Julian Assange, Wikileaks and Cablegate
Julian Assange, Wikileaks
and Cablegate

Truthfulness has never been counted among the political virtues, because it has little indeed to contribute to that change of the world and of circumstances which is among the most legitimate political activities. Only when a community has embarked upon organized lying on principle, and not only with respect to particulars, can truthfulness as such, unsupported by the distorting forces of power and interest, become a political factor of the first order. Where everybody lies abut everything of importance, the truthteller, whether he knows it or not, has begun to act; he, too, has engaged in political business, for, in the unlikely event that he survives, he has made a start toward changing the world.
— Hannah Arendt, "Truth and Politics", in Between Past and Future

In 2012 Sweden attempted to extradite Julian Assange for questioning about encounters he had with two women, both former admirers. Once in Sweden it is certain that he would be extradited to the U.S. to face charges resulting from his journalistic activities, which exposed U.S. war crimes. To avoid extradition Assange accepted an offer of asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. Despite the fact that Sweden eventually abandoned its request, Assange was forced to remain at the Embassy for over six years (up to November 2018). The U.K. government, after forcibly removing Assange from the Embassy, threw him into the hellhole of Belmarsh prison to spend years awaiting a decision (no doubt already made) on a request to extradite Assange to the U.S., where he would face life in jail and probably be tortured if not killed. The government of the U.K. is, to its shame, just a tool of the Americans. And to its shame also, the government of Australia (a U.S. vassal state) has done absolutely nothing to help or protect Assange (an Australian citizen) or to protest this blatant injustice, which is the U.S. revenge for the fact that Julian Assange, via Wikileaks, relentlessly and courageously exposed the war crimes committed by the U.S. government during its many years of illegal and immoral wars in the Middle East.


Click here for the full text of Julian Assange's statement in reply to questioning by Swedish officials at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in November 2016. What are the sexual assault allegations and why [did it take] six years for him to be interviewed?


Britain threatens to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to arrest Julian Assange

Julian Assange Arrested

The single most important fact about the extradition case against Assange,
and which explains everything about it.

Wikileaks

A radical new development in the fight against censorship emerged in 2006. Wikileaks allows whistleblowers to upload documents which may prove embarrassing to governments and corporations without risk of harrassment.

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations.

  • Raffi Khatchadourian: No Secrets: Julian Assange's mission for total transparency
    Assange is an international trafficker, of sorts. He and his colleagues collect documents and imagery that governments and other institutions regard as confidential and publish them on a Web site called WikiLeaks.org. Since it went online, three and a half years ago, the site has published an extensive catalogue of secret material, ranging from the Standard Operating Procedures at Camp Delta, in Guantánamo Bay, and the "Climategate" e-mails from the University of East Anglia, in England, to the contents of Sarah Palin's private Yahoo account. The catalogue is especially remarkable because WikiLeaks is not quite an organization; it is better described as a media insurgency. It has no paid staff, no copiers, no desks, no office. ... Key members are known only by initials — M, for instance — even deep within WikiLeaks, where communications are conducted by encrypted online chat services. The secretiveness stems from the belief that a populist intelligence operation with virtually no resources, designed to publicize information that powerful institutions do not want public, will have serious adversaries.

  • White House condemns release of Afghan war documents

    A hacker-founded whistleblower website called Wikileaks has released [July 25, 2010] close to 75,000 documents, from the battlefront in Afghanistan, which purportedly show the complicity of Pakistani spy agencies and the Taliban in waging a war against Western military forces.

  • In Disclosing Secret Documents, WikiLeaks Seeks 'Transparency'

    WikiLeaks.org, the online organization that posted tens of thousands of classified military field reports about the Afghan war on Sunday, says its goal in disclosing secret documents is to reveal "unethical behavior" by governments and corporations.

  • 'Data journalism' scores a massive hit with Wikileaks revelations

    The emerging form of disclosure through the internet, pioneered so successfully in the past couple of years by Wikileaks, deserves our praise and needs to be defended against the reactionary forces that seek to avoid exposure.

Cablegate

On November 28, 2010, Wikileaks began releasing the first of 250,000 secret, confidential and NOFORN ('not to be shown to foreigners') cables sent between the U.S. State Department and numerous U.S. embassies around the world, cables which, in the words of Israel Shamir, "throw a bright light upon the murky policies of the American Imperium, on their methods of collecting information, of delivering orders, of subverting politicians and robbing nations."

Predictably, the U.S. State Department condemned the release, and there have been attempts to block the Wikileaks Cablegate website. An advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has even called openly in a TV interview for Assange's assassination. Acting in her role as U.S. puppet the Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has declared WikiLeaks to be "acting illegally" — without, however, saying which law in which country has been broken (and Julian Assange is rightly considering suing her for slander).

It was the Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman who leaned on Amazon to ban Wikileaks from its servers. And he also leaned on Tableau Software to prevent Wikileaks using its visualization software to display some things graphically. It's so amusing to see people like Lieberman and Hillary Clinton (who "waxed lyrical in a speech in January about an Internet free of government interference") squirming in the light of the Wikileaks revelations. They show no reluctance to invade the privacy of ordinary people but these hypocrites complain loudly when the tables are turned. And note that people such as Lieberman and Clinton have a right to privacy only as ordinary people, not when they are acting as the official (elected or appointed) representatives of the citizens who elected the government of which they are part.

BBC, 2010-12-03: Domain name provider forces Wikileaks offline
"The website of whistle-blowing organisation Wikileaks has been shut down
by the company [EveryDNS.net] providing it with domain name services."

The Wikileaks and Cablegate websites can still be accessed via several IP addresses, as given at Wikileaks Mirrors (the IP addresses for Cablegate are: 91.194.60.90, 91.194.60.112 and 204.236.131.131). If that URL goes down also then that page can be accessed via: http://87.102.255.157 For a complete list of mirrors see Cryptome's page.

Support for Assange

We protest at the attacks on WikiLeaks and, in particular, on Julian Assange. The leaks have assisted democracy in revealing the real views of our governments over a range of issues which have been kept secret and are now irreversibly in the public domain. All we knew about the mass killing, torture and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan has been confirmed. The world's leaders can no longer hide the truth by simply lying to the public. The lies have been exposed. The actions of major corporations such as Amazon, the Swiss banks and the credit card companies in hindering WikiLeaks are shameful, bowing to US government pressure. The US government and its allies, and their friends in the media, have built up a campaign against Assange which now sees him in prison facing extradition on dubious charges, with the presumed eventual aim of ensuring his extradition to the US. We demand his immediate release, the dropping of all charges, and an end to the censorship of WikiLeaks.  —  Letter to The Guardian (UK), 2010-12-10, from John Pilger and 17 others

Clearly, the world will never be the same. Now's the time for all ordinary people to say "Fuck you!" to the American Imperium and to the corporate capitalist global elite (with the U.S. government as its compliant tool) — and none too soon. And also to all the puppet governments (Sweden, Australia, Canada and others) upon which the American Imperium depends; without their active support it cannot last long.

Julian Assange Further reading:

Added from June 2011 onward:

  • Harry Browne: Dublin Wikileaks Cables Reveal Irish Govt. Groveling to the US

    The revelation that a senior Irish official discussed possible amendments to domestic criminal law with the US ambassador is contained in a Wikileaks cable ... Like many of the cables from around the world, the Dublin cables so far revealed through Wikileaks show US diplomats effectively united with their local counterparts against a common enemy: the people — whether the people take the form of anti-war activists, jurors or voters in an upcoming election.

  • Steve Fishman and New York Magazine: Perception Management

  • Julian Assange files new challenge against extradition to Sweden (2011-11-16)

  • WikiLeaks says Stratfor emails to expose sinister spies and insider traders

    'Private lives of private spies' have been laid bare as WikiLeaks began publishing a huge tranche of emails from US intelligence firm Stratfor.

  • WikiLeaks lawyer, on 'inhibited person' travel list, stopped at airport
    Australian human rights lawyer and WikiLeaks supporter Jennifer Robinson appears to have been placed on a travel watch list and was prevented from leaving the UK this morning until approval was secured from the Australian High Commission. ... [It is possible that] Robinson was stopped not at the behest of an Australian agency but a foreign agency. In December, Robinson was in the US to monitor the pre-trial hearing of Bradley Manning and was sharply critical of the conduct of the hearing.

  • Amy Goodman: Julian Assange and America's vendetta against WikiLeaks

  • Craig Murray: Why Eurosceptics Should Back Assange
    The Framework Agreement in its English version specifically states, in Article 1, that the European Arrest Warrant must be issued by a "judicial decision". That really can only mean a court — it cannot mean a prosecutor on any construction. ... The truth is that Philips and his fellow judges live in the real world, and were more concerned to please both the EU and the US by getting Assange extradited on charges that would not stand any genuine judicial investigation.

  • James Cogan: Defend Julian Assange
    Assange's extradition to Sweden will almost certainly result in criminal charges and his detention. It would also establish the conditions for US authorities to unveil a secret grand jury indictment on charges of espionage and to file a warrant for his extradition from Sweden. ...

    [The] intense hatred of Assange in US ruling circles is the product of WikiLeaks' public exposure of the sinister machinations and crimes of the US government and governments around the world. The website published information that revealed US atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as hundreds of thousands of American diplomatic cables documenting anti-democratic intrigues that go on every day in the corridors of power internationally. ...

    The Australian Labor government has openly collaborated in the persecution of Assange, an Australian citizen. Before any charges or trial, Prime Minister Julia Gillard branded his actions in publishing diplomatic cables as "illegal." The attorney-general threatened to cancel his passport and demanded that Britain enforce the Swedish extradition warrant. Should Assange manage to return to Australia, the Labor government last month amended legislation to remove any barrier to extraditing Australian citizens on "political offences" committed in other countries.

    The treatment of Assange, Manning and WikiLeaks are part of a far broader assault on democratic rights internationally already underway under the guise of the "war on terror." Fundamental rights such as the freedom of speech and association are being criminalised by governments intent on protecting the interests of the corporate elite amid a deepening global crisis of capitalism.

  • WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seeks asylum in Embassy of Ecuador in London (2012-06-20)
    Assange was beginning to exhaust his legal options in Britain to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about separate encounters he had with two WikiLeaks volunteers in August 2010. Although he admits to brief affairs with the women [one, at least, a CIA operative?], he denies their accusations of rape, sexual assault and unlawful coercion.

  • Pepe Escobar: It's Ecuador or Guantanamo
    The Swedish case against Assange stinks to Scandinavian high heavens — featuring a certified man-eating prosecutor (Marianne Ny) and two groupies, the vengeful, ultra-manipulative Anna Ardin and the shy Sofia Wilen, both of which had consensual sex with Assange.

    It boils down to Ardin exacting revenge on Assange — who traded her sexual favors for the younger Wilen. It was Ardin who convinced Wilen to officially make the complaint of a sexual assault — duly directing Wilen to a police station.

    Wilen's interrogation was not even finished when a policewoman called the female prosecutor and got an order to arrest Assange in absentia. That the prosecutor issued the arrest warrant even without having read a complaint — by Wilen or by Ardin — proves this is not a sophisticated Stieg Larsson Scandinavian noir; it's cheap smut. ...

    Eager to prevent WikiLeaks from making Sweden its HQ, the rabid Swedish rightwing pounced, in force. It helped that their mentor was no one else than Karl Rove — who had been advising Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, aka Sweden's Reagan, for two years. ...

    If Assange were Chen Guangcheng — denouncing China's excesses — the whole hypocritical Atlanticist West would be rallying behind him. And all this is happening while Dubya, Dick and Rummy (George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld), the Three Lethal Stooges, destroy a whole country and are allowed to roam free.

Britain threatens to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy in London
to arrest Julian Assange

  • Britain warns Ecuador over Assange asylum (2012-08-15)
    A stern warning from Britain on the eve of Ecuador's much-anticipated decision on Julian Assange's asylum request led its foreign minister to accuse Britain on Wednesday of threatening to storm his nation's London embassy to arrest the WikiLeaks founder. ... As news broke of the warning, police were seen reinforcing Scotland Yard's presence outside the embassy ...

  • WikiLeaks condemns Britain's intimidation of Ecuador

  • UK police descend on Assange's embassy refuge (2012-08-16)
    More police have arrived at the Ecuadorian embassy in London where Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is holed up after seeking political asylum. Two more Metropolitan Police vans have parked directly outside the entrance to the west London building and a crowd of media and Assange supporters has been ordered behind police tape 20 metres from the door ...

  • How Assange can leave Ecuadorean Embassy without arrest
    There is only one way that Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, can leave the Ecuadorean Embassy in London without being arrested. The Ecuadorean Government will need to grant him immediate citizenship and appoint him Honorary Consul, or better, UK or UN Ambassador and issue him with a diplomatic passport. Anything less will not work as the British authorities have upped the stakes and made it patently clear that they will ignore protocol and conventions to arrest Assange even if he is granted political asylum.

  • Tiffany Madison: Ecuador grants Wikileaks' Assange asylum, ignites diplomatic storm with England
    Since 2009, pressure on the U.K. government to deliver Assange has increased. Though he has not been charged with a crime, he is wanted for questioning in Stockholm on unrelated charges filed after the first leak [of U.S. State Department cables]. It is customary for law enforcement to interrogate suspects in other nations, but Swedish officials have refused to visit the U.K., demanding physical extradition. Sources suspect this demand is a foil to capture Assange for the U.S. government.

    [Ecuador's foreign minister Ricardo] Patiño clarified that Ecuador would allow Assange's extradition to Sweden with guarantees that no eventual extradition to the United States would take place. Sweden refused to make such promises.

    CIA analysts believe extradition to Sweden for questioning could result in international rendition, torture and indefinite detention without charge or trial. The government of Ecuador agrees. "It is not impossible that he would be treated in a cruel manner, condemned to life in prison, or even the death penalty," Patiño said.

  • [The Australian] Govt must do more for Assange: Greens

    The Australian government must do more than merely provide WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with consular assistance, the Greens say. ... Greens senator Scott Ludlam says the government must take a more active role in the case. "He's an Australian citizen, he's in enormous trouble and he needs the help of his government," Senator Ludlam told reporters in Canberra on Friday. "Consular assistance is for people who've lost their passports. This needs a diplomatic and political resolution."

    Not likely to happen as long as Julia Gillard remains a U.S. puppet.

  • Assange exploits decade of US folly
    THE saga of Julian Assange's extradition from Britain, which began with the WikiLeaks founder having sex with "Miss A" and "Miss W" in Sweden two years ago, could only have happened in a post-9/11 world. ...

    There is evidence of a US investigatory process and preparations for an indictment that could form the basis for extradition from Sweden. Australia has been a reluctant defender of Assange's legal rights ever since Prime Minister Julia Gillard pre-emptively declared: "The foundation stone [of the WikiLeaks postings] is an illegal act that certainly breached the laws of the United States of America." Claims to be ignorant of US prosecutors' plans now stand exposed as false.

    In other words, the Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr is a liar.

There are reports that "Mr Assange was offered [Australian] consular assistance, but he thanked them and declined the offer." Consular assistance normally means renewal of a passport and (if an Australian is arrested overseas) recommendation of a lawyer. But Australian passports are valid for ten years, so it is unlikely that Julian Assange's Australian passport will expire anytime soon. And Assange has no need of a recommendation of a lawyer since the Wikileaks legal team is already being headed by the renowned Spanish human rights investigator Baltasar Garzon (who indicted the Argentinian torturer Augusto Pinochet). So what exactly does 'consular assistance' mean in this case? It certainly does not mean support from Assange's home government in the form of a denunciation of threats by prominent U.S. citizens for his assassination, and it does not mean the Australian government's requesting the Swedish government to provide assurance that Assange will not be handed over to the U.S. if he sets foot in Sweden. It's very likely that that is exactly what would happen, exposing Assange to the likelihood of torture and the possibility of execution. Shame on the Australian government!
  • Annie Machon: The Assange Witch Hunt
    If Assange were extradited merely for questioning by police — he has yet to be even charged with any crime in Sweden — there is a strong risk that the Swedes will just shove him straight on the next plane to the US under the legal terms of a "temporary surrender". And in the US, a secret Grand Jury has been convened in Virginia to find a law — any law — with which to prosecute Assange. Hell, if the Yanks can't find an existing law, they will probably write a new one just for him.

  • WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calls for an end to US 'witch-hunt'

  • Full transcript of Julian Assange's speech outside Ecuador's London embassy

  • Julian Assange: Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time

  • EU official [Cecilia Malmström, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs] tells Julian Assange 'just go to Sweden'

    thomas vesely's comment:

    this woman is a total simpleton.

    ScaaarBeeek's comment:

    What this reveals is how stupid politicians think we all are. Malmström tells us she "does not believe for a minute" Julian Assange would be extradited to the US from Sweden. Is this meant to be reassurance that his extradition from the UK to Sweden would end with the resolution of sex accusations?

    Anyone with half a brain can see that she has left a doorway wide open in her wording for a second extradition. Her statement is CLEARLY not a guarantee of no second extradition.

    Julian Assange has offered time and again to be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors in London. (Such interviews have been done before, on one occasion even for a suspected serial murderer.) He has expressed his willingness time and again to go to Sweden if a guarantee is given that there would be no onward extradition to America.

    Anyone with half a brain can see that politicians from four countries, Sweden, UK, US and Australia, have not been entirely honest in the whole truth. Julian Assange has taken the only option which does not put his life at risk.

    12758 commented:

    The 'rape' is merely a holding charge which would allow the US to request extradition. The unwillingness of Sweden to offer a guarantee against extradition and the fact that a grand jury has already sat in secret make extradition to the US a certainty.

    The whole episode has shows political interference at the highest level, completely ignoring the Swedish Code of Judicial Procedure.

    Swedish Counsel for Assange, Bjorn Hurtig writes "I have asked her [the prosecutor] several times that they should hear my client so that we can be aware of the accusations. They have said no to this initially (and by this I mean for several weeks). Furthermore I remind her that I several times have asked her to give me the evidence in the case. She has said no to this also. I then tell her that I have asked my questions informally and in writing and tell her about a formal request that I made 14 of September 2010. This formal request has not yet been formally answered, which I find to be a breach of Swedish law (23:18 R�tteg�ngsbalken). I also tell her that Sweden has not followed art 6:3 of The European Convention of the 4 november 1950, because Julian has not been informed of the accusation in detail and in his own language. Neither has he been informed of the documents in the case in his own language. This is an incorrect behavior.

    I then tell her that Julian is indeed willing to participate in a hearing. But I remind her that I asked her in writing (14 of September) if he was free to leave Sweden for doing business in other countries and that she called me and said that he was free to leave. This is important because it means that Julian has not left Sweden in trying to escape the Swedish justice. Then I reminds her that Julian and I several times have tried to give them dates when he could come to Sweden and participate in a hearing, for example I spoke to the second prosecutor Erika Leijnefors during week nr 40 and told her that Julian could participate in a hearing the 10 of October (a Sunday) or some day the following week. The prosecutor in charge (Marianne Ny) said no to this. Other times Marianne Ny has said no to our proposals due to that one of her police officers were sick or because the time did not suit her. This is also important because it shows that Julian has tried but Marianne Ny has said no."

    Sweden is being pressured by the US. The whole prosecution has been a text book example of the abuse of legal process. Releasing unsubstantiated allegations to the press, (a clear violation of Swedish law), can only have come from the prosecutors office. Chapter 23 section 4 of the Swedish Code of Judicial Procedure. [Trans] "The investigation should be conducted so that no one is exposed to unnecessary suspicion or suffer cost and inconvenience. The preliminary investigation shall be conducted as expeditiously as the circumstances admit."

    After the first prosecutor threw out the rape charge, the prosecution was restarted by politician Claes Gustaf Borgström who is the Swedish Social Democratic Party's spokesperson on gender equality issues. He is also the brother of journalist Annette Kullenberg who works for the Expressen, which just happened to leak the smear against Assange.

Links added since January 2013:

Julian Assange Arrested

  • Assange Arrest Imminent: Ecuadorian Embassy To Expel Him In "Hours To Days" (2019-04-04)

  • Ecuador Backs Down: Foreign Ministry Says It Has 'No Plans' To Expel Assange (2019-04-06)

  • Julian Assange Arrested In London (2019-04-11)

    After Wikileaks warned last week that Ecuador was preparing in revoke Assange's asylum based on the claim that he violated its terms, Assange was ousted on Thursday morning, and is now in the custody of British police. ... Though his first battle will be with the British legal system over charges of skipping bail when he sought asylum in 2012, analysts expect that he will eventually face extradition to the US ... Assange's lawyer has just confirmed that he was arrested not solely on charges stemming from skipping bail in the UK, but "on behalf of the United States authorities", in connection with an extradition request from the US. ... The US warrant was delivered in December 2017, showing that the US prosecutors were behind his arrest.
    The only good thing about Assange's expulsion from the Ecuadorean embassy is that he will not waste away there until he dies. Now he will likely die in the U.K. (or the U.S.) while in custody, but first there may be some revelations.

  • ‘Julian Assange exposed great crimes & now great crime committed against him’ — George Galloway (2019-04-11)

    The former Labour MP argues that the United States is “increasingly, belligerently and aggressively confronting people and states around the world — this is another big aggression.” The whistleblower [Assange] garnered massive international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks released classified US military footage, entitled ‘Collateral Murder’, of a US Apache helicopter gunship opening fire on a number of people, killing 12 including two Reuters staff, and injuring two children.

  • Chris Hedges: The Martyrdom of Julian Assange (2019-04-11)

  • John Pilger: Assange Arrest a Warning from History (2019-04-12)

  • Daniel Ellsberg: Assange's Arrest Is the Beginning of the End (2019-04-12)

  • Federico Pieraccini: Julian Assange Is Guilty Only of Revealing the Evil Soul of US Imperialism (2019-04-14)
    Basically, Assange’s major fault lies in having revealed the true face of US imperialism through images, news, emails, cablograms and videos, an imperialism that has for decades brought wars, death and destruction around the world for its own political and economic gain, using illegitimate justifications that are backed up by self-proclaimed experts and amplified and repeated endlessly by the mainstream media.
  • Saint JulianRon Paul: Julian Assange: Political Prisoner (2019-04-15)

  • Caitlin Johnstone Debunks all the Assange Smears (2019-04-20)

  • Dmitri Orlov: The Martyrdom of St. Julian (2019-04-23)

  • Assange Sentenced To 50 Weeks In UK Prison For Skipping Bail (2019-05-01)

  • Thursday's Extradition Hearing "Life & Death" For Assange And Journalism Itself (2019-05-01)

  • Sweden Seeks Extradition Of Assange To Face Trial On Rape Charges (2019-05-01)

    ... except that Assange has not been charged by Sweden with rape, or with any other crime. He was wanted in Sweden only for questioning.

  • Craig Murray: The Re-Opening of the Swedish Assange Case Should Be Welcomed (2019-05-13)

  • Why Everyone in the U.S. Who Counts Wants Julian Assange Dead (2019-05-13)

  • Caitlin Johnstone: Gabbard Says She'd Drop All Charges Against Assange And Snowden (2019-05-14)

  • Assange Hit With Espionage Act Violations As DoJ Unveils 17 New Charges (2019-05-23)

  • Caitlin Johnstone: Assange Is Reportedly Gravely Ill, And Hardly Anyone�s Talking About It (2019-05-29)

    It's S.O.P. when you have a long-term prisoner whom you want to kill secretly. Put low levels of a slow-acting poison (such as Thalium) in their food and after a few months they die. The Americans did this to Osho.

  • UN Torture Expert: Assange Showing Symptoms Of "Intense Psychological Trauma" (2015-05-31)

    "Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture," said [UN torture expert Nils] Melzer.
  • Caitlin Johnstone: UN Special Rapporteur On Torture Exposes Anti-Assange Smear Campaign (2019-05-31)

  • Chris Hedges: The Coming Show Trial of Julian Assange (2019-06-17)

    We know what will be done to Assange. It has been done to thousands of those we kidnapped and then detained in black sites around the world. Sadistic and scientific techniques of torture will be used in an attempt to make him a zombie. ... Friday�s hearing, in which he appeared frail and spoke hesitantly, although lucidly, set the timetable for his extradition trial, scheduled to take place at the end of February. All totalitarian states seek to break their political prisoners to render them compliant.
    And now the British and American sadists and scientists have eight months during which to torture Assange and to try to break him. They must be rubbing their hands in glee.

  • William Bowles: Media silent on dismissal of DNC suit against Julian Assange (2019-08-02)

    A federal court ruling last Tuesday, dismissing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) civil suit against Julian Assange “with prejudice,” was a devastating indictment of the US ruling elite�s campaign to destroy the WikiLeaks founder and of the entire “Russiagate” conspiracy theory peddled by the Democratic Party, corporate media outlets and the intelligence agencies for the past three years.
  • Julian Assange To Remain Jailed After Serving Sentence (2019-09-13)

  • Craig Murray: The World�s Most Important Political Prisoner (2019-09-15)

    We are now just one week away from the end of Julian Assange�s uniquely lengthy imprisonment for bail violation.  ... There are no charges and no active investigation in Sweden, where the "evidence" disintegrated at the first whiff of critical scrutiny. He is no longer imprisoned for "jumping bail". The sole reason for his incarceration will be the publishing of the Afghan and Iraq war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning, with their evidence of wrongdoing and multiple war crimes. ... [District judge Vanessa Baraitser's] decision to commit Assange to continuing jail pending his extradition hearing [a process which could last for years] was excessively cruel given the serious health problems he has encountered in Belmarsh [Prison]. ... It is worth reminding ourselves that Assange has never been convicted of anything but missing police bail. ... Assange is now, plainly and without argument, a political prisoner. He is not in jail for bail-jumping. He is not in jail for sexual allegations. He is in jail for publishing official secrets, and for nothing else. The UK now has the world's most famous political prisoner, and there are no rational grounds to deny that fact. Who will take a stand against authoritarianism and for the freedom to publish?
    Clearly it is the intent of the hypocritical US and UK governments (with Australian government complicity) that Julian Assange will die in Belmarsh Prison for revealing to the world that the US government is guilty of war crimes. What we are witnessing is a gradual judicial murder.

  • Finian Cunningham: They�re Murdering My Son — Julian Assange�; Father Tells of Pain and Anguish (2019-09-24)

  • Patrick Anderson: Edward Snowden's Julian Assange is an Unfamiliar Julian Assange (2019-09-27)

    There is an unquestionable contradiction between Snowden's opposition to Assange's arrest and the rhetorical games he plays with Assange's character in his memoir, Permanent Record.
  • Assange Denied Request To Delay Extradition Hearing; Prepares To Fight 'Unprecedented' Charges (2019-10-21)

  • Craig Murray: Physically, Mentally Frail Assange Suffers "Vicious Travesty Of Justice" In Latest Court Appearance (2019-10-23)

    Assange-in-court-2019-10-22.jpg

    Until yesterday I had always been quietly sceptical of those who claimed that Julian's treatment amounted to torture ... and sceptical of those who suggested he may be subject to debilitating drug treatments. But having attended the trials in Uzbekistan of several victims of extreme torture, and having worked with survivors from Sierra Leone and elsewhere, I can tell you that yesterday changed my mind entirely and Julian exhibited exactly the symptoms of a torture victim brought blinking into the light, particularly in terms of disorientation, confusion, and the real struggle to assert free will through the fog of learned helplessness. ...

    At this stage it was unclear why we were sitting through this farce. The US government was dictating its instructions to [the prosecutor] Lewis, who was relaying those instructions to [the judge Vanessa] Baraitser, who was ruling them as her legal decision. The charade might as well have been cut and the US government simply sat on the bench to control the whole process. Nobody could sit there and believe they were in any part of a genuine legal process or that Baraitser was giving a moment's consideration to the arguments of the defence.
  • Caitlin Johnstone: Only Cowards And Sadists Support The Persecution Of Assange (2019-10-24)

    Cowardice is driving public support for Assange�s persecution. Cowardice and sadism. ... We are watching a great tragedy unfold in a fractal-like way, from the zoomed-out meta tragedy of the worldwide death blow to press freedom, drilled down to the personal tragedy of this death blow to a man called Julian Assange. ... Yesterday's court proceedings were blatantly farcical, from the curious rulings, to the strange sight of US advisers interfering in a UK case about an Australian citizen, down to even the dismissive smirk on the judge's face. None of this is normal, and when things aren't normal there is a risk that people will notice ... The only thing keeping people from really seeing what's going on here is a thin layer of narrative management, and the only thing keeping them from acting on their seeing is feeling like they are alone in their seeing. Keep the pressure up, keep watching, and keep talking about what you're seeing to anyone who will listen. It may very well save Julian's life.
  • Aaron Kesel: The Deep State Is Assassinating Julian Assange (2019-10-23)

    Assange has never been formally charged in the investigation with rape, despite mainstream media reports libeling and defaming him by pushing a biased narrative that Assange is a "rapist." Biased because the establishment ignores evidence that exonerates him ... In 2012, the UK Supreme Court acknowledged that Assange was not charged in Sweden. The prosecutor further acknowledged in correspondence with UK authorities that the matter is a 'preliminary investigation', and that no decision had been made to charge. Sweden attempted to drop the investigation in 2013, but was told not to by the UK CPS, which also discouraged Sweden from interrogating Assange in the UK despite it being routine for Sweden and standard practice throughout the EU. The CPS destroyed key emails relating to Assange's Swedish extradition, an investigation by Stefania Maurizi showed according to Justice4Assange, a website created for accurate information in the defense of Julian Assange ran by Hanna Jonasson.
  • Barbara Boland: Will Julian Assange Die in Prison? (2019-11-06)

  • Assange's Judge Out After Military/Intel-Linked Conflicts Of Interest Exposed (2019-11-17)

  • Clyde Hughes (UPI): Sweden drops rape charges against Julian Assange (2019-11-19)

    Swedish prosecutors dropped rape charges against WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange on Tuesday ... The original charges were filed in 2010 and led Assange to claim asylum at the embassy for seven years.
    But Clyde, don't you know that charges against Assange for rape (or any other crime) were never filed by Sweden. Perhaps you should return to journalism school and brush up on fact-checking. Or are you like most of your fellow MSM "journalists", for whom facts can be ignored if they don't support the official narrative?

  • Raphael Minder: Assange to Testify on Being Recorded in Embassy in London (2019-12-01)

    The article says, "He [Morales] signed a contract [presumably for security services] with Las Vegas Sands, the casino and resort company of Sheldon Adelson, and the [Spanish] prosecution contends that Mr. Morales passed information about Mr. Assange [obtained by spying on him] to security officials at the [resort] company, saying it [the resort company] acted as a go-between with the C.I.A." The Mob has agents at Las Vegas resorts. Perhaps the author of the article in its final version substituted "the C.I.A." for "the Mob". Maybe Morales gave the tapes to someone connected with the Mob, who turned them over to the Israelis, who then passed them on to the Americans (in a quid-pro-quo).

  • International Group Of Doctors Warns Assange Will "Die In Prison" Without Urgent Medical Care (2019-11-25)

    Obviously that's what the U.S. government intends, as revenge for exposing its war crimes to the world.

  • Andrea Germanos: 100+ Doctors Demand Assange Receive Safe Passage To Hospital "Before It Is Too Late" (2019-12-18)

    In an open letter addressed to Foreign Minister Marise Payne, the doctors say that "the most fundamental human rights of an Australian citizen are being denied by the British government." The international medical experts, who hail from countries including the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, called upon Payne to abide by his "undeniable legal obligation to protect your citizen against the abuse of his fundamental human rights, stemming from U.S. efforts to extradite Mr. Assange for journalism and publishing that exposed U.S. war crimes."
  • Ray McGovern: German TV Exposes the Lies That Entrapped Julian Assange (2020-02-06)

    One of the main German TV channels (ZDF) ran two prime-time segments on Wednesday night exposing authorities in Sweden for having "made up" the story about Julian Assange being a rapist. Until last night most Germans, as well as other consumers of "major media" in Europe, had no idea of the trickery that enmeshed Assange in a spider-web almost certainly designed by the U.S. and woven by accomplices in vassal states like Sweden, Britain and, eventually, Ecuador.
  • Mohamed Elmaazi: Clinical psychologist: Julian Assange's 'torture has intensified' and must be stopped (2020-07-02)

    Two hundred and sixteen medical professionals signed an article published in The Lancet medical journal demanding an end to the "ongoing torture and medical neglect" of award-wining WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who remains incarcerated in Britain's Belmarsh maximum-security prison.
  • Pepe Escobar On The Assange Trial: The Mask Of Empire Has Fallen (2020-09-18)

    For years, the process of degrading Julian Assange to sub-human level was based on repeating a bunch of lies so often they become truth. Now, the conspiracy of silence about the [extradition] trial [in London] does wonders to expose the true face of Western liberal "values" and liberal "democracy". ... All the Pentagon Papers were in fact Top Secret. But crucially, the WikiLeaks papers were not Top Secret: in fact they were below Top Secret, not subject to restricted distribution. So they were not really sensitive — as the United States government now alleges.
  • Alexander Mercouris: The Surreal US Case Against Assange (2020-09-28)

    Ultimately the U.S. government is not pursuing Julian Assange because he helped Chelsea Manning take certain steps with a computer to conceal her identity, or because he had some historic contacts with hackers ... Nor is it because Assange received and published classified material.  ... It is because Assange, to a greater extent than any other journalist since the end of the war in Vietnam, has exposed the darkest and most terrible secrets of the U.S. government. ...

    The case against Assange has its origin in the calamitous "War on Terror" launched by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. That "war" provided the cover for a series of violent military aggressions, primarily in the Middle East, by the U.S. and its closest allies  ... The result has been a series of wars in a succession of Middle East countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen — fought by the U.S. and its allies and proxies, which have caused the devastation of whole societies, and the death and dispersal of millions.

    That the true purpose of the U.S. government's relentless pursuit of Assange is to prevent him from exposing more of its crimes, and to punish him for exposing those of its crimes which he did expose, if only so as to deter others from doing the same thing, is perfectly obvious to any unbiased and realistic observer. However, the [extradition] hearing in London is being conducted as if this were not the case. Thus, the extraordinary zigzags in the U.S. government's rationale for bringing the case, as it cannot admit the true reason why the case has been actually brought.

    Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed rampant war crimes and human rights abuses over the course of illegal wars waged by the U.S. government and its allies. The death toll from these wars runs at the very least into the tens of thousands, and more plausibly into the hundreds of thousands or even millions. ... By contrast over the course of the entire hearing no evidence whatsoever has been produced that as a result of any of Assange's actions anyone has come to any actual physical harm. ... Yet it is Assange who is in the dock, facing demands for his extradition to the United States, where a 175-year sentence may await him, whilst the persons responsible for the colossal crimes he has exposed, not only walk free, but are amongst those who are trying to jail him.

    [The] crimes which Assange exposed were clearly defined as war crimes by the Nuremberg Tribunal, whose decisions are universally accepted as forming the bedrock of international war crimes law. The Nuremberg Tribunal moreover made it clear that there is not only a positive duty to refuse to participate in such crimes, even when ordered to do so, but that no sanctions should ever been imposed for exposing such crimes when they occur. In other words, it is Assange and his sources, first and foremost Chelsea Manning, who are the defenders of international law, including the Nuremberg Principles, and including in the case which is currently underway, whilst it is those who persecute them, including by bringing the current case against Assange, who are international law�s violators. This is the single most important fact about this case, and it explains everything about it.
  • John Pilger: Eyewitness To The Agony Of Assange (2020-10-05)

    [Assange's] crime is to have performed an epic public service: revealing that which we have a right to know: the lies of our governments and the crimes they commit in our name.  ... [Wikileaks] shines a light on those who diminish the very meaning of democracy with their criminal secrecy. That's why his punishment is so extreme.
  • Glenn Greenwald: The Kafkaesque Imprisonment of Julian Assange Exposes U.S. Myths About Freedom and Tyranny (2020-12-31)

    ... Assange will be locked up for years without any need to prove he is guilty of any crime. He will have been just disappeared: silenced by the very governments whose corruption and crimes he denounced and exposed. Those are the same governments — the U.S. and U.K. — that sanctimoniously condemn their adversaries (but rarely their repressive allies) for violating free speech, free press and due process rights. These are the same governments that succeed — largely due to a limitlessly compliant corporate media that either believes the propaganda or knowingly disseminates it for their own rewards — in convincing large numbers of their citizens that, unlike in the Bad Countries such as Russia and Iran, these civic freedoms are guaranteed and protected in the Good Western Countries.
  • UK Judge Rules Julian Assange Can't Be Extradited To US (2021-01-04)

    Though the judge, Vanessa Baraitser of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, said she had no problems with the US case against Assange, she ruled that extradition would pose a serious threat to Assange’s health. ... For example, she found “Mr. Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial.”

    One commenter remarked: "the judge ruled extradition could have a seriously negative impact on her own health. — FIFY"

    But what the right hand giveth the left hand taketh away.

  • Assange Denied Bail By UK Judge Over Flight Risk (2021-01-06)
    WikiLeaks' Julian Assange has been denied bail by the London court which two days ago blocked the US extradition request. The UK judge rejected the bail request on fears that he's a flight risk, even though he's not facing criminal charges in the UK.

    It's now clear that the vicious psychopaths that control the U.K. and U.S. governments are determined that Julian Assange will die in jail.

  • Ron Ridenour: Key Witness Admits Lying About Julian Assange, a Major Blow to U.S. Extradition Case, Yet Western Media Ignores This Development (2021-07-03)

  • "They Were Seeing Blood": Bombshell Report Details CIA's 'Kidnap Or Kill' Plans Against WikiLeaks' Assange (2021-09-27)
    Dozens of US intelligence officials, including many who had served under the Trump administration, are now confirming the CIA considered "options" for kidnapping and/or assassinating Assange and that plans were mulled over at the highest levels of CIA leadership. ... Among the many key new revelations in the report includes that then CIA chief Mike Pompeo was itching for revenge against WikiLeaks and Assange after the "Vault 7" leaks, considered a massive embarrassment to the agency almost without parallel.
  • John Pilger: A Judicial Kidnapping (2021-12-12)
    Miscarriage of justice is an inadequate term in these circumstances. It took the bewigged courtiers of Britain's ancien regime just nine minutes on Friday [2021-12-10] to uphold an American appeal against a District Court judge's acceptance in January of a cataract of evidence that hell on earth awaited Assange across the Atlantic ... The recent confession of a crucial F.B.I. informant and prosecution stooge, a fraudster and serial liar, that he had fabricated his evidence against Julian was ignored. The revelation that the Spanish-run security firm at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where Julian had been granted political refuge, was a C.I.A. front that spied on Julian's lawyers and doctors and confidants (myself included) — that, too, was ignored. The recent journalistic disclosure, repeated graphically by defence counsel before the High Court in October, that the C.I.A. had planned to murder Julian in London — even that was ignored. ... Who among us is prepared to stand up rather than remain mere bystanders to an epic travesty such as the judicial kidnapping [and likely murder] of Julian Assange? What is at stake is both a courageous man's life and, if we remain silent, the conquest of our intellects and sense of right and wrong: indeed our very humanity.
  • Brett Wilkins: After 1,000 Days in Belmarsh Prison, Campaigners Demand Freedom for Julian Assange (2022-01-05)

  • Marjorie Cohn: Julian Assange Is Enduring Unbearable Persecution for Exposing US War Crimes

  • CIA Whistleblower Found Guilty of Leaking Vault 7 Documents to WikiLeaks

  • The Guardian Could Help Assange By Retracting All The Lies It Published About Him

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