Birgitta Jónsdóttir Following Icelands 2008 financial collapse and the governments subsequent resignation, poet and activist Birgitta Jónsdóttir was elected to that countrys Parliament, where she has consistently fought for greater transparency and journalistic freedom. (She joined the newly formed Pirate Party last year.) In 2009, WikiLeaks published the sketchy loan book of a failed Icelandic bank, Kaupthing, but an injunction from a judge prevented the national newscaster, RUV, from reporting it. Viewers were referred to Wikileaks for the information instead, and the secure, anonymous dropbox for whistleblowers became an overnight sensation. Wikileaks Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg were invited to Iceland; and Jónsdóttir volunteered for the organization, eventually becoming the producer of Collateral Murder, the gunsight-view video of the killing of civilians by U.S. troops in Iraq that catapulted the organization into American consciousness in 2010. In 2010, Jónsdóttir and like-minded colleagues introduced legislation in Parliament for transparency reforms and journalist protection— the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI). It and other innovative post-collapse reforms – an attempt at a new constitution, drafted using crowdsourced techniques; websites designed to get the city of Reykjavik and parliament to address popular proposals; an anonymous online submission form for whistleblowers who want to connect with journalists; and others —drew attention to Iceland as an alternative to the post-collapse reforms (or lack thereof) in the U.S. and Europe. The right-wing party tied to the collapse might now be back in power, as the junior partner of a center-right coalition government, but, as Jónsdóttir told TakePart, the past few years have given her cause for optimism.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 17:31:49 +0000