Birgitta Jónsdóttir

Birgitta Jónsdóttir during the 52nd MSC 2016

Birgitta Jónsdóttir (born April 17, 1967 in Reykjavík ) is an Icelandic politician. She was the first chairman of the Icelandic pirate party Píratar from 2012 to 2013 and held this office again from 2014 to 2015. From 2013 to January 2017 she was intermittent group leader of the Píratar in the Icelandic parliament Althing . As of mid-September 2017, she held the latter position again. She did not run for the early parliamentary elections in Iceland in 2017 and has subsequently declared that she will withdraw from politics for the time being.

Icelandic politics

Birgitta Jónsdóttir was elected to the Icelandic parliament Althing in 2009 in the constituency of Reykjavík-Süd for the party citizens' movement . From 2009 to 2010 she was first group leader of the citizens' movement, then her split-off Hreyfingin ("The Movement"), which she chaired again in 2013. From 2013 to 2014 she was group leader of the Píratar, as which she reigned since 2015, after 2014-2015 Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson held this position. Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, for his part, succeeded her in 2015 in the annual rotating office of Píratar party chairman, which she held from 2012–2013 and 2014–2015. Birgitta Jónsdóttir was also the spokesperson for the movement for a new Icelandic press law ( Icelandic Modern Media Initiative , IMMI). In 2016, due to the success of the polls, the Píratar publicly speculated that Birgitta could become Iceland's future head of government, but she said she was more likely to aim for the office of parliamentary speaker and from this post she wanted to strive for “democratic change”. For them, Iceland is a “test run for a radical movement of upheaval”. The party calls for the international legalization of Wikileaks, asylum for Edward Snowden, a basic income for all, a consistent fight against climate change and the legalization of drugs. At the local level, Iceland's pirates are experimenting with liquid democracy , i.e. direct citizen participation in decisions.

WikiLeaks

Play media file

Lecture by Birgitta Jónsdóttir at re: publica 2013: "Iceland could have been innovative: Participatory democracy." (English)

Birgitta Jónsdóttir openly supports WikiLeaks , but also expressed criticism of Julian Assange , who, in her opinion, is too much the focus of attention. She was involved in the publication of the video Collateral Murder , which shows the US air raids on July 12, 2007 in Baghdad from the point of view of an on-board camera and thus of the shooter. She is named in the credits of the video as a "co-producer, script".

In 2011, Birgitta Jónsdóttir co-founded the revelation platform GreenLeaks.org, which was later discontinued .

At the beginning of January 2011 it became known that Birgitta Jónsdóttir, together with Jacob Appelbaum and other supporters of WikiLeaks , was affected by a request for information , a so-called " Subpoena ", with which the US Department of Justice would like to gain access to their personal data stored on Twitter . Birgitta announced that she wanted to bring in a lawyer and the justice minister of her country. She described the efforts of the US attorney general as "completely unacceptable" and announced a meeting with the American ambassador in Iceland. On January 9, 2011, he was referred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the Icelandic government.