The Lord President of Scotland’s judges, Lord Gill, has made a complete fool of himself by leading British judges in a walk-out from the Commonwealth Law Conference. The action is in protest against Julian Assange’s participation by video-link in a panel discussion on surveillance and the role of the security services.
The walk-out happened after Julian’s talk, not before it, which rather gives the impression that what Lord Gill and his fellow judges objected to was the content of Assange’s talk, rather than the fact of it. Assange stated among other points that nationalists were right to believe that MI5 were active against them in the referendum campaign.
The Assange talk proved extremely popular with lawyers and judges from all over the Commonwealth. In fact it had to be shifted to a larger room to accommodate them all. So it seems Lord Gill’s disinterest in the concept of freedom of speech is not widely shared in the Commonwealth.
What Gill and his Scottish and English colleagues could have done – and I presume actually did – was to boycott the Assange panel and simply attend other panels on at the same time. What they have now done is to boycott all the panels happening after the Assange talk is gone, at some of which some of the boycotters were due to be talking or chairing, as an attempt to mess up the conference as some childish kind of spiteful revenge.
The members of the English Supreme Court who took part in this action have demonstrated their extreme prejudice against Assange – who has exercised his right in law to claim political asylum and who has never been charged with anything.
Julian has today told me that he is concerned that their action is also prejudicial to the cases currently before the Swedish Supreme Court and the UN Committee on Arbitrary Detention. Quite why the English and Scottish judges were moved to this peculiar display of prejudice is not immediately clear; I suspect they were pushed. Lord Gill is an interesting example of the self-made lackey. If you always promote the interests of the Establishment, even a man of talent but humble origins can get to the top, provided he is an entirely unscrupulous character.
STOP PRESS
In an effort to make Lord Gill and the judges look less like asses, it is being assiduously put about that they did not know Julian was going to speak before his appearance, and he unexpectedly appeared at the session. That this is a blatant lie is easily proved. Julian’s appearance was at short notice – a week. His name was in the conference programme, and the event was announced in the Scottish Legal press the day before it happened. Everyone at the conference knew Assange was appearing, that is why the room had to be changed for a larger one.
That our judges are not just asses but lying asses ought to be the source of some concern. Where is Lallands Peat Worrier when you need him?
Immediately after a leaders debate with a few weeks to go until the general election and what is Mary focused on?
Yup. Israel and Jews.
That was quick. Did you watch the debate?
PS I did not mention Jews. You did.
“You also asked us to look at the evidence produced my your mates in 55 Shuskina street for the Ukraine fighters attacking MH17”
No I did not. Fred posted some such link as yours and asked if that was the evidence of the fighter jet tracking MH17. I said no it was the one the Russians produced a few days after the crash. He asked for a link. Despite being busy I provided one.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/04/a-game-of-substitution/comment-page-2/#comment-520022
He never even thanked me, let alone comment on it. The Americans have not provided any evidence. Perhaps he never scrolled down to the video at the bottom of the link. I don’t know.
The Russian TV video was clearly faked as the link demonstrates – end of.
“I will happily use the standard of the “fascist Theresa May” (your words not mine) as my measuring stick”
You are going to have to remind me of this quotation and context!
“The Russian TV video was clearly faked as the link demonstrates – end of.”
Watch it. You clearly haven’t. You would like it to be the ‘end of’ because you know they are two different issues. The one presented by Russia in the video produced a few days after the event shows different positions for the fighter plane. The photo you and Fred are talking about is a single frame. Not the same thing. So don’t give me any bullshit.
I suppose this is beyond you like:
“Quite why Craig is surprised that Supreme Court judges have shown contempt for Assange when Assange has shown contempt for their decisions is beyond me.”
was.
Debate? Did Lord Janner’s name come up?
By the way, if this poll reported here, http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-32328664, is correct, Nicola Sturgeon again did very well:
“He never even thanked me, let alone comment on it.”
Nothing to commentate on. There were no satellite images of planes on the link you posted. Complete waste of time.
As there were 20 Commonwealth High Court Judges at the conference and the Guardian report mentions three who walked out among others. How many actually walked out? Had the whips been brought in? Did the convenor bring them out on strike? Or was it just a handful of pre-picked delegates? Was it a successful conference? Where can we see Julian Assange’s speech?
“Nothing to commentate on. There were no satellite images of planes on the link you posted. Complete waste of time.”
You have to watch it Fred.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bNPInuSqfs
Sort of related…
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/16/welcome-unofficial-sources/
(and I should add the caveat that I’m still trying to figure out the veracity of The Intercept)
If anyone would like to hear what Assange had to say that so upset poor Lord Gill, there’s a full recording of the “International Intelligence-Gathering, Abuse of Power and Privacy” session he did at the CLC2015:
https://soundcloud.com/wikileaks-audio/assange-on-international-intelligence-gathering-abuse-of-power-and-privacy
“You have to watch it Fred.”
No I don’t.
If you have satellite images of planes post a link.
“No I don’t.
If you have satellite images of planes post a link.”
I’ve just posted a link. It starts about 16 minutes into the Russian military presentation which you clearly did not watch. Yet still had the brass to say it was a waste of time.
Sorry it is radar not satellite.
Thanks Arbed. I will listen to Julian’s speech. It is important that the thread stays on topic and I apologise for having originally diverted it although I have twice tried to get it back on track.
@Arbed
16 Apr, 2015 – 11:31 pm
The security services are totally out of control. The laws that the politicians are passing would make any sane person wince.
We are on very, very, dangerous ground here.
Cue the trolls, because of course we live in a democracy and not a police state…
RobG,
They sure is out of control, which Assange knows better than most.
The speeches themselves at the Commonwealth Law Conference are really worthy of a blog post 🙂 https://soundcloud.com/wikileaks-audio/assange-on-international-intelligence-gathering-abuse-of-power-and-privacy
@Arbed
17 Apr, 2015 – 12:14 am
The ‘Intelligence Authorisaton Act 2015’ was rushed through Congress shortly before things wrapped-up for the Christmas holidays last December.
A last minute amendment put into this Act, in section 309, effectively allows the security services to bulk collect all communications between American citizens without oversight from a judge.
People really do need to wake-up and smell the coffee.
Will the ” flouncing fool ” Lord Gill vacate his seat in the House of Lords should Lord Janner return from his absence of leave ?
Julian Assange has given advice to protect against surveillance, but concedes that none of it is perfect if used against an individual. He mentioned Tails (not sure about spelling) and Tors (not sure about spelling) the former which can be used from a USB port.
What is happening now in the courts is that those who have the power via the Five Eyes and NSA can monitor practically everything. At the moment this evidence is not presentable in court. But the details can be used by barristers (and other legal representatives) to build up cases and questions witnesses.
I am about two thirds through the interview and would like to finish it. One thing not mentioned up to now, that everybody should be aware of, is that mobile phones can be used to locate you wherever you go, which everybody knows, but can also be used to provide coordinates to kill people with drone strikes and has been done and approved by Theresa May.
But I am still awaiting the reminder about “my” words in the following:
“I will happily use the standard of the “fascist Theresa May” (your words not mine) as my measuring stick. . .”
John you’ll notice that Facebook, YouTube, Google, et al, all want your mobile number.
You might also notice that just about every newspaper comment thread now wants you to log in via FuckBook or Twitter, etc.
This allows them to closely follow your every move on the internet.
Fuck you, NSA and GCHQ psychos.
You are all going to be hanged.
How dare these total scum do this to our society.
Craig, further to our exchange on the Guardian’s comments section.
I have read you piece, Craig, but you’ll perhaps understand and forgive me if I can’t take the scribblings of so partial an Assange fanboy blogger as a reliable witness – especially where that blogger is a self-proclaimed Scottish CyberNat, and where we’re discussing the home-spun paranoia of unsupported-by-evidence claims of the Security Services “targeting” the SNP during last year’s referendum.
Even you have to see how perilous the credibility of your position must be in these circumstances.
And on the point of credibility, where evidential certainty is required, as it is here, you’ll have to accept that lines you offer like, “I presume they [the judges] did not actually attend the Assange panel, but there is no way to know for sure”, really doesn’t cut it. To ‘presume’ is defined thus, courtesy of the OED:
Suppose that something is the case on the basis of probability
… and yet yo can’t say with any probability, let alone accuracy, what happened, when or to whom. If you are unsure of your and the judges’ position in attendance, then how in reality can we accept your other points as being anything other partisan politicking and bias conjecture? In short, we can’t. You admit that you don’t know whether they [the judges] were present or heard any of the Assange section, so how can your claims of “they boycotted it” be taken seriously? Again, the y can’t.
The bottom line is that all you’ve got is guess work – no hard facts, other than the judges leaving the conference; but at what time, under what motivation or circumstances, and whether or not they’d actually heard anything from Assange you cannot tell us.
And as for your “STOP PRESS” comment on the blog, well, let’s just say that it’s stock blog fodder, when instead what people would like to know is the actual legal position of the case and what actually happened at the conference. So, why don’t we do that and look at the coverage of Assange’s legal position from an actual lawyer who’s intimate with the case?
As the openly liberal reformer and legal columnist for The News Statesman, David Allen Green, has (at least) twice illustrated, Assange cannot, as you’ll read below, be extradited to the US from the UK or Sweden without the express agreement of both those EU countries, and that won’t agreement be forthcoming. Read these articles to understand why claims that he can are a nothing more than myth and conspiracy theory:
Legal myths about the Assange extradition:
http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-myths-about-assange-extradition
The legal mythology of the extradition of Julian Assange – Why the “zombie facts” of Assange supporters are wrong:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/09/legal-mythology-extradition-julian-assange
Shorter cosmic navel lint: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah, blah blah blahblahblah, Blahblah! Blah? Blah blahblah, blahblah blah fuck it I give up it’s pure crap. Only the kind of dimbulb who trusts the state could write such pointless shite. Hope they pay you by the word.
Look how terrified they are when the people will not parrot their propaganda.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Conspiracy_Theorists%2C_Bloggers_Compared_To_ISIS_During_Congressional_Hearing/43477/0/38/38/Y/M.html
Cosmic Navel Lint
17/04/2015 3:40 am
David Allan Green’s analysis is discussed in a critical light here.
https://justice4assange.com/extraditing-assange.html
Kind regards,
John
“You are going to have to remind me of this quotation and context!”
No Johnny Goosestep even you have the ability to search your old sayings – and when you find your quotes you can then explain how the racism and abuse of immigrants by the Putin regime is somehow less worse than that of the Home Office.
And given your worries about surveillance you then might give us your thoughts as to why it is ok for your KGB friends to conduct it on your Russian fifth column – or even be daft enough to deny that they do.
But I suspect all we will get is the usual diversion and dissembling technique, as so well demonstrated on the fake Russian TV film in respect of MH17 where you focus on one particular aspect in isolation and conveniently forget all the other evidence. Classic 55 Shushanka Street I’m afraid – which you as one of their bottom feeders then picks up.
Cosmic Navel Lint
You neatly avoid the point that what the judges are boycotting are numerous sessions entirely unrelated to Assange. That is not because they need to absent themselves from Assange, it is political point scoring.
It is perfectly easy to prove that the Assange appearance was not unannounced – it was in the press the day before. If the judges wished simply to boycott the Assange panel, that would have been their loss but no big deal. But to pull out of the whole of the rest of the Commonwealth Law Conference? Political point scoring.
I presume you are an American by your use of the term liberal. David Allan Green is in no sense a liberal. His widely discredited article was an effort to ingratiate himself with the feminist movement, in which he succeeded. It is not just wrong, it is a piece of blatant dishonesty.
The key point is that Assange’s lawyer stated in argument
a) The facts are not as stated
b) Even if the facts were as stated, they would not amount to an offence.
David Allen Green took b) to proclaim widely that Assange had admitted the facts. This was received with wild enthusiasm by those with an agenda that wished Assange to be guilty – a peculiar combination of hard-line feminists and supporters of the security services. It was a piece of simple dishonesty for purposes of propaganda.
Mary
“That was quick. Did you watch the debate?
PS I did not mention Jews. You did.”
___________________
You mentioned Netanyahu and a couple of Israeli political parties – are they not Jews?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I agree entirely with Anon1: you’re just obsessed with Jews. Like Mr Goss with his imaginary fascists in Kiev, you have to get your little bit about the Jews into every thread – even when you’re supposed to be in isolation in hospital!
I did not mention Jews. You did.