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Assange Extradition- Britain Agrees to Extradite Publisher to Country that Plotted to Assassinate Him (5 Viewers)

Media Lens @medialens

The last time @BBCNews mentioned #Assange on Twitter was 7 September. The extradition hearing ended yesterday.

Apparently the BBC had a reporter there every day. So where is your coverage, @BBCNews?

Even @JohnSimpsonNews has expressed dismay at the lack of media coverage.

 
@JohnWight1

When I wrote my first piece in defence of #JulianAssange in 2012 support for him was so small you could fit it into a telephone box. The Guardian and feminist wing of reaction in the uk had done their job well in painting him not as a man who'd dared defy the US war machine and was being persecuted as a result, but as a sex offender trying to escape justice.

Owen Jones I distinctly recall was one of the most prominent in calling for Assange to face what were entirely concocted allegations of sexual offences in Sweden, while those pointing this out were being castigated as 'rape apologists'.

Now here we are, some 8 years on, with Assange, a man who has already endured hell on earth, teetering on the brink of extradition to the US and certain death.  Where he goes we go, meaning that his extradition will mark the end of journalism in the West as anything other than a rubber stamp of ruling class orthodoxies, placing a chill on the ability to hold Washington and its allies to account for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Julian Assange is now the victim of a crime against humanity almost beyond compare. This show trial of an extradition hearing will carry as much import in history as the trials of Socrates, Thomas More, John Brown, Dreyfus, etc. Yes, really.

A special place in hell awaits all those who've been complicit in his suffering and plight. Julian Assange, as of now, is God's lonely man. God help him.

 
NorvilleBarnes said:
Trump could have pardoned him.
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One of his huge donors, Sheldon Adelson, was involved in a surveillance operation with security at the Ecuadorean embassy, almost certainly with participation from the CIA.  They reportedly discussed kidnapping & even assassinating him under Trump/Pompeo.  Trump, for his part, denied the report and said Assange was being "treated very badly."  But his admin was definitely responsible for getting him abducted from the embassy and his DOJ initiated the charges against him.  As usual with Trump the actions betray the words.  

 
rockaction said:
What are we (or I should say "is he") awaiting a ruling upon, ren? 
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Yes, the lower court judge (Vanessa Baraitser) ruled in January that Assange should not be extradited- she basically accepted every argument the US put forward, ruling in favor of his release only on the condition that he was liable to be subjected to indefinite isolation and commit suicide if extradited to the US.  

The US appealed the lower judge's decision under Trump, which Biden's DOJ has continued, and the High Court's ruling is expected tomorrow.  

 
ren hoek said:
Yes, the lower court judge (Vanessa Baraitser) ruled in January that Assange should not be extradited- she basically accepted every argument the US put forward, ruling in favor of his release only on the condition that he was liable to be subjected to indefinite isolation and commit suicide if extradited to the US.  

The US appealed the lower judge's decision under Trump, which Biden's DOJ has continued, and the High Court's ruling is expected tomorrow.  
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Wait, I don't get that. I'm sorry. If she accepted the arguments, why no extradition? Isn't extradition what the U.S. seeks? I'm guessing what you meant to say was that they want him extradited, but she feared for his mental health. 

I'll read an article and not waste your time, but I'm curious to get your take on the whole thing. 

I just skimmed an article. That is indeed what the U.S. is arguing for. They want him extradited. They're saying the psychiatrist misled the judge and that he should be given over to the U.S. 

Huh. My gut almost all along, with deference to my good friend SID, has been to side with Assange's plea for freedom, but I'm a novice about the issue. Seems he unearthed the truth, and some powerful people didn't like being exposed for war crimes and other duplicitous things. I say tough ####, really. 

 
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rockaction said:
Wait, I don't get that. I'm sorry. If she accepted the arguments, why no extradition? Isn't extradition what the U.S. seeks? I'm guessing what you meant to say was that they want him extradited, but she feared for his mental health. 

I'll read an article and not waste your time, but I'm curious to get your take on the whole thing. 

I just skimmed an article. That is indeed what the U.S. is arguing for. They want him extradited. They're saying the psychiatrist misled the judge and that he should be given over to the U.S. 

Huh. My gut almost all along, with deference to my good friend SID, has been to side with Assange's plea for freedom, but I'm a novice about the issue. Seems he unearthed the truth, and some powerful people didn't like being exposed for war crimes and other duplicitous things. I say tough ####, really. 
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Journalism as espionage

Significantly, Judge Baraitser backed all the Trump administration’s main legal arguments for extradition, even though they were comprehensively demolished by Assange’s lawyers.

Baraitser accepted the US government’s dangerous new definition of investigative journalism as “espionage”, and implied that Assange had also broken Britain’s draconian Official Secrets Act in exposing government war crimes.

She agreed that the 2007 Extradition Treaty applies in Assange’s case, ignoring the treaty’s actual words that exempt political cases like his. She has thereby opened the door for other journalists to be seized in their home countries and renditioned to the US for embarrassing Washington.

Baraitser accepted that protecting sources in the digital age – as Assange did for whistleblower Chelsea Manning, an essential obligation on journalists in a free society – now amounts to criminal “hacking”. She trashed free speech and press freedom rights, saying they did not provide “unfettered discretion by Mr Assange to decide what he’s going to publish”.

She appeared to approve of the ample evidence showing that the US spied on Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy, both in violation of international law and his client-lawyer privilege – a breach of his most fundamental legal rights that alone should have halted proceedings.

Baraitser argued that Assange would receive a fair trial in the US, even though it was almost certain to take place in the eastern district of Virginia, where the major US security and intelligence services are headquartered. Any jury there would be dominated by US security personnel and their families, who would have no sympathy for Assange.

So as we celebrate this ruling for Assange, we must also loudly denounce it as an attack on press freedom, as an attack on our hard-won collective freedoms, and as an attack on our efforts to hold the US and UK establishments accountable for riding roughshod over the values, principles and laws they themselves profess to uphold.

Here's a link to the ruling: https://twitter.com/kennardmatt/status/1346051928011235328

 
rockaction said:
Huh. My gut almost all along, with deference to my good friend SID, has been to side with Assange's plea for freedom, but I'm a novice about the issue. Seems he unearthed the truth, and some powerful people didn't like being exposed for war crimes and other duplicitous things. I say tough ####, really. 
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It's really that simple.  

 
I’m speechless, but not surprised.  The UK’s high court rules that Assange will be extradited to the country that plotted to kill him, for exposing that country’s war crimes.  It accepted the U.S.’ diplomatic assurances, ignoring the absurdly political nature of the whole case.  Publishers anywhere in the world can be disappeared into the darkest corner of a U.S. gulag for publishing classified information.

All this on Human Rights Day, as the US hosts a Summit for Democracy, while Sec Blinken tweets about protecting journalists.  Other countries will use this to call out our hypocrisy on ‘human rights,’ and they’ll be right.  

 
I haven't paid much attention to this case since the actual indictment contents were known.

I'm curious if the Assange supporters in here believe the bolded should be legal if it is true?

According to the government’s telling of the story, evidence suggests Manning tried, and very possibly failed, with this technique. In a footnote in the affidavit, the government said Manning hadn’t provided Assange with the full hash, only one of the two halves required.

It’s alleged Manning passed what she thought was a hash value to Assange. The Wikileaks chief then said he would pass it on to a specialist in cracking, according to chats over the Jabber encrypted communications app, as provided in the affidavit. But as per the investigators’ claims, there was some confusion: Manning said she wasn’t even sure what she handed to Assange was the hash value they wanted. Assange messaged Manning to ask if there were “any more hints” about the hash and that he’d had “no luck so far,” according to the government account. 
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Where it was understood that the goal of cracking the hash would be to allow Manning to access the computer without revealing her identity.

 
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Dinsy Ejotuz said:
I haven't paid much attention to this case since the actual indictment contents were known.

I'm curious if the Assange supporters in here believe the bolded should be legal if it is true?

Where it was understood that the goal of cracking the hash would be to allow Manning to access the computer without revealing her identity.
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I read this and thought "hash, probably not good for you to smoke but marijuana is basically legal now.  I don't see the big deal". 

I'm old.   :bag:

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
I haven't paid much attention to this case since the actual indictment contents were known.

I'm curious if the Assange supporters in here believe the bolded should be legal if it is true?

Where it was understood that the goal of cracking the hash would be to allow Manning to access the computer without revealing her identity.
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To the extent that information is classified to hide criminality, I wouldn’t say what they did should be legal perse.  But in Manning/Assange’s case I would say there was a legitimate public interest defense and the govt should look the other way.  Manning revealed mass atrocities that the govt tried  to conceal.  Assange was trying to protect his source, it happened 11 years ago, and US laws shouldn’t really apply to him anyway.  Currently, the only people that get prosecuted are whistleblowers (and now publishers) who reveal war crimes, while the actual war criminals skate free.  It is completely upside down.  

Executive order 13526 states:  “In no case shall information be classified… in order to: conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency… or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.” 

In other words, the Bush administration was probably guilty of over-classification long before Manning/Assange were guilty of attempting to access classified information.  

But make no mistake @Dinsy Ejotuz- they don’t give a crap about a failed attempt to crack a hash 10 years ago.  This is about the right of publishers to reveal state crimes under the first amendment, and the govt’s desire to keep citizens in the dark.  

 
ren has made a convincing case. I think back to the actual Pentagon break-in and subsequent publishing of the Pentagon Papers. If we had prosecuted the New York Times like Assange, there would have been the loudest dissent coming from the press one had ever seen. In this case, it seems, the press either doesn't care or is actively hostile to Assange's plight. 

 
rockaction said:
ren has made a convincing case. I think back to the actual Pentagon break-in and subsequent publishing of the Pentagon Papers. If we had prosecuted the New York Times like Assange, there would have been the loudest dissent coming from the press one had ever seen. In this case, it seems, the press either doesn't care or is actively hostile to Assange's plight. 
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I think the issue is that people have is that it really isn't clear that Assange is journalist.  He's a publisher for sure, but I think it's easier for his detractors to paint him as a "hacktivist"  where nobody is questioning the motives of the New York Times (at least in the 70's).  If he was a reporter who was given this information by a source, rather than creating a repository for stolen information, there wouldn't be any question.

 
-fish- said:
I think the issue is that people have is that it really isn't clear that Assange is journalist.  He's a publisher for sure, but I think it's easier for his detractors to paint him as a "hacktivist"  where nobody is questioning the motives of the New York Times (at least in the 70's).  If he was a reporter who was given this information by a source, rather than creating a repository for stolen information, there wouldn't be any question.
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Yeah, there are definitely distinctions to be made and I'm not sure I've thought them all through. But it's not just the publishing/journalistic act. My own morality tells me that I think the people that stole the Pentagon Papers and risked their lives weren't criminals, but whistleblowers against a state that was acting thoroughly anti-democratically, and I laud them and consider them somewhat heroic -- even in my conservative days I felt that way. 

I don't think Assange is much different than those people. 

 
rockaction said:
Yeah, there are definitely distinctions to be made and I'm not sure I've thought them all through. But it's not just the publishing/journalistic act. My own morality tells me that I think the people that stole the Pentagon Papers and risked their lives weren't criminals, but whistleblowers against a state that was acting thoroughly anti-democratically, and I laud them and consider them somewhat heroic -- even in my conservative days I felt that way. 

I don't think Assange is much different than those people. 
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The difference to me is that the people that stole the Pentagon Papers did so with a specific purpose in mind.

Assange just invited any and all stolen information without regard to what it was or where it came from, and then published it strategically to further his own political goals.   It didn't matter to him if it was information about war crimes or Hillary Clinton's personal emails. 

His methods are dirty.   Like publishing nudes stolen from celebrities' phones dirty.   Even if some of the information is important, I'm not giving him a pass on his overall approach.  I'm not saying that he doesn't get to be treated as a journalist...the bottom dwellers at TMZ are journalists.   I just don't feel a ton of outrage when I see this guy getting extradited for his criminal acts.

 
-fish- said:
 Even if some of the information is important, I'm not giving him a pass on his overall approach. 
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Fair enough. I'm really not so familiar with the case that I can be drawing lines like you and ren are. I see war crimes being covered up and I naturally think that the error lies somewhere else than with the person disclosing them. 

 
-fish- said:
I just don't feel a ton of outrage when I see this guy getting extradited for his criminal acts.
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What criminal acts.  He's being tortured in a cage for publishing evidence of US war crimes.  Publishing is supposed to be legal under the First Amendment.  He's been locked up at "Britain's Guantanamo" for almost 3 years, suffered a stroke and a litany of other health problems as a result of solitary confinement.  He's already effectively served 10 years between the Ecuadorean Embassy and Belmarsh.  

His charges stem from publishing activities dating back to 2010 and nothing else.  But part of the motivation for all this is because of their Vault7 publications which revealed the CIA's hacking tools, and the fact they can do things like spy on people through their TV sets.  The CIA plotted to assassinate or kidnap him under Trump/Pompeo.  The grand jury against Assange always seemed to be lying under the surface but the US prosecution really seemed to ramp up after the Vault7 release. I don't know if you know this or care but it seems like an important detail that a publisher is being extradited to a country that plotted to assassinate him.  

I think damn near every press freedom organization has denounced the US prosecution against him and called for his release.  If it makes you happy to see this sort of thing happening to him fair enough, you're certainly entitled to it.  I just think it's incredibly authoritarian and unAmerican in every sense.  Manning and Assange should have been hailed as heroes for what they did- not condemned to lifetimes of imprisonment and psychological torture. 

 
rockaction said:
ren has made a convincing case. I think back to the actual Pentagon break-in and subsequent publishing of the Pentagon Papers. If we had prosecuted the New York Times like Assange, there would have been the loudest dissent coming from the press one had ever seen. In this case, it seems, the press either doesn't care or is actively hostile to Assange's plight. 
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And it's mainly because he's not a member of the "accredited" corporate press. Talk about a good old boys' club. 

 
ren hoek said:
What criminal acts.  He's being tortured in a cage for publishing evidence of US war crimes.  Publishing is supposed to be legal under the First Amendment.  He's been locked up at "Britain's Guantanamo" for almost 3 years, suffered a stroke and a litany of other health problems as a result of solitary confinement.  He's already effectively served 10 years between the Ecuadorean Embassy and Belmarsh.  

His charges stem from publishing activities dating back to 2010 and nothing else.  But part of the motivation for all this is because of their Vault7 publications which revealed the CIA's hacking tools, and the fact they can do things like spy on people through their TV sets.  The CIA plotted to assassinate or kidnap him under Trump/Pompeo.  The grand jury against Assange always seemed to be lying under the surface but the US prosecution really seemed to ramp up after the Vault7 release. I don't know if you know this or care but it seems like an important detail that a publisher is being extradited to a country that plotted to assassinate him.  

I think damn near every press freedom organization has denounced the US prosecution against him and called for his release.  If it makes you happy to see this sort of thing happening to him fair enough, you're certainly entitled to it.  I just think it's incredibly authoritarian and unAmerican in every sense.  Manning and Assange should have been hailed as heroes for what they did- not condemned to lifetimes of imprisonment and psychological torture. 
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Again, he is a publisher for sure.  I question whether he is a journalist.   Hacking security systems and obtaining classified information is a criminal act, regardless of your motivation for doing it.   

And stop the nonsense hyberbole.   He's not being "tortured in a cage" and never has been.   He's also not being charged for publishing evidence.  He's being charged for criminal conspiracy relating to illegally obtaining classified information.   He's not a whistleblower, a journalist or anything other than a publisher of information.   When you obtain that information illegally or are part of a conspiracy to obtain that information illegally, you are subject to criminal prosecution.   

...and the US agreed that if he is convicted he can serve his time in Australia.   The whole "he's being extradited so he can be tortured and assassinated in the US" is hogwash.

 
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In an unjust society, the only place for a just man is in prison  -- Henry David Thoreau

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time -- Baretta

 
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-fish- said:
Again, he is a publisher for sure.  I question whether he is a journalist.   Hacking security systems and obtaining classified information is a criminal act, regardless of your motivation for doing it.   

And stop the nonsense hyberbole.   He's not being "tortured in a cage" and never has been.   He's also not being charged for publishing evidence.  He's being charged for criminal conspiracy relating to illegally obtaining classified information.   He's not a whistleblower, a journalist or anything other than a publisher of information.   When you obtain that information illegally or are part of a conspiracy to obtain that information illegally, you are subject to criminal prosecution.   

...and the US agreed that if he is convicted he can serve his time in Australia.   The whole "he's being extradited so he can be tortured and assassinated in the US" is hogwash.
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Solitary confinement is torture, full stop, period.  His symptoms are consistent with a person who has undergone years of psychological torture according to Nils Melzer, the UN's special rapporteur on torture.  He has suffered a stroke, lost tons of weight and struggles to even remember his own name according to people who've seen him in court.  The UN found him to have been arbitrarily detained in the embassy for 6 years prior to that.  The witness that accused him of hacking admitted that he lied to feds that were trying to build a case against him:

https://stundin.is/grein/13627/

There is no credible evidence that Assange ever hacked anything relating to the material he has been charged for.  Manning already had access to the files- there was no need to hack them.  Why do you think Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, and Daniel Ellsberg have called on the case to be dropped?  Do they just want reporters to hack material willynilly?  His only role in the whole thing was as a publisher.  That is what the Biden DOJ is criminalizing here.  I'm curious why you think US law applies to him anyway.  He's not a US citizen, has never been here in his life.  By the same measure you would support Saudi Arabia extraditing Jamal Khashoggi if it could fabricate a hacking charge against him.

As I mentioned to @Dinsy Ejotuzabove, executive order 13526 forbids classifying information to conceal criminality.  So much of the information should not have been classified in the first place.  To the extent that any material was legitimately classified, it was really on Chelsea Manning as the source.  No one was hurt as a result of the disclosures.  And what about the people that were hurt as a result of Bush/Cheney's lies.  A war that killed a million people and displaced millions more.  Why are people who reveal war crimes treated like villains while the ones that caused mass death & suffering go on with their lives like it never happened.  

It was Michael Isikoff and Zach Dorfman at Yahoo! that reported the story about the CIA plotting to kidnap or kill Assange.  It's not some conspiracy theory that I just made up: https://news.yahoo.com/cia-plot-kidnap-kill-julian-150552730.html.  They wouldn't have to assassinate him anymore, they can just bury him in a dark cell until he dies.  But it was reportedly discussed at the highest levels prior to his eviction from the embassy. 

You are certainly entitled to play dumb/naive and make backhanded comments about conspiracy theories all you like- it must be nice being that clueless and unassuming about the world- but there's every reason to believe he would suffer horrific treatment if sent to the US or Australian prison system.  But I think you would rather enjoy that, so just say so and we can move on.  

 
ren hoek said:
Solitary confinement is torture, full stop, period.  His symptoms are consistent with a person who has undergone years of psychological torture according to Nils Melzer, the UN's special rapporteur on torture.  He has suffered a stroke, lost tons of weight and struggles to even remember his own name according to people who've seen him in court.  The UN found him to have been arbitrarily detained in the embassy for 6 years prior to that.  The witness that accused him of hacking admitted that he lied to feds that were trying to build a case against him:

https://stundin.is/grein/13627/

There is no credible evidence that Assange ever hacked anything relating to the material he has been charged for.  Manning already had access to the files- there was no need to hack them.  Why do you think Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, and Daniel Ellsberg have called on the case to be dropped?  Do they just want reporters to hack material willynilly?  His only role in the whole thing was as a publisher.  That is what the Biden DOJ is criminalizing here.  I'm curious why you think US law applies to him anyway.  He's not a US citizen, has never been here in his life.  By the same measure you would support Saudi Arabia extraditing Jamal Khashoggi if it could fabricate a hacking charge against him.

As I mentioned to @Dinsy Ejotuzabove, executive order 13526 forbids classifying information to conceal criminality.  So much of the information should not have been classified in the first place.  To the extent that any material was legitimately classified, it was really on Chelsea Manning as the source.  No one was hurt as a result of the disclosures.  And what about the people that were hurt as a result of Bush/Cheney's lies.  A war that killed a million people and displaced millions more.  Why are people who reveal war crimes treated like villains while the ones that caused mass death & suffering go on with their lives like it never happened.  

It was Michael Isikoff and Zach Dorfman at Yahoo! that reported the story about the CIA plotting to kidnap or kill Assange.  It's not some conspiracy theory that I just made up: https://news.yahoo.com/cia-plot-kidnap-kill-julian-150552730.html.  They wouldn't have to assassinate him anymore, they can just bury him in a dark cell until he dies.  But it was reportedly discussed at the highest levels prior to his eviction from the embassy. 

You are certainly entitled to play dumb/naive and make backhanded comments about conspiracy theories all you like- it must be nice being that clueless and unassuming about the world- but there's every reason to believe he would suffer horrific treatment if sent to the US or Australian prison system.  But I think you would rather enjoy that, so just say so and we can move on.  
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you don't understand the charges.  it's conspiracy.  

he also chose to stay in the Ecuadorian embassy rather than face charges.  He wasn't detained.  

His problems are self-inflicted 

 
the rover said:
you don't understand the charges.  it's conspiracy.  

he also chose to stay in the Ecuadorian embassy rather than face charges.  He wasn't detained.  

His problems are self-inflicted 
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A conspiracy to what?  It was basic newsgathering practice.  That's why press freedom orgs are troubled by this.  Encouraging a source to give you information is not a criminal conspiracy.  There is no evidence that Assange's own involvement was illicit in some sense.  

He faced the charges and interviewed when he was in Sweden.  It wasn't until Sweden refused to give assurances that he wouldn't be extradited to the US that there was a problem.  

 
ren hoek said:
A conspiracy to what?  It was basic newsgathering practice.  That's why press freedom orgs are troubled by this.  Encouraging a source to give you information is not a criminal conspiracy.  There is no evidence that Assange's own involvement was illicit in some sense.  

He faced the charges and interviewed when he was in Sweden.  It wasn't until Sweden refused to give assurances that he wouldn't be extradited to the US that there was a problem.  
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when you work with and encourage others to commit criminal acts and then further those criminal acts by publishing stolen information you can be charged with criminal conspiracy.  it doesn't matter if he was the one that stole the information.   you claimed he was detained in the Ecuadorian embassy.  he was not.  he chose to hide out there and spread his feces on their walls rather than face the charges against him.  at no time has he been "tortured in a cage."

there are some legitimate arguments to be presented on his behalf, but you are making blatantly false claims.

 
the rover said:
when you work with and encourage others to commit criminal acts and then further those criminal acts by publishing stolen information you can be charged with criminal conspiracy.  it doesn't matter if he was the one that stole the information.   you claimed he was detained in the Ecuadorian embassy.  he was not.  he chose to hide out there and spread his feces on their walls rather than face the charges against him.  at no time has he been "tortured in a cage."

there are some legitimate arguments to be presented on his behalf, but you are making blatantly false claims.
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Of course it matters.  That is the difference between being a publisher and a source.  That's why my position is consistent with the ACLU's and yours is consistent with Donald Trump.  Nothing he did was outside the lines of what national security journalists do every day.  He didn't encourage Manning to hack anything; even if he did, which he didn't, was there not a moral obligation given the atrocities of the Iraq War?  Is it your position that the public should have known less about these criminal wars?

Solitary confinement is torture.  He's suffered a stroke in prison and according to court reporters has struggled to even recall his own name.  That is consistent with numerous medical studies, never mind Nils Melzer, the UN's special rapporteur on torture who agrees that Assange is being tortured.  

He was detained.  He was stuck there because multiple governments refused to assure him that he wouldn't be extradited to the US.  The CIA literally plotted to kidnap or assassinate him, and you sit here and act like 'oh well he was fine to walk out any time!'  Total BS and completely ignorant 

 
more of the same...he's going to be extradited to the US where he'll be "crucified" ..."executed"...and "faces certain death."

nonsense.  the US has already agreed he can serve his sentence in Australia.

criminal will go to jail.  nothing more, nothing less.

 
Stella Moris statement on UK Supreme Court's refusal to hear Assange Appeal

Reacting to the UK Supreme Court's refusal to hear Julian Assange's appeal, his fiancee Stella Moris said:

“Just this morning on our way to school, our four-year-old son asked me when daddy will come home. Julian's life is being treated as if it were expendable. He has been robbed of over a decade of liberty, and three years from his home and his young children who are being forced to grow up without their father. A system that allows this is a system that has lost its way.

Whether Julian is extradited or not, which is the same as saying whether he lives or dies, is being decided through a process of legal avoidance. Avoiding to hear arguments that challenge the UK courts' deference to unenforceable and caveated claims regarding his treatment made by the United States, the country that plotted to murder him. The country whose atrocities he brought into the public domain. Julian is the key witness, the principle indicter, and the cause of enormous embarrassment to successive US governments.

Julian was just doing his job, which was to publish the truth about wrongdoing. His loyalty is the same as that which all journalists should have: to the public. Not to the spy agencies of a foreign power. He published evidence that the country that is trying to extradite him committed war crimes and covered them up; that it committed gross violations that killed tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children; that it tortured and rendered; that it bombed children, had death squads, and murdered Reuters journalists in cold blood; that it bribed foreign officials and bullied less powerful countries into harming their own citizens, and that it also corrupted allied nations' judicial inquiries into US wrongdoing. For this, that country wants him in prison for 175 years.

Now the extradition will formally move to a political stage. Julian's fate now lies in the hands of Home Secretary Priti Patel. This is a political case and she can end it. It is in her hands to prove that the UK is better than all of this. Patel can end Britain's exposure to international ridicule because of Julian's incarceration. It takes political courage but that is what it needed to preserve an open society that protects publishers from foreign persecution.

The cruelty against Julian is corrupting. It corrupts our most cherished values and institutions.  They will be extinguished and lost forever unless this travesty is brought to an end.

The fight for freedom will go on, until he's freed."


Read the Supreme Court Application here:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/permissiontoappeal.pdf

Read the Supreme Courts decision here:
https://dontextraditeassange.com/supremecourtrefusal.jpeg

Read the statement by Assange's lawyers here: 
https://dontextraditeassange.com/BirnbergPeirceStatement.pdf

Follow @DEACampaign and @StellaMoris1 on twitter.

 
Britain can’t claim to care about free speech if it extradites Julian Assange —Telegraph

China accuses the US and UK of hypocrisy on press freedom for calling out Beijing's crackdowns while putting Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on trial for espionage— DailyMail

The Guardian view on Julian Assange’s extradition: a bad day for journalism — The Guardian

“The use of the Espionage Act to prosecute him should be seen for what it is: an attack on the freedom of the press. As the Knight First Amendment Institute’s Carrie DeCell wrote in 2019, when the charge sheet was published, “soliciting, obtaining, and then publishing classified information ... [is] what good national security and investigative journalists do every day”.

Joe Biden proving everyday he’s 100% as barbaric as Trump 

 
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