Forum (plural forums, fora, or fori) may refer to:

Forum (Roman), open public space in the middle of a Roman city

*Roman Forum, most famous example

Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the USA

Internet forum, discussion board on the Internet

Public forum debate, or Pofo, a type of debate.

in companies:

FORA.tv, a website of debates, interviews and conferences

Forum Cafeterias, cafeteria chain

Forum Communications, publisher of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead newspaper

Forum Corporation, corporate training company owned by Informa

Forum Snowboarding, snowboard manufacturer

Landmark Education, San Francisco based, offers the Landmark Forum as its introductory course

in media:

Forum (KQED), radio show on KQED-FM hosted by Michael Krasny

Forum (magazine), several magazines named Forum

Forum (Bangladesh), a Bangladeshi current affairs magazine

The Forum (BBC World Service), an international inderdisciplinary radio discussion show

The Forum (journal), an annual history publication by students at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

in shopping centres

The Forum (shopping mall) in Bangalore, India

Forum (Kolkata) in Kolkata, India

Forum The Shopping Mall in Singapore

Forum (shopping centre) in Helsinki, Finland

The Forum Shops at Caesars in Las Vegas, Nevada

in sport

Mediolanum Forum, indoor arena Milan, Italy

Montreal Forum, historic arena in Quebec

The Forum (Inglewood, California), indoor arena

FedExForum, arena Memphis, Tennessee

St. Pete Times Forum, arena Tampa Bay, Florida

Thessaloniki Forum, indoor arena in Greece

in modern culture

Forum (album), a 2001 pop/soft rock album by Invertigo

Forum Copenhagen, exhibition, concert, and faire building in Copenhagen, Denmark

Forum (magazine), Penthouse Forum, British sex magazine

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a newspaper in Fargo, North Dakota

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, musical, and a film based upon it

The Forum, Norwich, library, tourist information office and headquarters of the BBC in Norwich

London Forum, nightclub and live music venue in Kentish Town, London

Universal Forum of Cultures, international cultural event 2004 and 2007

in geography:

Forum Fulvii, Roman settlement in Italy

Forum Station, metro station Copenhagen

Blandford Forum, town in England

Piz Fora, a mountain in the Alps

in economics and politics:

European Forum Alpbach

World Social Forum

World Economic Forum

See also

Foraminifera

ar:منتدى (توضيح) ca:Fòrum (desambiguació) cs:Fórum de:Forum et:Foorum (täpsustus) es:Foro fr:Forum gl:Foro hy:Ֆորում (այլ կիրառումներ) hr:Forum io:Forumo it:Forum he:פורום la:Forum lb:Forum lt:Forumas (reikšmės) nl:Forum ja:フォーラム pl:Forum pt:Fórum (desambiguação) ro:Forum (dezambiguizare) ru:Форум sk:Fórum sr:Форум fi:Forum (täsmennyssivu) sv:Forum (olika betydelser) tl:Forum tr:Forum uk:Форум vi:Forum zh:论坛

Dahlia Wasfi is an Iraqi-American physician and peace activist.

Personal life

Born in 1971 in New York to a Jewish-American mother and Muslim Iraqi father, Dr. Wasfi spent part of her early childhood living in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. She returned to the US at age 5, earned her B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College in 1993 and her medical degree from University of Pennsylvania in 1997.

Activism

Wasfi visited family in Iraq in 2004 and 2006, and, based upon her account of Iraqi civilian life, became an advocate for “immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.” She has testified in the Iraq Forum of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Third International Iraq conference in Berlin, as well as many universities in the U.S. and Canada.

From Dr. Wasfi's April 27, 2006 address to the Congressional Progressive Caucus:

External links

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi speaks at Iraq forum, YouTube

liberatethis.com, run by Dahlia Wasfi

Truth hurts, Lies kill. Real truth behind the phony wars by Dr. Dahlia wasfi on Youtube.

References

Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:American people of Iraqi descent Category:Iraqi activists Category:Swarthmore College alumni Category:Arab activists Category:American anti-war activists Category:People from New York Category: American Jews Category: Ashkenazi Jews

ar:داليا وصفي

name	Julian Assange
birth date	July 03, 1971
birth place	Townsville, Queensland, Australia
occupation	Editor-in-chief and spokesperson for WikiLeaks
awards	Economist Freedom of Expression Award (2008)Amnesty International UK Media Award (2009)Sam Adams Award (2010)Le Monde Person of the Year (2010)Sydney Peace Foundation gold medal (2011)Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (2011)
death date
death place	}}

Julian Paul Assange ( ; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian publisher, journalist, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks, with the stated purpose of creating open governments. Assange was a hacker in his youth, before becoming a computer programmer. He has lived in several countries and has made public appearances in many parts of the world to speak about freedom of the press, censorship and investigative journalism.

Assange serves on the WikiLeaks advisory board. WikiLeaks has published material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya, toxic waste dumping in Côte d'Ivoire, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, and banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer. In 2010, WikiLeaks published Iraq War documents and Afghan War documents about American involvement in the wars, some of which was classified material. On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and its five international print media partners (Der Spiegel, The New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian and El País) began publishing U.S. diplomatic cables.

Assange received a number of awards and nominations, including the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award for publishing material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya and Readers' Choice for TIME magazine's 2010 Person of the Year.

Assange appealed a February 2011 decision by English courts to extradite him to Sweden for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation. He said the allegations of wrongdoing are "without basis". On 12 and 13 July 2011, a hearing was held before the High Court, which deferred its decision to a later date.

Early life

Assange was born in Townsville, Queensland, and spent much of his youth living on Magnetic Island.

His biological father was John Shipton, and his mother Christine was the daughter of Scottish-born principal of Northern Rivers College, Warren Hawkins. When Julian was one year old, Christine married theatre director Brett Assange, who gave him his surname. Brett and Christine Assange ran a touring theatre company. His stepfather, Julian's first "real dad", described Julian as "a very sharp kid" with "a keen sense of right and wrong". "He always stood up for the underdog ... he was always very angry about people ganging up on other people."

In 1979, his mother remarried; her new husband was a musician whom Julian Assange believed belonged to a New Age group called Santiniketan Park Association led by Yoga teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne. The couple had a son, but broke up in 1982 and engaged in a custody struggle for Assange's half-brother. His divorced mother fled her boyfriend across Australia, taking both children into hiding for the next five years. Assange moved 30 times before he turned 14, attending many schools, including Goolmangar Primary School from 1979 to 1983, sometimes being home-schooled. In an interview conducted by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Assange stated that he had lived in 50 different towns and attended 37 different schools.

Hacking and conviction

In 1987, after turning 16, Assange began hacking under the name "Mendax" (derived from a phrase of Horace: "splendide mendax", or "nobly untruthful"). He and two other hackers joined to form a group they named the International Subversives. Assange wrote down the early rules of the subculture: "Don't damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don't change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information". The Personal Democracy Forum said he was "Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker." The Australian Federal Police became aware of this group and set up "Operation Weather" to investigate their hacking. In September 1991 Mendax was discovered in the act of hacking into the Melbourne master terminal of Nortel, the Canadian telecommunications company. In response the Australian Federal Police tapped Assanges' phoneline and subsequently raided his Melbourne home in 1991. He was also reported to have accessed computers belonging to an Australian university, the USAF 7th Command Group in the Pentagon and other organisations, via modem. It took three years to bring the case to court, where he was charged with 31 counts of hacking and related crimes. Nortel said his incursions cost them more than $100,000. Despite representing hacking as a victimless crime, he nonetheless pleaded guilty to 25 charges of hacking. Six charges were dropped. He was released on bond for good conduct after being fined A$2,100. The judge said "there is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to—what's the expression—surf through these various computers" and stated that Assange would have gone to jail for up to 10 years if he had not had such a disrupted childhood.

Assange later commented, "It's a bit annoying, actually. Because I co-wrote a book about [being a hacker], there are documentaries about that, people talk about that a lot. They can cut and paste. But that was 20 years ago. It's very annoying to see modern day articles calling me a computer hacker. I'm not ashamed of it, I'm quite proud of it. But I understand the reason they suggest I'm a computer hacker now. There's a very specific reason."

In 2011, court records revealed that in 1993, Assange helped the Victoria Police Child Exploitation Unit by providing technical advice and assisted in prosecuting persons.

Child custody issues

In 1989, Assange started living with his girlfriend and they had a son, Daniel Assange. They split up during the period of Assange's arrest and conviction. They subsequently engaged in a lengthy custody struggle and did not agree on a custody arrangement until 1999.

The entire process prompted Assange and his mother to form Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection, an activist group centered on creating a "central databank" for otherwise inaccessible legal records related to child custody issues in Australia. In an interview with ABC Radio, his mother explained their "most important" issue was demanding "that there be direct access to the children's court by any member of the public for an application for protection for any child that they believe is at serious risk from abuse, where the child protection agency has rejected that notification."

Computer programming and university studies

In 1993, Assange was involved in starting one of the first public internet service providers in Australia, Suburbia Public Access Network. Starting in 1994, he lived in Melbourne as a programmer and a developer of free software. In 1995, he wrote Strobe, the first free and open source port scanner. He contributed several patches to the PostgreSQL project in 1996. He helped to write the book Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier (1997), which credits him as a researcher and reports his history with International Subversives. Starting around 1997, he co-invented the Rubberhose deniable encryption system, a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis; he originally intended the system to be used "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field." Other free software that he has authored or co-authored includes the Usenet caching software NNTPCache and Surfraw, a command-line interface for web-based search engines. In 1999, he registered the domain leaks.org; "But", he says, "then I didn't do anything with it."

From 2003 to 2006, Assange attended the University of Melbourne, mainly studying physics and mathematics and briefly studying philosophy and neuroscience. In most of his maths courses, he received the minimum "pass" grade. He did not graduate; the fact that his fellow students were doing research for Pentagon's DARPA was reportedly a factor in motivating him to drop out and start WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks was founded in 2006. That year, Assange wrote two essays setting out the philosophy behind WikiLeaks: "To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not." In his blog he wrote, "the more secretive or unjust an organisation is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie.... Since unjust systems, by their nature, induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

Assange is a prominent media spokesman on WikiLeaks' behalf. While newspapers have described him as a "director" or "founder" of WikiLeaks, Assange has said, "I don't call myself a founder"; he does describe himself as the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, and has stated that he has the final decision in the process of vetting documents submitted to the site. Assange says that WikiLeaks has released more classified documents than the rest of the world press combined: "That's not something I say as a way of saying how successful we are – rather, that shows you the parlous state of the rest of the media. How is it that a team of five people has managed to release to the public more suppressed information, at that level, than the rest of the world press combined? It's disgraceful." He advocates a "transparent" and "scientific" approach to journalism, saying that "you can't publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism." In 2006, CounterPunch called him "Australia's most infamous former computer hacker." The Age has called him "one of the most intriguing people in the world" and "internet's freedom fighter." Assange has called himself "extremely cynical". He has been described as being largely self-taught and widely read on science and mathematics, and as thriving on intellectual battle.

WikiLeaks has been involved in the publication of material documenting extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the coast of Côte d'Ivoire, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike video, and material involving large banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer among other documents. In 2008, Assange published an article entitled "The Hidden Curse of Thomas Paine", in which he wrote "What does it mean when only those facts about the world with economic powers behind them can be heard, when the truth lays naked before the world and no one will be the first to speak without payment or subsidy?"

In late 2010, Assange was in the process of completing his memoirs for publication in 2011.

Public appearances

In addition to exercising great authority and editorial control within WikiLeaks, Assange acts as its public face. He has appeared at media conferences such as New Media Days '09 in Copenhagen, the 2010 Logan Symposium in Investigative Reporting at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and at hacker conferences, notably the 25th and 26th Chaos Communication Congress. In the first half of 2010, he appeared on Al Jazeera English, MSNBC, Democracy Now!, RT, and The Colbert Report to discuss the release of the Baghdad airstrike video by WikiLeaks. On 3 June he appeared via videoconferencing at the Personal Democracy Forum conference with Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg told MSNBC "the explanation he [Assange] used" for not appearing in person in the U.S. was that "it was not safe for him to come to this country." On 11 June he was to appear on a Showcase Panel at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Las Vegas, but there are reports that he cancelled several days prior.

On 10 June 2010, it was reported that Pentagon officials were trying to determine his whereabouts. Based on this, there were reports that U.S. officials wanted to apprehend Assange. Ellsberg said that the arrest of Bradley Manning and subsequent speculation by U.S. officials about what Assange may be about to publish "puts his well-being, his physical life, in some danger now." In The Atlantic, Marc Ambinder called Ellsberg's concerns "ridiculous", and said that "Assange's tendency to believe that he is one step away from being thrown into a black hole hinders, and to some extent discredits, his work." In Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald questioned "screeching media reports" that there was a "manhunt" on Assange underway, arguing that they were only based on comments by "anonymous government officials" and might even serve a campaign by the U.S. government, by intimidating possible whistleblowers.

On 21 June 2010, he took part at a hearing in Brussels, Belgium, appearing in public for the first time in nearly a month. He was a member on a panel that discussed Internet censorship and expressed his worries over the recent filtering in countries such as Australia. He also talked about secret gag orders preventing newspapers from publishing information about specific subjects and even divulging the fact that they are being gagged. Using an example involving The Guardian, he also explained how newspapers are altering their online archives sometimes by removing entire articles. He told The Guardian that he does not fear for his safety but is on permanent alert and will avoid travel to America, saying "[U.S.] public statements have all been reasonable. But some statements made in private are a bit more questionable." He said "politically it would be a great error for them to act. I feel perfectly safe but I have been advised by my lawyers not to travel to the U.S. during this period."

On 17 July, Jacob Appelbaum spoke on behalf of WikiLeaks at the 2010 Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference in New York City, replacing Assange due to the presence of federal agents at the conference. He announced that the WikiLeaks submission system was again up and running, after it had been temporarily suspended. Assange was a surprise speaker at a TED conference on 19 July 2010, in Oxford, and confirmed that WikiLeaks was now accepting submissions again. On 26 July, after the release of the Afghan War Diary, he appeared at the Frontline Club for a press conference. On 15 March 2011, Assange gave a speech at the Cambridge Union Society. After initially discouraging recording, a video of this has been made available by the Society.

Release of U.S. diplomatic cables

On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks began releasing some of the 251,000 American diplomatic cables in their possession, of which over 53 percent are listed as unclassified, 40 percent are "Confidential" and just over six percent are classified "Secret". The following day, the Attorney-General of Australia, Robert McClelland, told the press that Australia would inquire into Assange's activities and WikiLeaks. He said that "from Australia's point of view, we think there are potentially a number of criminal laws that could have been breached by the release of this information. The Australian Federal Police are looking at that". McClelland would not rule out the possibility that Australian authorities will cancel Assange's passport, and warned him that he might face charges should he return to Australia. The Federal Police inquiry found that Assange had not committed any crime.

The United States Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation related to the leak. U.S. prosecutors are reportedly considering charges against Assange under several laws, but any prosecution would be difficult. In relation to its ongoing investigations of WikiLeaks, on 14 December 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a subpoena ordering Twitter to release information relating to Assange's account, amongst others.

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said that Assange "is serving our democracy and serving our rule of law precisely by challenging the secrecy regulations, which are not laws in most cases, in this country." On the issue of national security considerations for the U.S., Ellsberg added, "He's obviously a very competent guy in many ways. I think his instincts are that most of this material deserves to be out. We are arguing over a very small fragment that doesn't. He has not yet put out anything that hurt anybody's national security." Assange told London reporters that the leaked cables showed U.S. ambassadors around the world were ordered "to engage in espionage behavior", which he said seemed to be "representative of a gradual shift to a lack of rule of law in U.S. institutions that needs to be exposed and that we have been exposing."

The WikiLeaks diplomatic cable revelations have been credited with sparking the Tunisian Revolution.

Recognition as a journalist

Assange received the 2009 Media award from Amnesty International for Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances, and he has been recognized as a journalist by the Centre for Investigative Journalism. Assange has been a member of the Australian journalist union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, for several years, and in 2011, was made an honorary member. Alex Massie wrote an article in The Spectator called "Yes, Julian Assange is a journalist", but acknowledged that "newsman" might be a better description of Assange. Alan Dershowitz said "Without a doubt. He is a journalist, a new kind of journalist". Assange has said that he has been publishing factual material since age 25, and that it is not necessary to debate whether or not he is a journalist. He has stated that his role is "primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists".

Financial developments

On 6 December, the Swiss bank, PostFinance, announced that it had frozen assets of Assange's totalling 31,000 euros, because he had "provided false information regarding his place of residence" when opening the account. MasterCard, Visa Inc., and Bank of America also halted dealings with WikiLeaks. Assange described these actions as "business McCarthyism". The English-language Swedish newspaper web-site "Local" quoted Assange on 27 December 2010, as saying that legal costs for the whistleblowing website and his own defence had reached £500,000. The decisions to halt donations to WikiLeaks by Visa, MasterCard and PayPal had cost it £425,000, the same amount it costs the website to publish for six months. Assange said WikiLeaks had been receiving as much as £85,000 a day at its peak.

Autobiography

In December 2010, Assange sold the publishing rights to his autobiography for over £1 million. He told The Sunday Times that he was forced to enter the deals for an autobiography due to the financial difficulties he and the site encountered, he told them "I don't want to write this book, but I have to. I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat". On 14 February 2011, Assange filed for the trademark JULIAN ASSANGE in Europe. The trademark is to be used for "public speaking services; news reporter services; journalism; publication of texts other than publicity texts; education services; entertainment services".

Criticism

A number of political and media commentators, as well as current and former U.S. government officials, have accused Assange of terrorism. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said "I would argue it is closer to being a high-tech terrorist than the Pentagon papers." In May 2010, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had used the phrase, calling Assange "a high-tech terrorist", and saying "he has done enormous damage to our country. I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law". Also in May 2010, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said: "Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed, is terrorism, and Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism. He should be treated as an enemy combatant."

In July 2010, after WikiLeaks released classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, said at a Pentagon news conference, "Disagree with the war all you want, take issue with the policy, challenge me or our ground commanders on the decisions we make to accomplish the mission we've been given, but don't put those who willingly go into harm's way even further in harm's way just to satisfy your need to make a point. Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is, they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." Assange responded later in an interview by saying, "There is, as far as we can tell, no incident of that. So it is a speculative charge. Of course, we are treating any possible revelation of the names of innocents seriously. That is why we held back 15,000 of these documents, to review that".

Support

The Australian government had considered charging Assange for treason, but later retracted its previous statements that Assange's actions were criminal. They also found no grounds to withdraw his Australian passport after an investigation by the Australian Federal Police. Since then, government representatives and the major opposition, including Craig Emerson the Minister for Trade and Helen Coonan the former minister for Communications, have made statements supportive of WikiLeaks and deprecated some threats. Emerson stated on ABC's Q&A; program; "We condemn absolutely the threats that have been made by some people in the United States against Julian Assange and he deserves all of the rights of being an Australian citizen."

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, then president of Brazil, expressed his "solidarity" with Assange following his 2010 arrest in the United Kingdom. He further criticised the arrest of Assange as "an attack on freedom of expression".

Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin condemned Assange's detention as "undemocratic". A source within the office of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested that Assange be nominated for a Nobel Prize, and said that "Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him."

In December 2010, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Frank LaRue, said Assange or other WikiLeaks staff should not face criminal charges for any information they disseminated, noting that "if there is a responsibility by leaking information it is of, exclusively of the person that made the leak and not of the media that publish it. And this is the way that transparency works and that corruption has been confronted in many cases."

Daniel Ellsberg, who was working in the U.S. Department of Defense when he leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, was a signatory to a statement by an international group of former intelligence officers and ex-government officials in support of Assange's work, which was released in late December 2010. Other signatories included David MacMichael, Ray McGovern, and five recipients of annual Sam Adams Award: Frank Grevil, Katharine Gun, Craig Murray, Coleen Rowley and Larry Wilkerson. Ellsberg has said, "If I released the Pentagon Papers today, the same rhetoric and the same calls would be made about me ... I would be called not only a traitor – which I was [called] then, which was false and slanderous – but I would be called a terrorist... Assange and Bradley Manning are no more terrorists than I am."

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has come under widespread condemnation and a backlash within her own party for failing to support Assange after calling the leaks "an illegal act" and suggesting that his Australian passport should be cancelled. Hundreds of lawyers, academics and journalists came forward in his support with Attorney-General Robert McClelland, unable to explain how Assange had broken Australian law. Opposition Legal Affairs spokesman, Senator George Brandis, a Queen's Counsel, accused Gillard of being "clumsy" with her language, stating, "As far as I can see, he (Assange) hasn't broken any Australian law, nor does it appear he has broken any American laws." Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who supports Assange, stated that any decision to cancel the passport would be his, not Gillard's. Queen's Counsel Peter Faris, who acted for Assange in a hacking case 15 years ago, said that the motives of Swedish authorities in seeking Assange's extradition for alleged sex offences are suspect: "You have to say: why are they [Sweden] pursuing it? It's pretty obvious that if it was Bill Bloggs, they wouldn't be going to the trouble." Following the Swedish Embassy issuing of a "prepared and unconvincing reply" in response to letters of protest, Gillard was called on to send a message to Sweden "querying the way charges were laid, investigated and dropped, only to be picked up again by a different prosecutor."

On 10 December 2010, over five hundred people rallied outside Sydney Town Hall and about three hundred and fifty people gathered in Brisbane where Assange's lawyer, Rob Stary, criticised Julia Gillard's position, telling the rally that the Australian government was a "sycophant" of the U.S. A petition circulated by GetUp!, who have placed full page ads in support of Assange in The New York Times and The Washington Times, received more than signatures.

Awards

He won the 2009 Amnesty International UK Media Award (New Media), for exposing extrajudicial assassinations in Kenya by distributing and publicizing the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR)'s investigation The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances. Accepting the award, Assange said, "It is a reflection of the courage and strength of Kenyan civil society that this injustice was documented."

In 2010, Assange was awarded the Sam Adams Award, Readers' Choice in TIME magazine's Person of the Year poll, and runner-up for Person of the Year. In April 2011 he was listed on the Time 100 list of most influential people. An informal poll of editors at Postmedia Network named him the top newsmaker for the year after six out of 10 felt Assange had "affected profoundly how information is seen and delivered".

Le Monde, one of the five publications to cooperate with WikiLeaks' publication of the recent document leaks, named him person of the year with fifty six percent of the votes in their online poll.

In February 2011, it was announced that Assange had been awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation gold medal by the Sydney Peace Foundation of the University of Sydney for his "exceptional courage and initiative in pursuit of human rights." There have been four recipients of the award in the foundation's fourteen year history: Nelson Mandela; the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso; Daisaku Ikeda; and Assange.

In June 2011, Assange was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. The prize is awarded on an annual basis to journalists "whose work has penetrated the established version of events and told an unpalatable truth that exposes establishment propaganda, or 'official drivel'". The judges said, "WikiLeaks has been portrayed as a phenomenon of the hi-tech age, which it is. But it's much more. Its goal of justice through transparency is in the oldest and finest tradition of journalism."

Allegations of sexual misconduct

On 20 August 2010, Swedish police began an investigation into allegations concerning Assange's behaviour in separate sexual encounters involving two different women. Assange has said allegations of wrongdoing are "without basis", describing all the sexual encounters as consensual. In December 2010, Assange, then in Britain, learned that the Swedish authorities had issued a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) to extradite him to Sweden for questioning.

An extradition hearing took place on 7–8 and 11 February 2011 before the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court when the extradition warrant was upheld.

On 2 March 2011, his lawyers lodged papers at the London High Court to challenge the ruling to extradite Assange to Sweden. Assange remains on conditional bail. After a hearing on 12 and 13 July 2011, the High Court deferred its decision to a later date.

Residency

Though an Australian citizen, Assange has not had a permanent address for several years. He has lived for periods in Australia, Kenya and Tanzania, and began renting a house in Iceland on 30 March 2010, from which he and other activists, including Birgitta Jónsdóttir, worked on the 'Collateral Murder' video.

For much of 2010, he was visiting the United Kingdom, Iceland, Sweden and other European countries. On 4 November 2010, Assange told Swiss public television TSR that he was seriously considering seeking political asylum in neutral Switzerland and moving the operation of the WikiLeaks foundation there. In December 2010, it was reported that U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Donald S. Beyer had warned the Swiss government against offering asylum to Assange.

In late November 2010, Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas of Ecuador spoke about giving Assange residency with "no conditions... so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the Internet but in a variety of public forums". Lucas believed that Ecuador may benefit from initiating a dialogue with Assange. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino stated on 30 November that the residency application would "have to be studied from the legal and diplomatic perspective". A few hours later, President Rafael Correa stated that WikiLeaks "committed an error by breaking the laws of the United States and leaking this type of information... no official offer was [ever] made." Correa noted that Lucas was speaking "on his own behalf"; additionally, he will launch an investigation into possible ramifications Ecuador would suffer from the release of the cables.

In a hearing at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on 7 December 2010, Assange identified a post office box as his address. When told by the judge that this information was not acceptable, he submitted "Parkville, Victoria, Australia" on a sheet of paper. His lack of permanent address and nomadic lifestyle were cited by the judge as factors in denying bail. He was ultimately released, in part because journalist Vaughan Smith offered to provide Assange with an address for bail during the extradition proceedings, Smith's Norfolk mansion, Ellingham Hall.

References

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External links

Wikirebels (Documentary about Julian Assange)

home page on Julian Assange's web site iq.org (at the Internet Archive)

Profile: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at BBC News

Interview with Julian Assange on release of Afghan war files – 1 August 2010 Russia Today via YouTube

Frost Over the World – Julian Assange – December 2010. Al Jazeera English via You tube

Julian Assange interviewed by John Pilger on New Statesman January 2011

Julian Assange: The "60 Minutes" Interview interviewed by Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes January 2011.

Interview Julian Assange. Frontline. 4 April 2011.

Category:1971 births Category:Alternative journalists Category:Australian Internet personalities Category:Australian activists Category:Australian computer programmers Category:Australian journalists Category:Australian people of Scottish descent Category:Australian whistleblowers Category:Cypherpunks Category:Internet activists Category:Living people Category:People from Townsville Category:University of Melbourne alumni Category:WikiLeaks Category:Australian memoirists

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position	Right wing
played for	Montreal Canadiens
shot	Left
height ft	5
height in	10
weight lb	180
nationality	Canada
birth date	August 04, 1921
birth place	Montreal, QC, CAN
death date	May 27, 2000
death place	Montreal, QC, CAN
career start	1942
career end	1960
halloffame	1961 }}

Joseph Henri Maurice "the Rocket" Richard, Sr., (, ; August 4, 1921 – May 27, 2000) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played for the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1942 to 1960. The "Rocket" was the most prolific goal-scorer of his era, the first to achieve the feat of 50 goals in 50 games. He lived most of his life in Ahuntsic, Montreal.

Richard was the first to score 50 goals in one season (the 1944–45 NHL season), doing so in 50 games, and the first to score 500 goals in a career. He finished his career with 544 goals in the regular season, with 82 in the playoffs which included a record six overtime winners (surpassed only by Joe Sakic who has eight), and led the league in goals five times. He also amassed 421 assists for a total of 965 points in 978 games. He retired as the NHL's all-time leading scorer.

Richard won the Stanley Cup eight times in Montreal, was captain of four straight cup wins from 1957–1960, won the Hart Trophy in 1947, was elected eight times to the first all-star team and six times to the second all-star team, and played in every National Hockey League All-Star Game from 1947 to 1959. Teamed with Elmer Lach as centre and Hector 'Toe' Blake playing left-wing, they formed the "Punch Line".

He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961, the customary three-year waiting period being waived in his honour.

Playing career

Many Habs fans considered it discrimination that Richard only won the Hart Trophy once. Although Richard was often perceived as a pre-Quiet Revolution hero excelling in an Anglophone world, he always insisted that he was an apolitical man playing hockey for the love of the sport.

Richard was not without opinions. Richard wrote, along with a newspaper ghost-writer, a column in the French language 'Samedi-Dimanche' starting in 1952. The column was entitled "Le Tour du Chapeau" (Hat Trick). It mostly described the regular goings-on around hockey, but Richard would occasionally run into controversy; in one instance, he called Quebec City fans "bandits" for their treatment of his brother Henri when he was a junior.

Richard's writing took on a most serious tone in 1954 when he criticized NHL president Clarence Campbell for suspending Boom Boom Geoffrion for eight games. Richard labelled Campbell as 'partial' to Canadiens opponents.

“What did Campbell do, when Jean Beliveau was deliberately injured twice by Billy Mosienko of Chicago and Jack Evans of Rangers? No penalty, no fine, no suspension. Did he suspend Gordie Howe of Detroit when he almost knocked out Dollard St. Laurent's eye? No! It is strange that only Dick Irvin and I have the courage to risk our livelihood by defending our rights against such a dictator.”(On the topic of 'paper assists' given out in Detroit:) “It is not surprising that Howe, Lindsay and Abel are among the top point-scorers in the league, although I admit Howe and Lindsay are good players. Let Campbell get busy with the other little goings-on known about players of the National Hockey League and not try to create publicity for himself at the expense of a good fellow like 'Boom Boom' Geoffrion just because he is a French Canadian. That is my frank opinion and if I am to be punished for it, well that's that. I will leave hockey and I have an idea that several other Canadien players who share my opinion will do the same.”

Campbell threatened Richard with discipline and Frank Selke wrote up an apologetic retraction letter to Campbell. Richard then signed off his next column "Freedom of speech has been taken away from me. I have to obey my employers. I am not judging them but will leave this matter in the hands of my friends." Geoffrion also quit a similar column he had been writing. Richard deposited a $1,000 dollar cheque with Campbell along with his retraction. Campbell declared the matter closed and said that it would not have any bearing on any future matters.

Richard's career began and ended before the beginning of huge salaries. The largest yearly salary he ever made was $25,000 (equivalent to $200,000 in 2008). His #9 jersey number was retired on October 6, 1960, by the Canadiens, less than a month after he announced his retirement. His brother Henri "The Pocket Rocket" Richard joined him with the Canadiens in 1955 and would go on to win eleven Stanley Cups with the team, an NHL record.

Playing style

Richard was an outstanding scorer. While he had a good fore-hand and back-hand shot, he was not considered to have the greatest shot or accuracy. Richard made up for it in desire and other skills to become the outstanding goal-scorer of his time. He had excellent stick-handling skills, was fast on his skates, and strong. He used those abilities to outmaneuver opponents. He was well-known for frightening opponents with his stare. Richard's fighting ability (he had taken boxing in school) meant that most players did not want to get into fights with him. The most common strategy was to check him hard, play him chippy and insult him into drawing a penalty. Richard was known not to start fights, but would willingly fight back and finish them, including the fights of other team-mates. Richard would make a burst of speed around the defenceman and then cut out front of the goaltender and be in a perfect position to shoot before the other defenceman hit him. It was a high-stakes style as he was also putting himself in the perfect position to get hit by the other defenceman. Richard was first converted to a right wing to take advantage of his move around the defenceman by Paul Haynes, who was coach of the senior Canadiens when Richard played there. Haynes noted that Richard also had a sizzling back-hand shot and could still get that shot off if the defenceman pushed him off the angle for a forehand shot.

In the 1950s, Richard was frequently compared to emerging star Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings. Both were right wingers who wore the same sweater number (9). They were frequently contenders for the league scoring title, and could also play rough if needed. During their first encounter in the Montreal Forum, when Howe was a rookie, he knocked Richard down with a punch after being shoved. The Red Wings and Canadiens faced off in four Stanley Cup finals during the 1950s. When Richard retired in 1960, he paid tribute to Howe, saying "Gordie could do everything."

Chronology

Maurice Richard played minor ice hockey at all levels in the Montreal area before playing junior in Verdun, starting in 1938. By 1940, he had moved up to the Canadiens senior team in the Quebec league. He broke his ankle and played only one game. He returned and played the whole 1941-42 season for the senior Canadiens. However, by the time he first tried out for the NHL Canadiens in 1942, he had suffered several injuries and he was a considerable risk for the Canadiens to take on. Despite this, coach Dick Irvin insisted that general manager Tommy Gorman sign him, being impressed with his play in camp. Richard would break his right ankle and play only 16 games. Gorman attempted to make a trade with the New York Rangers for Phil Watson, but the Rangers' GM Lester Patrick refused the deal.

In 1943, Richard's first child was born, Huguette, and she was nine pounds. Richard, who had been wearing number 15, asked for and received number 9. It was a new start for him with the Canadiens. Richard's left ankle was to be forever misshapen by injury but he adapted his skating. Richard played the full 1943–44 season, and score 32 goals and 54 points and be named to the Second All-Star team. He had one of his career highlights that season when, on March 23, 1944, Richard scored all five goals for the Canadiens in a 5–1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs en route to the Stanley Cup Finals and was awarded all three stars for his efforts. The Canadiens would win the Stanley Cup, sweeping Chicago in four games.

The following season, only his second full season in the NHL, Richard scored 50 goals in 50 games. He became the first NHL player to score 50 in a season. This was the season that the "Punch Line" was formed with Richard, Elmer Lach and Toe Blake. The trio finished the season 1-2-3 in league scoring. All three shot left, and Richard was moved from his previous left wing position to right wing. Irvin had recalled that Richard had played right wing with the senior Canadiens and been effective. Richard would remain a right winger for the rest of his career. The Canadiens placed first in the league, but lost in the first playoff round to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Maple Leafs.

In that season, Richard had two other career highlights. On December 28, 1944, Richard scored five goals and three assists in a 9–1 win over the Detroit Red Wings. He had spent the day moving to a new house and he had told his team-mates he was exhausted. His brother-in-law, who had witnessed and helped in the move, bet against Richard scoring any goals that night. On February 3, 1945, Richard scored a goal while carrying Red Wings defenceman Earl Siebert, who weighed . According to Red Storey who refereed the game:

“Earl Seibert jumped on his back. Jumped on his back! Put his arms around him. And his legs around him. The Rocket never broke stride. He went in, deked the goalkeeper, scored a goal, and shook Seibert and threw him in the corner.”

In 1945–46, NHL veterans started returning to the league after serving in World War II. The league became stronger and goal-scoring dropped. The Canadiens again placed first, and won the Stanley Cup. Richard's goal-scoring was reduced to 27 goals while Blake had 29 to lead the Canadiens. Richard and Blake both scored seven goals in the Canadiens' nine-game playoff, losing only one game over two series.

In 1946–47, Richard led the Canadiens in goal scoring and points as the Canadiens again placed first. The Canadiens made it to the Final to play Toronto. This series had one of Richard's violent outbursts. After winning the first game 6–0 the Canadiens may have been overconfident and the Leafs changed their tactics, riling up Richard in game two. Richard high-sticked and injured Bill Ezinicki and Don Metz earning a fine and a one-game suspension. The Canadiens lost game two, game three and game four before winning game five to prolong the series. Toronto closed out the series in game six to take over as Cup champions.

The following season, line-mate Toe Blake suffered a career-ending ankle injury. The Canadiens struggled that season to that point, and after Blake's injury, fell out of playoff contention with a series of losses. Richard and Lach both made the First All-Star team, but the Canadiens failed to qualify for the playoffs.

After two lack-lustre seasons, Richard had an outstanding season, scoring 43 goals and 65 points, but was held to just one goal in a five-game semi-final loss to the New York Rangers. Richard again made the First All-star team.

In 1950, the Rocket followed this up with 42 goals in the season, and the Canadiens made it to the Stanley Cup Final again, losing again to Toronto. It would be the first of ten consecutive appearances in the Final series. Richard placed second in the scoring race to Gordie Howe, who now pushed Richard to the Second All-star team. Richard led the Canadiens to the Final, with some revenge by defeating Howe's Red Wing team in the semi-final. Richard led all playoff scorers. That same season, on January 6, 1951, Richard scored his 271st goal to become the Canadiens's all-time goal scorer.

In 1951-52, Bernie Geoffrion played his rookie season with the Canadiens, scoring 30 goals to outscore Richard, who played only 48 games due to injury. Richard was named to the Second All-star team, second to Howe. The Canadiens again made it to the Final, although third-string right wing Floyd Curry led the team in scoring.

On April 8, 1952, Richard scored one of the most famous goals of all time, described variously as "the greatest in the history of the game" and "most beautiful in the history of the world." As blood dripped down his face after an earlier injury that saw him suffer a concussion, he scored the series-winning goal of the 1952 Stanley Cup Semifinals. Richard had left the game, but returned to the bench in the third period, wearing a bandage. Richard, although somewhat dazed, jumped off the bench and drove to the net to score past a surprised Sugar Jim Henry, the Boston Bruins' goaltender.

In 1952–53, Richard again led the Canadiens in scoring, and scored seven goals in 12 games as the Canadiens won the Cup for the first time since 1946. On November 8, 1952, Richard scored his 325th goal to overtake Nels Stewart and become the all-time leading goal scorer in NHL history. Richard picked up the puck after scoring, but he then threw the puck down violently, before picking it up again and keeping it. The puck was gifted to Queen Elizabeth II in 1955. After Lach scored the Cup-winning goal in overtime on a pass from Richard, Richard and Lach jumped into each others arms to celebrate. The collision broke Lach's nose.

In 1953–54, the Canadiens finally landed Jean Beliveau by purchasing his team. Richard led the Canadiens in scoring, with 37 goals and 67 points in 70 games. He was tightly checked in the playoffs, scoring only three goals. The Canadiens lost in the Final to the Red Wings in seven games. The Canadiens ended the season sourly, a crowd of spectators swarmed onto the Detroit ice after the deciding game and the Canadiens did not do the customary shaking of hands.

1954–55 was a turbulent season for Richard. This was the season after he had publicly criticized Campbell for being partial, and then publicly apologized and retracted his statements. While scoring 38 goals and 74 points in 67 games, he also recorded his highest penalty total of 125 minutes. He slapped one official in a game in Toronto and in the 67th game punched out a linesman to receive a suspension for the rest of the season and the playoffs. The suspension incensed his fans and led to the 'Richard Riot.' Richard had been leading the league in scoring, and would lose out to Bernie Geoffrion who was able to play 70 games. When Geoffrion, Richard's teammate, passed him in points on the last day of the regular season, he was booed by the Montreal faithful. The Canadiens lost in the Stanley Cup Finals without Richard who was named to the First All-star team at the end of the year. Geoffrion was named to the Second All-star team.

1955–60: A Canadiens dynasty and a mellower Richard

1955 saw the departure of Dick Irvin from the Canadiens and the return of Toe Blake to coach the team. Unlike Irvin, Blake took a new approach with the Rocket. Irvin tried to ratchet Richard up, Blake tried to smooth out his performance. Richard scored 38 goals and 71 points in 1955–56, but the top scorer was now Beliveau, who had 88 points. But the new team approach of Blake worked and the Canadiens won the first of five straight Stanley Cups. Richard was joined on the team by younger brother Henri. Richard was again named to the First All-star team.

1956–57 saw Richard named team captain of the Canadiens. Richard scored 33 goals to tie Beliveau for the team lead. In the playoffs, the Canadiens defeated New York and Boston, each in five games to win the Cup again.

In 1957–58, Richard played only 28 games due to an Achilles tendon injury, but contributed 11 goals in ten playoff games to lead the Canadiens to another Cup win. He had an outstanding playoff run. He scored seven in the series against Detroit, including a hat trick and the series-winning goal. The game-winning goal would be his 18th, a record. One of the goals of the hat trick was a career highlight. Richard drove to the net around Detroit defenceman Warren Godfrey, who pulled Richard to the ice. Richard, still traveling at full speed, pulled himself up to one knee and poked the puck past Terry Sawchuk.

But it would be his last individual hurrah. He would not score in the 1959 playoffs and score only once in the 1960 playoffs. The 1958–59 and 1959–60 seasons saw Richard battling injuries that reduced his games played to 42 and 51. Both years however, the Canadiens under his captaincy won the Cup.

In the 1960 off-season, there was considerable speculation about the Rocket retiring, but he put off the decision. Punch Imlach predicted accurately that Richard would not want to play any longer if he could not play at the top level. Despite the speculation, in June with the intra-league draft, the Canadiens kept him on their protected list. At a September 15 practice however, Richard made up his mind and he announced his retirement at a press conference on September 15, 1960.

Coaching

Richard briefly served as head coach of the Quebec Nordiques during the 1972–73 WHA season. He would last for only two games, a 3–2 loss to the Cleveland Crusaders, and a 3–0 victory over the Alberta Oilers. Richard decided coaching wasn't his forte and stepped down.

Personal life

Born August 4, 1921, Maurice Richard was the eldest of eight children (five sons: Maurice, Henri, Claude, René and Jacques; three daughters: Rollande, Marguerite and Georgette) of Onesime and Alice Richard. Onesime and Alice had moved from the Gaspé region to Nouveau-Bordeaux so that Onesime could work as a machinist at the Canadian Pacific Railway. At age four, he began playing hockey on a backyard rink, built by his father. As a teen, Richard excelled at baseball and boxing. He played hockey as much as he could, sometimes twice per night and four games on the week-end. To play on more than one team, Richard adopted aliases, the most well known-being Maurice Rochon.

Richard married teenage sweetheart Lucille Norchet against the wishes of her father in 1942. Maurice had met Lucille when she was thirteen and he was sixteen, when he was playing for the Paquette Club in the Park Lafontaine Juvenile League, which was coached by Lucille's brother George. They announced their engagement when she was 17 and Maurice was 20. At 16, Maurice dropped out of school and worked with his father as a machinist and that was his only income other than some income in the winter with the senior Canadiens. They would have seven children: Huguette, Maurice Jr., Norman, André, Suzanne,and Jean. Lucille died in 1994. After Lucille died, Maurice's last companion was Sonia Raymond.

Attempts to join the military

Richard was turned down a total of three times by the military, twice for combat and once as a machinist. The first time was in 1939 at the beginning of World War II when he was 18 and the second time the following year. X-rays showed that his ankle and femur as well as his wrists had broken and had not healed properly during junior hockey and he was therefore unfit for military action.

Richard had applied to be a machinist in the military, but was again refused due to his lack of a high school diploma or technical trade certificate. Richard tried to explain that he had dropped out of school to help his family and had been working as a machinist at a local factory since he was 16. They still refused, and he was told he needed a machinist certificate. Upon hearing this he decided to train as a machinist at the Montreal Technical School the following year and therefore fulfill his desire to help in the war effort.

The war was over before Richard received his certificate, which took four years. He was disappointed that the Canadian military had not given him the opportunity to participate in some capacity.

Honours

In 1967 Richard was inducted into the grade of Officer in the Order of Canada, making him one of the first members of the order. He was later promoted to Companion of the order in 1998, the same year he was ranked number five on The Hockey News list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players, the highest-ranking Montreal Canadien. Richard was also given the rare distinction of being appointed to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada in 1992, entitling him to the style The Honourable (French: L'Honorable) for life. The appointment, and those of twenty others that year made by the Governor General on the advice of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, remains unusual as, traditionally, being made a privy councillor is an act reserved for members of Cabinet, Chief Justices of Canada, and certain others who require access to classified documents. In August 2008, Canadian Pacific Railway named a station in his honour.

Although Richard had a falling-out with the Canadiens not long after he retired in 1960, he eventually patched things up and returned to them, serving the club as an unofficial goodwill ambassador from 1991 – highlighted by the Habs' most recent (to date) Cup in 1993 – until he died. The Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy was donated by the Montreal Canadiens hockey club to the NHL in 1999, to be awarded annually to the goal-scoring leader during the regular season. Richard himself had led the league in goals five times.

In 1996 at the closing of the Montreal Forum, a tearful "Rocket" received the longest standing ovation in the city's history: Over 16 minutes of adulation poured over him, chanting his nickname over and over again. Richard, always the reluctant hero, looked around in surprise for the first few minutes. When he realized the crowd was not letting up and their love for him was real, he broke down in tears while waving and mouthing "thank you". He rarely showed this side of himself, as he always tried to remain humble. The last few minutes of adulation saw Richard closing his eyes, while the crowd chanted "GO HABS GO!" over and over again. Richard later stated that when he closed his eyes and heard the crowd, it brought him back to his younger days. He thought it was a very loving gesture by the fans. A Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team was also named after him, the Rocket de Montréal, playing out of the Maurice Richard Arena (in 2003 this team moved to Prince Edward Island becoming the P.E.I. Rocket). Their team logo prominently features Richard's number 9. On June 27, 2001, the Canadian government unveiled a monument in Jacques-Cartier Park, in Hull, Quebec, honouring Richard, and he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

Although being long retired by the time of his death in 2000, an estimated 115,000 people of all ages paid their respects while his body lay in state at Montreal's Bell Centre. Following Richard's death, the Montreal Expos Major League baseball team wore Richard's number 9, in black, on their right sleeves for the duration of the 2000 season, and flags were lowered to half staff as Quebec's National Assembly was suspended for the day. Richard was given a provincial state funeral that was broadcast live across Canada, the first time such an honour was bestowed on an athlete.

Death

On the day of his death, Montrealers, once again, lined St Catherines street to celebrate their hero. The mood this time was not one of celebration, as it had been for the Stanley Cup parades of the past, but it was a somber celebration of the life of a champion. There was an immense sense of pride in the accomplishments of a talented man. His funeral was held at the Notre Dame Basilica and his pallbearers included some of his former teammates from the Montreal Canadians such as Elmer Lach, Jean Beliveau, and Dickie Moore, along with his younger brother Henri. The archbishop of Montreal, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, spoke about Maurice's well-known intensity at the funeral. He said, "What a look! Such strength, such intensity in those eyes. Poets have said that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. All of Maurice was in his eyes. We will not forget that look." Former friend and long time Canadians goalie, Jerry McNeil, spoke about Maurice's leadership at his wake saying, "He was leading by example, that's it. And if you didn't follow you felt bad." Among those who attended were Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Lise Thibault, various politicians (including then Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, and then Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard), Gordie Howe, Jean Béliveau, and then Canadiens team captain Saku Koivu.

Depiction in popular media

Richard's hockey career, and in particular the folk legend of his NHL game played after having moved, was featured in Heritage Minutes (1997). Richard was played by Roy Dupuis.

Richard's life story was featured in a two-part, two-hour French-Canadian miniseries televised as part of the program Les Beaux Dimanches: Histoire d'un Canadien (Beautiful Sundays: Maurice Rocket Richard Story [Canada: English title]), in 1999, starring Roy Dupuis as Richard.

The French version of a feature film, Maurice Richard was released in November 2005; the English-subtitled version entitled The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story was released in April 2006. The film again stars Roy Dupuis in the title role and is directed by Charles Binamé.

Admiration for Richard and the Montreal Canadiens was the main plot point of the popular heritage story "The Hockey Sweater", originally published in 1979 by native Quebecker and acclaimed author Roch Carrier., as well as its 1980 National Film Board of Canada (NFB) adaptation, The Sweater. He is the subject of a 1998 NFB documentary, The Rocket, and a 1972 NFB short film, composed of animated photographs of Richard, Mon numéro 9 en or.

The Jane Siberry song "Hockey" contains the line "They rioted in the streets of Montreal/When they benched Rocket Richard".

Was referenced in the Warren Zevon song "Hit Somebody": "His dad took the hose and froze the back yard/And little Buddy dreamed he was Rocket Richard"

In the early 1980s, Maurice Richard starred in a commercial for Grecian Formula, a hair coloring product. In the commercial Richard plays a referee, he mentions that he leaves a touch of natural grey, because his wife likes it. At that point a trainer calls out, "Hey Richard, two minutes for looking so good!" a line that has since become famous and is referenced in a song by the Canadian punk band Belvedere. The local media first nicknamed him The Comet. During an intra-squad practice, Ray Getliffe was so impressed by him, he compared him to a rocket.

In an edition of The Book of Sports Lists, by Pepe and Hollander, Richard was described by a teammate "with his eyes flashing like a pinball machine." His eyes seemed to be the most memorable feature during his play; in the picture he is wide-eyed as he skates toward the goal.

The ValueTales series of children's books featured Maurice Richard for "The Value of Tenacity," published in 1984.

Richard appears as a member of the Canadiens All-Star Team of Legends in NHL 09, playing on the first line. As well as in NHL 10.

After his death, his Jersey Number "9" was memorialized on the jerseys of the Montreal Expos baseball club, the only time in history that a player from a different sport was honored on an MLB jersey.

Career statistics

colspan="3" style="text-align:center; background:#fff;"			! style="text-align:center;" colspan="5"		Playoffs
! style="text-align:center;"	Team		League		GP	! style="text-align:center;"	! style="text-align:center;"	! style="text-align:center;"	! style="text-align:center;"	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
	1942–43 NHL season>1942–43				Montreal Canadiens		National Hockey League>NHL		16		5		6		11		4		—		—		—		—		—
	1943–44 *				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		46		32		22		54		45		9		12		5		17		10
	1944–45 NHL season>1944–45				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		50		50		23		73		46		6		6		2		8		10
	1945–46 *				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		50		27		21		48		50		9		7		4		11		15
	1946–47 NHL season>1946–47				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		60		45		26		71		69		10		6		5		11		44
	1947–48				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		53		28		25		53		89		—		—		—		—		—
	1948–49 NHL season>1948–49				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		59		20		18		38		110		7		2		1		3		14
	1949–50				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		70		43		22		65		114		5		1		1		2		6
	1950–51 NHL season>1950–51				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		65		42		24		66		97		11		9		4		13		13
	1951–52				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		48		27		17		44		44		11		4		2		6		6
	1952–53 NHL season>1952–53 *				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		70		28		33		61		112		12		7		1		8		2
	1953–54				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		70		37		30		67		112		11		3		0		3		22
	1954–55 NHL season>1954–55				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		67		38		36		74		125		—		—		—		—		—
	1955–56 *				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		70		38		33		71		89		10		5		9		14		24
	1956–57 NHL season>1956–57 *				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		63		33		29		62		27		10		8		3		11		8
	1957–58 *				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		28		15		19		34		28		10		11		4		15		10
	1958–59 NHL season>1958–59 *				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		42		17		21		38		27		4		0		0		0		2
	1959–60 *				Montreal Canadiens		NHL		51		19		16		35		50		8		1		3		4
NHL totals			978		544	421	965	1285	133	82	44	126	188

* indicates a Stanley Cup–winning season

* also had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup in 1965 with Montreal as assistant to the president.

See also

List of players with five or more goals in an NHL game

Punch line (ice hockey)

Footnotes

References

Ramos, Howard & Gosine, Kevin (2008). " 'The Rocket': Newspaper coverage of the death of a Quebec cultural icon, a Canadian hockey player." In M. Conrad & A. Finkel (Eds.), Nation and Society: Readings in Post-Confederation Canadian History, Vol. 2 (pp. 416-434). Toronto, ON: Pearson Education Canada.

External links

The Canadian Museum of Civilization - "Rocket" Richard: The Legend – The Legacy

Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

Radio-Canada Archives - Maurice Richard: Le Rocket, héros d'un peuple (French)

CBC Digital Archives - The Legendary #9: Maurice 'Rocket' Richard (English)

History by the Minute: Historica Minutes (Heritage Minutes): Maurice "Rocket" Richard

The first color captation of Maurice Richard in 1952 with comments from Ron Fournier (In french)

Order of Canada Citation: Maurice Richard

Last game at the Montreal Forum - Maurice Richard Ovation, March 11, 1996

Category:1921 births Category:2000 deaths Category:Canada's Sports Hall of Fame inductees Category:Canadian ice hockey coaches Category:Canadian ice hockey right wingers Category:Canadian people of French descent Category:Companions of the Order of Canada Category:French Quebecers Category:Hart Memorial Trophy winners Category:Hockey Hall of Fame inductees Category:Ice hockey people from Quebec Category:Lou Marsh Trophy winners Category:Members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada Category:Montreal Canadiens players Category:National Hockey League players with 50 goal seasons Category:National Hockey League All-Stars Category:National Hockey League players with retired numbers Category:Officers of the National Order of Quebec Category:People from Montreal Category:Stanley Cup champions

bg:Морис Ришар cs:Maurice Richard de:Maurice Richard es:Maurice Richard fr:Maurice Richard it:Maurice Richard he:מוריס רישאר lv:Moriss Rišārs hu:Maurice Richard ja:モーリス・リシャール ru:Ришар, Морис sk:Maurice Richard sl:Maurice Richard fi:Maurice Richard sv:Maurice Richard uk:Моріс Рішар

Stevie Bell is the first and only African American professional snowboarders of his time to break into the industry in 2005. His love for snowboarding and his passion to excel earned him a spot on the Forum Pro snowboarding team in 2006. He starred in his first snowboarding film with Forum called “That.” This film was a breakthrough point in his career because as one of the first African American snowboarders, he knew that had to prove himself. In an interview conducted by Transworld Snowboarding, Bell was asked about his part in “Forum or Against Em” where he poses the question “Am I just pro because I’m black.” Stevie responded by saying, “It’s just something I’ve heard before, so the crew at Forum and I thought we would address the situation. And so we did, as my intro.” Bell continued to impress both the public and major sponsors with his consistent handrail tricks and daring stunts in the backcountry.

A Utah native, Stevie Bell grew up snowboarding on the slopes of Park City Mountain Resort where he is known for his part in the documentary “I Ride Park City.” This film features top riders such as Shaun White, Torah Bright, and Scotty Arnold. As stated in Transworld Snowboarder, his outgoing and energetic personality coupled with his extensive appearances in major snowboarding films will allow him to reach to the next level and continue to be successful.

References

http://steviebell.com

Interview with Forum Pro Stevie Bell – 2011 Transworld Snowboarding

Stevie Bell

https://www.pcride.com/winter/allstars/s_bell/index.html

Category:American snowboarders Category:Living people