Framing the relentless attack on an effective publisher as a matter of "women's rights"

Summary: The first part of a series which looks at classic union-busting (or publication-silencing) strategies; how the EPO's management exploits perceived (or sexed up) scandals to crush dissent or staff representatives (without it ever looking so)

CHRISTMAS is a lovely time of year that my wife and I enjoy every year, but it is also a hostage scenario (with ransom) for EPO managers. What kind of a sick organisation would take advantage of illnesses, holidays and even cancer as a pretext for some higher agenda? Well, the EPO is rather unique. It's amazing that it has gotten away with it for this long.

"Our sources aren't one single person but several anonymous sources who shared material with us and showed us the way they had been mistreated."In the coming weeks we have two large series left to publish. One deals with private profits alongside the 'public' EPO, where the culprits are some of the highest level managers (or former managers). The second deals with the way in which, "with bad intent" as one of our sources put it, the EPO exploits tragedy (e.g. death in the family) to achieve certain objectives. It's a brutal, merciless kind of behaviour -- one that we have come to expect from the most ruthless regimes in Indochina. Our sources aren't one single person but several anonymous sources who shared material with us and showed us the way they had been mistreated. There is a large degree of overlap in some of these stories, so there is occasionally room for fusion.

We never quite eliminated the 'backlog' of EPO articles. It keeps growing as fast as we publish, which has been very often in recent months. Some stories are institutional in nature and some are more personal. Some are high priority (meriting immediate publication), whereas some can wait for a while. Some are harder to write (requiring a lot of additional research) and some are rather trivial. The flow of information we receive may never finish or come to an end any time soon, especially considering the expansion in the number of sources we now have. Trying to organise/foresee the order of publication so as to fit a useful structural narrative has proven quite challenging. We do the best we can given the circumstances and the growing pressure.

"We will soon get around to writing about cancer among other topics that cause controversy within the Office."At this moment of time the staff unions at the EPO are under severe attacks. Some of them don't even realise it until it's too late. SUEPO is at the front of the line because SUEPO is by far the biggest. Anything that helps amplify the message regarding union-busting at the EPO will, in our assessment, help protect the unions (including their representatives), so we encourage people to send us any material they have which may be related to this. It's not about SUEPO, which we deem somewhat of a scapegoat at the moment (the management is making an example out of it to induce self-censorship and fear). Its strong responses to EPO management are largely reactionary, but EPO-funded media tries to frame SUEPO as combative, hence worthy of the way it has been treated (misinterpretation of the cycle of institutional violence). SUEPO isn't evil like the EPO's management wants the public/media (and maybe even gullible examiners) to believe. It's on the receiving end of a massive PR campaign, as well as prosecutorial abuse (or misconduct). It's both terrifying and worrisome; one might be discouraged from being/getting involved, mainly for fear of reprisal or personal retribution (even totally innocent people are not safe or immune to accusations). Nobody wants to become a target of the prosecutorial abuse apparatus. What the goons of Battistelli hope for right now is silence and apathy among staff (they're not getting it right now), which then makes it simpler to dismiss 'unwanted' staff. The EPO's staff currently makes this unworthy of the backlash (at the moment at least); it's simply a hornet's nest. But what happens if:

1. An accused staff representative is demonised to the point of losing public support (see for instance Julian Assange) or
2. Gets dismissed on the grounds of some totally separate and orthogonal ground (like hypocritical "harassment", as in the case of Elizabeth Hardon), obscuring the real motivation for dismissal?

Wikileaks is already too 'scary' to offer help to; SUEPO is getting there too. That's not because Wikileaks or SUEPO are thoroughly discredited; it's because anyone who's involved is massively attacked. Visibly attacked.

The EPO's management seems to be doing something rather clever these days. Some details will be given in future parts of this series because there is a lot of information to be shared (too much to be digested in just one day). We will soon get around to writing about cancer among other topics that cause controversy within the Office.

"First of all I want to commend you for the courage to keep this blog," wrote a patent examiner to us. "Few people are brave enough to oppose authority and regardless of the outcome one should take a stand whenever private or collective rights are abused by the ones in power. Battistelli has hijacked the office and turned the management into a mafia organization where the "capo" is surrounded by sycophants. The atmosphere is unbearable and the main topic of discussion everywhere is the abuse of the system by the president."

"I would like to send you a letter signed by French director Yann Chabod," we were told, "a member of the Battistelli inner circle, as a response to a demand by a lady suffering from breast cancer. The inhumanity of the response is unbelievable."

We are waiting and hoping to be able to publish this letter soon, so anyone with access to it, please consider sending it to us (my PGP key is shown in every page on the right hand side). Part II of this series will most likely be published after Boxing Day. ⬆