He faces five to 10 years imprisonment per charge if found guilty — the process rigged to assure he never again sees the light of day as a free man, despite having committed no criminal offenses.
via New Trump Regime Indictment of Assange Expands Phony Charges – Stephen Lendman
Britain is ready to do America’s job and kill Assange in prison (ODT)
Even Christenson is right for a change (ODT)
via Julian Assange: Australian MPs call on UK to block US extradition | Media | The Guardian
The increasing surveillance by government paranoia to the failing systems of control (ODT)
The probe by the court, the Audiencia Nacional, into the activities of UC Global, along with leaked videos, statements, documents and reports published by the Spanish newspaper El País as well as the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, offers a window into the new global security state. Here the rule of law is irrelevant. Here privacy and attorney-client privilege do not exist. Here people live under 24-hour-a-day surveillance. Here all who attempt to expose the crimes of tyrannical power will be hunted down, kidnapped, imprisoned and broken. This global security state is a terrifying melding of the corporate and the public. And what it has done to Assange it will soon do to the rest of us.
via What Is Happening to Assange Will Happen to the Rest of Us | The Smirking Chimp
LNP Shame up close and personal with the USA and down distant and who gives a fuck with it’s citizens. America constructed crimes to fit Assange and our LNP has done nothing but applaud. (ODT)
IN A WATERSHED CASE for journalistic freedom, the hearing for Julian Assange’s extradition to the U.S. begins in London on 24 February 2020. If extradited to the U.S., Assange will face 18 charges under the 1917 Espionage Act and a potential sentence of 175 years in prison for “crimes” that include some of the greatest pieces of citizen journalism of the 21st century: the Iraq War Logs, the Afghan War Logs, Cablegate and the famous collateral murder video.
The attitude of European institutions is changing after years of silence. In this case, it was Andrej Hunko and Gianni Marilotti that convinced the European Assembly to speak up.
The moment that press freedom advocates have been waiting for so long has finally arrived. The European institutions are starting to officially state that they don’t want Julian Assange to be extradited to the U.S.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has become the first one to step in and call for Assange’s immediate release, joining the call of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, who some months ago clearly stated that Assange should walk free.
Julian Assange has done less than Trump in crime and criminal intent than Donald Trump and has been punished as if he were Satan incarnate. America has gone off the rails and become the planets most delinquent nation. (ODT)
via JOHN PILGER: Julian sat alone, his fist clenched and held high
A gaunt, hesitant and apparently confused Julian Assange has told a London judge he is in an inequitable fight against a superpower which has been spying on his “interior life” and on confidential meetings with his legal team.
The WikiLeaks founder is trying to avoid extradition to the US to face 17 espionage charges and one computer hacking charge.
His legal team revealed on Monday they want to deal a knockout blow to the case against him, by establishing that the charges are a “political offence” for which extradition cannot be granted.
via Wikileaks’ Julian Assange says he’s in an unfair fight against a super power at extradition hearing
Even any solicitation of the part of WikiLeaks to obtain such material (prosecutors, take note) was irrelevant. “A person is entitled to publish stolen documents that the publisher requested from a source as long as the publisher did not participate in the theft.”
The logical implication following from punishing individuals and entities for doing so, acknowledged the court, would “render any journalist who publishes an article based on stolen information a co-conspirator in the theft”. Assange and his legal team will be more than a little heartened by this acknowledgement, one that repels efforts to treat WikiLeaks as a hacking rather than publishing enterprise.
If the government gets to define journalism, what’s to stop it from making similar rulings about any outlet whose coverage it doesn’t like?
Reframing the definition of Julian Assange in the most Fascist way (ODT)
In this war of language, the treatment of Assange can only be seen as one thing: an act of muzzling a publisher framed as a computer security breach. In so doing, it criminalises the very act of investigative journalism, the sort that actually exposes abuses of power rather than meekly accommodating them.
Dr. Sondra Crosby, an associate professor of medicine and public health at Boston University and an expert on the physical and psychological impact of torture, has evaluated detainees held by the United States, including at its prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. She quietly began meeting with and evaluating Assange in 2017 inside the embassy where he had sought refuge.
via Julian Assange Was Denied Medical Care, Says Doctor Who Examined Him in Embassy
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by British police on Thursday after they were invited into the Ecuadorian embassy where he has been holed up since 2012.
“Julian Assange, 47, has today, Thursday 11 April, been arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) at the Embassy of Ecuador,” police said.
Police said they arrested Assange after being “invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government’s withdrawal of asylum.”
via Julian Assange arrested at Ecuadorian embassy by British police
America’s Free Press is a farce Assange is a publisher. (ODT)
via WikiLeaks: Julian Assange to be expelled within hours to days | The Smirking Chimp
12 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH, WikiLeaks began publishing government secrets that the world public might otherwise never have known.
What it has revealed about state duplicity, human rights abuses and corruption goes beyond anything published in the world’s mainstream media.
via Julian Assange and Wikileaks’ service to journalism should be applauded
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has asked Julian Assange to give evidence on what he knows about Russian influence in the US election – and the WikiLeaks editor is said to be “considering the offer”.
If he agrees, and the interview takes place, it is likely to focus on Assange’s role in publishing Democratic Party emails that were allegedly hacked by Russian military intelligence then passed on to WikiLeaks.
via Trump: Julian Assange ‘considering’ testifying on Russian role in US election
The excuse for the Democrats failure (ODT)
A note from Harry Cheadle writing for Vice in the lead up to the 2016 election is instructive in painting the picture that emerged from the DNC-Podesta trove released by WikiLeaks. The emails portrayed an “organization that is contemptuous of opposition, often obsessed with how an issue is perceived, and yet sometimes prone to decisions that seem self-defeating and dance on the knife edge of political disaster.” The chickens, notably of the socialist variety, are vengefully coming back to roost.
Scratching for ideas and options in ambushing President Donald Trump, it is clear that the senators have latched on to the next best thing: revoking the political status of a man with no internet access who will be arrested the moment he steps out of the embassy door. How fittingly democratic of them.
GREAT IDEAS in publishing are rare, but in 2006 Julian Assange came up with one.
Assange reasoned that the key structure that generated bad governance was conspiracy. To fight the conspiracies behind corrupt governments, he advocated a strategy to expose the conspirators and the conspiracies through a systematic use of leaks.
His subversive proposal was to build a website for whistleblowers where they could upload their information in safety and from where it could be collectively analysed by citizen journalists. The name he gave his whistleblower-enabling website was WikiLeaks.
Sweden has dropped its investigation into a rape allegation against Julian Assange.
As Julian Assange enjoys “victory and vindication” following the closure of the Swedish prosecutors’ investigation, both he and his supporters know the fight is far from over.
Source: ‘WikiLeaks staff are in danger’: Pilger, Kiriakou discuss Assange’s ongoing legal battle — RT News
Moreno’s election win in Ecuador means Julian Assange gets to stay and the march of the right has been arrested.
Source: Julian Assange among those relieved at Ecuador’s election outcome
In a bizarre coda to a surreal election, Trump and Assange join forces to show us how badly democracy is broken
Source: Send in the clowns: Donald Trump, Julian Assange and the enemies of liberal democracy – Salon.com
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange goes public for the first time with his version of events surrounding a rape allegation made against him.
How long can Julian Assange stay in the Ecuadorian Embassy, and is his case unique?
The mainstream media has fallen in line with the governments of the UK and Sweden to dispute the legitimacy and significance of the decision by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in favor of Julian Assange, but their claims don’t stack up.
Source: 3 false claims MSM is making about the Assange case — RT Op-Edge
The UK foreign secretary brands as “ridiculous” a UN panel’s ruling that Julian Assange be allowed to go free, but the Wikileaks founder demands the decision be respected.
Source: Julian Assange decision by UN panel ridiculous, says Hammond – BBC News
A United Nations panel has officially concluded WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been “arbitrarily detained” and should be allowed to walk free. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for more than three years. He wants to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations, which he has repeatedly denied and for which he has never been charged. He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States, where he could face trial for WikiLeaks’ revelations. We air reaction to the U.N. decision from Assange and his attorney, Melinda Taylor, and speak with Mads Andenæs, U.N. special rapporteur on arbitrary detention.
Source: “A Significant Victory”: Julian Assange Hails U.N. Panel Calling for His Freedom | Democracy Now!
Assange’s legal team says Britain’s international reputation is at risk if the country ignores the findings of a UN panel.
Britain said it rejects a UN panel ruling that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is the victim of arbitrary detention at an embassy in London. Assange would still be extradited to Sweden if arrested in UK.
Source: UK, Sweden reject UN panel ruling in favor of Julian Assange — RT News
