Key Parts of Idaho’s Ag Gag Law May Be Challenged, Judge Rules
GAP’s Food Integrity Campaign blogs about important news moving forward regarding Idaho’s anti-whistleblower Ag Gag law. Although the measure became law earlier this year, a lawsuit seeks to overturn the controversial legislation that silences agriculture industry truth-tellers. GAP has submitted an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit, and is encouraged by last week’s ruling that the lawsuit’s First Amendment claims and other whistleblower protection concerns will not be dismissed.
Associated Press: UN Tribunal Overturns Ruling Backing Whistleblower
News coverage of the disappointing move by the United Nations Appeals Tribunal to overturn a ruling in favor of GAP advocacy client James Wasserstrom. The article recaps the retaliation Wasserstrom faced after blowing the whistle on alleged corruption in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. The U.N.’s Staff Union said the tribunal’s decision further exposes the shortcomings of the U.N.’s whistleblower protection system.
Key Quote: Shelley Walden of The Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based whistleblower protection organization that helped Wasserstrom, said the ruling “significantly weakened” the rights of U.N. employees and would likely lead to some other cases being thrown out by the tribunal.
“This is a sad day for whistleblowers and those who wish the U.N. was more accountable and effective,” Walden said.
100Reporters: IMF Whistleblower Battle Down to a Scuffle in Public
An update on the case of whistleblower Eugene Nyambal, who filed a lawsuit alleging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) fired him after he sounded the alarm on the institution’s decision to finance a corrupt mining operation in Africa.
Key Quote: Beatrice Edwards, the executive director of the Government Accountability Project, which previously represented Nyambal, said Nyambal’s blacklisting from I.M.F. headquarters showed the “extreme measures” such organizations will take “to silence and ostracize a whistleblower.”
“We hope the U.S. courts can make this right in some small measure,” she wrote in an e-mail.