Anonymous

Lauri Love Can Appeal His Extradition

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The High Court of England today granted Lauri Love permission to appeal his extradition to the United States. No date has been set for the hearing.

Permission was given because “the High Court acknowledged that the grounds [for appeal] raised some issues of great importance,” according to one of Love’s lawyers, Karen Todner.

In a post on Facebook, Love wrote, “Not getting kidnapped yet.” He also told the Courage Foundation: “Every day you wake up to some good news is a blessing, and we can’t take any blessings for granted these days. Good news comes scantly between crisis and calamity. I’m thankful the High Court have recognized the strength of our grounds for appeal and the great importance of the issues raised by the case.”
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A Plea from Lauri Love

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The waiting is torture enough. Any individual placed in confrontation with the legal system knows that the process somehow moves too quickly in the most painful ways and then too slowly in other, equally painful, moments.

Lauri Love, the British hacktivist who the United Kingdom has agreed to send to the United States to face charges despite pleas from over 100 MPs that he not be extradited, reported earlier today (April 21) that he is becoming ill from the stress.

But in this moment of profound tension, almost in a recognition that this moment is no different than the one immediately before or the one that will follow because no news has been announced, he wrote of his hopes for the rest of us, for his ambition that the fight will continue: “Mostly though I’m worried about the world and whether we can rise to the challenge that we find ourselves in, at this crux of history and generational crisis-cum-opportunity. Show me the courage and strength I need to maintain, and I’ll try to show you the same.”

It is typical of Lauri Love that even in his darker moments he finds hope in his plight, shares that hope (albeit with plenty of sarcasm and wit), and then brings it out to the world.
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#OpFOQ: A Campaign to Free Two Dozen Hostages

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A group of human rights activists and members of Anonymous launched an operation directed at Iran on March 24, #OpFOQ, to focus attention on a mass kidnapping in Iraq, to force the government of Iran to divulge what it knows about the whereabouts and health of two dozen Qatari hostages, to bring this case to forefront of the world’s consciousness, and to earn the freedom of the hostages.

The men were kidnapped in December 2015, and since April 2016, when two of the hostages were freed, the missing men have been absent from the world’s headlines and attention as well, despite the fact that a handful of the hostages are members of the royal family of Qatar. Families are missing sons, brothers, husbands, fathers. The men were not taken by an official government entity, so groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been bystanders as the mystery deepens each day.

The men were sportsmen—falconers—who crossed the Saudi Arabian-Iraqi border with government-issued permits and their birds, and they set up camp in Iraq’s remote southern province, Al Muthanna. December is training season for the falcons because December is the breeding season for the houbara bustard, a turkey-like bird found in Central Asia that the falcons hunt.
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