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12 Facts About Katharine Gun

1.

Katharine Teresa Gun is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters.

2.

Katharine Gun's father studied Chinese at Durham University and taught at Tunghai University in the city of Taichung, central Taiwan.

3.

Katharine Gun has a younger brother who was teaching in Taiwan.

4.

Katharine Gun's upbringing later led her to describe herself as a "third culture kid".

5.

Katharine Gun graduated with an upper second-class degree, then took a job as an assistant English teacher with the JET program in Hiroshima, Japan.

6.

Katharine Gun left teaching in 1999, and after some temporary jobs, finding it difficult to find work as a linguist, she applied to GCHQ in 2001 after reading a newspaper advertisement for the organisation.

7.

Katharine Gun spent a night in police custody, and eight months later was charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act.

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8.

Katharine Gun's case became a cause celebre among activists, and many people stepped forward to urge the government to drop the case.

9.

The film about Katharine Gun suggests that the case against her was dropped because Gun's defence team asked for disclosure of the attorney general's initial legal advice to Tony Blair before the invasion.

10.

Katharine Gun received the Sam Adams Award for 2003 and was supported in her case by the UK human rights pressure group Liberty and in the US by the Institute for Public Accuracy.

11.

Two years after her trial, Katharine Gun wrote an article titled "Iran: Time to Leak", which asked whistleblowers to make public any information about plans for a potential war against Iran.

12.

Daniel Ellsberg praised the swiftness and importance of Katharine Gun taking action, saying it was in some ways more significant than his own whistleblowing on the Vietnam War.