Wikileaks journalist remains imprisoned as US continues to pursue discredited extradition case – and refusal to give binding guarantee would result in his immediate release if UK justice system was fit for purpose
The US has refused to give a specific, binding guarantee to a UK court that it will not execute journalist and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been held for years in solitary confinement in Belmarsh prison while he fights the US government’s attempt to extradite him so it can imprison him for years beyond his lifespan, after Assange exposed war crimes in Iraq by the US military.
The case should have been laughed out of court three years ago, when the main US witness admitted he had been lying all along in his claim that Assange induced him to hack US systems. Instead, Assange has been submitted to what former UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer described as sustained psychological torture – and still faces the likelihood of imprisonment for more than a century.
His recent appeal was adjourned to give the US time to affirm properly that it would not kill him if he was extradited, a sick joke when there has been longstanding evidence of US plans to murder him outside the US.
The judges even refused to admit fresh evidence of the US’s plans to assassinate Assange, instead offering the US another opportunity to have him in their hands if they would promise not to put him to death. The US.
But Assange’s wife Stella has revealed that the US has refused to say that it will not kill him and has offered only a boilerplate statement about the death penalty, while denying Assange the free speech protections it would offer to any US citizen:
The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty.
It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen. Instead, the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can “seek to raise” the First Amendment if extradited.
The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future – his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in US prison for publishing award-winning journalism.
The Biden Administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late.
The US statement says the death penalty will be ‘neither sought nor imposed’, but this is non-binding and meaningless given its previous attempts to kill him. The refusal to guarantee there will be no death penalty in Assange’s specific case should mean under UK and European human rights laws that the extradition is immediately refused by the UK court and Assange should already be free. Even if the assurances had been given, the likelihood that the US’s treatment of Assange would lead to his death should be enough to quash the bid.
The fact that he is not yet free of the threat of extradition, let alone walking around in the freedom he should have, is a damning indictment of the state of UK justice and democracy.
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The CIA assassinated John Lennon and framed Mark Chapman for it.
And the rest…
Lumumba, that chap who led Burkino to self respect, Che, Madura’s forerunner (gawd help us, morphine is a hell of a drug), Arafat.
The US is discrediting itself, perhaps permanently, by pursuing this vendetta against a journalist who has done landmark work.
It seems reasonable to argue that this kind of approach will have far worse consequences than those taking that approach being discredited.
When you don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks and you control the narrative to the extent that people can be cancelled and outlawed for not showing sufficient enthusiastic total ‘loyalty’ and subservience to that narrative, being discredited does not even figure or register.
The key point here is that this is simply another example, another manifestation, of the rabid and egotistical Exceptionalism of the undocumented ‘Rules Based International Order’ where those running this scam apply their unwritten ‘rules’ to everyone else whilst at the same time giving themselves a free pass.
Think, as just one example, the oft touted response from these popinjay’s that “two cases cannot be equivalent” when it involves “our” side.
Other examples of this anarchistic no rules but our rules approach in action range from the systematic assassinations of non-compliant individuals – whether in leadership positions or simply civilian irritants (right up to the genocide of a whole population); the deliberate slaughter of journalists and aid workers; the consistent breaking of agreements from missile treaties to Minsk and beyond; the undermining of the World Trade Organisation*; the illegal, under real International Law, invasion and destruction of other states and the slaughter of their civilians; the destruction and invasion of diplomatic premises; and even the deliberate murder of PoW’s being returned during an exchange.
This is a deliberate policy of breaking all international rules and human norms in favour of total anarchy. From the Geneva convention to the Vienna Convention; from the Treaty of Westphalia to the WTO and the UN. Anything goes to suit the convenience of Empire and Imperial Hegemony.
Thing is, there is an old, mainly British, saying about what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Point being that opening this particular Pandora’s Box is a two way street. Given that there are more of us than there are of them those self-identifying Western ‘Elite’ Oligarch’s who have opened this box, along with there lackey’s and cheerleaders, are also fair game under these anarchic conditions.
Sooner or later the inevitability of the majority dishing out in kind is going to manifest itself. And there will be no hiding place or safe space for those who have opened this box.
Tough shit as we used to say in the army. What goes around comes around.
*To avoid having action taken against them for breaches of World Trade Organisation Rules the US MIC/’Elites’ have simply blocked the replacement of the key WTO decision makers when their term has ended. Thus making it impossible to enforce those rules in an fair and even handed manner which applies to everyone. Which is how rules and laws should work – equality before the law.
TBH, I haven’t read the article yet. Just taking the opportunity to post since even TASSA is off limits.
Read it. We should show examples of gringo atrocities everywhere we can. Graham permitting. It should be in the public eye continuously. Torturing, murderous swines. As usual we are the jackals circling the carcass. The ion dome is a disaster as are challenger and leopards. Could be signs that the walls of invincibility are crumbling, everywhere.