The Guardian hit a new low in Amelia Hill’s report on Julian Assange’s appearance at the Oxford Union. Hill moved beyond propaganda to downright lies.
This is easy to show. Read through Hill’s “report”. Then zip to 20 minutes and 55 seconds of the recording of Assange speaking at the event Hill misreports, and simply listen to the applause from the Oxford Union after Assange stops speaking.
Just that hearty applause is sufficient to show that the entire thrust and argument of Amelia Hill’s article moves beyong distortion or misreprentation – in themselves dreadful sins in a journalist – and into the field of outright lies. Her entire piece is intended to give the impression that the event was a failure and the audience were hostile to Assange. That is completely untrue.
Much of what Hill wrote is not journalism at all. What does this actually mean?
“His critics were reasoned, those who queued for over an hour in the snow to hear him speak were thoughtful. It was Julian Assange – the man at the centre of controversy – who refused to be gracious.”
Hill manages to quote five full sentences of the organiser of the anti-Assange demonstration (which I counted at 37 people) while giving us not one single sentence of Assange’s twenty minute address. Nor a single sentence of Tom Fingar, the senior US security official who was receiving the Sam Adams award. Even more remarkably, all three students Hill could find to interview were hostile to Assange. In a hall of 450 students who applauded Assange enthusiastically and many of whom crowded round to shake my hand after the event, Hill was apparently unable to find a single person who did not share the Rusbridger line on Julian Assange.
Hill is not a journalist – she is a pathetic grovelling lickspittle who should be deeply, deeply ashamed.
Here is the answer to the question about cyber-terrorism of which Amelia Hill writes:
“A question about cyber-terrorism was greeted with verbose warmth”
As you can see, Assange’s answer is serious, detailed, thoughtful and not patronising to the student. Hill’s characterisation – again without giving a word of Assange’s actual answer – is not one that could genuinely be maintained. Can anybody – and I mean this as a real question – can anybody look at that answer and believe that “Verbose warmth” is a fair and reasonable way to communicate what had been said to an audience who had not seen it? Or is it just an appalling piece of hostile propaganda by Hill?
The night before Assange’s contribution at the union, John Bolton had been there as guest speaker. John Bolton is a war criminal whose actions deliberately and directly contributed to the launching of an illegal war which killed hundreds of thousands of people. Yet there had not been one single Oxford student picketing the hosting of John Bolton, and Amelia Hill did not turn up to vilify him. My main contribution to the Sam Adams event was to point to this as an example of the way people are manipulated by the mainstream media into adopting seriously warped moral values.
Amelia Hill is one of the warpers, the distorters of reality. The Guardian calls her a “Special Investigative Correspondent.” She is actually a degraded purveyor of lies on behalf of the establishment. Sickening.
@David
“Most of the dictators in the world have been created and sustained by the West. That’s the whole point.”
I think that this is difficult to argue with the bigger most significant dictatorships in Russia and China – which continue to support many dictatorships elsewhere. The other thing the West has is that its admittedly imperfect attempts at democracy are often more impressive than those elsewhere – in the main because of the brave efforts of our ancestors which should not be belittled as much as they often are in places such as this which benefit from their very hard won freedoms.
Haha, well the answer to my question about how long the Guardian moderators would allow this comment about Catherine Bennett’s nasty little sideswipe at Assange and Galloway to remain:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/01/amelia-hill-is-a-dirty-liar/comment-page-2/#comment-391835
is not very long, it seems. Comment removed – not up to community standards, the watchmen inform me – which is rubbish, of course, it broke no rules. The Guardian is censoring inconvenient truths, pure and simple.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/03/mps-pay-give-them-more-if-they-turn-up#comment-21046621
Never mind, they haven’t noticed yet that I posted one very similar under Nick Cohen’s smearfest in the Observer while I was at it – that’s still up, for the moment.
It’s the links wot do me in, Guv. The watchmen at Grauniad Towers don’t like people giving the Guardian’s readers evidence of their lies.
@Arbed
“Tell me, what is it exactly that’s your beef with me sharing with readers of Craig’s blog my knowledge about the Swedish investigation and the Guardian’s long-running campaign to smear Assange concerning it?”
Nothing at all you are entiteled to your views – that is one of the beuaties of our democracy. My beef is that it wasn’t directly relevant to the argument I was having with N in which you intervened – which was about what the Swedes view of their won country was and the source of my own views on that matter. Just because Brown did or didn’t do what you alleged after he wrote his book on living in Sweden doesn’t in itself invalidate that book – you cannot dismiss a person’s entire life works just because of one particular event, or perhaps you may think you can – but I must say that this perilously near to your criticism of Brown for condemning a son because of the actions of the father.
Just because people try to smear Assange – and I could point to smears of Assange’s opponents as well – there are still a central argument about Assange’s actions and behaviours that needs to be addressed and the abiloty of the Swedish legal system to make those judgements. Please try and play your guilt by association games with someone else.
If anyone’s interested, this is Bliar this morning. 19mins! As sweet and nice as Sian Williams is, she is no match for this self seeking psychopath who shows no contrition for his crimes nor recognises them. At one stage he predicts the war on Al Qaeda will go on for a generation. At another time, he boasts of working in 20 countries.
He is mad – so full of bounce, bravado and bullshit and furthermore, his make up was too orange.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21312687
“Comment removed – not up to community standards, the watchmen inform me – which is rubbish, of course, it broke no rules.”
I would think that accusing the writer of “appalling libel” broke quite a few of the community standards – and to be honest it it is pretty disingenuous to argue otherwise.
This report is head-up for activists and protesters. It reveals the assimilation of MI6 identity theft, once considered a secret service only license much like immunity from prosecution, into the dirty work of undercover police officers exposed during Occupy St Pauls.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/03/police-spies-identities-dead-children
Who protects us? Who lies to us? Who deceives us?
The SDS disbanded in 2008. In 2012 agent Cameron brought the National Security Council out of the hat. The National Security Secretariat partners with the Intelligence services, the Met. and others to subvert demonstrations by creating incidents designed to massage public opinion.
That is the rub.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/03/police-spies-identities-dead-children
Arbed @ 8:54
You are a sneaky girl. My hat is tipped to you.
Ben Franklin, 8:36 pm
I wouldn’t know; you’d have to ask St Peter. No one will even cover him for a day off, and in the millennia he’s been at The Gates he’s drawn up a chart that I can’t even bear to look at; boiling alive compared to ejection from helicopter without parachute; beheading, hand-severance and fingernail-pulling versus rape with broken bottles and eye-gouging. And these powerful types say they’ve got religion? Yeah, right.
“Both officers worked for a secretive unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was disbanded in 2008.”
Mark; I thought you might like to know, although less odious and public, the Students for a Democratic Society is extant. At first I thought you were talking about that Ramparts magazine, Leftist Org.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_a_Democratic_Society
No resident dissi. its not, the Swedish judiciary works to the ‘per fas et nefas’ system. As long as nobody rocks the wallenberg/Borgstrom vectors, it does not matter whether justice is done.
Time for Swedes to wake up from their high tax low justice regime and send the FBI/CIA packing, take heed from Iceland, they will have no crux with interfering fascists.
As for global warming hot air here and inconsequential CO’2 generator, ad nauseum, I agree with Clark.
Why would rich bods like Mr. Koch throw so much money at trolls, if not to prove that it was the Green lefties that done it with their rebuttals.
good night, early night, done too much physical digging today.
Nevermind
As to how the Swedish legal system works, sorry, but I will place more reliance on the views of David Allen Green and the other blogs to which he links here:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/08/five-legal-myths-about-assange-extradition
I’ve read the comments which raise many of the objections raised here and some that have been not – so I see little benefit in rehashing the debate for my benefit.
As for Iceland – perhaps i would suggest a little caution before placing too much faith in a country that was in the past in effect hijacked by a bubble of money largely supplied by Russian money launderers.
Thanks Ben – yes I should have made that clearer.
Mark; No worries. Why is it, the children are the first order of suffering and abuse? (rhetorical question alert)
Thank you for your relentless concern for the most innocent amongst us.
Resident Dissident, 8.55pm
“My beef is that it wasn’t directly relevant to the argument I was having with N in which you intervened – which was about what the Swedes view of their won country was and the source of my own views on that matter.”
Interesting that you should say that because, if I’m keeping track of the conversation correctly, N’s comments about Sweden were in fact a response to your earlier 12.10pm post beginning with the remark which you clearly intended to be provocative: “Perhaps Assange should join the SWP and then the comrades in true Leninist tradition could clear him of rape”
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/01/amelia-hill-is-a-dirty-liar/comment-page-2/#comment-391845
Which means, I think, your 8.55pm counts as a No 20, yes?
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation: The Gentleperson’s Guide To Forum Spies
Resident Dissident, 10.09pm
“As to how the Swedish legal system works, sorry, but I will place more reliance on the views of David Allen Green and the other blogs to which he links”
We call him DAG around here, which suits him much better cf. the definition given at No 4 here:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dag
“DAG: noun 1a. (usually in the plural) a lump of matted wool and faeces hanging from the rear end of a sheep; b. such a lump cut from a sheep. 2. a person (primarily male) who is regarded as something of a ‘character’, eccentric but entertainingly so, a wag. 3a. an unfashionable adolescent. b. any unfashionable or non-stylish person.”
His theories about Legal Myths of the Assange case don’t cut much ice either:
http://pastehtml.com/view/c91yw7wjy.html – scroll down to find:
(READER CORRECTION OF) Legal myths about the Assange extradition
Arbed
Not being disingenuous – why and when did I refer to Andrew Brown and to which of my posts were you clearly responding?
yep no. 20 – false or more accurately irrelvant evidence on your part I’m afraid.
No problem with my original comments being provocative – they were intended to be – but I wasn’t taliking then about whether or not Sweden was “owned” by the Wallenbergs. As you will see from my last post I have already formed my views as why Assange should face trial in Sweden and made clear on what they are based. I don’t believe whether or not Andrew Brown/Guardian has an axe to grind against Assange, which they probably do imho, really is of much relevance to that argument.
I think we have reached the end of any meaningful discussion?
Arbed
If you think the linked article on David Green’s NS article adds anything – apart from an assault on the English language, to the comments in the original article or those to which he links you are sadly mistaken. I very much doubt there is a genuinely new argument of any substance to be found. As for the ad hominem on David Green – classy!
Cheerio!
‘There is a drone with Assange’s name on it’ – William Blum
http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_01_28/There-is-a-drone-with-Assange-s-name-on-William-Blum/
The Met stole the identities of dead children to use for undercover police work. The parents were not told.
Police spies stole identities of dead children
Exclusive: Undercover officers created aliases based on details found in birth and death records, Guardian investigation reveals
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/03/police-spies-identities-dead-children
Where the law ends, tyranny begins. John Locke (1632–1704)
Resident Dissident, 10.45pm
Which of your posts did I first reply to? It was this one:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/01/amelia-hill-is-a-dirty-liar/comment-page-2/#comment-391852
“N = not only do I know a few Swedes but I have also read Fishing in Utopia by Andrew Brown (about his experience of living in Swededn for a number of years) which received an Orwell Prize a few years backs – so with all due respects what you are talking about is garbage.”
As I explained earlier, I was aware that Andrew Brown is the Guardian’s religious correspondent based in Sweden and, due to his associations with the Swedish Democrats Christian Brotherhood, he’s likely to personally know one, if not both, of the two women who lodged a police complaint against Assange. Not that he bothered to do anything as silly as full disclosure in that first smear piece he wrote for the Guardian on 17 December 2010:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/dec/17/wikileaks-israel-shamir-russia-scandinavia
Oddly enough, on a page of Craig’s blog dealing specifically with the Guardian’s continuous smears against Assange, I thought that might be relevant.
By the way, did you know that DAG (sorry, David Allen Green) had already made up his mind that Assange was “running a cult” as early as 24 August 2010, only four days after the women went to the police?
http://jackofkent.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/wikileaks-cult.html
Check the comments beneath DAG’s amazing bout of clairvoyance here, every single one of them disagrees with him. He’s hung on grimly to his views ever since, hasn’t he? – even if he has to tell whoppers and ignore large chunks of facts.
Yes, I think we’re done now.
Swedish prosecutor caught lying again
http://www.friatider.se/swedish-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-explains-why-assange-is-not-questioned-in-london-you-do-not-dictate-the-terms-if-you-are-a-suspect-get-it
Brits talk about the weather whether they are lying or not. We talk about the weather in order to buy time for thought.
I confess, I have recently detected in my own feelings a slight thrill at the thought of the cavalry sweeping down the mountain in the form of the US finding an excuse to bomb Assad in Syria or the French removing Islamists in North Africa.
Have I succumbed to the Zio-Bollywood we call World News? Time to talk about the weather while I question my intelligence.
Look at the facts. We have a Black US president being used to re-colonise Africa, a boring French administrator distributing colonial style justice between warring tribes, a British Prime Minister pretending to be the insurance Churchill bulldog with a spring for a brain. We have CIA funded terrorists preparing the ground for Western intervention and creation of new Western influence in ex-colonial places like Africa and Syria. They only manage to lull us into a false sense of security with echoes of past certainties because we are all tasting dire economic uncertainties ourselves.
Ergo, the purpose of the recession is firstly to increase bank lending and secondly to create a new world order while we are looking the other way. That new world order is not going a British, protestant, free world order, as we Brits like to imagine our now-expired empire used to be, but a violent, medieval, subservient world order controlled by mad US/Zionist bankers and policed by an IT based Shari’ah Inquisition, as our media like to portray the future to be.
In other words an apartheid in which all traces of freedom of thought, like all traces of black DNA, will be counted as second-class non-citizens. No wonder we cling to the cowboy movie fantasies created for our entertainment in the Bollywood world news.
By contrast, all thinking people should be with the uprising against the Arab dictators and with the Muslim groups in North Africa who are challenging the status-quo of global neo-colonialism.
Does anyone else experience this wavering of allegiances between Western, nostalgic illusions of security and the Green shoots of an Islamic system which appears to be nurtured by Zionist megalomania , is it just me?
“Swedish prosecutor caught lying again”.
And the annoying thing is that those opposing Assange keep repeating as fact that it wouldn’t be possible to interrogate him here even though it’s been proved false. They carry on repeating it as if it were true and it’s become a sort of Zombie Fact.
“Ecuador to take legal action over Assange extradition” 27.01.13
“Ecuador will seek judicial help to ensure the safe passage from Britain of WiliLeaks founder Julian Assange.”
http://www.euronews.com/2013/01/27/ecuador-to-take-legal-action-over-assange-extradition/
Mary’s comment about the LAW made me reflect, but first, a question; Is the LAW sacrosanct, when it has been promulgated in the mire of our present day politics and the public gerrymandering which powered them into the category of Lawmakers? So who are WE to pick and choose those Laws worthy of respect? Sorry, that was two questions, but I am anathema to editing, as my bean-counting editors would have said, in another life.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
————————-
So, I muddy the waters. More makes a distinction here, however. His principled stand, whether your respect Catholicism, or not, is the crux. He, in the true Christian ideal of Saint, in the sense that he martyred himself. Knowing full well the consequences, in the short-term, he chose the long-term. Whether or not his ideal was attained, misses the point. Principles are essential to us, whether we wish to recognize that fact, or not. But if you should choose to believe that he will enjoy the fulfillment of the promise, my guess is that More, regardless of the corrupt nature of his Doctrinal rectitude to the Vatican, will stand with other saints of known, or unknown origins. That is; if the God of the Bible is truly a God of Justice.
The point of it all is thusly; I am not promoting that belief. What I am saying, and i think Mark and I are alike on this point, is that intent or ‘intention’ is all that matters. It is what cuts a swath of us through the path of life. More, in my estimation, had perfect ‘intent’ and even if he receives no award for meritorious behavior, we can retain more of ourselves from the valor and ‘saintliness’ of folks like him, by taking courage from his impeccable death.
I know it’s early, by Pacific time, but I have the perfect excuse for imbibing early in the day. SuperBowl. It’s bullshite, but what the hell?
David at 11.23, thanks for that Newspaper report. Marianne Ny (pronounced Knee) is the most odious of women. The corrupt UK legal establishment sat Lord Justice Phillips to find in favour of this tool of the Swedish establishment just before he retired to preside over the judiciary of Qatar – that great paragon of democratic rights. Can you imagine a UK prosecutor saying anything like he or she would not change their opinion even if they knew themselves to be wrong? I should hope not.
“In an opinion piece published last Sunday in Sweden’s largest daily Dagens Nyheter, two Swedish journalists claimed that Marianne Ny had privately stated that she would not change her position on Assange even if she were wrong.
Today, two years after Assange was first questioned by Swedish police in Stockholm, it seems increasingly clear that the reason why he has not been interviewed again has very much to do with prestige and little to do with law.”
The article was published on 21 Aug 2012.
And there are other professors in Sweden as well as Ove Bring who are convinced there was never a case for Julian Assange to answer.
“Ecuador will seek judicial help to ensure the safe passage from Britain of WiliLeaks founder Julian Assange.”
I wonder why Equador doesn’t give him a job, along with a diplomatic passport. I doubt the government would try to arrest him then, they would get all the diplomats they let go thrown back at them. He could shoot a police woman and get away with it.
@Resident Dissident
For your information, the Swedish judicial system is currently under rapidly increasing scrutiny after a string of dramatic high profile failures spanning the last 10 years.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that these failures are not unfortunate accidents, but just the tip of the iceberg, and the results of deep systemic flaws.
The scale and forms of these flaws, are to many Swedes, and in relation to historic norms almost breathtaking, and never in our modern history has the trust in the judicial system been so low as it is right now. Just over the last year alone, the trust in the judical system fell in the range of 40% (if I remember correctly), which is completly unprecedented.
According to the offical statistics from 2011, only 52% of Swedes have high confidence in the courts, 51% in the prosecutors and only 41% in the correctional system. (NTU, Report 2012:2, “Om utsatthet, trygghet och förtroende”, Bra) These are also significantly lower then historic values.
Sweden also uses politically nominated lay judges, and in a big survey of all Court of Appeal Managers in Sweden published in June 2012 in Swedens biggest morning newspaper, SVD, 6 of 10 strongly critize this system, and want it abolished. Particularly damning is the opinion, that they view the current system as legally unsafe, and that the lay judges express a political ideology in their application of the law
In 2009 the former Chancellor of Justice, Göran Lambertz, published an investigation named “Wrongfully convicted”, that exposed serious shortcomings within the Swedish legal systems, that among many other thing found
* Manipulation of evidence, and verdicts based on inconclusive evidence
* Partial prosecutors
* The courts overlooking outright failures in the underlying investigations.
* Insufficient examination of the plaintiffs stories
In 11 cases studied, which had lead to convictions and later appeals and acquittal, 8 were related to sexual offenses.
He was efter this quietly removed from office…
A summary of the Report and more details can be found here,
http://www.dagensjuridik.se/2009/11/lambertz-rattssakerhet-ar-inte-nagot-man-blir-sarskilt-popular-pa
And just some articles from the last weeks,
Flaws in the justice systems must not be ignored, 16 Jan 2013, SVD
http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/rattssystemets-brister-ska-inte-viftas-undan_7827890.svd
It must be easier to request a new trial after new evidence emerge, 9 Jan 2013,
http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/oka-mojligheten-att-fa-resning_7807860.svd
The collaps of the trial in Södetälje is not unique, 10 Okt 2012, (By Professor Cleas Sandgren, representative to International Commission of Jurists)
http://www.dn.se/debatt/haveriet-med-rattegangen-i-sodertalje-ar-inte-unikt
It is also noteworthy that almost all the open critique of the justice system comes from people ouside the judicial and political system, like Prof Sandgren, or from retired Judges, like Brita Sundberg-Weitman or chief prosecutors like Sven Erik Alhelm, not from within.
And on a personal reflection, I would be very careful trusting David Allen Green in regard to Swedish Law and Julian Assange.
Clark,
http://mitei.mit.edu/publications/reports-studies/future-nuclear-fuel-cycle
Meant to post that link to you some time ago. Download the full PDF at link. Think you will find it interesting if you haven’t seen it before.
Hello LastBlueBell, nice to see you again. Have you had a chance to do a quick revisit to the long Why I’m Convinced Anna Ardin is a Liar thread?
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-6/#comments
It’s reached six pages now, and I think there might be some new stuff on the last couple of pages which might interest Flashback.