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Media Advisory — Cornel West, John Kiriakou among speakers to urge Obama pardon for CIA whistleblower

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27STERLINGWEB-master675MEDIA ADVISORY

News Conference:

Release of Petition Urging Obama to Pardon Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower;

Speakers to Include Cornel West, John Kiriakou, Jesselyn Radack, Holly Sterling

When:  Wednesday, February 17 at 9:30 a.m.

Where:  National Press Club (Bloomberg Room), 13th Floor, National Press Building, Washington

In addition to CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling’s wife Holly Sterling, the speakers at the news conference will include:

*  Cornel West, prominent civil rights activist, scholar, professor at Union Theological Seminary;

*  John Kiriakou, CIA whistleblower and former agency case officer;

*  Jesselyn Radack, director of Whistleblower and Source Protection Program at ExposeFacts;

*  Delphine Halgand, U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders;

*  Tim Karr, senior director of strategy for Free Press.

Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act as a source for New York Times reporter James Risen’s book “State of War.” Sterling began serving his three-and-a-half-year prison sentence eight months ago.

In December, Holly Sterling launched a petition on RootsAction.org and on Change.org asking President Obama to immediately pardon her husband. Since then the petition has accumulated well over 100,000 signers. After the news conference, she will walk with the petition to the White House main gate, arriving there by 11:30 a.m. (with photo opportunities for the press).

Cosponsoring the news conference at the National Press Club are ExposeFacts, Reporters Without Borders and RootsAction.org. Those organizations initiated a coalition of groups in support of the petition that also includes the Bill of Rights Defense Committee / Defending Dissent Foundation, the Center for Media and Democracy, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, The Nation magazine and Restore the Fourth.

ExposeFacts is a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy.