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don’t extradite a man to a country that conspired to murder him…….

It was a dastardly formality. On April 20, at a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, Julian Assange, beamed in via video link from Belmarsh Prison, his carceral home for three years, is to be extradited to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.

The final arbiter will be the UK Secretary of the Home Office, the security hardened Priti Patel who is unlikely to buck the trend. She has shown an all too unhealthy enthusiasm for an expansion of the Official Secrets Act which would target leakers, recipients of leaked material, and secondary publishers. The proposals seek to purposely conflate investigatory journalism and espionage activities conducted by foreign states, while increasing prison penalties from two years to 14 years.

 

BY Binoy Kampmark

 

Chief Magistrate Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring was never going to rock the judicial boat. He was “duty-bound” to send the case to the home secretary, though he did inform Assange that an appeal to the High Court could be made in the event of approved extradition prior to the issuing of the order.

It seemed a cruel turn for the books, given the ruling by District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser on January 4, 2021 that Assange would be at serious risk of suicide given the risk posed by Special Administrative Measures and the possibility that he spend the rest of his life in the ADX Florence supermax facility. Assange would be essentially killed off by a penal system renowned for its brutality. Accordingly, it was found that extraditing him would be oppressive within the meaning of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.

The US Department of Justice, ever eager to get their man, appealed to the High Court of England and Wales. They attacked the judge for her carelessness in not seeking reassurances about Assange’s welfare the prosecutors never asked for. They sought to reassure the British judges that diplomatic assurances had been given. Assange would be spared the legal asphyxiations caused by SAMs, or the dystopia of the supermax facility. Besides, his time in US detention would be medically catered for, thereby minimising the suicide risk. There would be no reason for him to take his own life, given the more pleasant surroundings and guarantees for his welfare.

A fatuous additional assurance was also thrown in: the Australian national would have the chance to apply to serve the post-trial and post-appeal phase of his sentence in the country of his birth. All such undertakings would naturally be subject to adjustment and modification by US authorities as they deemed fit. None were binding.

All this glaring nonsense was based on the vital presumption that such undertakings would be honoured by a government whose officials have debated, at stages, the publisher’s possible poisoning and abduction. Such talk of assassination was also accompanied by a relentless surveillance operation of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, directed by US intelligence operatives through the auspices of a Spanish security company, UC Global. Along the way, US prosecutors even had time to use fabricated evidence in drafting their indictment.

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Ian Burnett, and Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, in their December 2021 decision, saw no reason to doubt the good faith of the prosecutors. Assange’s suicide risk would, given the assurances, be minimised – he had, the judges reasoned, nothing to fear, given the promise that he would be exempted from the application of SAMs or the privations of ADX Florence. In this most political of trials, the judicial bench seemed unmoved by implications, state power, and the desperation of the US imperium in targeting the publishing of compromising classified information.

On appeal to the UK Supreme Court, the grounds of appeal were scandalously whittled away, with no mention of public interest, press freedom, thoughts of assassination, surveillance, or fabrication of evidence. The sole issue preoccupying the bench: “In what circumstances can an appellate court receive assurances from a requesting state which were not before the court at first instance in extradition proceedings”.

On March 14, the Supreme Court comprising Lord Reed, Lord Hodge and Lord Briggs, delivered the skimpiest of answers, without a sliver of reasoning. In the words of the Deputy Support Registrar, “The Court ordered that permission to appeal be refused because the application does not raise an arguable point of law.”

While chief magistrate Goldspring felt duty bound to relay the extradition decision to Patel, Mark Summers QC, presenting Assange, also felt duty bound to make submissions against it. “It is not open to me to raise fresh evidence and issues, even though there are fresh developments in the case.” The defence team have till May 18 to make what they describe as “serious submissions” to the Home Secretary regarding US sentencing practices and other salient issues.

Various options may present themselves. In addition to challenging the Home Secretary’s order, the defence may choose to return to the original decision of Baraitser, notably on her shabby treatment of press freedom. Assange’s activities, she witheringly claimed, lacked journalistic qualities.

Outside the channel of the Home Office, another phase in the campaign to free Assange has now opened. Activist groups, press organisations and supporters are already readying themselves for the next month. Political figures such as former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn have urged Patel “to stand up for journalism and democracy, or sentence a man for life for exposing the truth about the War on Terror.”

Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard has also fired another salvo in favour of Assange, noting that the United Kingdom “has an obligation not to send any person to a place where their life or safety is at risk and the Government must now abdicate that responsibility.”

The prospect of enlivening extraterritorial jurisdiction to target journalism and the publication of national security information, is graver than ever. It signals the power of an international rogue indifferent to due process and fearful of being caught out. But even before this momentous realisation is one irrefutable fact. The plea from Assange’s wife, Stella, sharpens the point: don’t extradite a man “to a country that conspired to murder him.”

press freedom...

Brussels Free University presents a discussion on Europe, justice and press freedom: the Julian Assange case, at 1:30 pm EDT today. Live!

 

We apologize for the poor quality of the re-stream from the source at the beginning of the video and for the lack of English translation, which the organizers did not provide. Consortium News provided summary translation to English in the chat on our YouTube page. The discussion begins at 10 and a half minutes into the stream.

 

SEE MORE:

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/22/watch-europe-and-press-freedom/

 

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

US (and UK) morally bankrupt...

On April 20, the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London formally approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US, where he is set to be tried on espionage charges. Just last month, the UK’s high court was condemned by press freedom activists after denying the 50-year-old’s appeal on International Human Rights Day. 

It would appear questions about the West’s view on human rights may have been somewhat answered by a London court’s decision to proceed with the UK to US extradition of Julian Assange, who faces 18 federal charges in the States and a maximum prison sentence of 175 years.

“I expected the UK to consider the core fundamental rights and human rights treaties it has signed, particularly the civil and political rights it has ratified,” Belgian human rights activist Andy Vermaut told Sputnik this week. “I think there are still legal avenues open to fight this judgment further.”

 

Stuart Rees, an Australian professor and human rights activist, pointed out that extradition to the US, UK, and Australian governments are carrying out actions that are contrary to their promotion of “human rights, fair play, and justice.”

“A country so fascinated with prisons, with punishment, and in the case of Julian, this significant journalist and international citizen, is bound to ignore the rule of law,” Rees said of the US, pointing out that American politicians “have already said they want Assange dead.”

 

 

READ MORE:

https://sputniknews.com/20220421/morally-bankrupt--1094953888.html

 

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW ***********************

dead as a free press…..

 The State Ordered Torment of Julian Assange

 

BY DIANA WEST

 

Now that a blob in a wig in a London courtroom has issued the order to send Julian Assange to the Soviet State of America, where the FBI is the Cheka, the courts are kangaroo, a coup took the White House, and journalism is propaganda, all that is needed for extradition is a rubber stamp.

 

That rubber stamp is expected to fall by May 18 from the hand of the UK Home Secretary. That would mean the Wikileaks publisher would be transported to the US to stand trial and face up to 175 years for committing journalism -- journalism that harnessed the Internet as a tool of exposure, not as a weapon of control. The Sovietized state of America styles the vital work of Wikileaks "espionage."

 

Dark days for us all, but for Assange, the man, father and husband, life is a void of continuing darkness and deceit -- and uninterupted torture.

 

Why? Why? Why this distortion of all due process against this one man? (And if he is extradited, as expected, will he join the J6 political prisoners, also tortured and deprived of due process, in the DC Gulag?) Most explanations for the wrath of the state(s) focus on the video released by Wikileaks, "Collateral Damage," which shows leaked video of war crimes in progress as a US air crew shoots at unarmed and wounded people, including children, on the ground in Iraq.

 

As shocking as the video is, I don't believe it can possibly be the driver of the war on Assange. I've covered numerous cases in which US soldiers were zealously prosecuted and incarcerated for war crimes by the US during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After following many of these trials, I have to conclude that the US government, far from being loathe to prosecute, is often willing, eager and even salivating to prosecute troops for alleged crimes committed on the battlefield. Indeed, these trials seemed to be used as a means of currying favor with our Muslim "allies."

 

I believe there are other reasons for the vendetta against Assange, elite-centered, not troop-centered reasons, reasons having to do with the insurrectionary powers of transparency as practiced and perfected by Wikileaks. The reasons undoubtedly multipled since the initial legal assaults on Assange over fake rape charges began in 2010, eventually driving him to seek asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy (2012-2019). They certainly included the masses of Wikileaks that destroyed Hillary Clinton, the Podestas and the DNC. Would Donald Trump have been elected without Wikileaks? I doubt it. Should he have issued a presidential pardon to Assange before leaving office? Ten thousand times YES. 

 

The story of Julian Assange is long and complex, and, unsurprisingly, not well-reported. One of the best accounts is a 2020 interview with Nilz Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, who discusses in great detail his findings in the Assange case. 

 

Excerpt:

I’m not saying Julian Assange is an angel or a hero. But he doesn’t have to be. We are talking about human rights and not about the rights of heroes or angels. Assange is a person, and he has the right to defend himself and to be treated in a humane manner. Regardless of what he is accused of, Assange has the right to a fair trial. But he has been deliberately denied that right – in Sweden, the U.S., Britain and Ecuador. Instead, he was left to rot for nearly seven years in limbo in a room. Then, he was suddenly dragged out and convicted within hours and without any preparation for a bail violation that consisted of him having received diplomatic asylum from another UN member state on the basis of political persecution, just as international law intends and just as countless Chinese, Russian and other dissidents have done in Western embassies. It is obvious that what we are dealing with here is political persecution. In Britain, bail violations seldom lead to prison sentences – they are generally subject only to fines. Assange, by contrast, was sentenced in summary proceedings to 50 weeks in a maximum-security prison – clearly a disproportionate penalty that had only a single purpose: Holding Assange long enough for the U.S. to prepare their espionage case against him.

 

... Julian Assange has been intentionally psychologically tortured by Sweden, Britain, Ecuador and the U.S. First through the highly arbitrary handling of proceedings against him. The way Sweden pursued the case, with active assistance from Britain, was aimed at putting him under pressure and trapping him in the embassy. Sweden was never interested in finding the truth and helping these women, but in pushing Assange into a corner. It has been an abuse of judicial processes aimed at pushing a person into a position where he is unable to defend himself. On top of that come the surveillance measures, the insults, the indignities and the attacks by politicians from these countries, up to and including death threats. This constant abuse of state power has triggered serious stress and anxiety in Assange and has resulted in measurable cognitive and neurological harm. I visited Assange in his cell in London in May 2019 together with two experienced, widely respected doctors who are specialized in the forensic and psychological examination of torture victims. The diagnosis arrived at by the two doctors was clear: Julian Assange displays the typical symptoms of psychological torture. If he doesn’t receive protection soon, a rapid deterioration of his health is likely, and death could be one outcome.

 

Freedom of the press is already dead.

Why must the torture of Julian Assange continue?

 

READ MORE:

https://forumfordemocracy.com/article/the-state-ordered-torment-of-julian-assange

 

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GusNote: Forum For Democracy is not liked by the Wikipedia mob.....

 

Forum for Democracy (Dutch: Forum voor Democratie, FvD) is a conservative and right-wing populist[28]Eurosceptic political party in the Netherlands that was founded as a think tank by Thierry Baudet and Henk Otten in 2016. The party first participated in elections in the 2017 general election, winning two seats in the House of Representatives. In the 2019 provincial elections, it won the most seats out of any party, although 61 out of 86 representatives have since defected.

 

 

Of note: 

"According to the Forum for Democracy, one of the main political parties in the Netherlands, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky currently sits atop of personal fortune of 850 million dollars.

He reportedly came into most of this money after his election."

 

We have no way to verify this information, but this could explain his smooth megalomaniac attitude with which he pays the Western fields.... and his refusal to make a simple deal with Russia.... Every death in Ukraine is on Zelenskyyyy-y's head.... He would know this, but he cares more about his aura...... 

 

FREE JULIA ASSANGE NOW.............