Talk:Alex Saab

Standard of English and translations

• The standard of English in this article is poor. I have tagged a few of the sentences that are poorly written but there are many others.
• Many of the translated quotes in the article are difficult to understand. There is a way of dealing with quotations from non-English languages (see MOS:FOREIGNQUOTE):

"Quotations from foreign-language sources should appear with a translation into English, preferably a modern one. Quotations that are translations should be explicitly distinguished from those that are not. Indicate the original source of a translation (if it is available, and not first published within Wikipedia), and the original language (if that is not clear from the context).

If the original, untranslated text is available, provide a reference for it or include it, as appropriate.

When editors themselves translate foreign text into English, care must always be taken to include the original text, in italics (except for non-Latin-based writing systems), and to use actual and (if at all possible) common English words in the translation. Unless you are certain of your competency to translate something, see Wikipedia:Translation for assistance".

Burrobert (talk) 13:50, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Twitter

We currently include twitter quotes from the Venezuelan foreign affairs minister and someone called Roberto Deniz. Twitter has some other quotes that we could include:

• Aaron Maté: "Everyone should know the name of Alex Saab. Kidnapped and tortured under US orders for the crime of trying to feed Venezuelans while under US sanctions that are designed to prevent that. The global Mafia Don in DC can’t tolerate such defiance".
• Joe Emersberger quotes Dan Kovalik as saying: "The US put pressure on Cabo Verde to arrest, detain and extradite Alex Saab for the crime of helping Venezuela overcome sanctions that are in themselves illegal"
• Max Blumenthal described Saab as "the Venezuelan diplomat who was actually kidnapped under US orders for trying to feed his people under US economic siege".

Burrobert (talk) 04:17, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

If someone looks closer at the article, they will notice that Roberto Deniz is a journalist from Armando.info, the investigative journalism web portal that first reported on Saab's relationship with the Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP). This is particularly important since the National Commission of Telecommunications, the regulatory government telecommunications agency, prohibited the journalists to make any mention of Saab in 2018, two years before he was arrested. The current quote from both Arreaza and Deniz illustrates the change of position by the Venezuelan administration after Saab's capture.

I don't know how much these quotes would improve the article, whose authors haven't been mentioned yet, but The Grayzone, in which both Blumenthal and Maté have been regular contributors, was deprecated from Wikipedia in 2020 (see WP:RSP), so their statements probably shouldn't be included per the same rationale. Likewise, Emersberger is a contrbiutor of Telesur and Venezuelanalysis, which have been deemed to be deprecated and as unreliable, respectively, specially for Venezuelan topics. Furthermore, their position is already covered and considered in the article, including that Saab is helping Venezuela evade US sanctions and that he has been tortured, namely by his defense and by his CNN interview, so their additions would not contribute very much to the content. --NoonIcarus (talk) 10:49, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree with the argument that, if a source is deprecated, then anyone who has written for that source is also deprecated. If there is a policy statement supporting your position let me know. Anyway, Dan Kovalik wrote on his own Twitter account that "The United States is putting pressure on Cape Verde to arrest, detain and extradite Alex Saab for the crime of helping Venezuela overcome sanctions that are in themselves illegal". Burrobert (talk) 16:43, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Being a contributor to a deprecated source is definitely not in itself a reason not to quote, but might make us pause and think about the rationale. The bigger issue, I think, is that there is no evidence that these tweets are noteworthy, unless they are picked up by reliable secondary sources. What makes these tweets noteworthy? The foreign minister is noteworthy as the voice of government, and there is at least one secondary source for his tweet indicating its noteworthiness. I'd delete the Roberto Deniz tweet and not add any more unless news sources cover them. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:31, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Someone, somewhere should try to construct an encyclopaedia based only on tweets. It would make for interesting reading. We need to be more careful here though; even more so since this is a BLP. Burrobert (talk) 12:45, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

CounterPunch

Regarding the reliability of Counterpunch, the Perennial Source list says "There is no consensus regarding the reliability of CounterPunch. As a biased or opinionated source, its statements should be attributed". The statements sourced to CounterPunch have been attributed.

A question was asked about whether something that appeared in CounterPunch was noteworthy. I think the following statement is noteworthy as it provides the reader with a list of countries which oppose the detention of Saab, something we have not done elsewhere.

Roger Harris, a board member of the Task Force on the Americas, wrote in CounterPunch that Iran, China, Russia, the United Nations, the African Union, ECOWAS, and Venezuela had written diplomatic letters to Cape Verde asking that Saab's extradition be refused based on the "principles of immunity and inviolability of consular rights".

The other statement that references Counterpunch is

according to CounterPunch, the US asked that the period allowed for its response be extended to 7 October.

This statement could be combined with an earlier sentence. The key point is the date for the response from the US. Something like :The US is required to respond by 7 October" would work.

In the earlier sentence a wikilink to the "Task Force on the Americas" has been added but the page does not exist. Burrobert (talk) 13:25, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

The fact the Task Force has no WP page might be a clue to its lack of notability. Here is its page on Harris, who is a retired conservationist active in the Peace and Freedom Party. Harris' CounterPunch article in seems to have been re-posted unchanged from Dissident Voice, which I don't think has any editorial oversight: [1] If the content is not sourcable from elsewhere, maybe it isn't noteworthy? BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:17, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

"It is useful while editing articles to add a red link to indicate that a page will be created soon or that an article should be created for the topic because the subject is notable and verifiable". Since you created the red links to Roger Harris and "Task Force on the Americas", I assume you consider them notable. I think readers would appreciate knowing the position of various countries and groups on Saab. It is the type of factual information that readers look for in an encyclopaedia. I think the article can be judged against CounterPunch's standards since it was published there. Burrobert (talk) 15:50, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

The statement regarding support is misleading and should be edited accordingly. Per WP:RS/P, other sources should be added. --NoonIcarus (talk) 19:05, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

How is it misleading? What actually happened? Did those countries write to Cape Verde? What are your sources? Burrobert (talk) 14:54, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

The United Nations Human Rights Committee is not the same as the United Nations, and the ECOWAS Court of Justice is not the same as the Economic Community of West African States, for instance. It's important that other misrepresentations don't take place (for example, if a subordinate body of the African Union showed the support instead of the entire organization, if any), as BobFromBrockley mentioned, which is the purpose of major sources in the first place. Considering this and what was said above, I'm not sure how much this statement should be trusted. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:32, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

No extradition treaty between Cape Verde and the US

Apparently Cape Verde has no extradition treaty with the US. We have not mentioned that fact, which seems quite pertinent. Any thoughts? Burrobert (talk) 16:02, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

It would be an interesting point to discuss. The legitimacy of the extradition appears to be based mostly in the INTERPOl notice, regardless of the moment when it was issued, and the fact that Saab is also sought in Colombia. --NoonIcarus (talk) 19:09, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes I am sure there are other legal angles to consider. However, the non-existence of an extradition treaty does seem to be a relevant detail. Burrobert (talk) 19:16, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Sources

On what basis are CounterPunch and Al Bawaba being tagged as unreliable sources? Burrobert (talk) 02:42, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Burrobert (talk) 22:05, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. Mostly BobFromBrockley's comments in its respective section, I will try to give more details briefly. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:26, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I believe I can elaborate further. BobFromBrockley specifically said that CounterPunch's article seems to have been re-posted unchanged from Dissident Voice, which I don't think has any editorial oversight, which should be inmeidately a red flag. However, I there are some other issues at hand. Besides the misrepresentation that I explained above (The United Nations Human Rights Committee is not the same as the United Nations, and the ECOWAS Court of Justice is not the same as the Economic Community of West African States), both articles clearly lack neutrality. In the case of Counterpunch, some of the examples are the following:

• Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab remains defiant
• he is fighting extradition to the US for the “crime” of trying to procure humanitarian supplies of food, fuel, and medicine from Iran in violation of illegal US sanctions.
• Saab continues to fight this flagrant attempt of extra-territorial judicial overreach by the US.
• To begin with, Saab’s arrest on June 12, 2020, was arbitrary, illegal, and irregular.
• Such is the truly farcical legal basis for the diplomat’s detention.
• This was denied on the absurd grounds (...)
• This legal theatre around the Saab case serves as an obfuscation for what is fundamentally a political case of the US (...)
• Saab, however, remains defiant ([sic], again)

Just to to mention some. Its wording sounds more like an opinion piece than a news article, and that alone should be enough to preclude its inclusion. It should be reminded that Saab has criminal investigations open in Colombia, Liechtenstein and the United States; even if there are objections regarding irregularities or comments about due process, they should be expressed in an impartial manner.

While Al Bawaba appears to have a more neutral tone, there are still parts that are troublesome:

• Unfortunately, rather than focus on the humanitarian needs of Alex Saab the Cape Verde authorities decided to politicise a health matter and focussed instead on the jurisdiction of the ECOWAS Court to rule on Mr Saab’s application.
• (...) but once again the Cape Verde authorities elected to politicise the matter rather than demonstrate the compassion which the TRB espouses in its decision of yesterday.

Fortunately, the content sourced by Al Bawaba should be more readily available someplace else.

I also see you have started a thread in the reliable sources noticeboard (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#CounterPunch and Al Bawaba), and I would have had hoped that at least a notification was left in this talk page. Regards. --NoonIcarus (talk) 15:36, 11 September 2021 (UTC)