The Courage Foundation is an international organisation based in Germany, the UK and the US that supports

whistleblowers A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

and

journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

by fundraising for their legal defence. Founded on August 9, 2013, as the Journalistic Source Protection Defence Fund by

Gavin MacFadyen Gavin Hall MacFadyen (né Galter; January 1, 1940 – October 22, 2016) was an American investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was the director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) at Goldsmiths, University of London; C ...

, Barbora Bukovska and

Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army inte ...

it later rebranded in June 2014. WikiLeaks section editor Sarah Harrison served as acting director from 2014 until April 2017, when WikiLeaks became a Courage beneficiary and Naomi Colvin began serving as director. Colvin served as director until 2018. The trustees include

Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States' political and military ...

whistleblower

Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American political activist, and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the ''Pent ...

, former NSA executive Thomas Drake, former MI5 British intelligence officer and whistleblower

Annie Machon Annie Machon (born 1968) is a former MI5 intelligence officer, a writer, and public speaker. In 1996, she resigned from MI5, with the intention to blow the whistle on a series of alleged crimes committed by the agency. Afterward, Machon went on ...

, Vice President of the

Wau Holland Foundation The Wau Holland Foundation (German: Wau Holland Stiftung; WHS) is a nonprofit foundation based in Hamburg, Germany. It was established in 2003 in memory of Wau Holland, co-founder of the Chaos Computer Club. Loosely connected with the Chaos Compu ...

Andy Müller-Maguhn Andy Müller-Maguhn (born 3 October 1971) is a member of the German hacker association Chaos Computer Club (CCC). Having been a member since 1986, he was appointed as a spokesman for the club in 1990, and later served on its board until 2012. He ...

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

human rights lawyer Renata Ávila, and some members of

Pussy Riot Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow that became popular for its provocative punk rock music which later turned into a more accessible style. Founded in August 2011, it has had a membership of appr ...

. The Courage Foundation supports

and

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...

. The Courage Foundation supported

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...

(

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

whistleblower),

Jeremy Hammond Jeremy Hammond (born January 8, 1985) is an American activist and former computer hacker from Chicago. He founded the computer security training website HackThisSiteLuman, Stuart. ''Chicago'' Magazine, July 2007"The Hacktivist" in 2003.Hayes, ...

(

Stratfor Strategic Forecasting Inc., commonly known as Stratfor, is an American geopolitics publisher and consultancy founded in 1996. Stratfor's business model is to provide individual and enterprise subscriptions to Stratfor Worldview, its online public ...

hacktivist In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of '' hack'' and '' activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in h ...

Matt DeHart Matt Paul DeHart (born June 11, 1984) is an American citizen and former U.S. Air National Guard intelligence analyst and a registered sex offender. He has made several unconfirmed claims, including that he received classified documents alleging ...

Lauri Love Lauri Love (; born 14 December 1984, United Kingdom) is a British activist who was previously charged by the United States for his alleged activities with the hacker collective ''Anonymous''. Love's case has been cited as precedent in the Jul ...

and

Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage A ...

. The Courage

trustee Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to t ...

s are Susan Benn, and

John Pilger John Richard Pilger (; born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York. Pilger ...

. Renata Ávila was a trustee before retiring in April 2018 and Dame

Vivienne Westwood Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood (née Swire; born 8 April 1941) is an English fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream. Westwood came to public notice when she m ...

was a trustee before she died. In October 2019, a former

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is an intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force on 29 April 1997. The OPCW, with its 193 member ...

(OPCW) employee later identified as Brendan Whelan presented his dissent with the OPCW's findings about the investigation of the

Douma chemical attack On 7 April 2018, a chemical warfare attack was carried out by forces of the government of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian city of Douma. Medics and witnesses reported that it caused the deaths of between 40 and 50 people and injuries to possi ...

. Members of the Courage Foundation who attended included

Kristinn Hrafnsson Kristinn Hrafnsson (born 25 June 1962) is an Icelandic investigative journalist who has been the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks since 2018. He was the spokesperson for WikiLeaks between 2010 and 2017. Career He has worked at various newspapers i ...

, Jose Bustani, Helmut Lohre and Gunter Meyer. Courage Foundation published the Statement of Concern at the same time as "Berlin Group 21", which was allegedly created as a front for the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media. Whelan later leaked OPCW documents to WikiLeaks. In November 2022, the Courage Foundations website went offline.

Beneficiary conflict

In 2018, three of the trustees decided to remove

Barrett Brown Barrett Lancaster Brown (born 14 August 1981) is an American journalist, essayist, activist and former associate of Anonymous (hacker group), Anonymous. In 2010, he founded Project PM, a group that used a wiki to analyze Internet leak, leaks con ...

from the Courage Foundation's beneficiary list over "nasty adversarial remarks" he had made about Julian Assange, and a decision was made to prioritise the case of Wikileaks over all other beneficiaries. Courage trustee Susan Benn told Brown that Courage would no longer help him, writing in an email that "You have made a number of hostile and denigrating statements about other Courage beneficiaries who are facing grave legal and personal risks. Courage expects solidarity and mutual aid from its beneficiaries, especially when those among you face extreme uncertainty and danger." In response, Courage Foundation Director Naomi Colvin quit in protest and Brown alleged that he had only been given about $3,500 out of the total $14,000 that had been donated to Courage for him. Renata Ávila called Brown's comments "disloyal and unacceptable."

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://couragefound.org/
Twitter
Edward Snowden Whistleblowing Whistleblower support organizations WikiLeaks