive marriages, a practice that seems to be on the rise recently. Although these deaths are not intended as social protests, they are often seen in the West as implicit critiques of Afghan society.

It is often impossible to be sure what really motivates those who burn themselves to death. There is debate, for instance, about how Thich Quang Duc viewed his self-immolation in 1963, a protest that was related to the South Vietnamese government’s treatment of Buddhist monks and may have been at least partly religious in nature. In other cases, politics may be a cover for personal despair or rage against a loved one.

Whatever the motive, suicide sometimes spreads like a disease, especially when heavily covered in the media. David P. Phillips, a sociologist at the University of California at of San Diego, published a 1974 study documenting spikes in the number of suicides after well-publicized cases. He called it “the Werther effect,” after the rash of suicides that followed the 1774 publication of “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” the novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe whose romantic hero kills himself.

“One thing is strongly suggested by the academic studies: People are more likely to copy suicides if they see that they have results, or get wide attention,” Dr. Phillips said.

Tunisia has provided grim evidence for that. And Mr. Bouazizi may yet provoke more fiery deaths across the Middle East if the revolution he helped spark is seen as successful.



Jan 16, 2016

The tragedy leading to the Bosma trial

The jury selection for the Tim Bosma murder case begins Monday in Hamilton. Here’s everything you need to know about the case

[pic]

TIM AND SHARLENE

Hamilton Spectator

By Susan Clairmont and Molly Hayes

The case

After placing an ad online, Tim Bosma waved goodbye to his wife on May 6, 2013, as he left the house with two men who'd come to test drive the pickup truck he was trying to sell. That was the last time Sharlene Bosma would see her husband.

For days, police followed the mysterious case in their hunt for the missing man. The community rallied together to help find the young Christian dad. Thousands of posters were hung, search parties were organized, and a social media campaign was launched. Police had to set up a separate tip line to handle all the calls they received from the public.

Three days after he went missing, police announced they'd found Bosma's discarded cellphone in an industrial part of Brantford.

On May 11, a suspect was arrested. Dellen Millard, 27— a wealthy heir to an aviation dynasty — was charged with forcible confinement and theft over $5,000. But there was still no Tim — and no truck.

The next day, police announced they found Bosma's truck parked inside a trailer in the driveway of Millard's mother's home in Kleinburg. On May 15, Millard's charges were upgraded to first-degree murder after police said they found Bosma's burned remains on Millard's Waterloo-area farm.

On May 22, while mourners filled a Hamilton banquet hall for a memorial service for Tim Bosma, police arrested a second man in his death. Millard's friend Mark Smich, 25, was charged with first-degree murder in Bosma's death.

The victim

Tim Bosma: The 32-year-old husband and young father disappeared on May 6, 2013 after taking two men out for a test drive in a pickup truck he was selling online. There was a massive public outreach during the hunt for the missing man, and condolences poured in from across the country after police announced he had been murdered. Bosma's widow, Sharlene, has launched a charity for other families of homicide victims, called Tim's Tribute, in his honour.

The accused

Dellen Millard: The wealthy aviation heir was 27 when he was charged in 2013 with the first-degree murder of Tim Bosma. Police allege he was one of the men who went out on a test drive of the truck.

Mark Smich: A friend of Millard's, Smich was 25 when he was charged with the first-degree murder of Tim Bosma. Police allege he was the other man in the truck that night.

The Crown

Tony Leitch, Craig Fraser, Brett Moodie: The three assistant Crown attorneys prosecuting the Bosma case. Leitch will lead the Crown team.

The defence

Ravin Pillay: Millard's Toronto-based defence lawyer.

Thomas Dungey: Smich's Toronto-based defence lawyer.

Key dates

May 6, 2013: Tim Bosma disappears. He left his rural Ancaster home to go for a ride with two men who had come to test drive a truck he was looking to sell online. He never came home.

May 7: He is declared missing.

May 10: Police announce his cellphone was located in an industrial area in Brantford.

May 11: Dellen Millard, 27, is arrested and charged with theft and forcible confinement.

May 12: Police find what they allege is Bosma's pickup truck parked in a trailer in the driveway of a Kleinberg home belonging to Millard's mother.

May 14: Police announce Bosma's remains have been discovered. Millard's charges are upgraded to first-degree murder the next day.

May 22: A second man, 25-year-old Mark Smich, is charged with first-degree murder in Bosma's death.



Read all about it

From Kenyan leaders to Indiana Jones, Wikileaks exposes them all - but is being criticised for refusing to filter or edit material

[pic]

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones Photograph: Terry O'Neill/Getty Images

Oliver Luft

Monday 6 July 2009 00.01 BST

Last modified on Sunday 10 January 2016 05.27 GMT

In little over two years Wikileaks has enabled anonymous web users to upload more than 1.2m confidential documents and incurred the wrath of the US military, several national governments and the Church of Scientology. Journalists revel in the gold mine of unfettered, highly sensitive information, yet the website has also been criticised for its unwillingness to edit or filter material.

Earlier this month, Wikileaks and its co-founder Julian Assange won the prestigious Amnesty media award for exposing hundreds of alleged murders by the Kenyan police - its reporting led to a United Nations investigation. The award confirmed its role in exposing injustice and its growing status, and raised the public profile of a site that has remained largely anonymous.

So what is Wikileaks and who is behind it? Launched in January 2007 with a focus on exposing some of the world's most oppressive regimes, it describes itself as an "uncensorable version of Wikipedia"; that is, it looks like the online encyclopaedia but has no formal relationship with it "for legal reasons". Its targets have ranged from the former Kenyan ruler Daniel arap Moi, who was implicated in allegations of massive corruption, to the actor Wesley Snipes, whose social security number was published after his conviction for failing to file tax returns last year.

Sensitive nature

In an emailed interview, the elusive Assange says the site's mission is to engender a climate where censorship is counterproductive. "Wikileaks is a public service that does what it says it does, corrects wrongs by exposing them ... We do this in what has proven to be the most effective way, by republishing the censored material."

Described by Wikileaks as "Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker", Assange refuses to reveal his age, other than to say he was born in the 1970s, and attended 37 schools and six universities before editing an activist electronic magazine. He has taken precautions to keep his whereabouts secret, citing the sensitive nature of his work.

Although the mostly self-funded site credits an international team of Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and startup company technologists for its birth, Assange points to an article in the newspaper the Australian that claimed it was almost solely down to him.

That article also claimed that Wikileaks has no headquarters and is run by a core team of five investigators who assess and verify documents, which are largely uploaded in Sweden. Global servers then "mirror" the site.

The central idea that drives Wikileaks is the move away from centralised information, says the freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke. "It's a great mechanism to circumvent the state and avoid prosecution," she adds.

Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists project on government secrecy, believes Wikileaks goes too far in allowing unfettered publication of documents. He accuses it of giving short shrift to issues of "personal privacy, intellectual property and security".

But Brooke says privacy concerns are often overstated: "It's not their role [to edit material] ... if they started subjectively deciding what to include it would create a new and complex set of issues."

The US military is critical of the site, branding it "irresponsible" for hosting documents purporting to detail how US forces in Iraq were authorised to pursue former aides of Saddam Hussein and terrorists across Iraq's borders into Iran and Syria. Assange argues the rules governing what Wikileaks publishes are transparent and followed with great care, saying it simply aims to correct wrongs by exposing them and help other individuals and organisations to show that censorship is counterproductive. Brooke adds that Wikileaks acts as an encouraging example to potential whistleblowers, giving them confidence that identities can be protected.

In two years the site has broken a multitude of stories - its documents include a list of websites supposedly banned by the Australian government, copies of the Scientology "bible", emails from inside the Hugo Chávez regime in Venezuela and an operations manual from Guantánamo Bay. Yet Aftergood points out that not all forms of secrecy are pernicious: "And not all cases of involuntary disclosure are beneficial."

An upload of a document purporting to be an early draft script of the recent film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, prompted some site users to question how this fitted in with its whistleblowing. By way of a defence, Assange says that the material had been removed from the internet following a creative dispute and so making it "publicly accessible" again was a way of "uncensoring" it.

Sharp relief

Critics say that the decentralised structure that makes Wikileaks comparatively immune to censorship also renders it unaccountable. Yet the effectiveness of Wikileaks was thrown into sharp relief in March when Barclays took out an injunction against the Guardian, banning it from hosting documents relating to the bank's tax avoidance scheme on its website.

The documents were available on Wikileaks but a gag order prevented the Guardian from saying that they were. The fact that they were available on Wikileaks was then referred to in parliament.

"The judge couldn't do anything about it," says Brooke. "We think it [Wikileaks] is useful just for these dictatorship countries but the UK has some of the worst limits on freedom of expression."

Brooke says the site can be difficult to use and documents are not always well publicised, but this may help keep it under the radar. Others worry that time-pressured journalists cannot dedicate themselves to lengthy investigations and so seize upon information from websites too easily.

Assange thinks the problem is a more fundamental failure of traditional journalism, citing the fact that 50 stories were written about Wikileaks putting the Chávez regime emails online, but none about the contents of the 6,700 messages.

When it comes to reporting on the complex documents on Wikileaks, says Assange, "journalists are so scared of being scooped before completing a review of the material that they say nothing at all."



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