I rather felt the same when woken to the news that Sweden now wants to extradite Julian Assange on long abandoned “sex-charges” from 2010.

What do they mean by that? Inevitably at this stage, one must speculate but I don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows. I think they mean no good.

The US extradition application is already before the British courts and public opinion about the persecution of the whistleblower Assange has begun to turn. Even amongst those recently most hostile to the WikiLeaks founder – the very journalists who once waited upon his every word.

The grossly disproportionate charges being lined up in the US justice system – for a man who on any honest reading AT WORST merely facilitated a leak of truthful information of great public interest and published it – might well find an honest British judge unpersuaded of the justice of the US case. Perhaps the US or British government – itself scarcely in need of another long bitter national controversy – had seen the same straws in the wind as me, a change of climate with regard to Julian Assange.

This would certainly be a reason for re-awakening the public to the twice abandoned sex-case against Assange by Sweden – a kind of re-smear. A topping up of liberal revulsion for fear that the balance of revulsion had begun dangerously to tip against the US case.

The most obvious reason though is a belt and braces, insurance policy. Should the US extradition application fail in England well it may succeed in Sweden which is if anything a country even more beholden to the US Empire than Britain is. It means Assange faces not one but two extradition battles. And so do his legal team, his friends and supporters and his fundraising network.

I'd say it was the crushing of a butterfly upon the wheel, except Assange is no butterfly – he stings like a bee – and the US Empire is way more wonky than any wheel. The US president used to pray in aid of Julian Assange, praised WikiLeaks, and yet Trump's own Justice Department is now straining every sinew seeking to put Assange behind bars in America for the rest of his natural on an ever-lengthening number of charges.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/459231-assange-sweden-rape-charges/

The Australian Government has not done enough to protect Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from extradition to the United States, according to former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce.

• Mr Joyce said Assange was not on US soil when he began releasing classified information and should be protected 
• Prime Minister Scott Morrison has previously said Assange would not receive any special treatment but would receive consular support while in prison
• Assange previously sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearing extradition to the US

Mr Joyce has called for the Federal Government to step in and try to stop Assange being extradited from the United Kingdom to the US on espionage charges.

Assange is currently behind bars in London after living in the Ecuadorian Embassy for seven years.

Mr Joyce said Assange was not on US soil when he began releasing classified information and he should be protected.

"Sovereignty is not just for people that you like or people that you have a philosophical relationship to, it might be for someone you detest, it might be for someone that you find completely obnoxious," Mr Joyce said.

"Nonetheless, if they're a citizen of this nation, they should be afforded the rights of a citizen."

A judge in London in April found the WikiLeaks founder guilty of breaching his bail. 

Assange faced sexual assault allegations in Sweden when he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London 2012, fearing extradition to the US.

Relations between the Australian and his Ecuadorian hosts soured in the final months of his stay at the embassy.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-14/barnaby-joyce-calls-on-government...

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Two medical experts accompanied Melzer when he visited Assange at Belmarsh prison in the UK, he said on Tuesday. 

We came to the conclusion that he had been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time. That's a medical assessment.

Melzer’s message fell largely on deaf ears, as only a handful of reporters attended Tuesday’s press conference at the UN headquarters in New York. 

It was not the first time that Melzer has tried to bring attention to Assange’s plight. He wrote an opinion piece about it in June, only to find it ignored or rejected by mainstream media outlets, and ended up publishing open letters to the US, British, Ecuadorian, and Swedish governments in July.

“We asked for all the involved states to investigate this case and to alleviate the pressure that has been done on him, and especially to respect his due process rights, which in my view have been systematically violated in all these jurisdictions,” Melzer said on Tuesday. No country has agreed to do so, he added, even though this was their obligation under the Convention on Torture.

British police dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy on April 11, after the government of President Lenin Moreno revoked his asylum, granted in 2012. The WikiLeaks publisher spent almost seven years inside the embassy in London, where he sought refuge from arrest and extradition to the US on charges related to his 2010 publication of top-secret government documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/471016-assange-torture-violations-un/

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FREE ASSANGE TODAY...

...

Grounds for extradition to the United States from the UK, argued Joyce, had not been made out. “If a person is residing in Australia and commits a crime in another country, I don’t believe that is a position for extradition.”

Independent Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie is also mucking in, hoping to cobble together a coalition of supporters in the Australian parliament to support Assange’s return to Australia.  

“The only party I’m having to work extra hard on getting members of the group is Labor.”

The more traditional front, however, is being maintained by the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg. “He [Assange] ultimately will face the justice for what he’s been alleged to have done, but that is a legal process that will run its course.”

Rather weakly, Frydenberg made a lukewarm concession: that “we will continue, as a government, to provide him with the appropriate consular services.”

If there was a time to fight legal eccentricity and viciousness, it is now.  Just as Hicks and Habib faced complicity and a range of stretched and flexible legal categories, Assange faces that most elastic of instruments designed to stifle publishing and whistleblowing: the US Espionage Act of 1917. 

Should he be extradited from the United Kingdom and face the imperial goon squad in Washington, we will be spectators to that most depraved of state acts: the criminalisation of publishing. Australia’s parliamentarians, never the sharpest tools in the political box, are starting to stir with that realisation.

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/10/14/a-coalition-of-support-parliamentari...

Labor should help free Assange as a priority...

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Josh Frydenberg is an nasty idiot.

FREE ASSANGE TODAY.

human rights

Julian’s letter to Gordan Dimmack finished with the powerful sentence:

‘Truth, ultimately, is all we have.’ 

The truth, however, is a powerful weapon. There is no doubt if we can get the truth out of why Julian is being persecuted and what is at stake, ordinary people will respond and join the fight to free him en masse. If this was not true, it would not be necessary for the U.S. and its allies to endlessly smear Assange through the press and censor his plight by omission.

So, you know what to do. Follow Julian’s advice: start or join a free Assange committee, organise and join protests, write to Julian, stay optimistic and fight, remember what’s at stake and wield the truth as our weapon.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/letters-from-belmarsh...

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Tonight on Channel 10, The Project, someone said: "It's not about Assange, it's about (press freedom)..."

WRONG! It's about Assange. Press freedom is a poor cousin in this case. Assange is the person who is suffering beyond the call of duty of "press freedom"... The UK has been worst than the worst ever country in the world, with nothing to do much with "press freedom" but with individual liberty in a situation designed to satisfy another country's fancy... It's a bastardry act with the morals and the ethics of the devil...

ASSANGE SHOULD BE FREE TODAY !

US DoJ preparing to file additional indictment against Julian Assange based on testimony by convicted conman

The star witness in the pending new indictment of the US DoJ against Julian Assange is a convicted fraudster and FBI informant Sigurdur Thordarson.

The United States Department of Justice is preparing a new superseding indictment against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange before the extradition deadline on June 14th.

Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported that Sigurdur Thordarson was flown to the United States last week where he was "comprehensively interrogiated", in preparation for the filing of a new superseding indictment against Julian Assange by the end of next week.

NOS reported that on May 6th this, FBI Special Agent Megan Brown, who leads the FBI investigation against Assange, travelled to Iceland together with prosecutor Kellen Dwyer from the Eastern District of Virginia, to re-interrogiate FBI informant Thordarson with the help of Icelandic police. Dwyer's cut-and-paste error led to revelation in November 2018 that the Department of Justice had indicted Assange.

On May 27th, US authorities flew Sigurdur Thordarson to Washington D.C. for further interrogiations, where he remained until June 1.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks:

"The Trump administration is so desparate to build its case against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange that it is using a diagnosed sociopath, a convicted conman and sex criminal, who was exposed by the highest levels of the Icelandic government as an FBI informant and who was involved in an entrapment operation in 2011 against Julian Assange."

Thordarson, who was recently released from prison, agreed to be interrogiated to help build a case against Assange. Thordarson had served a three-year sentence for multiple counts of embezzlement and fraud, including against WikiLeaks and sex crimes against nine minors. Thordarsson stole tens of thousands of dollars from WikiLeaks, and impersonated Julian Assange in order to carry out the embezzlement.

As part of the criminal prosecution of Thordarson in Iceland, he was examined by a forensic psychiatrist who diagnosed him as a sociopath.

Thordarson told NOS that the interrogiations focussed on his own communications with fellow FBI-informant Hector Monsegut (aka "SABU"). These contacts involve an operation by the FBI that was exposed as an "entrapment" operation "against Julian Assange" by the Interior Minister of Iceland, Ogmundur Jonasson, as reported by the Daily Mail in 2013.

While the case would collapse in the U.S. due to the prosecution's reliance on testimony by Thordarson and Monsegur, who are not credible witnesses, the United States can conceal their witnesses identities during UK extradition proceedings in order to boost their chances of winning. This will make it impossible for Assange to challenge the credibility of the witnesses during UK extradition proceedings, which will commence on 14 June.

In 2011, the Icelandic government expelled "eight or nine" FBI agents and prosecutors who had flown from the Eastern District of Virginia because they were conducting unauthorised activities on Icelandic soil against Assange and WikiLeaks. The episode was reported in the New York Times in 2013.

By contrast, the current Icelandic government has cooperated with the Trump Administration's efforts to build a case against WikiLeaks.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, editor of WikiLeaks, yesterday sent a letter demanding an explanation from Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, Foreign Minister Guolaugur Por Poroarson, Justice Minister Pordis Kolbrun Gylfadottir, Chief of the National Police Haraldur Johannessen, and General Procescutor Sigriour J. Friojonsdottir regarding the Icelandic governments participation in what is widely recognised to be a US-led political persecution against foreign members of the press including Icelandic citizens, for their role in exposing war crimes and other illegal activities during consecutive US administrations. 

Last week, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer presented his findings that a "collective persecution" is underway against Assange, after having conducted an investigation into the situation of the WikiLeaks publisher, who is arbitrarily detained in Belmarsh prison in London.

The rapporteur told Australian public radio ABC that Assange's health was in serious decline and that there is a "very real" risk that he could die in prison.

Read more:

https://wikileaks.org/US-DoJ-Preparing-Additional-Indictment.html

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FREE ASSANGE TODAY !

The full extradition hearing of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will go ahead in February 2020 after a London judge declined a request by his lawyers to delay proceedings by three months.

• Julian Assange was denied a request to delay his extradition proceedings by three months, with the full hearing still set to take place over five days in late February 2020
• Assange's lawyer Mark Summers accused the US of illegally spying on Assange while he was inside the Ecuadorian Embassy seeking refuge
• Scores of the WikiLeaks founder's supporters filled the courtroom and protested outside it

Assange appeared in a packed court on Monday to fight extradition to the United States, where the 48-year-old faces 18 counts, including conspiring to hack into Pentagon government computers and violating an espionage law.

Former Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed an order in June allowing Assange to be extradited to the US, where authorities accuse him of scheming with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break a password for a classified government computer.

He could spend decades in prison if convicted.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-22/wikileaks-founder-assange-in-cour...

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Meanwhile, our media fights for their "own" freedom, SOMEWHAT forgetting the persecution of Assange in a VICIOUS English fake justice system, designed to please the crooked system of the USA, rather than serve our right to know ...

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The nation's media companies have redacted their front pages to highlight the constraints on media organisations under strict national security legislation.

• Major newspapers are featuring "censored" front pages to show the impact of government secrecy
• It follows a television campaign launched on Sunday night
• Media organisations want greater protections for journalists and whistleblowers

National mastheads, including The Australian and the Financial Review, ran special covers on Monday morning arguing the media is subject to a regime of intense government secrecy and the threat of criminal charges for journalists doing their job.

The nation's broadcasters began running campaigns on air during their Sunday prime time line-ups, depicting redacted Freedom of Information requests and arguing the media cannot fulfil its duty in keeping the public informed if its work is being hampered.

The Right To Know coalition, of which the ABC is a member, is behind the campaign, calling for the decriminalisation of public interest journalism, and greater protection for the media and whistleblowers.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-21/media-unites-to-rally-for-press-f...

ASSANGE SHOULD BE FREE. FREE ASSANGE TODAY!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ5Cpt3-YDY

https://www.rt.com/news/471434-assange-recorded-prison-van/

Julian Assange has instructed British authorities to stop releasing any information about him to the Australian High Commission in London.

Consular officials have written to the Wikileaks leader four times since the order was made on June 14, but have not received a response.

“The High Commission continues to reach out to Mr Assange to offer consular assistance,” Department of Foreign Affairs assistant secretary Andrew Todd told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday.

“There has been no reply to any of those approaches.”

Australian diplomats wrote to Mr Assange’s lawyer last week, requesting that she raise with him their offer of consular assistance.

“We have not heard back from that particular approach,” Mr Todd said.

Mr Assange is currently behind bars in London after living in the Ecuadorian Embassy for seven years.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said last week legal processes “should run their course” and he believed Mr Assange should “face the music”.

His position is in contrast to former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce.

“Sovereignty is not just for people that you like or people that you have a philosophical relationship to, it might be for someone you detest, it might be for someone that you find completely obnoxious,” Mr Joyce said.

“Nonetheless, if they’re a citizen of this nation, they should be afforded the rights of a citizen.”

A group of 11 MPs from across the political spectrum have joined forces to form a Parliamentary Working Group focused on bringing Mr Assange back to Australia.

The group is co-chaired by independent Andrew Wilkie, a longtime supporter of the Australian, and Queensland MP George Christensen.

Also on board are Labor MPs Julian Hill and Steve Georganas, Centre Alliance MPs Rebekha Sharkie and Rex Patrick, Greens leader Richard Di Natale, his deputy Adam Bandt, senator Peter Whish-Wilson and independent Zali Steggall.

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2019/10/24/julian-assange-high-com...

Read from top.

The Scummo government is full of shit. For Scummo himself to say in a hypocritical religious voice, with his right hand crossing his Christian crotch: "Mr Assange should face the music" is a totally misrepresenting statement of the situation. There is no music to be faced but a concocted litany of embarrassing secrecy from a loony US government, exposed for the public rightfully. Scummo should be ashamed of himself though he might go to confession for absolution of his crummy lying life.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE !

Concerns for the mental and physical welfare of Julian Assange are mounting among human rights activists- as the mainstream media continue to mock his declining health.

Craig Murray is a human rights activist and former UK ambassador. He’s expressed ‘extreme concern’ after witnessing first hand the hearing at the Westminster Magistrates Court.

Sputnik: How have the events leading up to Monday’s hearing affected Julian Assange, both physically, and mentally?

Craig Murray: Well, I was really shocked to see him in the court on Monday. His appearance has changed radically. He's aged about 20 years in the year since I've seen him. I understand he's lost about 15 kilos in weight or more, just in the time he's been in Belmarsh Prison. That's in a very few months. He's suffered hair loss and premature ageing, he looks far older, he's walking with a severe limp, which he didn't have when he went into the prison. And he's incoherent. Plainly, he doesn't have his mental capacity. He had great difficulty recalling his name and his date of birth when he was asked.

When he attempted to say something at the end when he was asked whether he understood proceedings, he first said he didn't really understand what's been happening. And then he tried to make a statement about the inequity of the proceedings and the lack of facilities afforded to him to prepare his defence, but he couldn't get the words out. He was struggling to speak, struggling to string together a sentence. And, you know, this is the most intelligent, most articulate man I have ever met, reduced to a situation where he physically is unable to speak, and is unable to follow what was happening in court. I was extremely concerned.

Sputnik: The special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, wrote an article in June named ‘Demasking the Torture of Assange’. Do you think Assange’s treatment by the British state constitutes ‘torture’?

Craig Murray: I'm sure this constitutes torture. I mean, I don't know precisely what is being done to him. I know that he's kept in solitary confinement. He is watched all the time. He's only allowed out of his cell for 45 minutes a day. And then the corridors are cleared before he walks through them. Other prisoners are locked away so that nobody can speak to him. During the exercise period, he has very limited and highly supervised contact with a few other prisoners. Certainly this prolonged solitary confinement is a form of torture, but I don't know what else is being done to him. It was difficult to believe that that's the only thing that is happening to him, seeing his condition in court, and his physical symptoms. I'm very, very concerned and I have worked with torture victims. I worked with torture victims in Uzbekistan, I saw torture victims on trial in Uzbekistan. I've also worked with torture victims in Sierra Leone. I know how they behave, and he is behaving exactly as a tortured victim behaves. He has all the symptoms of a torture victim, in terms of disorientation and difficulty in asserting their will and speaking coherently, which was also Nils Melzer, who is the UN expert on torture, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, he made precisely the same observation. There's no doubt this is true, what we're looking at here is a torture victim.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/interviews/201910251077141557-julian-assange-sho...

Tortured and possibly drugged...

FREE ASSANGE !