Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize

Żaklin Nastić (MdB):

I am one of a total of 17 members of our parliamentary group who have nominated Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. These brave people should not be criminalized, but should be recognized and honored. The war criminals and their henchmen must be held accountable. We feel that Assange, Manning and Snowden have to be recognized for their “unprecedented contributions to the pursuit of peace and their immense personal sacrifices to promote peace for all”. With the unveiling of US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and the global surveillance program of the US secret services, the three have “exposed the architecture of war and strengthened the architecture of peace” Here you can find our complete letter to the Nobel Committee in Oslo: Nobel Prize nomination Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden

Full text of the letter:

Dear Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,

We wish to nominate Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, in honour of their unparalleled contributions to the pursuit of peace, and their immense personal sacrifices to promote peace for all.

The year 2020 began with Julian Assange arbitrarily detained and tortured, at risk of death according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and over 100 medical doctors, for revealing the extent of harm and illegality behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 2020 began with Chelsea Manning in her secound year of renewed imprisonment for resisting to testify to a Grand Jury empaneled against Wikileaks, after having also been imprisoned seven years previously and tortured, following her disclosures that were published by Julian Assange. 2020 began with Edward Snowden in his 7th year of asylum for revealing illegal mass surveillance, in defence of the liberties underpinning revelations such as those made by Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.

The Collateral Murder video, provided by Chelsea Manning in 2010 and published by Wikileaks, honoured the dignity of those slain needlessly in war. It gave names and identities to victims whose humanity had been kept from public view, capturing the last moments of life for a young Reuters photojournalist, Namir Noor-Eldeen. Namir, who was killed in cold blood while on assignment in Baghdad, was described by his colleagues as among “the pre-eminent war photographers in Iraq” with “a tender eye that brought humanity via quiet moments to a vicious war”.

For humanising Namir and his driver Saeed Chmagh, a father of four, slain in front of two children who sat strafed with bullets in a van, Julian Assange faces 175 years in a US prison under the 1917 Espionage Act, and Chelsea Manning is currently detained without charge.

As well as humanising innocent victims of war, in 2010 Julian Assange and Wikileaks exposed the means by which public abhorrence of killing is overcome, and peace subverted, by psychological manipulation and strategic messaging.

In March 2010 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) produced a memorandum, subsequently published by Wikileaks, entitled, Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission-Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough.

At the time of the memorandum, 80 percent of French and German publics opposed greater troop deployment to Afghanistan. The memo expressed concern that public “indifference might turn into active hostility if spring and summer fighting results in an upsurge in military or Afghan civilian casualties.” To overcome public opposition to the “bloody summer” ahead, the memorandum advised tailoring messages for French audiences that “could tap into acute French concern for civilians and refugees,” given that French “opponents most commonly argued that the mission hurts civilians.”

“Appeals by President Obama and Afghan women might gain traction” the memorandum added.

With respect to the legalities of peace, Julian Assange and Wikileaks have contributed to the historical record on the International Criminal Court (ICC), established in 2002 under the Rome Statute of 1998, to promote the “peace, security and well-being of the world.” The ICC’s mission was to end impunity by prosecuting “the worst atrocities known to mankind”: war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide.

When the ICC’s enforcement capabilities were taking shape in the years following its inception, cables published by WikiLeaks exposed bilateral deals between nations under Article 98 of the Rome Statute, in which states placed themselves outside the ICC’s jurisdiction. The Article 98 deals undercut the ICC’s power to prosecute war crimes and other internationally illegal obstacles to a peaceful world order.

Later, in 2013, when Edward Snowden revealed the warrantless masssurveillance of citizens and officials worldwide, he exposed an immense global network with the capability to intercept and obstruct peace proponents such as Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange. Edward Snowden’s revelations have contributed to international investigations, transparency initiatives and legislative reforms around the globe.

These are but a selection of the contributions that Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden have made towards pursuing and defending lasting peace.

Together, their actions have exposed the architecture of abuse and war, and fortified the architecture of peace. In return, all three individuals have been forced to sacrifice the very liberties, rights and human welfare that they worked so hard to defend.

A Nobel Peace Prize for Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden would do more than honour their actions as individuals. It would ennoble the risks and sacrifices that those pursuing peace so often undertake, to secure the peace and freedom for all.

Sincerely,

Sevim Dağdelen Member of the German Bundestag

Doris Achelwilm Member of the German Bundestag

Diether Dehm Member of the German Bundestag

Sylvia Gabelmann Member of the German Bundestag

Heike Hänsel Member of the German Bundestag

Andrej Hunko Member of the German Bundestag

Ulla Jelpke Member of the German Bundestag

Jutta Krellmann Member of the German Bundestag

Fabio De Masi Member of the German Bundestag

Żaklin Nastić Member of the German Bundestag

Dr. Alexander S. Neu Member of the German Bundestag

Eva-Maria Schreiber Member of the German Bundestag

Alexander Ulrich Member of the German Bundestag

Kathrin Vogler Member of the German Bundestag

Andreas Wagner Member of the German Bundestag

Pia Zimmermann Member of the German Bundestag

Sabine Zimmermann Member of the German Bundestag

Appendices

Julian Assange’s Prizes and Awards

The Economist New Media Award (2008)

The Amnesty New Media Award (2009)

TIME Magazine Person of the Year, People’s Choice (highest global vote) (2010)

The Sam Adams Award for Integrity (2010)

The National Union of Journalists Journalist of the Year (Hrafnsson) (2011)

The Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal (2011)

The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (2011)

The Blanquerna Award for Best Communicator (2011)

The Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism (2011)

The Voltaire Award for Free Speech (2011)

The International Piero Passetti Journalism Prize of the National Union of Italian Journalists (2011)

The Jose Couso Press Freedom Award (2011)

The Privacy International Hero of Privacy (2012)

The Global Exchange Human Rights People’s Choice Award (2013)

The Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts (2013)

The Brazillian Press Association Human Rights Award (2013)

The Kazakstan Union of Journalists Top Prize (2014)

The Willy Brandt Award for Political Courage (Harrison) (2015)

The Galizia Prize for Journalists, Whistleblower and Defenders of the Right to Information (2019)

The Danny Schechter Global Vision Award for Journalism & Activism (2019)

The Compassion in Care’s Gavin MacFadyen Award for Whistleblowers (2019)

Chelsea Manning’s Prizes and Awards

The Army Service Ribbon (2008)

The National Defense Service Medal (2008)

The Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (2009)

The Overseas Service Medal (2009)

The Iraq Campaign Medal (2009)

The Whistleblowerpreis (2011)

The Global Exchange People’s Choice Award (2012)

The US Peace Prize, US Peace Memorial Foundation (2013)

The Sean McBride Peace Prize, International Peace Bureau (2013)

The Sam Adams Award for Integrity (2014)

The EFF Pioneer Award for whistleblowing (2017)

Edward Snowden’s Prizes and Awards

The German Whistleblower Prize (2013)

The Sam Adams Award (2013)

The Rector of the University of Glasgow (2014)

The German Big Brother Award (2014)

The Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize (2014)

The Right Livelihood Award (2014)

The Carl Von Ossietzky Medal (2014)

The IQ Award (2014)

The Norsk PEN Ossietzky Prize (2016)

Other Examples of Julian Assange’s work

Julian Assange has published over 10 million documents with a perfect verification record. One of his first major releases was the a copy of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp’s 2003 Standard Operating Procedures for the US Army.

In 2010, WikiLeaks came to global attention by publishing tens of thousands of classified documents from the United States, including the Afghan War Diaries and the Iraq War Logs, which documented more than 100,000 occupation related civilian killings.

Wikileaks also published “Cablegate” in 2010, the State Department diplomatic cables.

In 2011 Wikileaks published the “Gitmo Files”, documents on 767 of the 779 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

WikiLeaks has published the “Global Intelligence Files” (5 million emails from intelligence contractor Stratfor), “Spy Files: Russia”, two million files from Syrian political elites, the “Saudi Cables” (hundreds of thousands of files from the Saudi Foreign Ministry)

WikiLeaks publications have revealed extensive information on the disastrous war on Libya and proof of US knowledge of Saudi and Qatari government backing of ISIS and Al Nusra in Syria.

One of WikiLeaks recent investigations, in collaboration with major European media, revealed a corrupt arms deal between French state-owned company and the United Arab Emirates.

In the European context, Julian Assange revealed that the US’s National Security Agency and the CIA targeted:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel

French Presidents Hollande, Sarkozy, and Chirac, as well as French cabinet ministers and the French Ambassador to the United States.

the French Finance Minister and US orders of the interception of every French company contract or negotiation valued at more than $200 million

communications of Foreign Minister Steinmeier, in the context of moves to end extraordinary rendition flights through Germany

the Swiss phone of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Chief of Staff for long term interception

a meeting between then French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Merkel and Berlusconi

Julian Assange also published original US intercepts from French senior officials concerning:

the leadership and future of the European Union

the relationship between the Hollande administration and the German government of Angela Merkel

French efforts to determine the make-up of the executive staff of the United Nations

French officials’ communications concerning US spying on France

French involvement in the conflict in Palestine

Contact: Sevim Dagdelen | Deutscher Bundestag | Platz der Republik 1 | 11011 Berlin | Germany E-Mail: sevim.dagdelen@bundestag.de