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Showing posts with label Julian Assange. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julian Assange. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 06, 2019
Wednesday, September 04, 2019
‘All of us are in danger’: John Pilger delivers a chilling warning from Julian Assange
Journalist John Pilger has delivered a stark warning from WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, who said that his persecution is intended to kill dissent. “Speak up now,” Pilger said, or face “the silence of a new kind of tyranny.”
Assange is currently serving a 50 week sentence in Belmarsh Prison for skipping a bail hearing in 2012. US authorities are seeking his extradition for his role in publishing classified documents, accusing him of espionage. Speaking at a rally outside the Home Office in London on Monday, Pilger passed on a message from the WikiLeaks editor who, if extradited and convicted, could be sentenced to 175 years in prison.
It’s not just me. It’s much wider. It’s all of us. It’s all journalists, and all publishers who do their job who are in danger.
“The danger Julian Assange faces can easily spread to the present and past editors of the Guardian, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, El Pais in Spain, the Sydney Morning Herald, and many other newspapers and media outlets that published the WikiLeaks revelations about the lies and crimes of our governments,” Pilger continued.
“By defending Julian Assange we defend our most sacred rights,” Pilger warned. “Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny.”
Read the entire article
Assange is currently serving a 50 week sentence in Belmarsh Prison for skipping a bail hearing in 2012. US authorities are seeking his extradition for his role in publishing classified documents, accusing him of espionage. Speaking at a rally outside the Home Office in London on Monday, Pilger passed on a message from the WikiLeaks editor who, if extradited and convicted, could be sentenced to 175 years in prison.
It’s not just me. It’s much wider. It’s all of us. It’s all journalists, and all publishers who do their job who are in danger.
“The danger Julian Assange faces can easily spread to the present and past editors of the Guardian, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, El Pais in Spain, the Sydney Morning Herald, and many other newspapers and media outlets that published the WikiLeaks revelations about the lies and crimes of our governments,” Pilger continued.
“By defending Julian Assange we defend our most sacred rights,” Pilger warned. “Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny.”
Read the entire article
Friday, August 16, 2019
Friday, August 09, 2019
New Fears for Julian Assange
Assange is suffering from an undisclosed ailment and has been confined to the hospital ward at the maximum security prison for several weeks. He was arrested on April 11 by British police who were called by the Ecuadorian government into its London embassy in apparent violation of international asylum law. Assange had been granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012. He had been suffering health problems in the embassy but British authorities refused to allow him to leave the embassy for treatment and return without being arrested.
Almost immediately after his eventual arrest the United States unveiled an indictment against him for alleged intrusion into a government computer although the indictment itself describes normal procedures of investigative journalism: encouraging a source to provide more information and working to protect the source’s identity.
On May 23, Assange was charged under the U.S. Espionage Act for possession and dissemination of classified information given to him by WikiLeak‘s source, Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. army intelligence analyst. It was the first time the Espionage Act was used against a journalist for publishing classified information.
Manning, meanwhile, is imprisoned in Alexandria, VA for refusing to testify to a grand jury on Assange’s case. Since Assange has already been twice indicted, it is not clear if a new indictment against him is being prepared. On Wednesday, the judge in Manning’s case denied her a hearing and said $1,000-a-day fines against her did not amount to “punishment.”
Read the entire article
Almost immediately after his eventual arrest the United States unveiled an indictment against him for alleged intrusion into a government computer although the indictment itself describes normal procedures of investigative journalism: encouraging a source to provide more information and working to protect the source’s identity.
On May 23, Assange was charged under the U.S. Espionage Act for possession and dissemination of classified information given to him by WikiLeak‘s source, Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. army intelligence analyst. It was the first time the Espionage Act was used against a journalist for publishing classified information.
Manning, meanwhile, is imprisoned in Alexandria, VA for refusing to testify to a grand jury on Assange’s case. Since Assange has already been twice indicted, it is not clear if a new indictment against him is being prepared. On Wednesday, the judge in Manning’s case denied her a hearing and said $1,000-a-day fines against her did not amount to “punishment.”
Read the entire article
Tuesday, July 02, 2019
The Torture of Julian Assange
In a few days July 4th will be upon us. We will hear endless nonsense from insouciant speakers and editorialists about what a great democracy we are, having won our freedom from being a British colony.
One thing the United States most certainly is not is a democracy. A democracy requires an informed electorate, and the United States most certainly does not have an informed electorate. The American media, indeed, the entirety of the Western print and TV media, functions as a Propaganda Ministry for Washington and the ruling oligarchies. The explanations are controlled to serve the agendas of the ruling elites. The persecution and torture of Julian Assange proves conclusively that the First Amendment is a dead-letter Amendment.
The vaunted rule of law in the Great American Democracy is a dead-letter rule of law. Since the Clinton regime America has had four criminal regimes in a row, the presidents and high officials of which are more guilty of war crimes than the German National Socialists who were tried at Nuremberg on ex post facto grounds in order to distract from the war crimes of the victorious allies.
Without an honest Fourth Estate it is impossible to prevent a democracy from becoming a tyranny. In America tyranny is far advanced. Suppose that Americans somehow became aware of the truth about Julian Assange’s total innocence that has been disclosed by Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. What could they do about it short of violent revolution and complete elimination of the ruling elites?
Read the entire article
One thing the United States most certainly is not is a democracy. A democracy requires an informed electorate, and the United States most certainly does not have an informed electorate. The American media, indeed, the entirety of the Western print and TV media, functions as a Propaganda Ministry for Washington and the ruling oligarchies. The explanations are controlled to serve the agendas of the ruling elites. The persecution and torture of Julian Assange proves conclusively that the First Amendment is a dead-letter Amendment.
The vaunted rule of law in the Great American Democracy is a dead-letter rule of law. Since the Clinton regime America has had four criminal regimes in a row, the presidents and high officials of which are more guilty of war crimes than the German National Socialists who were tried at Nuremberg on ex post facto grounds in order to distract from the war crimes of the victorious allies.
Without an honest Fourth Estate it is impossible to prevent a democracy from becoming a tyranny. In America tyranny is far advanced. Suppose that Americans somehow became aware of the truth about Julian Assange’s total innocence that has been disclosed by Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. What could they do about it short of violent revolution and complete elimination of the ruling elites?
Read the entire article
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
The Coming Show Trial of Julian Assange
On Friday morning I was in a small courtroom at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London. Julian Assange, held in Belmarsh Prison and dressed in a pale-blue prison shirt, appeared on a video screen directly in front of me. Assange, his gray hair and beard neatly trimmed, slipped on heavy, dark-frame glasses at the start of the proceedings. He listened intently as Ben Brandon, the prosecutor, seated at a narrow wooden table, listed the crimes he allegedly had committed and called for his extradition to the United States to face charges that could result in a sentence of 175 years. The charges include the release of unredacted classified material that posed a “grave” threat to “human intelligence sources” and “the largest compromises of confidential information in the history of the United States.” After the prosecutor’s presentation, Assange’s attorney, Mark Summers, seated at the same table, called the charges “an outrageous and full-frontal assault on journalistic rights.”
Most of us who have followed the long persecution of Assange expected this moment, but it was nevertheless deeply unsettling, the opening of the final act in a Greek tragedy where the hero, cursed by fortuna, or fate, confronts the dark forces from which there is no escape.
The publication of classified documents is not a crime in the United States, but if Assange is extradited and convicted it will become one. Assange is not an American citizen. WikiLeaks, which he founded and publishes, is not a U.S.-based publication. The message the U.S. government is sending is clear: No matter who or where you are, if you expose the inner workings of empire you will be hunted down, kidnapped and brought to the United States to be tried as a spy. The extradition and trial of Assange will mean the end of public investigations by the press into the crimes of the ruling elites. It will cement into place a frightening corporate tyranny. Publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian, which devoted pages to the WikiLeaks revelations and later amplified and legitimized Washington’s carefully orchestrated character assassination of Assange, are no less panicked. This is the gravest assault on press freedom in my lifetime.
Read the entire article
Most of us who have followed the long persecution of Assange expected this moment, but it was nevertheless deeply unsettling, the opening of the final act in a Greek tragedy where the hero, cursed by fortuna, or fate, confronts the dark forces from which there is no escape.
The publication of classified documents is not a crime in the United States, but if Assange is extradited and convicted it will become one. Assange is not an American citizen. WikiLeaks, which he founded and publishes, is not a U.S.-based publication. The message the U.S. government is sending is clear: No matter who or where you are, if you expose the inner workings of empire you will be hunted down, kidnapped and brought to the United States to be tried as a spy. The extradition and trial of Assange will mean the end of public investigations by the press into the crimes of the ruling elites. It will cement into place a frightening corporate tyranny. Publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian, which devoted pages to the WikiLeaks revelations and later amplified and legitimized Washington’s carefully orchestrated character assassination of Assange, are no less panicked. This is the gravest assault on press freedom in my lifetime.
Read the entire article
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
WikiLeaks & Assange Exposed Deep State Crimes
After years spent hiding in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested. Deep State propagandists in the media could barely contain their excitement over the arrest and upcoming prosecution of Assange on criminal charges filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. And it is not hard to see why. Assange and his organization helped to expose a wide array of Deep State crimes, ranging from illegal gunrunning and war crimes to subversion and even perversion among elites. Taken together, it is clear that because of WikiLeaks and its disclosures, the world is much better informed about what has been taking place in the shadows.
So far, however, the crimes exposed by WikiLeaks have gone largely unpunished. Instead, the Deep State turned its attention to WikiLeaks founder Assange and those who provided information to him. In Sweden, prosecutors filed “sex crimes” charges against Assange because he allegedly failed to use a condom during consensual sex. But in the United States, matters were more serious. Under the guise of protecting “national security,” a number of Deep State operatives called for him to be prosecuted for “espionage” or even “treason,” perhaps forgetting that Assange is not American.
The Deep State is serious about keeping its secrets. Prior to Assange’s arrest, an advisor to then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed skipping the whole “due process” thing and simply having Obama assassinate Assange with a drone-fired missile. Numerous neocons called Assange an “enemy combatant.”
Read the entire article
So far, however, the crimes exposed by WikiLeaks have gone largely unpunished. Instead, the Deep State turned its attention to WikiLeaks founder Assange and those who provided information to him. In Sweden, prosecutors filed “sex crimes” charges against Assange because he allegedly failed to use a condom during consensual sex. But in the United States, matters were more serious. Under the guise of protecting “national security,” a number of Deep State operatives called for him to be prosecuted for “espionage” or even “treason,” perhaps forgetting that Assange is not American.
The Deep State is serious about keeping its secrets. Prior to Assange’s arrest, an advisor to then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed skipping the whole “due process” thing and simply having Obama assassinate Assange with a drone-fired missile. Numerous neocons called Assange an “enemy combatant.”
Read the entire article
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Americans Have No Idea What “Freedom of the Press” Means
Many people believe that freedom of the press means that credentialed, professional journalists working for mainstream media outlets are protected when they criticize the government.
And they think that Julian Assange – or some random blogger – are not entitled to press freedoms, since they aren’t real reporters or publishers.
Indeed, a Google Search for “Assange is not a journalist/reporter/publisher” turns up 62,000 web pages, many of them from the largest media corporations.
What Is Freedom of the Press?
However, as we noted in 2014:
Read the entire article
And they think that Julian Assange – or some random blogger – are not entitled to press freedoms, since they aren’t real reporters or publishers.
Indeed, a Google Search for “Assange is not a journalist/reporter/publisher” turns up 62,000 web pages, many of them from the largest media corporations.
What Is Freedom of the Press?
However, as we noted in 2014:
Read the entire article
Monday, April 15, 2019
Assange Held at “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay” as UN Urges Fair Trial
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces a likely extended extradition battle after this week’s dramatic end to his seven-year asylum stay holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy.
He’s now in a British jail, and though UK authorities have yet to confirm the precise place of his detention, multiple reports suggest that he’s being held in what’s dubbed “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay” — or Belmarsh Prison, given its reputation as a holding facility for terrorists and high-profile criminals.
Crucially, the United Nations human rights office has now weighed in, on Friday urging that the UK government holds a fair trial as a US extradition request hangs over the proceedings.
U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a Geneva news briefing: “We expect all the relevant authorities to ensure Mr. Assange’s right to a fair trial is upheld by authorities, including in any extradition proceedings that may take place,” according to Reuters.
Read the entire article
He’s now in a British jail, and though UK authorities have yet to confirm the precise place of his detention, multiple reports suggest that he’s being held in what’s dubbed “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay” — or Belmarsh Prison, given its reputation as a holding facility for terrorists and high-profile criminals.
Crucially, the United Nations human rights office has now weighed in, on Friday urging that the UK government holds a fair trial as a US extradition request hangs over the proceedings.
U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a Geneva news briefing: “We expect all the relevant authorities to ensure Mr. Assange’s right to a fair trial is upheld by authorities, including in any extradition proceedings that may take place,” according to Reuters.
Read the entire article
Friday, April 12, 2019
Monday, March 18, 2019
The Psychology Of Getting Julian Assange, Part 4: Why Even Some Lefties Want To See Him Hang
On Sunday March 3rd and 10th, hundreds attended rallies organised by the Socialist Equality Party of Australia in Sydney and Melbourne, demanding that the Australian government secure freedom for Julian Assange.
Acclaimed journalist and film-maker John Pilger spoke at the Sydney rally along with founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Professor Stuart Rees AM, and editor-in-chief of US news website Consortium News, Joe Lauria.
The rallies called for the Australian government to intervene to protect its citizen, Julian Assange, who has been confined to the Ecuadorian embassy since 2012. Assange is suffering arbitrary detention according to two UN rulings. Should he leave the embassy he is expected to be extradited to the United States and prosecuted for his publishing activities, most likely over 2010 disclosures of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), Julian Assange faces “well founded” risks of “political persecution and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” and “physical harm” in the United States. The WGAD further ruled that Assange is entitled to compensation and the restoration of his freedom.
Read the entire article
Acclaimed journalist and film-maker John Pilger spoke at the Sydney rally along with founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Professor Stuart Rees AM, and editor-in-chief of US news website Consortium News, Joe Lauria.
The rallies called for the Australian government to intervene to protect its citizen, Julian Assange, who has been confined to the Ecuadorian embassy since 2012. Assange is suffering arbitrary detention according to two UN rulings. Should he leave the embassy he is expected to be extradited to the United States and prosecuted for his publishing activities, most likely over 2010 disclosures of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), Julian Assange faces “well founded” risks of “political persecution and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” and “physical harm” in the United States. The WGAD further ruled that Assange is entitled to compensation and the restoration of his freedom.
Read the entire article
Friday, March 15, 2019
Friday, January 11, 2019
Julian Assange’s Living Conditions Deteriorate – More Akin to Stasi-Era Dissident Than an Award-Winning Publisher With Asylum
While Ecuador presents this surveillance operation as a mission to “protect and support” Assange, this is contradicted by the fact that he isn’t even allowed to confidentially speak with a reporter and friend without being recorded. In May, the Guardian reported that there are “extraordinary reports” from these spies that include daily logs of Assange’s activities inside the embassy, even noting his “general mood.”
As John Pilger pointed out after his visit with Assange on New Year’s Eve, it could be any newspaper publisher or editor stuck in that embassy. For the crime of publishing journalism, Assange has not only had to give up his freedom, but also any semblance of privacy. It’s impossible to overstate how unsettling it feels to have multiple lenses pointed at you wherever you stand.
Unable to speak privately, even with a noise machine attempting to muffle the microphones from picking up conversations, we resorted to passing notes. Assange is not only barred from sharing his views online under the new regulations — thanks to the constant surveillance, he can’t even do so among his friends in the embassy where he is arbitrarily detained.
If we value the principle of the freedom of speech — we must do something to stop this madness. While we do not know what Assange has been charged with by the U.S. as it remains under seal, we do know that it is related to his work as a publisher, the only publisher with a record of 100% accuracy. His dedication to truth is so profound that he has never once had to issue a correction or retraction.
Read the entire article
As John Pilger pointed out after his visit with Assange on New Year’s Eve, it could be any newspaper publisher or editor stuck in that embassy. For the crime of publishing journalism, Assange has not only had to give up his freedom, but also any semblance of privacy. It’s impossible to overstate how unsettling it feels to have multiple lenses pointed at you wherever you stand.
Unable to speak privately, even with a noise machine attempting to muffle the microphones from picking up conversations, we resorted to passing notes. Assange is not only barred from sharing his views online under the new regulations — thanks to the constant surveillance, he can’t even do so among his friends in the embassy where he is arbitrarily detained.
If we value the principle of the freedom of speech — we must do something to stop this madness. While we do not know what Assange has been charged with by the U.S. as it remains under seal, we do know that it is related to his work as a publisher, the only publisher with a record of 100% accuracy. His dedication to truth is so profound that he has never once had to issue a correction or retraction.
Read the entire article
Friday, December 07, 2018
Julian Assange Rejects Ecuador’s Claim That He Can Leave the Embassy With ‘Near Liberty’
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is rejecting Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno’s claim that he can leave the embassy with “near-liberty” after the UK agreed not to extradite him to any nation seeking to give him the death penalty.
Assange, who was granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012, has been residing in the London Ecuadorian embassy ever since. President Moreno has not been as keen to protect him as the previous president, however.
The UK has not made any guarantees that they will not extradite him to the United States, where the Trump administration has made it a priority to prosecute him. In November, through a filing error, it was revealed that he has been secretly charged — but the government is refusing to unseal what the charges are exactly.
Last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the arrest of Assange is a priority.
On Thursday, Moreno announced the deal that he reached between Ecuador and the UK. In response, Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack told The Telegraph that the deal is unacceptable.
Read the entire article
Assange, who was granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012, has been residing in the London Ecuadorian embassy ever since. President Moreno has not been as keen to protect him as the previous president, however.
The UK has not made any guarantees that they will not extradite him to the United States, where the Trump administration has made it a priority to prosecute him. In November, through a filing error, it was revealed that he has been secretly charged — but the government is refusing to unseal what the charges are exactly.
Last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the arrest of Assange is a priority.
On Thursday, Moreno announced the deal that he reached between Ecuador and the UK. In response, Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack told The Telegraph that the deal is unacceptable.
Read the entire article
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
As the Obama DOJ Concluded, Prosecution of Julian Assange for Publishing Documents Poses Grave Threats to Press Freedom
The Trump Justice Department inadvertently revealed in a court filing that it has charged Julian Assange in a sealed indictment. The disclosure occurred through a remarkably amateurish cutting-and-pasting error in which prosecutors unintentionally used secret language from Assange’s sealed charges in a document filed in an unrelated case. Although the document does not specify which charges have been filed against Assange, the Wall Street Journal reported that “they may involve the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the disclosure of national defense-related information.”
Over the last two years, journalists and others have melodramatically claimed that press freedoms were being assaulted by the Trump administration due to trivial acts such as the President spouting adolescent insults on Twitter at Chuck Todd and Wolf Blitzer or banning Jim Acosta from White House press conferences due to his refusal to stop preening for a few minutes so as to allow other journalists to ask questions. Meanwhile, actual and real threats to press freedoms that began with the Obama DOJ and have escalated with the Trump DOJ – such as aggressive attempts to unearth and prosecute sources – have gone largely ignored if not applauded.
But prosecuting Assange and/or WikiLeaks for publishing classified documents would be in an entirely different universe of press freedom threats. Reporting on the secret acts of government officials or powerful financial actors – including by publishing documents taken without authorization – is at the core of investigative journalism. From the Pentagon Papers to the Panama Papers to the Snowden disclosures to publication of Trump’s tax returns to the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, some of the most important journalism over the last several decades has occurred because it is legal and constitutional to publish secret documents even if the sources of those documents obtained them through illicit or even illegal means.
Read the entire article
Over the last two years, journalists and others have melodramatically claimed that press freedoms were being assaulted by the Trump administration due to trivial acts such as the President spouting adolescent insults on Twitter at Chuck Todd and Wolf Blitzer or banning Jim Acosta from White House press conferences due to his refusal to stop preening for a few minutes so as to allow other journalists to ask questions. Meanwhile, actual and real threats to press freedoms that began with the Obama DOJ and have escalated with the Trump DOJ – such as aggressive attempts to unearth and prosecute sources – have gone largely ignored if not applauded.
But prosecuting Assange and/or WikiLeaks for publishing classified documents would be in an entirely different universe of press freedom threats. Reporting on the secret acts of government officials or powerful financial actors – including by publishing documents taken without authorization – is at the core of investigative journalism. From the Pentagon Papers to the Panama Papers to the Snowden disclosures to publication of Trump’s tax returns to the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, some of the most important journalism over the last several decades has occurred because it is legal and constitutional to publish secret documents even if the sources of those documents obtained them through illicit or even illegal means.
Read the entire article
Monday, November 19, 2018
Monday, October 15, 2018
Thursday, April 05, 2018
Thursday, January 11, 2018
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