bdnews24.com :The anonymous whistleblower behind the Panama Papers leaks has offered to make available documents to governments around the world.Known simply as John Doe, he issued a statement to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.There, he urged for more stringent whistleblower protection laws.In an 1800-word statement, Doe gives justification for the leak, saying that “income inequality isone of the defining issues of our time” and says government authorities need to do more to address it.The statement is titled “The Revolution will be digitized” and Süddeutsche Zeitung has authenticated that the statement came from the Panama Papers source.In the statement, Doe says, “Income inequality is one of the defining issues of our time. It affects all of us, the world over.”The debate over its sudden acceleration has raged for years, with politicians, academics and activists alike helpless to stop its steady growth despite countless speeches, statistical analyses, a few meagre protests, and the occasional documentary. Still, questions remain: why? And why now?”Doe claims that the Panama Papers provide answers to the questions and identifies “massive, pervasive corruption” as the causes.Offering justification to the Mossack Fonseca leak, Doe says, “Shell companies are often associated with the crime of tax evasion, but the Panama Papers show beyond a shadow of a doubt that although shell companies are not illegal by definition, they are used to carry out a wide array of serious crimes that go beyond evading taxes. “I decided to expose Mossack Fonseca because I thought its founders, employees and clients should have to answer for their roles in these crimes, only some of which have come to light thus far. It will take years, possibly decades, for the full extent of the firm’s sordid acts to become known.”Doe claims a new debate has emerged worldwide that has moved away from “polite rhetoric of yesteryear that carefully omitted any suggestion of wrongdoing by the elite” to “this debate (that) focuses directly on what matters.”Giving a sneak peek into his identity, Doe says, “For the record, I do not work for any government or intelligence agency, directly or as a contractor, and I never have.”My viewpoint is entirely my own, as was my decision to share the documents with Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), not for any specific political purpose, but simply because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the injustices they described.”Speaking of the prevalent approach of the media in reporting corruption, Doe says the current media narrative has focused primarily on scandals and on what is illegal.”But we must not lose sight of another important fact: the law firm, its founders, and employees actually did knowingly violate myriad laws worldwide, repeatedly. Publicly they plead ignorance, but the documents show detailed knowledge and deliberate wrongdoing.”
