[spectre] Whistleblowing During COVID-19 - Disruptive Fridays #7 - May 15

[Tatiana Bazzichelli]

Dear all,

Disruptive Fridays #7 - Whistleblowing During COVID-19 focuses on the
role of whistleblowers during COVID-19 and discusses the importance of
exposing the truth during the pandemic.

Starting Friday May 15, 5pm CEST
On streaming: https://www.disruptionlab.org/fridays

With: Renata Avila (Executive Director of Ciudadanía Inteligente, GTM),
Joseph Farrell (WikiLeaks Ambassador, UK), Annegret Falter (Chair of the
Whistleblower Netzwerk e.V., DE), Rima Sghaier (Outreach & Research
Fellow, Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights,
TUN/IT), Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founder & Director, Disruption Network
Lab, e. V., IT/DE).

Some weeks ago a coalition of public authorities and institutions have
signed a letter to protect those who report or expose the harms, abuses
and wrongdoing that arise during the COVID-19 crisis.

"The COVID-19 pandemic brings into stark relief the importance of
accountability and the need for regular and reliable information from
our public institutions and our leaders. The people of every affected
country need to know the truth about the spread of the disease both
locally and internationally in order to respond effectively and help
protect their communities. Fairness, transparency and cooperation are
vital and never more so than during a pandemic."
https://whistleblower.org/sign-on-letter/sign-on-coalition-to-make-whistleblowing-safe-during-covid-19-and-beyond/

The role of whistleblowers is crucial in times of crisis to expose
wrongdoing and misconducts in private and public institutions, health
systems, working environments, commercial and delivery markets, and to
denounce abuses of personal privacy, both on the digital sphere and the
everyday life. The work of whistleblowers is central to denounce power
violations and to protect the most vulnerable sectors of our society,
but also whistleblowers are people at risk. They are subjects of
repression and opposition before and after blowing the whistle, and
often confined in isolation, imprisoned or persecuted while their civil
rights are suspended.

In a moment in which governments are entitle to use extraordinary powers
without proper public oversight and transparency, we need to protect
whistleblowers and discuss forms of collective participation to
guarantee global safety and accountability, as well as to defend the
human rights and freedoms of all people.

Read more here about whistleblowers around the world that got silenced
or suffered persecution during COVID-19.
https://whistleblower.org/blog/covid-19-the-largest-attack-on-whistleblowers-in-the-world/

SPEAKERS:

Renata Avila (Executive Director of Ciudadanía Inteligente, GTM)

Renata Avila, International Human Rights Lawyer, Technology Expert.
Co-convener of the Progressive International, a global initiative
launching in May 2020 with a mission to unite, organise, and mobilise
progressive forces around the world. She has been a part of the legal
and advocacy team of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for over a decade. She
writes regularly for El Diario (Spain) and Open Democracy.

Joseph Farrell (WikiLeaks Ambassador, UK)
Joseph A. Farrell is a WikiLeaks ambassador and a Centre for
Investigative Journalism board member. He has been a section editor for
many important WikiLeaks' publications including the Iraq and Afghan War
Logs and Cablegate to name but a few. He was a member of the Civil
Society Coalition at the WIPO diplomatic conference on a treaty for
copyright exceptions for persons with disabilities in Marrakesh,
Morocco. Farrell regularly appears on TV networks analysing the week's
news headlines.

Annegret Falter (Chair of the Whistleblower Netzwerk e.V., DE).
Dipl.-Pol. Annegret Falter is the chairperson of Whistleblower-Netzwerk
e.V. in Berlin. 1999-2014 she was a member of the jury bestowing the
German Whistleblower Award donated by the Association of German
Scientists (VDW) and by IALANA. Among the winners are Chelsea Manning,
2011 and Edward Snowden, 2013. Falter has written and edited numerous
publications about whistleblower cases and issues of the political and
social importance of whistleblowing. She analyses whistleblowing in the
context of the public interest, of freedom of expression, of democratic
discourse and political participation.

Rima Sghaier (Outreach & Research Fellow, Hermes Center for Transparency
and Digital Human Rights, TUN/IT)
Rima Sghaier is an international citizen born in Tunisia and currently
based in Milan, where she leads outreach and localisation efforts at the
Hermes Center, managing and contributing to projects to support NGOs,
media, and investigative journalists to create secure whistleblowing
platforms. She is the program manager of Digital Whistleblowing Fund, a
small-grant project by the Hermes Center and Renewable Freedom
Foundation that enables investigative journalism groups and human rights
grassroots organisations to apply to receive financial, operational and
strategic support in starting a secure digital whistleblowing initiative.

Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founder & Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE)
Tatiana Bazzichelli is founder and artistic director of the Disruption
Network Lab, an organisation in Berlin working on information
technology, network culture, hacktivism and whistleblowing. In 2011-2014
she was programme curator at transmediale festival, where she developed
the year-round initiative reSource transmedial culture berlin and
curated several conference events, workshops and installations. She has
been appointed jury member for the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Capital
Cultural Fund) by the German Federal Government and Berlin for the
funding years 2019-2020).
-- 
Tatiana Bazzichelli // Artistic Director
Disruption Network Lab
http://disruptionlab.org
Twitter: @disruptberlin // @t_bazz
PGP: disruptionlab.org/pgp

-- 
Tatiana Bazzichelli // Artistic Director
Disruption Network Lab
http://disruptionlab.org
Twitter: @disruptberlin // @t_bazz
PGP: disruptionlab.org/pgp