Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, London

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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby MacCruiskeen » Wed Oct 23, 2019 10:58 am

Craig Murray Retweeted John Pilger

It was a privilege as always to be with John Pilger at Julian's hearing yesterday and I could not hope for more powerful corroboration of the appalling charade that passed for justice there.

John Pilger@johnpilger
I have never known a judicial hearing like the vicious travesty of justice meted out to Julian #Assange yesterday. Swarming with US officials, their visible instructions holding sway, the court's nominal "judge" Vanessa Baraitser was a disgrace.


https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/stat ... 4987121670


Craig Murray Retweeted John W Rees

@JohnWRees
I was in court and every word of this by Craig Murray is the truth. I add that when the judge told a distressed Assange that future hearings would be at Belmarsh ‘so that you won’t have so far to travel’ it was one of the most chilling things I’ve seen.

https://twitter.com/JohnWRees/status/11 ... 1681091584
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby overcoming hope » Fri Oct 25, 2019 2:13 pm

https://www.rt.com/news/471834-roger-wa ... interview/

Punishing Assange sends ‘we will get you’ warning to other journalists, Roger Waters tells RT

British rock legend and Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters told RT that by going after WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange governments want to scare off journalists and whistleblowers from exposing the truth.
Those persecuting Assange are “applying the heaviest possible penalty they can on him for stepping out of line and doing his job as a journalist,” Waters told RT’s Afshin Rattansi on his show Going Underground.

They’re clearly trying as hard as they can to kill him… Julian Assange is becoming a warning to other journalists that if you tell the truth – particularly to power – ‘we will get you.’

Assange is currently being held in a British jail pending extradition to the US, having served his sentence for skipping bail. He could face up to 175 years in prison for publishing classified documents, including information on possible US war crimes in Iraq. The hearing is scheduled for February.
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby Grizzly » Fri Oct 25, 2019 2:54 pm

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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby overcoming hope » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:37 am

Assange’s Extradition Is a Case About the Crimes of Empire

The U.S. government’s prosecution of Assange is and always has been politically motivated. He is there for exposing the war crimes of the U.S. empire.

byNozomi Hayase

[...]

Sign of torture

Monday’s judicial hearing made state’s outlandish political retaliation against this multi-award winning journalist open to the public. During the hearing, Assange, who spends most of his time in complete isolation in London’s Belmarsh Prison mentally struggled to state his name and date of birth. When the judge asked him if he understood the court proceeding, he responded saying, "I can’t think properly."

Clinical psychologist Lissa Johnson noted this display of disorientation as a sign of the effect on him from prolonged solitary confinement. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer, who has been deeply concerned about the treatment of Assange and his health, has been warning the public that Assange has been subjected to psychological torture.

Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan shared his observation from attending the hearing. After describing how shocked he was to see his friend’s severe loss of weight and physical deterioration, Murray noted how “his physical appearance was not as shocking as his mental deterioration.” He then went on to describe how he has been skeptical of those who claimed Assange’s treatment amounted to torture, but after seeing the hearing changed his mind completely and now agrees that Assange is exhibiting the symptoms of a torture victim.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019 ... mes-empire
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby RocketMan » Tue Oct 29, 2019 4:34 am

BUMP

This must be perpetually on the front page.
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby Harvey » Tue Oct 29, 2019 6:53 am

Yes. We're at a stunning juncture in history, a super-rubicon. The failure of Liberalism and the end of capitals affair with 'western democracy' are mere window dressing to the backdrop of the end of all things. Julians fate is an indicator. If he doesn't survive, if his work isn't nurtured (or even recognised by the majority of his profession) what hope is there for everything else?

And especially so after Max Blumenthal's arrest.
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby Harvey » Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:13 pm

And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby RocketMan » Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:32 am

-I don't like hoodlums.
-That's just a word, Marlowe. We have that kind of world. Two wars gave it to us and we are going to keep it.
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby overcoming hope » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:31 pm

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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby MacCruiskeen » Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:10 pm

"memories have faded"

Julian Assange: Sweden drops rape investigation into WikiLeaks founder

Complainant’s evidence deemed ‘credible and reliable’ but witnesses’ memories have faded, prosecutor says

Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93
1 hour ago

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... html%3famp


Why this decision, and why now? -- Answer on edit: because now that he's in jail on Airstrip One pending deportation to the Home of the Brave, the Swedes need no longer maintain the embarrassing pretence that there ever was a "rape" or even an "accusation" or any serious "investigation" thereof.
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Nov 19, 2019 2:29 pm

Forgive me for thinking Sweden already dropped the investigation about three years ago (which was about six years longer than it merited in the first place), and for remembering they interviewed Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2016. Because that actually happened. The harrassment has been extended by pretending to "reopen" the "investigation" before "dropping it" again. This last round was prompted by the expulsion from the embassy, which raised the specter of Assange actually getting support from politicians in the Labour Party. Which he would have, as a journalist being persecuted for exposing US-UK war crimes. So he was redefined again as an alleged sex criminal, rendering him untouchable. Also, his bail term has ended, he is being held solely pending hearings on the US request he be extradited on the 17 Espionage Act charges. Also, Wikileaks exposed his judge's conflicts of interest, and has been claiming since yesterday that she has been removed from the case. Also, UKanians, PLEASE VOTE LABOUR DAMN IT. The whole world needs this.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, said: “Sweden has dropped its preliminary investigation into Mr Assange for the third time, after reopening it without any new evidence or information. Let us now focus on the threat Mr Assange has been warning about for years: the belligerent prosecution of the United States and the threat it poses to the First Amendment.”
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby stickdog99 » Tue Nov 26, 2019 5:28 am

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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby RocketMan » Tue Nov 26, 2019 10:10 am

Corbyn's (and Sanders') silence on this matter is beyond disappointing...

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/1 ... s-n26.html

The World Socialist Web Site applauds the medical doctors who have issued an open letter calling for urgent action to protect the life of imprisoned WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange.

More than 65 doctors from the UK, US, Australia, Germany, Italy and Sri Lanka have brought to the attention of a global audience the terrible dangers to Assange’s life. They wrote to Britain’s Conservative Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday, warning, “Mr. Assange could die” because of years of arbitrary detention and his continued incarceration in almost permanent isolation in London’s Belmarsh maximum security prison.


The doctors insist that Assange be moved to a university teaching hospital, where he can be assessed and treated by an expert medical team. They stress, “The medical situation is thereby urgent. There is no time to lose.”

We urge workers, young people and all those concerned with democratic rights to heed the doctors’ warning and join the fight to defend Julian Assange as well as the courageous whistle-blower Chelsea Manning, who has also been locked away for refusing to give false testimony against Assange.

The doctors’ initiative marks a new stage in the struggle to free Assange because it has been taken independently by a group of professional workers, animated by profound concern for his fate and for democratic rights.

The doctors were acutely concerned by the findings of Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, that Assange is suffering the effects of prolonged “psychological torture” after nearly a decade of arbitrary detention and state persecution, which “may soon end up costing his life.” They saw how this warning by the world’s foremost authority on torture was simply dismissed by the UK government.

Following the harrowing account of Assange’s physical and mental condition given by former British diplomat and whistle-blower Craig Murray, who attended the October 21 Westminster Magistrates Court hearing at which Assange appeared, the doctors decided to act. They resolved that it was their professional duty to report “suspected torture of which they become aware, wherever it may be occurring… That professional duty is absolute and must be carried out regardless of risk to reporting doctors.”

The brave and independent action of the doctors has inspired many others, evoking a powerful global response and forcing the world’s media to report on the letter. Other doctors are now coming forward to append their own signature.

The open letter has revealed the massive but latent support for Assange that can and must be mobilised in his defence. The central issue is how this must be done.

On June 20, the editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site issued a statement, “For a worldwide campaign to prevent Julian Assange’s rendition to the US!” The statement stated: “The movement to secure Julian Assange’s freedom must come from below. Moral appeals to the governments that are persecuting him are less than useless. Assange’s freedom must be fought for independently of, and in opposition to, the political agents of the ruling class.”

This position has been fully vindicated by the open letter.

The doctors’ stand was taken in defiance of a vindictive gang-up against Assange involving the state machinery and governments of the United States, the UK, Australia, Sweden and Ecuador to punish him for exposing war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere and then silence him forever.

Dr Stephen Frost, a specialist in diagnostic radiology, wrote of the open letter: “If the UK government does not heed doctors’ warnings and continues with its current reckless, dangerous and cruel behaviour, people from all over the world will rightly call for those responsible to be held to account. We say that the situation is medically urgent and that it must not be allowed to continue. There is no time to lose. The torture must stop NOW.”

In response, the UK government has again made clear that nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of the plans to stage a show trial next February before carrying out a predetermined decision to extradite Assange to the US. Patel’s Home Office issued a statement to the media yesterday declaring, “The allegations Mr. Assange was subjected to torture are unfounded and wholly false. The UK is committed to upholding the rule of law and ensuring that no one is ever above it.”

The open letter cuts across the toxic mixture of personal and political slanders employed by the liberal media, social democratic parties, including Britain’s Labour Party, trade unions, civil rights organisations, right-wing feminists and various pseudo-left groups to justify their refusal to defend Assange.

The letter was issued at the height of Britain’s general election campaign. It was sent to Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott. But she has refused to issue any statement whatsoever. Neither Abbott nor Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has once mentioned the world’s most famous political prisoner during the course of the campaign—a man incarcerated less than 12 miles from the Houses of Parliament. His name doesn’t appear in Labour’s manifesto, even when it pledges to protect “whistle-blowers” and bring in “a legal right of public interest defence for journalists.”

Corbyn has tried to justify his refusal to defend Assange by citing the bogus sexual allegations made by two women in a case that was dropped for the second time in 2017. In April, he declared that if the case was “reinstated,” then Assange “must answer those questions and those demands about the accusations made against him.”


The Swedish investigation was dropped last week, after nine years in which no charges were ever brought. But neither this, nor the intervention by over 60 doctors, will prompt Corbyn to act in defiance of the state conspiracy against Assange.

For the ruling class, the persecution of Assange is the spearhead of a massive assault on democratic rights, aimed at destroying freedom of speech, illegalizing investigative journalism, intimidating and terrorizing critics, preventing the exposure of government crimes and suppressing popular opposition to social inequality and war.

The World Socialist Web Site insists that only the working class, the world’s most powerful social force, has the necessary strength to oppose this and that it must do so independently of the old parties and trade unions.

Just as the capitalist class is using the persecution of Assange as the linchpin of its plans for dictatorship, so the working class must make his defence the focal point for a counteroffensive against militarism and all attacks on democratic and social rights.

Already there is a rising tide of international class struggle, strikes and mass protests against social inequality and corrupt government, which provides the powerful mass foundation for the struggle for Assange’s freedom.

The defence of Assange must be guided by a global strategy that consciously links the fight to defend democratic rights to the growing social struggle of the international working class against capitalist exploitation and political oppression. The Socialist Equality Parties, sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International, call on all those who fear for Assange’s life and want to see a heroic and innocent man freed to join this vital struggle.

Chris Marsden
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-That's just a word, Marlowe. We have that kind of world. Two wars gave it to us and we are going to keep it.
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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby Harvey » Sat Nov 30, 2019 4:35 pm

And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Julian Assange, 2018: Year 6 in Ecuador's Embassy, Londo

Postby Harvey » Sat Nov 30, 2019 4:36 pm

And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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