World-Wide Backing as Parliament Encircled for Assange
Protests around the world supported the human chain that formed around the British parliament in support of an imprisoned publisher, reports Mohamed Elmaazi
By Mohamed Elmaazi, in London, Consortium News, 10 Oct 22,
Thousands of supporters of Julian Assange descended upon London’s Palace of Westminster to form a human chain around the Houses of Parliament in support of the embattled WikiLeaks publisher on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the London action was backed up by rallies in Melbourne, Australia, Washington D.C., San Francisco and other locales.
In the British capital, men and women from a myriad of backgrounds attended the demonstration from across the U..K, and beyond, including from France, Germany and the United States. It was the first known human chain to surround the Houses of Parliament.
Stella Assange, wife of the imprisoned publisher, said around 5,000 people showed up to form the chain despite a nation-wide strike announced by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transportation Workers (RMT). Other estimates put the crowd as high as 7,000.
The chain extended over Westminster Bridge to Lambeth on the other side of the River Thames and then along the south bank and over Lambeth Bridge, through Victoria Tower Gardens to the front of Parliament, a distance of about 2.5 kilometers. Hundreds of other supporters also attended the demonstration, albeit without joining the human chain.
“The Human chain is self-proving” Stella Assange said. “Julian has enormous support and much more. He has millions of people around the world who are disgusted by the injustice that is unfolding.”
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour Party leader, British actor Russell Brand, Iraqi-British hip hop artist Lowkey, former counsel to the Ecuadorian Embassy Fidel Narvaez, Craig Murray, the former British diplomat and WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnnson were among those who formed part of the chain. Members of France’s Yellow Vest movement also took part.
Corbyn said:
“Julian Assange is a journalist who told the uncomfortable truth all around the world of what happened in Iraq, what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Syria, Libya, environmental destruction, the power and interface of big business and arms companies with governments. That truth made a lot of very powerful people very uncomfortable so the U.S. has tried to charge him under the Espionage Act.
If we believe in free speech, if we believe in independent, democratic journalism, then Julian Assange should be freed from Belmarsh and not removed to the United States. Today we’ve shown the levels of public support for Julian by having this huge human chain all around Parliament despite the obvious transport difficulties today because of the rail strike. Internationally there is huge support for Julian Assange. … So my message to journalists around the world is, take up your chosen profession to take on a responsibility to tell the truth without fear nor favor. Tell the truth about Julian and say to the British government, refuse the extradition.”
…………………………………………………………………………………. Radio Silence
The mainstream British media ignored or underreported the extraordinary event. The Independent said only “hundreds” of people showed up, as did The Daily Mail. The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times had no report at all. The BBC hasn’t had a story about Assange since July 1.
Overcoming the Strike
The event was organized by WikiLeaks’ official Don’t Extradite Assange (DEA) campaign with the support of the NUJ as well as the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). The IFJ, along with the EFJ and NUJ, represents “600,000 media professionals from 187 trade unions and associations in more than 140 countries”, its website says……………
The cancellation of trains across England likely reduced the overall attendance figures in the end, with people noting their desire to attend on social media but also the difficulty of getting there and back.
The event was publicized via social media, adverts in widely read newspapers like The Guardian, Evening Standard and Camden News Journal and as well as via volunteers leafleting across the U.K.
Actions Around the World
There were at least 21 other solidarity events held in cities across the world including in Washington D.C.; Ontario, Canada; Rio de Janero, Brazil; Hamburg, Germany; Paris, France; Pretoria, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia and Wellington New Zealand.
In solidarity with the London events, about 5,000 people crowded across Prince’s Bridge in the central business district of Melbourne, where they heard Assange’s father and brother, John and Gabriel Shipton, address supporters. In San Francisco Assange defenders crowded Harry Bridges Plaza to hear speakers support Assange.
In Washington about 300 protestors with a 240-foot yellow ribbon walked around the Department of Justice building, inside of which the prosecution of Assange is being managed.
Speaking at the ensuing rally in front of the DOJ’s doors on Pennsylvania Avenue, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, said:
“The more you look at this case, the more you become traumatized. This is an assault not only on freedom of the press, it makes a complete mockery of our judicial system, it’s an attack on human rights, it is absolutely unacceptable.”
Ben Cohen, a founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, said: “According to the U.S. government, publishing the truth has become a crime. They are literally killing the messenger.”
Scott Ritter, military analyst, asked: “What has Julian Assange given us?” He has “defined the facts, reported the facts, turned them over to the people so they can judge the facts and hold people accountable for the facts.”
Comic, activist and radio host Randy Credico said, “This is going to be a very tough road to hoe going forward, because there is a lot of apathy and a lot of antipathy towards Julian Assange here in D.C. We are up against a mammoth force. People gotta know how important this is.”
C.I.A. whistleblower John Kiriakou called on the crowd to be outside the courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia every day, should Assange be extradited there.
Where the Case Stands
On Aug. 26 Assange’s lawyers filed Perfected Grounds of Appeal with the High Court and are currently waiting to hear whether they will be permitted to present their arguments that District Judge Vanessa Baraitser erred when ruling against all but one of his grounds opposing extradition to the U.S.
Among the grounds for appeal argued is that Assange is being prosecuted for speech protected under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, that he is being punished for his political views and opinions, that the US government has “misrepresented the core facts” of the case to the UK courts and that the request itself is an “abuse of process.”
The appeal also challenges then-Home Secretary Priti Patel’s decision to grant extradition on the basis that it violates Article 4 of the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty which prohibits extradition where the prosecution is “politically motivated” or where the alleged crime in question is a “political offense.”
If extradited to the U.S., Assange faces up to 175 years in prison for his role in receiving and publishing government documents without authorization, an act which journalists and publishers around the world engage in on a daily basis.
Joe Lauria in Washington and Cathy Vogan in London contributed to this report. https://consortiumnews.com/2022/10/09/world-wide-backing-as-parliament-encircled-for-assange/
Julian Assange tests positive for COVID-19
WSWS, Thomas Scripps 10 Oct 22,
Julian Assange has contracted COVID-19. He received the test result Saturday, on the day several thousand people formed a human chain around Parliament in London to protest his persecution.
His wife, Stella, told the press, “I am obviously worried about him and the next few days will be crucial for his general health. He is now locked in his cell for 24 hours a day.” She said Assange had been feeling ill throughout the week and developed a fever and cough on Friday.
Assange’s infection confirms the repeated warnings of medical professionals and his legal team that his health and life are endangered by his wrongful imprisonment. It must lend renewed urgency to the demand for his immediate release.
Just months before the pandemic, over 100 doctors signed an open letter to the British government warning that Assange’s life was at risk while he was kept in HMP Belmarsh—the UK’s top-security prison. When COVID-19 began to spread rapidly throughout Britain, one of the lead signatories, Dr Stephen Frost, told the World Socialist Web Site, “Given what we know about this case, Mrs Assange is right to be concerned. Julian Assange, because he is immuno-compromised, following years of arbitrary detention first in the Ecuadorian Embassy and latterly in Belmarsh prison, is necessarily at higher risk of contracting any viral or bacterial infection, including infection by coronavirus.
“He should be released on bail immediately, so that he can access the health care which he urgently requires. The UK government is effectively playing Russian roulette with Julian Assange’s life.”
Another doctor, Lissa Johnson, explained, “As long ago as 2015 medical and human rights experts warned that anything more than a trivial illness could prove fatal for Julian Assange. His health is even more fragile now, and the coronavirus only renders those warnings more urgent and more dire.”
She added, “If Julian Assange does succumb to coronavirus or any other catastrophic illness in prison, it will not be an accident. It will be a foreseeable result of prolonged psychological torture and wilful medical neglect.”
…………………………. By the end of October 2020, Ministry of Justice figures showed that 1,529 inmates had been infected, 600 in the previous month alone. At least 32 prisoners had been killed by the virus.
In November, a wave of infections hit Belmarsh prison. Stella Assange revealed, “I’ve been told the number of people infected with COVID on Julian’s house block is 56, including staff.” This was on a block with fewer than 200 inmates.
Assange and the other inmates were placed under an indefinite lockdown, kept in their cells 24 hours a day. His lawyer Edward Fitzgerald had warned at his bail application of the “risk to his mental health and his human contact” posed by lockdown procedures. At Assange’s extradition hearing that autumn, his defence team presented extensive medical evidence of the damage done to his mental health and of the risk of suicide.
……………………………. Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, examined Assange with a medical team inside Belmarsh Prison in May 2019 and concluded that he showed symptoms of psychological torture. He commented on his illness, “Assange’s stroke is no surprise. As we warned after examining him, unless relieved of the constant pressure of isolation, arbitrariness and persecution, his health would enter a downward spiral endangering his life. [The] UK is literally torturing him to death
Melzer added, “As Assange clearly was not medically fit to attend his own trial through videolink, how can they even discuss whether he is fit to be exposed to a show trial in the US, a country that refuses to prosecute its torturers and war criminals but persecutes whistleblowers and journalists?”
Saturday’s protest was the largest yet organised in defence of Assange, attracting a broader range of ages and social backgrounds. It indicated the potential that exists for a mass, global campaign to secure the WikiLeaks founder’s freedom and safety. ………… https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/10/picp-o10.html
7,000 form human chain in London to protest treatment of Assange
WSWS 9 Oct 22, Around 7,000 people formed a human chain around the Houses of Parliament in the UK Saturday, protesting the British government’s persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The chain ran continuously from Parliament Square along the Palace of Westminster, across Lambeth Bridge, along South Bank to Westminster bridge, then back over the Thames river to Parliament Square—roughly two miles. The event was organised by the Don’t Extradite Assange campaign.
Assange is currently held in Belmarsh maximum security prison in London. The United States government is seeking his extradition under the Espionage Act for exposing the war crimes and human rights abuses of US imperialism and its allies. It has plotted his assassination and levelled charges which carry a life sentence in solitary confinement. The WikiLeaks founder is seeking to overturn orders by the British judiciary and the home secretary approving his extradition. His legal team filed an appeal with the High Court in August.
Stella Assange, the WikiLeaks publisher’s wife, told protestors on Saturday, “Julian is suffering and part of the point of making this human chain was to show that what is happening here is not a legal process, it’s not a legitimate process. It is the instrumentalisation of the law in order to persecute a person, a journalist, in order to keep him in prison indefinitely.
“People around the world are witnessing this atrocity and that is what compels them to come here to show their solidarity, to show that they care about Julian. That they believe in justice, that they see what is happening here is a state that has committed crimes against innocent, that is now committing crimes against a journalist who exposed those crimes they committed.
“Let’s not forget that the US planned to assassinate Julian in the UK, while he was in the embassy and now they’ve put him in the harshest prison in the UK for almost four years.”
WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson said proceedings against Assange were “not a legal case,” because of the way the legal system has “bent itself to the demands and requests of the government… it’s appalling.”
He continued, “Julian is a political prisoner. He’s being politically persecuted. The chain around Parliament is sending a message to those inside. They are there to serve the people on the outside. And those are Julian’s supporters. Thousands of them here today, and millions around the world who know that this is a travesty.”
Labour MP and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell had the brass neck to announce, “As we go into the 18 months up to a general election, this will become a general election issue. Every MP will be asked: do you stand up for journalism, do you stand up for the rights of journalist to report freely, do you stand up for his basic human rights, do you stand up for justice?”……………………..
Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site spoke with some of the protestors……………………………………………
A number of those protesting travelled to London from other countries to do so. Mantas, who traveled from Lithuania that day to support Assange as part of the chain, told our reporters, “Assange told the truth about war crimes, and he fought for human rights and freedom of the press.”
The US and UK governments “want to make a clear and obvious example of Assange so that no-one attempts what he did. The powers that be are trying to impose their own world view, control how people think, to seduce them into thinking nothing can be done or that the world is as it’s supposed to be, when we are actually entering into wholesale madness in the world.”
He said of the war in Ukraine that the weapons manufacturers and businesses “want to promote a new war, and they don’t care about the consequences for the Ukrainian people or the Russian people. I don’t agree with Putin’s actions, but I think there was another option, but Zelensky was encouraged to take a hard line and oppose any deals from the Russian Federation.”
Listing the crimes exposed by WikiLeaks he said, “Where do you start? You can look at the video of an Apache helicopter shooting civilians. The Afghan and Iraq war logs and so on. People should look into it. There’s too much to go into herethat many crimes have been uncovered. People should look into what WikiLeaks has done what its expose and be objective about the matter.”
Assange’s case “shows that if anyone finds out something like this and tries to tell the public then they can be prosecuted for it. So obviously that can threaten everyone.” https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/08/chai-o08.html?fbclid=IwAR0oU-kS9VcRD34qsOcy2SC2BTcKB2CmeY6IwAoPfyc-MniCzPt3xsgXEu4
Assange protesters rally for his release
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7934633/assange-protesters-rally-for-his-release/ By Tara Cosoleto, October 8 2022 ,
Thousands have marched through the Melbourne city centre calling for the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The 51-year-old Australian has been in London’s Belmarsh prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019.
Assange is fighting a long-running legal battle to avoid extradition to the United States, where he is wanted for espionage offences.
Melbourne protesters marched through the city streets and formed a human chain across a Southbank bridge on Saturday morning as they called on the Australian government to intervene.
“There’s an expectation in the electorate that the prime minister and this government is going to get Julian out of jail,” Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton told AAP.
“The prime minister’s statements before the election – enough is enough, he doesn’t see what purpose is served by Julian being kept in prison – those were seen as a commitment.
“It’s been so many days of this government and Julian is still rotting in that prison.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should contact the US president directly and plead Assange’s case, Mr Shipton said.
“They can pick up the phone, call Joe Biden and say, hasn’t Julian suffered enough? Drop the charges and extradition,” he said.
“Julian would walk free.”
In August, lawyers for Assange filed an appeal against his extradition to the US, arguing he is being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions.
Assange was charged by the US with 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse after WikiLeaks published thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents.
Melbourne’s demonstration against Assange’s detention was one of many being held across the world on Saturday.
It was heartening to see such global solidarity for Assange’s cause, Mr Shipton said.
“The movement is growing around the world as evidenced by these protests,” he said.
“We’re not going to stop. We are not going to be quiet.”
Australian Associated Press
US Media Held Murdered Russian Journalist to a Dangerous Standard
Whether or not one agrees with what they are saying, journalists of every nationality deserve protection from those who would use violence to silence them.
FAIR, LUCA GOLDMANSOUR, 23 Sept 22
After the August 20 car-bomb assassination of Darya Dugina, the daughter of a Russian ultranationalist political philosopher, US media outlets quickly branded the 29-year-old as an agent in Russia’s “disinformation war.” Rather than treating her as a member of the civilian press, they seemed to downplay her death as a casualty of war.
CNN (8/27/22) ran an article to this effect, failing to characterize her murder as an assassination, instead stating Dugina was “on the front lines” of Russia’s war effort, linking her to “Russia’s vast disinformation machine.” NPR (8/24/22) reported that Dugina was a “Russian propagandist” whose killing signaled the war was coming to Russian elites in their own territory. Foreign Policy (8/26/22) called Dugina a “dead propagandist” whose “martyrdom” did more to achieve her goals in death than she could have hoped for in life.
It is certainly true that during her life, Dugina, who espoused the philosophy of Russian Eurasianism, an expansionist political doctrine veiled as an objective analysis of Russian interests, had very little impact on Western audiences. This is true of most Russian journalists, despite the frequent warnings in US corporate media about the threat posed by Russian media messages. For instance, RT, often considered the foremost Russian outlet in the West, accounted for only 0.04% of Britain’s total viewing audience in 2017 (New Statesman, 2/25/22), and reached about 0.6% of the UK’s online population from February 2021 to the start of 2022—and this was before Western media platforms sharply restricted access to RT and other pro-Moscow outlets in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
Far more prevalent for Western viewers is the constant barrage of pro-NATO, pro-Western propaganda that vastly overstates the significance of Russian disinformation. Such was the case when CNN noted that Dugina ran a “disguised English-language online platform that pushed a pro-Kremlin worldview to Western readers.” By “disguised,” CNN is suggesting that the site she worked for, United World International, engaged in outright deception by not disclosing its Russian origins—much like CNN does not describe itself as a US-based outlet, but rather as a “world leader in online news and information.”
Whether UWI is purposefully misleading or not, CNN‘s underlying assumption is that Western audiences are so fickle that the most minimal exposure to pro-Kremlin viewpoints represents a threat to national security. It’s this stance that turns journalists with foreign ideologies into the equivalent of enemy combatants.
If CNN thinks disclosure is what separates journalism from propaganda, it might have disclosed the biases of the sources it used to contextualize Dugina’s murder. The article mostly relied on information from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and the Center for European Policy Analysis, both of which are “used to promote the information interests of the US-centralized power alliance in Europe and North America” (Transcend.org, 9/5/22) and are funded by the US government, European allied nations and weapons manufacturers.
Whether or not one agrees with what they are saying, journalists of every nationality deserve protection from those who would use violence to silence them. So when CNN or other Western media downplay the assassination of Dugina on the grounds that she spread Russian propaganda, or even disinformation, that supported a war of aggression and other war crimes, they are setting a standard that puts their own colleagues at risk. (The exceptionalism that holds that US institutions can avoid the consequences faced by others is, of course, a central pillar of US propaganda.)
US corporate media have a long track record of advocating for illegal US aggression while knowingly parroting their government’s false pretenses. The New York Times, for instance, hasn’t opposed a US war since its tacit disapproval of Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1983 (FAIR.org, 8/23/17). The Times advocated for the illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (8/8/01, 2/12/03); the CIA’s attempted regime change in Syria (8/26/13); and US drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia (2/6/13). With the body count from these conflicts far surpassing that of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, how would the assassination of a New York Times editorial board member differ from Dugina’s murder? Aside, of course, from the fact that Dugina supported Washington’s geopolitical adversary…………………….. more https://fair.org/home/us-media-held-murdered-russian-journalist-to-a-dangerous-standard/
Stop the Extradition! #FreeAssangeNOW
Julian Assange Files his Perfected Grounds of Appeal
Crowdfunder, Today, 26 August 2022, Julian Assange is filing his Perfected Grounds of Appeal before the High Court of Justice Administrative Court. The Respondents are the Government of the United States and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Priti Patel.
The Perfected Grounds of Appeal contain the arguments on which Julian Assange intends to challenge District Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s decision of 4 January 2021, and introduces significant new evidence that has developed since that ruling.
The Perfected Grounds of Appeal concerning the United States Government include the following points:
- Julian Assange is being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions (s.81(a) of the Extradition Act);
- Julian Assange is being prosecuted for protected speech (Article 10)
- The request itself violates the US-UK Extradition Treaty and International law because it is for political offences;
- The US Government has misrepresented the core facts of the case to the British courts; and
- The extradition request and its surrounding circumstances constitute an abuse of process.
The Perfected Grounds of Appeal concerning the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) include arguments that Home Secretary Priti Patel erred in her decision to approve the extradition order on grounds of specialty and because the request itself violates Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.
“Since the last ruling, overwhelming evidence has emerged proving that the United States prosecution against my husband is a criminal abuse. The High Court judges will now decide whether Julian is given the opportunity to put the case against the United States before open court, and in full, at the appeal,” said Julian Assange’s wife Stella Assange.
Background:……………………………………… more https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/free-assange/updates/187543#startc—
‘We should kill as many Russians as we can’ – Ukrainian envoy
Ukraine is doing its best to “kill as many Russians” as possible, the nation’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, Pyotr Vrublevsky, told local media outlets on Monday.
Speaking to a local blogger, Vrublevsky was asked to comment on the ongoing Ukraine conflict. “What can I say … We are trying to kill as many [Russians] as possible. The more Russians we kill now, the fewer our children will have to. That’s it,” he said………………………………………….. more https://www.rt.com/russia/561314-kill-russians-ukraine-ambassador/
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Zelensky accuses Amnesty International of supporting terrorism
Amid a torrent of criticism from pro-Ukrainian social media posters, Callamard stuck by the report. “To those who attack us alleging biases against Ukraine, I say: check our work,” she wrote on Twitter. “We stand by all victims. Impartially.” Callamard also accused “social media mobs and trolls” on both sides of the conflict of spreading “war propaganda, disinformation, [and] misinformation.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/560260-zelensky-amnesty-international-report/ 4 Aug 22,
Amnesty has stuck by its report that Ukrainian forces endangered civilians.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has accused Amnesty International of siding with “terrorists” after the organization condemned the Ukrainian military for placing weapons in civilian areas in violation of humanitarian law.
“Today we saw a report by Amnesty International, which unfortunately tries to amnesty the terrorist state and shift responsibility from the aggressor to the victim,” Zelensky said in a video address on Thursday evening.
“If someone makes a report that puts the aggressor and the victim on the same level, this cannot be tolerated,” he said, repeating three times that “Ukraine is a victim,” and adding that “anyone who doubts this is an accomplice of Russia – a terrorist country – and a terrorist themselves and a participant in the killings.”’
The report in question was published earlier on Thursday, and detailed 22 cases of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from schools and five examples of troops using hospitals as bases. Amnesty said that it was “not aware” that Ukraine tried to evacuate civilians before occupying these non-military locations.
“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. “Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”
While Amnesty has also accused Russia of breaking international law in the conduct of its military operation, the report was slated online by supporters of Zelensky’s regime, who accused the international organization of peddling “Russian propaganda.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has also pushed back against the report, accusing Amnesty of “creating a false reality” where everyone “is at fault for something.” Instead, he argued that the organization should focus exclusively on alleged Russian wrongdoing.
Amid a torrent of criticism from pro-Ukrainian social media posters, Callamard stuck by the report. “To those who attack us alleging biases against Ukraine, I say: check our work,” she wrote on Twitter. “We stand by all victims. Impartially.” Callamard also accused “social media mobs and trolls” on both sides of the conflict of spreading “war propaganda, disinformation, [and] misinformation.”
In his speech, Zelensky accused the Russian military of “striking at memorials to Holocaust victims” and “at a prisoner of war camp in Yelenovka.” Zelensky was apparently referring to a strike on a Holocaust memorial in March, which actually hit a TV tower nearby. An Israeli journalist stated that the memorial itself was untouched.
Russia accused Ukraine of launching a missile strike on the Yelenovka detention facility housing members of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment last week, and has asked the United Nations and Red Cross to investigate the attack. Donetsk People’s Republic officials claimed the facility was targeted to prevent the prisoners from testifying about alleged Ukrainian war crimes.
Poland’s double standard on how it treats refugees, and the prospect of exhaustion by those housing Ukrainians
Is Poland’s smooth reception of Ukrainian refugees heading for trouble? https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2022/08/04/Poland-Ukraine-refugee-concern-grows?utm_source=The+New+Humanitarian&utm_campaign=9a3fb600c4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_08_5_Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d842d98289-9a3fb600c4-75686634 4 Aug 22,
Poland has so far extended a generous welcome to some 1.5 to 2 million Ukrainians escaping Russia’s invasion – more than double any other EU country. The reception has caught the eye of many, including the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales, who recently visited the country. “I am impressed by the Government of Poland for providing significant support to a huge number of refugees,” González Morales said.
But Poland’s differing treatment of refugees and asylum seekers from other countries – including people fleeing the fighting in Ukraine – did not escape Gonzáles Morales’ attention, who noted the double standard and called for an end to pushbacks at the Poland-Belarus border.
The special rapporteur also said that the situation for Ukrainian refugees in Poland could soon become more difficult as winter approaches and volunteers who have been housing many Ukrainians grow exhausted. That’s just one of the impending challenges – alongside access to education, the possibility of anti-refugee sentiment, and more – that NGO workers and civil society activists told Migration Editor-at-large Eric Reidy they are now really worried about.
Documents show Australian Labor government supports Assange’s extradition to the US
as far as the Labor government is concerned, Assange’s extradition is a done deal.
the greatest mistake defenders of Assange could make would be to harbour illusions that Labor will act to free the WikiLeaks founder.
as far as the Labor government is concerned, Assange’s extradition is a done deal.
the greatest mistake defenders of Assange could make would be to harbour illusions that Labor will act to free the WikiLeaks founder.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/18/rqbf-j18.html Oscar Grenfell @Oscar_Grenfell, 18 July 22,
Documents obtained by lawyer Kellie Tranter and published on the Declassified Australia website cast a damning light on the Australian Labor government’s role in facilitating the continued imprisonment of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and his extradition to the US.
The material gives the lie to the claims of Labor supporters that the newly-elected government may be seeking to secure Assange’s freedom through backroom diplomacy, despite the refusal of Labor ministers to condemn the attempted US extradition and prosecution.
They show that Labor is willing to let Assange be sent to the US, despite doctors and his family warning that it would be a death sentence. A successful extradition would also set a sweeping precedent for attacks on journalists and political dissidents globally.
Assange faces 17 charges under the Espionage Act, and 175 years imprisonment, for publishing true information exposing massive US-led war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tranter, a longstanding legal advisor to Assange, has for many years filed freedom of information requests aimed at acquiring official documents revealing the role of Australian governments in the persecution of Assange. Those released by Declassified Australia are the first she has published since the Labor government was installed after the May 21 federal election.
The two documents are redacted. What is present, however, gives a sufficient picture of Labor’s acquiescence to Assange’s extradition, and the cynical, duplicitous character of the ambiguous public statements its leading representatives have made.
The first are internal “talking points” prepared for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus on June 2. It is entitled: “Julian Assange – International Transfer of Prisoners process – talking points and background.” Its heading indicates the central preoccupation of the document, which states:
“Prisoner transfers cannot be agreed between governments in advance of a person being a prisoner (after a criminal trial, conviction and sentencing) in a particular country, and require the consent of the prisoner;
“International prisoner transfers to Australia are initiated by an application from a prisoner after the prisoner has been convicted and sentenced;
“If surrendered, convicted and sentenced in the US, Assange could apply under the ITP scheme to serve his sentence in Australia;”
In other words, Assange is to be extradited to the US, where the former Trump administration and the CIA plotted to kidnap or assassinate him from London in 2017, before settling on a pseudo-legal criminal indictment. He would be hauled before a kangaroo court in the District of Virginia, with a jury stacked by the very same CIA officers and their relatives. The hearings would proceed in secret and Assange’s detention regime would be one of total isolation.
With this hanging over his head, the document suggests that perhaps Assange will feel compelled to plead guilty to the “crime” of journalism revealing the illegal killings of civilians, torture and other violations of international law.
Tranter notes that following a redacted section, the document continues: “However, the UK High Court’s judgment does note that the US has provided an assurance that they will consent to Mr Assange being transferred to Australia to serve any custodial sentence on him if he is convicted.”
The US “assurances” are not worth the paper they are written on. Their sole aim was to overcome an earlier British court ruling, which found that Assange’s extradition would be “oppressive” because of his deep on-going health issues and the horrific conditions in which he would be held in a US prison.
The assurances, accepted by a British High Court as bona fide last October, asserted that Assange’s conditions of detention would not be as bad as his lawyers claimed. But those very assurances made plain that the intelligence agencies, including the CIA, would have complete control over the circumstances of Assange’s imprisonment, which could be changed at any time.
The second, June 8 document, is a “ministerial submission,” entitled “Julian Assange – extradition request from the United States to the United Kingdom.” It recommends that Dreyfus “note” the situation confronting Assange, in the lead up to an announcement by British Home Secretary Priti Patel on whether she would approve extradition. Several weeks later, Patel gave her green light.
The submission to Dreyfus bluntly stated: “The UK Home Secretary is due to make a final decision on Mr Assange’s extradition to the US by 20 June. Mr Assange will have one final avenue of appeal with the leave of the High Court, otherwise he must be extradited within 28 days of the Secretary of State’s decision.”
And again: “If Mr Assange is extradited, convicted and sentenced in the US, he may apply for transfer to Australia under the International Transfer of Prisoner’s Scheme. This will require the consent of the US and Australian authorities.
“The UK High Court’s judgment notes that the US has provided an assurance that it will consent to Mr Assange being transferred to Australia to serve any custodial sentence imposed on him if he is convicted.”
Later on, the document stated: “‘If Mr Assange is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the US, it will be possible for him to apply under the ITP scheme to serve the remainder of his sentence in Australia. A transfer would also require the consent of the US, the Australian Government (through you as Attorney-General), and the relevant minister in the state into whose prison Mr Assange would be transferring.
“In making any such decision, the department would provide you with advice on factors such as the extent to which the transfer would assist the prisoner’s rehabilitation, sentence enforcement, community safety and any relevant humanitarian considerations, in addition to any conditions of transfer required by the US.’”
In other words, as far as the Labor government is concerned, Assange’s extradition is a done deal.
Also striking is the fact that the documents do not countenance the possibility that he would be found “not guilty” in a US court. The entire thrust of the two documents is that the extradition and successful prosecution have already been stitched up, in a conspiracy involving the British government, the UK courts, the American authorities and the Labor administration.
Once Assange were in the US, moreover, the documents acknowledge that any “prison transfer” would be dependent upon the acquiescence of the American government whose President, Joe Biden, has previously branded Assange as a “high-tech terrorist.” A prison transfer, even in the unlikely event that it occurred, would mean years more of Assange’s incarceration, in Britain, the US and then Australia.
The contempt of the government for Assange is summed up by the reference to “factors such as the extent to which the transfer would assist the prisoner’s rehabilitation.” Assange does not need to be rehabilitated. He is a heroic journalist who has done a major service to humanity. It is the war criminals he has exposed who need to be placed in an institution.
Obviously it is unknown what is contained in the redacted section. It may deal with the elephant in the room, which is excluded from the rest of the documents. Assange’s doctors, lawyers and family have all testified that the WikiLeaks founder would take his life if he were to be extradited to the US. That judgment was effectively upheld by the British District Court, before it was overturned on the basis of the bogus US assurances.
All of the talk about “prison transfers” and the like is therefore window dressing for what would amount to a death sentence.
The documents reveal the sinister character of statements by Labor leaders, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Dreyfus, that the Assange case has ‘gone on for too long,” and “needs to be brought to a close.” When asked by journalists, each has refused to elaborate on what this precisely means.
One thing that is entirely absent from the documents is any suggestion that Labor has so much as suggested the US government drop the charges against Assange and end the extradition proceedings. The continuation of the judicial frame-up and victimisation is taken as given.
The documents vindicate the warnings of the Socialist Equality Party that the greatest mistake defenders of Assange could make would be to harbour illusions that Labor will act to free the WikiLeaks founder.
The 2010-2013 Gillard Labor government initiated Australia’s collaboration with the persecution of Assange. Gillard slandered Assange by falsely claiming that he had broken Australian laws. Assange publicly accused Gillard and other senior ministers of secretly collaborating with the American state against him and other Australian citizens associated with WikiLeaks.
Those actions were bound up with the Gillard government’s full-throated support for the “pivot to Asia,” a vast military build-up aimed at preparing for an aggressive US-led war against China.
A decade on and the military preparations are far advanced. The new Labor government is functioning as an attack dog of the Biden administration throughout the region. Last week, during a visit to Washington, Defence Minister Richard Marles hailed the US-Australia alliance as “unbreakable,” as he outlined a further massive military-build up.
The documents confirm that the fight for Assange’s freedom requires a political struggle by the working class, the social constituency for democratic rights, against the Labor government and all of its defenders. A Labor government will only intervene diplomatically and legally to free Assange, if it is forced to do so by a mass movement from below.
INSIDE THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR GOVERNMENT’S ASSANGE GAME PLAN
Is Australia urging the United States in non-negotiable terms to give priority to human rights and press freedom over any intelligence service-based vendetta or US domestic political considerations, and drop the case against Assange completely?
The imprecise language of the Labor government statements on using “quiet diplomacy” to “bring the matter to a close”, rather than clearly saying what they are seeking, may be giving false hope to the Australian public. Without putting forward its “quiet diplomacy” in non-negotiable terms to the US, it may be that the dropping of charges will not even be considered.
Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus It is not open to the Australian Government to directly interfere with either the jailing of Mr Assange in the United Kingdom, or the extradition request that’s been made by the United States to the United Kingdom.
“The Assange case is unique. One of the ways in which that is the case is the attempted extraterritorial use of the US Espionage Act. The US is seeking to establish a precedent where it could seek to extradite any journalist anywhere in the world for disclosure of US information.
“If Australia were to sanction a ‘deal’ whereby Assange pleaded guilty to a charge in exchange for an Australian served sentence, it would be endorsing that approach.”
New revelations on the Labor Government’s secret planning to act on the Assange case without offending the Americans.
https://declassifiedaus.org/2022/07/16/exclusive-inside-labors-assange-game-plan/ by Kellie Tranter | Jul 16, 2022, Quiet diplomacy”, a “soft approach”, a “loud approach” and “avoiding megaphone diplomacy” have all been floated as strategies to “bring to an end” the case against WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. In situations like his, the best form of diplomacy is that which produces results most favourable to the citizen involved and at the same time keeps them safe and in good health.
But government documents obtained this week by Declassified Australia under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act from the Attorney-General’s Department, indicate the new Labor Government does certainly not rule out the physical extradition of Assange from the United Kingdom to the United States, nor does it give any hint about how it might deal with possible fallout from that.
Continue readingExtradition of Julian Assange – a travesty of justice
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Alan William Preston Australia, 2 July 22, 1174 days in solitary confinement in London’s Belmarsh prison for having published evidence of the American military’s deliberate breaching of the Geneva Conventions during their illegal occupation of Iraq during which their personnel recorded 61,000 civilian deaths caused by their activities.
This is only a small corner of the truth he was shining the light on.
No further investigations or prosecutions for these war crimes have ever been pursued. Now the U.K. government is scrambling to disconnect itself from the European Court of Human Rights.
The U.N. had deemed that Julian Asssange had the right to publish this material and that his imprisonment is arbitrary and that the conditions equate to psychologicial torture and is ‘intimidation and reprisal’ being inflicted by the states that stand implicated by the evidence received and published.
We need to set the terms of reference for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the dysfunction in all the checks and balances that have allowed this travesty of injustice to occur.
Julian Assange files new appeal fighting extradition to US.
Washington Examiner. by Ryan King, Breaking News Reporter, July 01, 2022
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is appealing the United Kingdom’s order to extradite him to the United States.
Two appeals were filed in the High Court of Justice in London to challenge the extradition, and the court will decide whether to evaluate the case, Assange’s attorney Gareth Peirce announced, according to the Wall Street Journal……………………………………
Friday was the deadline for Assange to appeal the extradition order, according to the BBC. He is being held at Belmarsh prison in London.
His lawyers claimed that he could face up to 175 years behind bars if he stands trial in the U.S., but the U.S. argued he will likely face between four and six years.
A myriad of groups championing freedom of the press urged the U.K. not to extradite Assange, arguing that doing so could set a bad precedent and hamper press freedoms in the future. For example, the International Federation of Journalists has expressed concerns the move could pose a “chilling effect” on journalists worldwide.
“The US pursuit of Assange against the public’s right to know poses a grave threat to the Fundamental tenets of democracy, which are becoming increasingly fragile worldwide,” the group said. “Irrespective of personal views on Assange, his extradition will have a chilling effect, with all journalists and media workers at risk.”
“The case sets a dangerous precedent that members of the media, in any country, can now be targeted by governments, anywhere in the world, to answer for publishing information in the public interest,” the group added.https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/julian-assange-files-appeal-fighting-extradition
Harsher anti-protest laws targeting environmentalists are putting greed before green
Guardian, Bob Brown 27 June 22,
Penalties for peaceful action are now the same as for aggravated assault.
Last Friday dozens of armed New South Wales police officers raided a camp near Sydney and arrested two environmentalists. One was Aunty Caroline Kirk, an Aboriginal elder. She was charged with “wilfully obstructing and intimidating police”.
“I can’t run, I can’t climb,” she said. “All I can do … is teach my culture. Why are they doing this?”
The answer lies in the showdown of our age between greed and green.
At the heart of this is greenophobia, the fear of things green, including environmentalists. It involves the blighted idea that people should be stopped from taking action to defend the environment, especially if it gets in the way of making money.
It has infected the world of natural resource extractors and they have found the established political parties around the world extra helpful. So, in this year’s Queen’s speech, Boris Johnson announced a bill to jail peaceful UK protesters for up to 10 years. The proposal of those measures was one of the triggers that brought 400 alarmed scientists out to support environmental activists last year.
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is a greenophobe who is letting the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous cultures be destroyed. His nation has descended into environmental lawlessness in which two rainforest defenders, British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira, were murdered this month. Globally, 220 environmentalists were murdered last year and thousands more were injured, terrorised or imprisoned. Most of the perpetrators have not been arrested or charged.
MMG’s lobbying helped influence the Tasmanian parliament to vote last week for harsher penalties for the defenders of the Tarkine and its giant masked owls. A clear majority of Tasmanian MPs want MMG to get its toxic waste dump in the Tarkine and Tasmania’s defenders of nature to get a cell in Risdon prison.
Tasmania’s laws match those of NSW, with penalties of up to $11,000 for peaceful environmental protest and double that, or two and a half years in jail, for a second offence. Had these laws been in place in other jurisdictions at other times, the Franklin River would be dammed, the Daintree rainforest razed and much of Kakadu national park mined.
Victoria has also introduced legislation, one aim of which is to deter scientists who have previously gone into the highlands and found forests with protected species – such as the greater glider and the state’s critically endangered faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum – being logged. That’s illegal. While the loggers faced no charges, the intention of the new laws is to stop or arrest those scientists next time.
In Newcastle last year a young man was sentenced to a year in jail for delaying a coal train. The court did not hear the assessment of the former chief scientist at Nasa who told the US Congress that, in this world of dangerous global heating, transporting coal is a criminal activity.
Greenophobia is percolating down. On the Monday before Aunty Caroline’s arrest, 100 or so officers raided Blockade Australia’s camp for peaceful protest at Colo near Sydney after four undercover officers who failed to identify themselves “feared for their lives” – though the police had the guns and the people in the camp, including the children, had none……………………………..
Corporate PR machines, with the rightwing media ready to go, are developing greenophobia to divert attention to their business wellbeing and away from the graver threat of the collapse of Earth’s biosphere, including through global heating and species extinctions. As the NSW attorney general, Mark Speakman, put it: “What we are stopping, or criminalising even further, are protests that shut down major economic activity.” It’s money before the planet.22
The new federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is now Australia’s most powerful environmentalist. She will decide if MMG should treat its toxic wastes inside or outside the Tarkine rainforest. In doing so she will also decide if Tasmania’s environmentalists will face the new draconian sentences there. Those penalties, for peaceful environmental action, are now the same as for aggravated assault or for threatening neighbours with a shotgun.
Such laws may be tested in the high court as earlier laws were, after I was among those arrested in Tasmania’s Lapoinya rainforest in 2017. The court found those laws unconstitutional because they took away the right to peaceful protest. Meanwhile the Lapoinya forest was flattened and burnt, along with its rare wildlife. No one was arrested for that… The court found those laws unconstitutional because they took away the right to peaceful protest. Meanwhile the Lapoinya forest was flattened and burnt, along with its rare wildlife. No one was arrested for that.
If MMG’s needless waste dump is given the go-ahead I, for one, will help defend that vital forest, its owls, kingfishers and Tasmanian devils. They can take us out of nature but they can’t take nature out of us.
As for the “terrifying” Aunty Caroline, I would like to meet her and thank her. She may not be able to run or climb but she is an inspiration. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/27/harsher-anti-protest-laws-targeting-environmentalists-are-putting-greed-before-green-bob-brown
- Bob Brown is a former senator and leader of the Australian Greens and is patron of the Bob Brown Foundation……
Assange’s wife sounds alarm over his treatment
Assange’s wife sounds alarm over his treatment, https://www.rt.com/news/557738-assange-wife-treatment-extradition-us/ 27 June 22.WikiLeaks founder was subjected to ‘especially cruel’ treatment after extradition to US was approved in UK, Stella Moris has said.
Julian Assange was strip-searched and moved to a bare cell on the very day the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel approved his extradition to the US, the WikiLeaks founder’s wife, Stella Moris, told journalists on Thursday. The 50-year-old remained there for a weekend as prison guards searched his own cell, she added.
“Prison is a constant humiliation but what happened on Friday felt especially cruel,” Moris, who married Assange in March, has said, adding that the guards had told their inmate that it had all been done “for his own protection.”
According to Moris, the guards were looking for any things that could be used by a person to take their own life. In the bare cell where Assange was placed, the guards checked his status every hour until he was allowed to return to his cell on Tuesday.
The WikiLeaks founder currently remains in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison in south-eastern London, having been placed there in April 2019 as the UK was deciding on his extradition to the US. On June 17, Patel approved his transfer to US custody.
A British court had initially refused the extradition request on the grounds that Assange may otherwise kill himself, or that he’d be subjected to inhumane treatment in US detention. But Washington successfully appealed the ruling, offering the UK assurances that the Australian’s rights would be observed.
“The fact he is imprisoned while this outrageous extradition proceeds is a grave injustice in itself. He needs to deal with all that, while preparing for a complex appeal to the High Court,” Moris said. Assange still has a right to appeal the decision within 14 days of June 17.
“This kind of thing never becomes more tolerable. Any person would find it degrading. The mental strain on Julian is enormous as it is, having to process what is essentially a death sentence,” Moris said, adding that extradition to the US would “drive him to take his own life.”
It is not some “regular discussion about mental health,” she has insisted, adding that “we are talking about driving a person to take their own life.”
Moris, who has two children with Assange, has vowed to “use every available avenue” and “every waking hour fighting for Julian until he is free.” John Rees, a leading member of the campaign aimed at making the authorities free Assange has also branded Patel’s ruling “illegal” and said the WikiLeaks founder’s supporters “need to redouble our efforts to stop the extradition.”
The UK Home Office said last week that the British courts “have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr. Assange,” adding that they also believed his rights would be observed.
Assange has been a target for the US since 2010, when WikiLeaks published a trove of State Department cables and Pentagon documents that depicted alleged war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has since been accused of attempting to hack Pentagon computers and is charged under America’s Espionage Act, over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified materials. If extradited to the US, he might face up to 175 years behind bars.
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