Free Julian Assange the risk to publishers and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance.
Following a call from AIUK to the call to join Amnesty members outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 20th and 21st February, many individual AIUK members were joined by delegates from branches across London, Kent, Manchester and the Bournville section of Birmingham Amnesty, on what became a very wet couple of days. All received a very warm welcome from Amnesty members and campaigners for Julian Assange and Press Freedom opposing the extradition of Julian Assange.
Julian Assange, the co-founder of Wikileaks, (the radical publishing organisation that specialises in publishing untraceable material from whistleblowers), has been on remand in Belmarsh Prison in south London for nearly 5 years while his extradition to the US is considered in the UK courts. He currently awaits the outcome of the 20 and 21 February 2024 hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, London. He was too unwell to attend the court hearing, even by video link.
At the hearing, his lawyers sought permission to appeal against his extradition to the US where he faces trial under the US Espionage Act and imprisonment for 175 years for publishing documented evidence in 2010 of US war crimes and human rights abuses. While these documents caused considerable international embarrassment to the US, they also provided valuable corroboration of human rights violations documented by human rights activists and journalists. They include:
- The Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs. (These were subsequently used as evidence by lawyers to prove the innocence of their clients and secure their release).
- The Iraq ‘Rules of Engagement’ files exposed authorisation to use force to provide cover for virtually any civilian killings during the occupation and the role of private US contractors in the widespread killings of civilians.
- The ‘Collateral Murder’ video showing the US gunsight footage of a military helicopter crew authorised to fire and kill unarmed civilians in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, and laughing at their deed.
- US Department state cables, (including those referring to US pressure placed upon members of the United Nations to quash the Goldstone Report, published 2009) identifying evidence of war crimes following the 2008-9 invasion of Gaza.
- The Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010 also published by The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel, showing a portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, including extensive previously unreported civilian deaths.
All documents and that are part of Julian’s extradition papers, were provided to Wikileaks by Chelsea Manning, whistleblower, formerly a US army intelligence analyst.
“It’s not just Julian Assange in the dock. This is a test for the US and UK authorities on their commitment to the fundamental tenets of media freedom that underpin the rights to freedom of expression and the public’s right to information. The risk to publishers and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance.
“Assange will suffer personally from these politically-motivated charges and the worldwide media community will be on notice that they too are not safe”.
“The public’s right to information about what their governments are doing in their name will be profoundly undermined. The US must drop the charges under the Espionage Act against Assange and bring an end to his arbitrary detention in the UK”. (Julia Hall, Amnesty International’s criminal justice researcher). https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/julian-assange-high-court-hearing-global-media-freedom-trial
Julian Assange’s ‘politically motivated’ extradition must not go ahead
“Assurances by the US government that they would not put Julian Assange in a maximum security prison or subject him to abusive Special Administrative Measures were discredited by their admission that they reserved the right to reverse those guarantees.
“It is a damning indictment that nearly twenty years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail. (Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General).
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It is not just a matter of the need for Free Speech, it is now a matter of the need to escape from the primitive subjection and arbitrariness of old.
It should shock everyone who has been taught to recite the mantra about being “Proud of our Western Democracy” that unelected individuals can abuse the rights of those they choose to target, whilst the elected house, elected to protect us, lies and turns its back and whistles at the ceiling in preference to doing its job.
Without those who are supposed to represent us, showing their understanding of their purpose, which is to prevent any excursions back into the primitive brutality of our masters which is supposed to be in the far past, by holding them severely and diligently to account for their sins, come what may and without fear or favour.
Instead they join sides with the truly ruling brutes – the ones they wish to curry favour with by spinelessly covering for them – not with their electorates, or with plain morality.
As things stand, any claim that our system is not one of aged authoritarianism, abetted by self-seeking and Quisling non-representatives who habitually cheat us by lying about their intention to stand up for us is pretty obviously stupid.
We cannot move towards democracy whilst our Parliament abets our cruel rulers to persecute and torment Julian and any others who dare reveal their primitive brutality.
If parliament dos not do its job – stop voting for the usual suspects and lets get on with it with such a fight-back. Vote only for they who are real.