Assange

Amid Grave Concerns For His Health, Assange Transferred To Belmarsh Prison Medical Wing

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/30/jasa-m30.html

"WikiLeaks issued a statement today confirming that its founder Julian Assange has been transferred to the medical ward of Britain's Belmarsh Prison. The media organisation said it has 'grave concerns about the state of health of our publisher.' 

It reported: 'During the 7 weeks in Belmarsh his health has deteriorated and he has dramatically lost weight. The decision of prison authorities to transfer him to the health ward speaks for itself.' The statement must send the alarm for all defenders of democratic rights. The British authorities' detention of Assange in Belmarsh Prison, a maximum-security facility dubbed the UK's Guantanamo is a continuation of the 8-year campaign by the US government and its allies to physically and psychologically destroy the WikiLeaks founder.

It is part of the ongoing denial of Assange's fundamental legal and human rights, aimed at preventing him from mounting  any defence against unprecedented US Espionage Act charges over WikiLeaks exposure of war crimes, mass surveillance operations and global diplomatic conspiracies..."

Assange Psychologically Tortured To 'Breaking Point'

https://youtu.be/G5PRt65Sryw

"What has shocked me about this particular case is how a single individual has been isolated and singled out by several 'democratic' states and persecuted in a sustained manner to the point of breaking him..." - UN Special Rapporteur on Torture - 

The UN Torture Report on Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society (and vid)

http://gorillaradioblogspot.blogspot.com/2019/05/assange-treatment-indic...

"...Today, following a scorching rebuke of multiple governments by UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer, media outlets around the world are reporting that Julian Assange has been found to be the victim of brutal psychological torture.

Melzer, who by his own admission began his investigation - as someone who had 'been affected by the same misguided smear campaign as everybody else,' regarding Assange, speaks of Assange's plight with the fresh-eyed ferocity of a man who has not been immersed in a soul-corroding career in establishment politics or mass media.

A man who, when looking deeply and objectively into the facts with uncorrupted vision, was able to see clearly just how unforgivably abusive Assange's treatment has been. 'In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law,' Melzer said. 'The collective persecution of Julian Assange must end now!'

Melzer condemned attempts to extradite Assange to the US under the Espionage Act as well as what he called 'a relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Mr Assange, not only in the US, but also in the UK, Sweden and more recently Ecuador..."

Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray on Julian Assange

"I have no confidence whatsoever in the British justice system."

https://youtu.be/pPrR_bBKENA

Murray: The Unrelenting State

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/05/the-unrelenting-state/
 

"I witnessed enough of the British state's complicity in torture to know that this may be more than just the consequence of unintended neglect. The mills of God grind slowly. Those of the devil seem to spin dangerously fast..."

NDPP wrote:

Sydney Peace Prize Recipients Demand Australian Government Defend Assange

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/03/sydd-j03.html

"...Signatories to last week's statement supporting Assange included world-renowned defenders of civil liberties. Among them were well-known Australian investigative journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, artist  and anti-war activist George Gittoes, human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, Zimbabwean politician Senator Sekai Holland, Indian environmental advocate Vandana Shiva and US linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky.

The statement was issued following the unveiling of 17 espionage charges against Assange for WikiLeaks' exposures of US war crimes and diplomatic conspiracies. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison. 'Julian's 'crime' is courageous, truthful journalism,' the statement declared. 'In response to WikiLeaks' revelations about murderous wars and US spying to promote the economic dominance of US companies, the Trump administration seeks revenge.'

The Peace Prize recipients warned that through its charges against Assange, the US is seeking to 'falsely claim a legal basis for their actions' which 'reflect the naked political motives of a great power..."

Unfortunately, they can demand all they want, there was never was, and never will be, even the slightest required Austrailian diplomatic representation for Assange in his seven year imprisonment.

Years ago, the leaked emails of US government security contracter Stratfor illustrated the anti-Assange collusion with Austrailian government officials.

In the last few days , the inner fascism of Five Eyes /US constellation of security states is increasingingly and unapologetically out in the open.

Journalists and whistlebowers who expose the crimes and dark underside of state operations are intimidated and targetted, and it is becoming normalized in Australia:

Australia: Police raid ABC headquarters over Afghanistan stories : Police search the TV corporation's offices in Sydney in second high-profile probe into news outlets in 24 hours.

Police in Australia raided the headquarters of national broadcaster ABC in connection with a series of stories it ran in 2017 on accusations of unlawful killings committed by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.

The operation on Wednesday came just a day after police raided the Canberra home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst about a report that detailed the authorities' bid to gain powers to spy on citizens' communications at home....

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/australia-police-raid-abc-headqua...

Warring Against Sources: The Australian National Security State, Journalism and the Public Interest   06 JUN 2019 Binoy Kampmark

“What’s gone on this morning sends clear and dangerous signals to journalists and newsrooms across Australia. This will chill public interest reporting.” – News Corp Australia spokesperson, The West Australian, June 4, 2019

These are dark times for journalists and publishers. It did not seem coincidental that Annika Smethurst, a News Corp journalist, and political affairs editor, would be a target of an Australian Federal Police warrant. Chelsea Manning, courtesy of a ruling by Judge Anthony Trenga, remains in federal custody in the United States. Julian Assange is facing decline in the maximum security abode that is Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom.

The story supposedly linked to the AFP [Australia Federal Police] warrant had been published by Smethurst on April 29, 2018. More than a year had elapsed, with little in the way of public murmurings. Australians have, for the most part, fallen under the anesthetist’s spell regarding intrusive, unnecessary and dangerous national security laws. Another set of them would hardly matter....

https://intpolicydigest.org/2019/06/06/warring-against-sources-the-austr...

John Lyons

AFP: I’m still staggered by the power of this warrant. It allows the AFP to “add, copy, delete or alter” material in the ABC’s computers. All Australians, please think about that: as of this moment, the AFP has the power to delete material in the ABC’s computers. Australia 2019.

https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmU9HjRT3zQ

Further to post #260:

Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald

The police attacks on journalists in Australia are becoming genuinely frightening - police now showing up at journalists' homes, demanding passwords, downloading phones & computers. But the irony is few defended Assange, whose treatment is the template

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1136609580044214272

WikiLeaks Warns US Justice Department Preparing New Charges Against Assange

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/07/assa-j07.html

"The US Justice Department is preparing even more charges against journalist and publisher Julian Assange, WikiLeaks warned Thursday. The news came the same day as fresh warnings about the deterioration of Assange's health..."

Freeing Julian Assange (Part 1)

https://twitter.com/ChrisLynnHedges/status/1137420845230505996

"Here, Contraspin does an in-depth analysis of the intelligence establishment's campaign against WikiLeaks."

Unity4J

https://youtu.be/lnA6MJEsdLg

Online Vigil 33.0 in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks

Unity4J

https://youtu.be/r3txEnPI3Z4

Online vigil 33.1 in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks

UN expert says "collective persecution" of Julian Assange must end now. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24665&...

Chris Hedges long interview with Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_P9Nj6N58

Chris Hedges: Assange is Being Persecuted For His Virtues

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/first-assange-then-us/

"...There is nothing like the boot of the oppressor on your neck to give you moral clarity. None of these war crimes and hundreds more reported to the US military but never investigated, would have been made public without Julian, Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks.

Even if Julian were odious, which he is not, even if he carried out a sexual offense, which he did not, even if he was a poor houseguest - a bizarre term for a man trapped in a small room for nearly seven years under house arrest - which he was not, it would make no difference. Julian is not being persecuted for his vices. He is being persecuted for his virtues. His arrest eviserates all pretense of the rule of law and rights of a free press..."

Extradition Order To Send Assange To UK Poses Existential Threat To All Truth Seekers - Galloway

https://on.rt.com/9wan

"Britain's Home Secretary Sajid Javid revealed on Thursday that he had signed a request for the extradition of Assange to the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act. The order will go before the UK courts on Friday. Failing to support Assange now will have disastrous consequences for journalism and all who profess to hold progressive values, Galloway warned..."

Julian Assange in His Own Words (and vid)

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1138499002549317632

"The US is applying its jurisdiction to other countries..."

"I was in court for Julian Assange's extradition hearing before a judge whose husband was a Tory defence minister. 'My life is at stake', said a fragile Julian by video link from prison. Denied a computer, he is prevented from preparing his own defence. Such is British justice."

https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1139554525373718529

Freeing Julian Assange - Part Two

https://twitter.com/Suzie3D/status/1139684000048414720

"The UK Intelligence plot to frame WikiLeaks as working with Russian intelligence didn't start in 2016, but in 2009. Guess who was head of the UK foreign intelligence Russia desk in 2009? 

Christopher Steele."

May Curious Eyes Never Run Dry

https://arena.org.au/may-curious-eyes-never-run-dry-by-felicity-ruby-and...

"..In any event, the indictments for which Assange is now imprisoned have nothing to do with Sweden, Russia, Trump or mistreatment of his cat. They are a straight forward attempt to prosecute a publisher for committing acts of journalism."

NDPP wrote:

As is amply demonstrated on Babble, it is the masters' narrative that most often prevails.

It must be a lonely life being a superior moral species such as yourself. I suppose duty compels you to express (and feel?) only scorn for the vast majority of your fellow humans, thus imprisoning yourself in a tiny spiritual cell.

"37 MEPs call on the European Commission to prevent the extradition of Assange to the US: 'his detention constitutes not only an attack on the right to information, which is a fundamental pillar of democracy, but also contravenes both international and European legislation."

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1142104327433216007

Judge Emma Arbuthnot Refuses to Recuse Herself in Show Trial of Julian Assange

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/11/assa-j11.html

"...No legal argument will convince Arbuthnot to recuse herself. Her connections via her family to the security services are the very reason she has been selected in this case. The British ruling class requires an official to rubber stamp Assange's transfer to the US, in what amounts to an extraordinary rendition..."

'The Claim to Defend Media Freedom is Grotesque Until We Free Assange'

https://twitter.com/LissaKJohnson/status/1148765361421991936

"Politicians gather in London to defend official narratives from disobedient facts. Meanwhile official narratives factually explode around them and publisher Julian Assange is tortured for journalism down the road. The claim to Defend Media Freedom is grotesque until we free Assange."

"An important win for free speech: we have won our motion to dismiss for Wikileaks in the DNC lawsuit against Assange, WikiLeaks et al over the 2016 election publications on First Amendment grounds. Full judgment..."

https://twitter.com/suigenerisjen/status/1156360653629796352

"The DNC does not claim that the stolen materials are false or defamatory..DNC provides no evidence that Trump campaign and Wikileaks participated in theft of DNC emails, helped the Russian Federation, or were even aware of the hack beforehand..."

^ Interesting to compare that article to the trots' headline in post 284...

Judge Emma Arbuthnot refuses to recuse herself in show trial of Julian Assange

Strange that the US Deep State is able to arrange show-trials in London, but not New York.

Jennifer Robinson, A Leading Member of Assange's Legal Team Speaks With WSWS

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/09/jenr-a09.html

"The recognition that we can be protected by the First Amendment is critical, particularly in the context of the statement made by Mike Pompeo - now US secretary of state - when he was CIA director, that WikiLeaks is a 'hostile non-state intelligence agency' and Julian Assange does not benefit from the First Amendment. We now know Assange absolutely does benefit from the First Amendment and this will be important ongoing for WikiLeaks.

It's disappointing that there was not a stronger pushback on Obama's decision to open a grand jury and continue it in relationship to WikiLeaks for so long. It is only now, in the hands of the Trump Administration, that many people understand just how dangerous that is.

The UN Rapporteur on Torture [Nils Melzer] said in his report on Julian Assange that not only has he been vilified by states but the media's participation in his vilification has significantly undermined Assange's position, and he is right. I wonder if there had been more support from the media and human rights groups had pushed back harder, whether this indictment would have been politically feasible..."

CN Live! Episode 5

https://youtu.be/zEWX7qBvsyE

"Lissa Johnson, Rebecca Peters, James Howard Kunstler, and George Szamuely. We'll also screen Mark Davis's breath-taking talk last night at the Sydney event: 'Julian Assange and the US Culture of Revenge."

'Slow, Cruel Assassination': Assange's Mother Blasts US & UK ForTreatment of Whistleblower

https://on.rt.com/9zrv

"My son Julian Assange is being slowly, cruelly and unlawfully assassinated by the US and UK Governments, for multi-award winning journalism revealing war crimes and corruption..."

Let the historical record show many western so-called progressives actively aided and abetted the forces responsible for the public persecution of these dissident truth-telling heroes. Then, their task completed, they averted their eyes and fell silent.  Their treachery, cowardice and repeated alignments with the enemy will not be forgotten. They are a controlled gate-keeping liberal 'opposition' that increasingly comes only to the aid of the oppressors not the oppressed, and are not to be trusted or relied upon in any serious struggle.

Latest Tweet by Pilger on Assange:

"Visting Julian Assange in prison I glimpsed his barbaric treatment. Isolated, denied proper exercise, access to the library, a laptop, he cannot prepare his defence. He is even denied calls to his US lawyers. His UK lawyer wrote to the governor on 4 June. Silence. How lawless."

https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1160659082564571145

BUT China...BUT Russia...

Caitlin Johnstone: A Society Is Only As Free As Its Most Troublesome Political Dissident

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52191.htm

"You wouldn't know it from any western mass media reporting as of this writing, but musician Roger Waters is about to perform the iconic Pink Floyd song 'Wish You Were Here' in front of the office of British Home Secretary Priti Patel in order to draw attention to the persecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. As long as you live in a society which you can give rise to a coordinated multi-governmental campaign to lock up a journalist for the rest of his life based on bogus charges because he exposed US war crimes, you are not free and you should not agree to pretend that you are..."

Why Some Babblers Are Almost Always Wrong...

https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1168605306022256640

"Dear Editor, ...