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The Slow-Motion Execution of Julian Assange Continues .

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cvwHt70oJJ4%3Fsi%3Dbkt_cNTWpER88Aiv

Free speech is a key issue. If Julian is granted First Amendment rights in a U.S. court it will be very difficult for the U.S. to build a criminal case against him, since other news organizations, including The New York Times and The Guardian, published the material he released.

The ruling by the High Court in London permitting Julian Assange to appeal his extradition order leaves him languishing in precarious health in a high-security prison. That is the point.

CHRIS HEDGES, MAY 24, 2024, https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-slow-motion-execution-of-julian-986?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=778851&post_id=144930141&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The decision by the High Court in London to grant Julian Assange the right to appeal the order to extradite him to the United States may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. It does not mean Julian will elude extradition. It does not mean the court has ruled, as it should, that he is a journalist whose only “crime” was providing evidence of war crimes and lies by the U.S. government to the public. It does not mean he will be released from the high-security HMS Belmarsh prison where, as Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, after visiting Julian there, said he was undergoing a “slow-motion execution.”

It does not mean that journalism is any less imperiled. Editors and publishers of five international media outlets —– The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL —– which published stories based on documents released by WikiLeaks, have urged that the U.S. charges be dropped and Julian be released. None of these media executives were charged with espionage. It does not dismiss the ludicrous ploy by the U.S. government to extradite an Australian citizen whose publication is not based in the U.S. and charge him under the Espionage Act. It continues the long Dickensian farce that mocks the most basic concepts of due process.

This ruling is based on the grounds that the U.S. government did not offer sufficient assurances that Julian would be granted the same First Amendment protections afforded to a U.S. citizen, should he stand trial. The appeal process is one more legal hurdle in the persecution of a journalist who should not only be free, but feted and honored as the most courageous of our generation.

Yes. He can file an appeal. But this means another year, perhaps longer, in harsh prison conditions as his physical and psychological health deteriorates. He has spent over five years in HMS Belmarsh without being charged. He spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy because the U.K. and Swedish governments refused to guarantee that he wouldn’t be extradited to the U.S., even though he agreed to return to Sweden to aid a preliminary investigation that was eventually dropped.

The judicial lynching of Julian was never about justice. The plethora of legal irregularities, including the recording of his meetings with attorneys by the Spanish security firm UC Global at the embassy on behalf of the CIA, alone should have seen the case thrown out of court as it eviscerates attorney-client privilege.

The U.S. has charged Julian with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of computer misuse, for an alleged conspiracy to take possession of and then publish national defense information. If found guilty on all of these charges he faces 175 years in a U.S. prison.

The extradition request is based on the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs — hundreds of thousands of classified documents, leaked to the site by Chelsea Manning, then an Army intelligence analyst, which exposed numerous U.S. war crimes including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateral Murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to U.S. checkpoints.

In February, lawyers for Julian submitted nine separate grounds for a possible appeal.

A two-day hearing in March, which I attended, was Julian’s last chance to request an appeal of the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel, and of many of the rulings of District Judge Baraitser in 2021.

The two High Court judges, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson, in March rejected most of Julian’s grounds of appeal. These included his lawyers’ contention that the UK-US extradition treaty bars extradition for political offenses; that the extradition request was made for the purpose of prosecuting him for his political opinions; that extradition would amount to retroactive application of the law — because it was not foreseeable that a century-old espionage law would be used against a foreign publisher; and that he would not receive a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia. The judges also refused to hear new evidence that the CIA plotted to kidnap and assassinate Julian, concluding — both perversely and incorrectly — that the CIA only considered these options because they believed Julian was planning to flee to Russia.

But the two judges determined Monday that it is “arguable” that a U.S. court might not grant Julian protection under the First Amendment, violating his rights to free speech as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

The judges in March asked the U.S. to provide written assurances that Julian would be protected under the First Amendment and that he would be exempt from a death penalty verdict. The U.S. assured the court that Julian would not be subjected to the death penalty, which Julian’s lawyers ultimately accepted. But the Department of Justice was unable to provide an assurance that Julian could mount a First Amendment defense in a U.S. court. Such a decision is made in a U.S. federal court, their lawyers explained.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who is prosecuting Julian, has argued that only U.S. citizens are guaranteed First Amendment rights in U.S. courts. Kromberg has stated that what Julian published was “not in the public interest” and that the U.S. was not seeking his extradition on political grounds.

The extradition request is based on the contention that Julian is not a journalist and not protected under the First Amendment.

Julian’s attorneys and those representing the U.S. government have until May 24 to submit a draft order, which will determine when the appeal will be heard.

Julian committed the empire’s greatest sin — he exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, routine violation of human rights, wanton killing of innocent civilians, rampant corruption and war crimes. Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Trump or Biden — it does not matter. Those who manage the empire use the same dirty playbook.

The publication of classified documents is not a crime in the United States, but if Julian is extradited and convicted, it will become one.

Julian is in precarious physical and psychological health. His physical and psychological deterioration has resulted in a minor stroke, hallucinations and depression. He takes antidepressant medication and the antipsychotic quetiapine. He has been observed pacing his cell until he collapses, punching himself in the face and banging his head against the wall. He has spent weeks in the medical wing of Belmarsh, nicknamed “hell wing.” Prison authorities found “half of a razor blade” hidden under his socks. He has repeatedly called the suicide hotline run by the Samaritans because he thought about killing himself “hundreds of times a day.”

These slow-motion executioners have not yet completed their work. Toussaint L’Ouverture, who led the Haitian independence movement, the only successful slave revolt in human history, was physically destroyed in the same manner. He was locked by the French in an unheated and cramped prison cell and left to die of exhaustion, malnutrition, apoplexy, pneumonia and probably tuberculosis.

Prolonged imprisonment, which the granting of this appeal perpetuates, is the point. The 12 years Julian has been detained — seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and over five in high-security Belmarsh Prison — have been accompanied by a lack of sunlight and exercise, as well as unrelenting threats, pressure, prolonged isolation, anxiety and constant stress. The goal is to destroy him.

We must free Julian. We must keep him out of the hands of the U.S. government. Given all he did for us, we owe him an unrelenting fight.

If there is no freedom of speech for Julian, there will be no freedom of speech for us.

May 27, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, Legal, UK | assange, julian-assange, news, Politics, Wikileaks | Leave a comment

UK court orders delay to extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to US on espionage charges

https://youtube.com/watch?v=V-6-oiIAfaY%3Fsi%3DAg5AZI6X5FUiAYWl

By Associated Press, By OLIVER PRICE , 27 March 2024 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239885/Julian-Assange-appeal-against-extradition-court-rules.html?fbclid=IwAR05bAhgRzHKwygiC0ljNnPEU_bL1uwPz2mIRy7vU9RzSU0J_Qbi4aOpK_M_aem_AahKjiDK6G3wRltDvIaC_MtPOcRzYRMwUFpdRPeR7yiJcdMyJyjQi03SWVMX6MWQenTiiAm9LmgWVamqopIy9ZT_

The United States must give assurances that Julian Assange will not face the death penalty before judges will consider dismissing the WikiLeaks founder’s bid to bring an extradition appeal, the High Court has ruled.

Assange, 52, faces prosecution in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

In a 66-page ruling, Dame Victoria Sharp said: ‘Before making a final decision on the application for leave to appeal, we will give the respondent an opportunity to give assurances.

‘If assurances are not given then we will grant leave to appeal without a further hearing.

‘If assurances are given then we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.’

These assurances are that Assange would be protected by and allowed to rely on the First Amendment – which protects freedom of speech in the US, that he is not ‘prejudiced at trial’ due to his nationality, and that the death penalty is not imposed.

The judges said the US authorities had three weeks to give those assurances, with a final hearing potentially taking place in late May.

In her ruling, Dame Sharp said any assurances from the United States would need to include ‘that the applicant (Julian Assange) is permitted to rely on the First Amendment, that the applicant is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed’.

Speaking after the judgment, the Australian’s wife Stella Assange described the ruling as ‘astounding’.

She said: ‘What the courts have done has been to invite a political intervention from the United States… send a letter saying ‘its all ok’. I find this astounding.

‘This case is a retribution. It is a signal to all of you that if you expose the interests that are driving war they will come after you, they will put you in prison and will try to kill you.

‘The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought.’

Addressing Julian Assange’s legal ground about freedom of speech guarantees in the US, Dame Victoria Sharp said: ‘The applicant wishes to argue, at any trial in the United States, that his actions were protected by the First Amendment.

‘He contends that if he is given First Amendment rights, the prosecution will be stopped. The First Amendment is therefore of central importance to his defence to the extradition charge.’

She continued: ‘If he is not permitted to rely on the First Amendment because of his status as a foreign national, he will thereby be prejudiced, potentially very greatly prejudiced, by reason of his nationality.’

Dame Victoria concluded: ‘It follows that it is arguable that the applicant might be treated differently at trial on the grounds of his nationality.

‘Subject to the question of whether this could be addressed by means of an assurance from the respondent, we would grant leave to appeal.’

WikiLeaks initially reacted positively to the news, saying Assange had been granted ‘leave to appeal’ his extradition, but he will only be allowed to do so if ‘assurances’ are not met.

Reacting to the ruling on X, formerly Twitter, this morning, WikiLeaks posted: ‘Julian Assange has been granted leave to appeal extradition to the US.

‘Having spent almost five years detained at the UK’s most secure prison the publisher will continue his long detention separated from his young family for revealing war crimes. #FreeAssangeNOW.’

WikiLeaks has now deleted this tweet.

WikiLeaks later added: ‘The court has given US Gov 3 weeks to give satisfactory assurances: That Mr. Assange is permitted to rely on the First Amendment to the US constitution; not prejudiced at trial by reason of his nationality; and that the death penalty is not imposed. #FreeAssange.’

The hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice today was attended by Assange’s wife Stella, dozens of journalists and members of the public, with hundreds observing remotely.

Dozens of people stood outside the central London courthouse to await the judgment, holding placards bearing the message ‘Free Julian Assange’ and chanting ‘There is only one decision, no extradition’.

Speaking at a press conference after Julian Assange’s bid to appeal against extradition to the US was delayed, Jennifer Robinson, WikiLeaks legal counsel, said the decision raised ‘fundamental concerns about free speech’.

She added: ‘It is absurd that we are five years into this case and the US has not offered assurance to protect him from (the death penalty).’

Ms Robinson added: ‘The judgment today demonstrates that if Julian was extradited to the United States there is a real risk and concern that he would not be afforded free speech protections.

‘We say the US should not be offering assurance in response to this judgment, they should be dropping the case and it is a case that should never have been brought in the first place.’

Speaking after the latest Julian Assange ruling, Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: ‘A temporary reprieve is clearly preferable to an extradition that would have taken place in the coming days.

‘However, the conditionality around the grounds of appeal, which are contingent on the examination of US government assurances that he will not face the death penalty and has the right to free speech, mean the risks to Assange and press freedom remain stark.

‘Assange’s prosecution by the US is for activities that are daily work for investigative journalists – finding sources with evidence of criminality and helping them to get their stories out into the world.

‘If Assange is prosecuted, free expression the world over will be damaged.’

She added: ‘The nuanced nature of this appeal judgment makes an alternative ending to this situation even more pressing.

‘In recent months there has been increasing speculation about some kind of plea deal, to bring this saga to a swift and straightforward conclusion. I urge the US to return to these options.

‘Media freedom is under threat all over the world, compassion and common sense from the US Department of Justice would do much to restore Washington’s reputation as a bastion of free expression.’

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for the US to drop the charges against Julian Assange.

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Corbyn said Tuesday’s decision was ‘big step forward’ for Assange’s case but that it is ‘not the victory’ his supporters are looking for.

Mr Corbyn said: ‘Above all, the pressure has to be on the US administration to drop the charges against Julian Assange.

‘He’s a brave journalist who tells the truth.’

When asked why Assange’s case was important to him, the Corbyn said: ‘Because he’s told some very uncomfortable truths about the military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places around the world, but also the effects of corporate greed on the natural world and environment.

‘If Julian goes down for that, then every serious journalist around the world is going to be feel a bit constrained, and that’s dangerous.’

n a January 2021 ruling, then-district judge Vanessa Baraitser said that Assange should not be sent to the US, citing a real and ‘oppressive’ risk of suicide, while ruling against him on all other issues.

But later that year, US authorities won their High Court bid to overturn this block, paving the way towards Assange’s extradition.

During a two-day hearing in February, lawyers for the 52-year-old asked for the go-ahead to challenge the original judge’s dismissal of other parts of his case to prevent his extradition.

And in a judgment today, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson dismissed most of Assange’s legal arguments but said that unless assurances were given by the United States, he would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds.

The judges said the US authorities had three weeks to give those assurances, with a final decision to be made in late May.

At the start of Assange’s bid last month, Mark Summers KC argued the US’s prosecution would be retribution for his political opinions, meaning it would be unlawful to extradite him under UK law.

However the two judges rejected this argument.

Dame Victoria said: ‘The applicant’s case before us amounts simply to a reassertion of his case on this issue, and a disagreement with the (district) judge’s conclusion.

‘It does not engage with the judge’s reasoning. Far less does it identify any flaw in her factual conclusions.’

March 26, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal | assange, julian-assange, news, Politics, Wikileaks | Leave a comment

Julian Assange’s Final Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice 20-21 Feb. What to Expect.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LvdTG56Ubdc%3Fsi%3DykkxFgKoAfUoNgMO

Day X is here! Julian Assange’s Final Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice.

STELLA ASSANGE, FEB 19, 2024, Stella Assange – The Fight to Save my Husband

The new public hearing dates are upon us. We will be gathering outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday and Wednesday, 20-21 February. It may be the final chance for the UK to stop Julian’s extradition.

Date: 20-21 February 2024
Location: Royal Courts of Justice
Time: 8:30 am GMT
On Wed 21 Feb, there will be a march to Downing St after the hearing.

Here’s what to expect on the two days.

Meet our presenters that will be live outside the Royal Courts of Justice…………………….

JADC (The Committee to Defend Julian Assange), one of the oldest grassroots groups here in the UK will be helping us to sell T-shirts, bags, badges and our new hoodies. So, make sure to come by and say hi to Emmy and Jeannie who will be manning our table.

There will be speakers throughout the two days! Including:

Apsana Begum
Tim Dawson
John Hendy
Richard Burgon
Peter Oborne
Jeremy Corbyn
John McDonnell
Zarah Sultana
Chris Hedges
Andrew Feinstein
Andrew Wilkie
Tariq Ali
Rebecca Vincent
Ben Westwood
PEN International
Clare Daley
Mick Wallace
Chip Gibbons