UPDATE I have received scores of requests to republish and/or translate this article. It is absolutely free to use and reproduce and I should be delighted if everybody does; the world should know what is being done to Julian. So far, over 200,000 people have read it on this blogsite alone and it has already been reproduced on myriad other sites, some with much bigger readerships than my own. I have seen translations into German, Spanish and French and at least extracts in Catalan and Turkish. I only ask that you reproduce it complete or, if edits are made, plainly indicate them. Many thanks.
BEGINS
I was deeply shaken while witnessing yesterday’s events in Westminster Magistrates Court. Every decision was railroaded through over the scarcely heard arguments and objections of Assange’s legal team, by a magistrate who barely pretended to be listening.
Before I get on to the blatant lack of fair process, the first thing I must note was Julian’s condition. I was badly shocked by just how much weight my friend has lost, by the speed his hair has receded and by the appearance of premature and vastly accelerated ageing. He has a pronounced limp I have never seen before. Since his arrest he has lost over 15 kg in weight.
But his physical appearance was not as shocking as his mental deterioration. When asked to give his name and date of birth, he struggled visibly over several seconds to recall both. I will come to the important content of his statement at the end of proceedings in due course, but his difficulty in making it was very evident; it was a real struggle for him to articulate the words and focus his train of thought.
Until yesterday I had always been quietly sceptical of those who claimed that Julian’s treatment amounted to torture – even of Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on 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.
I had been even more sceptical of those who claimed, as a senior member of his legal team did to me on Sunday night, that they were worried that Julian might not live to the end of the extradition process. I now find myself not only believing it, but haunted by the thought. Everybody in that court yesterday saw that one of the greatest journalists and most important dissidents of our times is being tortured to death by the state, before our eyes. To see my friend, the most articulate man, the fastest thinker, I have ever known, reduced to that shambling and incoherent wreck, was unbearable. Yet the agents of the state, particularly the callous magistrate Vanessa Baraitser, were not just prepared but eager to be a part of this bloodsport. She actually told him that if he were incapable of following proceedings, then his lawyers could explain what had happened to him later. The question of why a man who, by the very charges against him, was acknowledged to be highly intelligent and competent, had been reduced by the state to somebody incapable of following court proceedings, gave her not a millisecond of concern.
The charge against Julian is very specific; conspiring with Chelsea Manning to publish the Iraq War logs, the Afghanistan war logs and the State Department cables. The charges are nothing to do with Sweden, nothing to do with sex, and nothing to do with the 2016 US election; a simple clarification the mainstream media appears incapable of understanding.
The purpose of yesterday’s hearing was case management; to determine the timetable for the extradition proceedings. The key points at issue were that Julian’s defence was requesting more time to prepare their evidence; and arguing that political offences were specifically excluded from the extradition treaty. There should, they argued, therefore be a preliminary hearing to determine whether the extradition treaty applied at all.
The reasons given by Assange’s defence team for more time to prepare were both compelling and startling. They had very limited access to their client in jail and had not been permitted to hand him any documents about the case until one week ago. He had also only just been given limited computer access, and all his relevant records and materials had been seized from the Ecuadorean Embassy by the US Government; he had no access to his own materials for the purpose of preparing his defence.
Furthermore, the defence argued, they were in touch with the Spanish courts about a very important and relevant legal case in Madrid which would provide vital evidence. It showed that the CIA had been directly ordering spying on Julian in the Embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide security there. Crucially this included spying on privileged conversations between Assange and his lawyers discussing his defence against these extradition proceedings, which had been in train in the USA since 2010. In any normal process, that fact would in itself be sufficient to have the extradition proceedings dismissed. Incidentally I learnt on Sunday that the Spanish material produced in court, which had been commissioned by the CIA, specifically includes high resolution video coverage of Julian and I discussing various matters.
The evidence to the Spanish court also included a CIA plot to kidnap Assange, which went to the US authorities’ attitude to lawfulness in his case and the treatment he might expect in the United States. Julian’s team explained that the Spanish legal process was happening now and the evidence from it would be extremely important, but it might not be finished and thus the evidence not fully validated and available in time for the current proposed timetable for the Assange extradition hearings.
For the prosecution, James Lewis QC stated that the government strongly opposed any delay being given for the defence to prepare, and strongly opposed any separate consideration of the question of whether the charge was a political offence excluded by the extradition treaty. Baraitser took her cue from Lewis and stated categorically that the date for the extradition hearing, 25 February, could not be changed. She was open to changes in dates for submission of evidence and responses before this, and called a ten minute recess for the prosecution and defence to agree these steps.
What happened next was very instructive. There were five representatives of the US government present (initially three, and two more arrived in the course of the hearing), seated at desks behind the lawyers in court. The prosecution lawyers immediately went into huddle with the US representatives, then went outside the courtroom with them, to decide how to respond on the dates.
After the recess the defence team stated they could not, in their professional opinion, adequately prepare if the hearing date were kept to February, but within Baraitser’s instruction to do so they nevertheless outlined a proposed timetable on delivery of evidence. In responding to this, Lewis’ junior counsel scurried to the back of the court to consult the Americans again while Lewis actually told the judge he was “taking instructions from those behind”. It is important to note that as he said this, it was not the UK Attorney-General’s office who were being consulted but the US Embassy. Lewis received his American instructions and agreed that the defence might have two months to prepare their evidence (they had said they needed an absolute minimum of three) but the February hearing date may not be moved. Baraitser gave a ruling agreeing everything Lewis had said.
At this stage it was unclear why we were sitting through this farce. The US government was dictating its instructions to Lewis, who was relaying those instructions to 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. Her facial expressions on the few occasions she looked at the defence ranged from contempt through boredom to sarcasm. When she looked at Lewis she was attentive, open and warm.
The extradition is plainly being rushed through in accordance with a Washington dictated timetable. Apart from a desire to pre-empt the Spanish court providing evidence on CIA activity in sabotaging the defence, what makes the February date so important to the USA? I would welcome any thoughts.
Baraitser dismissed the defence’s request for a separate prior hearing to consider whether the extradition treaty applied at all, without bothering to give any reason why (possibly she had not properly memorised what Lewis had been instructing her to agree with). Yet this is Article 4 of the UK/US Extradition Treaty 2007 in full:
On the face of it, what Assange is accused of is the very definition of a political offence – if this is not, then what is? It is not covered by any of the exceptions from that listed. There is every reason to consider whether this charge is excluded by the extradition treaty, and to do so before the long and very costly process of considering all the evidence should the treaty apply. But Baraitser simply dismissed the argument out of hand.
Just in case anybody was left in any doubt as to what was happening here, Lewis then stood up and suggested that the defence should not be allowed to waste the court’s time with a lot of arguments. All arguments for the substantive hearing should be given in writing in advance and a “guillotine should be applied” (his exact words) to arguments and witnesses in court, perhaps of five hours for the defence. The defence had suggested they would need more than the scheduled five days to present their case. Lewis countered that the entire hearing should be over in two days. Baraitser said this was not procedurally the correct moment to agree this but she will consider it once she had received the evidence bundles.
(SPOILER: Baraitser is going to do as Lewis instructs and cut the substantive hearing short).
Baraitser then capped it all by saying the February hearing will be held, not at the comparatively open and accessible Westminster Magistrates Court where we were, but at Belmarsh Magistrates Court, the grim high security facility used for preliminary legal processing of terrorists, attached to the maximum security prison where Assange is being held. There are only six seats for the public in even the largest court at Belmarsh, and the object is plainly to evade public scrutiny and make sure that Baraitser is not exposed in public again to a genuine account of her proceedings, like this one you are reading. I will probably be unable to get in to the substantive hearing at Belmarsh.
Plainly the authorities were disconcerted by the hundreds of good people who had turned up to support Julian. They hope that far fewer will get to the much less accessible Belmarsh. I am fairly certain (and recall I had a long career as a diplomat) that the two extra American government officials who arrived halfway through proceedings were armed security personnel, brought in because of alarm at the number of protestors around a hearing in which were present senior US officials. The move to Belmarsh may be an American initiative.
Assange’s defence team objected strenuously to the move to Belmarsh, in particular on the grounds that there are no conference rooms available there to consult their client and they have very inadequate access to him in the jail. Baraitser dismissed their objection offhand and with a very definite smirk.
Finally, Baraitser turned to Julian and ordered him to stand, and asked him if he had understood the proceedings. He replied in the negative, said that he could not think, and gave every appearance of disorientation. Then he seemed to find an inner strength, drew himself up a little, and said:
I do not understand how this process is equitable. This superpower had 10 years to prepare for this case and I can’t even access my writings. It is very difficult, where I am, to do anything. These people have unlimited resources.
The effort then seemed to become too much, his voice dropped and he became increasingly confused and incoherent. He spoke of whistleblowers and publishers being labeled enemies of the people, then spoke about his children’s DNA being stolen and of being spied on in his meetings with his psychologist. I am not suggesting at all that Julian was wrong about these points, but he could not properly frame nor articulate them. He was plainly not himself, very ill and it was just horribly painful to watch. Baraitser showed neither sympathy nor the least concern. She tartly observed that if he could not understand what had happened, his lawyers could explain it to him, and she swept out of court.
The whole experience was profoundly upsetting. It was very plain that there was no genuine process of legal consideration happening here. What we had was a naked demonstration of the power of the state, and a naked dictation of proceedings by the Americans. Julian was in a box behind bulletproof glass, and I and the thirty odd other members of the public who had squeezed in were in a different box behind more bulletproof glass. I do not know if he could see me or his other friends in the court, or if he was capable of recognising anybody. He gave no indication that he did.
In Belmarsh he is kept in complete isolation for 23 hours a day. He is permitted 45 minutes exercise. If he has to be moved, they clear the corridors before he walks down them and they lock all cell doors to ensure he has no contact with any other prisoner outside the short and strictly supervised exercise period. There is no possible justification for this inhuman regime, used on major terrorists, being imposed on a publisher who is a remand prisoner.
I have been both cataloguing and protesting for years the increasingly authoritarian powers of the UK state, but that the most gross abuse could be so open and undisguised is still a shock. The campaign of demonisation and dehumanisation against Julian, based on government and media lie after government and media lie, has led to a situation where he can be slowly killed in public sight, and arraigned on a charge of publishing the truth about government wrongdoing, while receiving no assistance from “liberal” society.
Unless Julian is released shortly he will be destroyed. If the state can do this, then who is next?
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I am a land lord developer who was framed by paid liars who attacked me as I was working(witnessed)They were with another couple male who shot at me for two days with a gun and put sand in my backhoes diesel engine(causing approximently 12000.00 Canadian damage.This tenant had been caught at night peeping at women! I defended myself against Jusuit judges and was arrested twice and was treated similiar all this in Ontario and my age was 66 and I had NO prior record but am a GOD fearing conservative!!
Thank you very much for this report Craig.
Unbelievable that the UK could be a willing party to this awful abuse of justice, and the Australian governments as well.
Please keep up the good work as efforts to Free Julian pick up around the world.
What is wrong with telling the truth.
I would like to make another one-off donation towards justice for Julian Assange and those who have prosecuted him. They should not be allowed to get away with their conduct including Judge Baraitser, Andrew Downer and every person tainted with having breached honesty in the exercise of their respective responsibility and authority as servants of the State beholden to all individuals. But I need AU$ account that is scam free.
I find this report absolutely frightening. This illustrates the very unholy alliance between the British and Australian governments and the British legal system, and the USA. This, at the time when we are fighting to remain in the European Union and the comparative rights, safety and security that that affords from becoming a mere vassal of the US and subject to their grossly immoral policies and their total lack of empathy for humanity. We are truly approaching a new dark age of greed and evil.
Stop the corruption. Gods hand is going to leave political criminals with their pants down. Wake up God and his Ten Commandments are not to be ignored.
Assange should release everypiece of documentation he has that would shake them up.New World Order is still strong.Complete control of the people
The press must be free.
Shocking. Disgusting display of corruption and cruelty. We all know exposing corruption is,a great act. What does it say about how ‘civilised’ the superpowers are. Not. Total utter complete abuse of power. Trump ,all leaders, get a grip on reality and show compassion.
I know that I am preaching to the choir but OMG… R Nader says the thing to do is fire all of our US government officials which can be done through the process of collecting the signatures of 500 people in each state. Go to his website for more info.
Once again I am in absolute shock that the majority of adults with an IQ of 50 or higher don’t seem to comprehend what is happening to our BASIC human rights. Apparently most of us, the slaves, don’t seem to understand that our elected reps and so many others in power are absolutely heartless and this just gives me the creeps. Who would treat a dog like this let alone a human being??? And yet the prisons THAT WE KNOW ABOUT are over crowded and we have no idea what is going on in them either but as tax payers we foot the bill. No audits and no accountability as our reps and their friends laugh all the way to the bank!
As I’m sure most of you know the CIA has put forth one of their own, a “whistle blower”, who claims to have evidence (that we don’t get to see but that doesn’t seem to matter) which is strong enough to set in motion an impeachment committee to review the president’s actions in Ukraine (because Russiagate didn’t stick) and we are supposed to take their word for it. What a joke! Why are we letting this farce of a government rule us? Why aren’t there laws already in place to vet people who run for office? Tax returns made public for at least the past 5 yrs, bank accounts, companies owned, property including land, etc. The reason that there are no laws for this is because quid pro quo has been going on for centuries. We are paying taxes to our government programs so that they can buy all the spyware needed to arrest us and put us in jail when we protest and demand our rights.
Julian is a national treasure who has been fighting the good fight for all of us on this planet and the fact that the CIA is killing him is proof that he is a threat. A highly intelligent and compassionate man who published serious crimes that people in governments have committed and this is the thanks that he gets? We have got to do better.
Craig I am grateful for all that you have done and continue to do including your columns because you help keep me sane in an insane world and as painful as it is for me to watch this sh*t show I can’t imagine the level of pain that you and Assange’s family and other friends are going through. I am so very sorry.
Thank you, Craig, for this very sad report.
United States justice and UK justice sound like oxymorons.
Will Australia join this unholy alliance, as they did to invade Iraq ?
I think Australia are in it up to their necks. Not particularly for what they have done, but precisely what they haven’t done in defence of one of their own citizens. Their inaction, and apparent silence on this matter over the past several years shows them to be totally bang to rights, guilty as hell.
In my view any Australian member of Parliament who fails to uphold the legal principles embedded 9n our constitution is nothing less then a TRAITOR.
Hansard 8-3-1898 Constitution Convention Debates (Official Record of the Debates of the National Australasian Convention)
QUOTE
Mr. ISAACS.-We want a people’s Constitution, not a lawyers’ Constitution.
END QUOTE
HANSARD18-2-1898 Constitution Convention Debates (Official Record of the Debates of the National Australasian Convention)
QUOTE Mr. ISAACS.-
The right of a citizen of this great country, protected by the implied guarantees of its Constitution,
END QUOTE
HANSARD 17-3-1898 Constitution Convention Debates
QUOTE
Mr. BARTON.- Of course it will be argued that this Constitution will have been made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. That will be true in one sense, but not true in effect, because the provisions of this Constitution, the principles which it embodies, and the details of enactment by which those principles are enforced, will all have been the work of Australians.
END QUOTE
The following will also make clear that the Framers of the Constitution intended to have CIVIL RIGHTS and LIBERTIES principles embedded in the Constitution;
HANSARD 17-3-1898 Constitution Convention Debates (Official Record of the Debates of the National Australasian Convention)
QUOTE Mr. CLARK.-
the protection of certain fundamental rights and liberties which every individual citizen is entitled to
claim that the federal government shall take under its protection and secure to him.
END QUOTE
Hansard 1-3-1898 Constitution Convention Debates
QUOTE
Mr. HIGGINS.-Suppose the sentry is asleep, or is in the swim with the other power?
Mr. GORDON.-There will be more than one sentry. In the case of a federal law, every member of a state Parliament will be a sentry, and, every constituent of a state Parliament will be a sentry.
As regards a law passed by a state, every man in the Federal Parliament will be a sentry, and the whole constituency behind the Federal Parliament will be a sentry.
END QUOTE
1st Amendment will be gone in the USA, the second he is extradited to the U.S. Not proud of my government as an American.
May the Blessings of Allah (SWT) rest upon you;
May His Peace abide with you.
May His Presence illuminate your heart –
Now and forever more.!
Craig, has Julian been assessed by a consultant psychiatrist for his capacity to participate in legal proceedingsw under the Mental Capacity Act?? As a mental health disability discrimination lawyer myself, I would be advising the court that they need to immediately issue an Order that Julian’s capacity must be assessed. If he lacks capacity, he should not be in court!! Happy to speak to you or anyone who can help him further if that would help?? God bless him, such. Wonderful, courageous man.
Ironic that he who put so much knowledge into the public domain should himself be dealt with in the shadows.
Thank you, Craig Murray.
A wonderful piece of writing on a terrible set of events.
We all feel Assange’s powerlessness in the face of shadowy tyranny.
We all feel the lack of reason and logic by unreasoning state actors.
It is both infuriating and heartbreaking to read of the awful treatment of a man who has brought to our attention wrongs that we need and are entitled, to know.
This is a trend it seems and the Australian government have hung Julian Assange up to to dry. This is becoming systemic and we only have to look to the federal police raid on the ABC here and visit to a journalists house to seize material. Even now no one knows if charges are to be laid.
If journalists are expected only to report what the government wishes them to report, then are we not heading down the road to authoritarianism? Is it not against all that a democracy stands for?
The appalling proceeding regarding Julian Assange demonstrates clearly that there is no genuine process in a court of law in the UK, or anywhere else for the matter. Out of such reality a question emerges which is what the people at large can or intend to do about it? Nothing, nothing much? Or mobilises to make the scoundrels in the legal system and the court fully accountable for their wrong doing which is blatantly tinted with criminality. Every aspect to this situation is wrong and constitutes an insult to human intelligence. Natural justice which is completely ignored from A to Z demands to be strongly challenged. To right the wrong, such act becomes the responsibility of the people. This most deplorable and insulting state of affairs puts an obligation on the citizens of the UK, the US, Australia and any country directly or indirectly concerned with the case of Julian Assange to mobilise and force those responsable and we know them, to be accountable for the abuse of authority and Their wrong doing which is nakedly exposed to us all.
The unmentionable Louise Mensch found it necessary to retweet:
Louise Mensch
@LouiseMensch
Oct 22
Louise Mensch Retweeted Nine News Australia
‘He looks perfectly fine. Quit yer cryin’, you Putin-loving traitor’
Louise Mensch added,
1:37
Nine News Australia
A thin and confused-looking Julian Assange has been seen for the first time since his April arrest. @sophie_walsh9 #9News
She said this about Julian in April
@LouiseMensch
You know, Julian Assange was outside today for the first time in seven years. HMP Belmarsh will give him an hour outside. Every day!
Can you imagine him looking at the sky, feeling the breeze on his skin? Fortunate soul. How merciful Britain is. #FVEY #WeAreNATO
https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status/1117130507010101253
The self hating spiteful Mensch did for her nose years ago and will never get over it – she is but a gollum. Pitiable.
Thanks for the horrid unmenschionable link to twatter, Mary, this Harredin seems to compete with M.Phillips for the most nauseating comments.
Maybe she wants to replace Stoltenberg at NATO with a handle like that.
Look out!
The USA and the UK are scared…and they will stop at nothing the stop the truth being told.
They are bereft of any moral compass whatsoever.
Thank you Julian.
“[The judge’s] bias was incandescent. I’ve never seen — I’ve sat in a number of courts all over the world — I’ve never seen anything like this.”
— John Pilger, Oct 23, 2019
Julian Assange’s Extradition Case is a SHOW TRIAL – John Pilger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWV5MYgWmY4
Same British judicial system that establishment journos were hailing for bravely defying power a couple of weeks ago.
I know it’s been observed a million times over the past 200 years but the defining characteristic of liberalism, above every other, is hypocrisy.
Some disgusting people on other forums are suggesting that we “trade” Julian Assange for the wife of the US spy – how low can you get?
Obviously such a swap would never happen or be seriously approved if it were actually offered but the call for it in the general populaces zeitgeist, would highlight the massive hypocrisy of the state actors.
Think in terms of the Swiftian notion of eating babies against the inhumanity of letting the Irish starve.
The general populace is a mob that can be stirred to the most heinous opinion and action, yet it does have a heart and can almost ‘comically’ turn on penny to confound its masters.
As proof I point you to the tragedy of mass death of immigrants in the heart of kipper/brexit country today – instead of celebrating that such illegal immigrants deserved their awful fate the majority of the ‘gammons’ sorrowfully, humbly, respectfully lined up in silence to show their basic humanity as the trailer has been moved.
The trouble with JA is that he is hidden from the population by the msm and so easily monstered. The swap gambit would break through that psyche control.
Class, dongroanin… I’m starting to think my role here is bearing fruit.
I think the big problem right now and generally is that we all live in the middle of a sort of information cyclone. There seems to be a million things going on at once.
Our consciences have become Jacks of all trades and masters of none. This is why I don’t get too caught up in the Assange stuff. My small brain and even smaller heart have enough to deal with.
Assange is but one person.
Well said Dungroanin and Joel. A picture, real or not, of Julian looking at/cuddling a dog or cat with big eyes, on as many social websites as possible, would change opinions overnight.
Thats just humans work, nevermind those millions with no water in Yemen, with cholera spreading rapidly, a few pictures of pets or a cuddle with moggy, and they are happy before the next sh.tshower comes upon them.
Come on you internet worriers, you can do it, and I promise to share it, so would many others.
I know that Julian Assange likes cats.
An interesting thing about all totalitarian states is that most of the population don’t realise they live in one.
I could not have said this any better myself Craig. Thank you for being there and relating to us something horribly reminiscent of a Stalin Show Trial. I wonder if it might have been better for Julian’s defence team to walk out in protest at the first, 2nd, or 3rd miscarriage of justice, or, to lodge a motion of No Confidence in the Magistrate, and either way to make a speech about the State’s abuse of Julian’s Rights (as you have done so well here).
All this confirms what Lenin said about “even the ‘freest’ bourgeois democracy”, that it is still in essence “a dictatorship of monopoly capital”, though since the 1990’s, the ‘freest’ bourgeois “democracy” is really merely a satrap of the US World Military Empire, ruled by the US Military Junta.
Western liberal democracies don’t need any lectures from Lenin.
There was an old bastard named Lenin
Who did two or three million men in.
That’s a lot to have done in
But where he did one in
That old bastard Stalin did ten in.
As one who feels greatly for Assange I would like to see him released.
On the other hand, one must wonder why the US are pursuing this case. Surely they would be better served if the whole Assange story would go away. No doubt many of Assange’s supporters are grateful for the ongoing reminder that all Wikileaks did was to publish the fact that the US Military murdered journalists and innocent civilians.
… And developed and distributed tools with which to hack/crack into all our phones & computers…
… And received & published dirt on Mrs. Clinton’s DNC…
‘dirt’ = damning truths carefully hidden from a misinformed electorate. you are quite correct though that the dnc belonged to mrs clinton and effectively still does.
Yes indeed, zoot. Having followed events closely, if vicariously, at the time, I intended to use the term ‘dirt’ in the sense you describe.
disturbing
We are all disturbed. You said it clearly – now are we disturbed enough to cast aside all other differences of opinion and temperament, to ignore matters of personality, race, class, gender, identity political subdivisions ad infinitum… and to unite our individual energies in ACTION???
Talk is cheap. Assange is still being martyred. Now. Today. In front of your eyes. Your collective nose (and mine) is being rubbed in it. You are all hearing the endless mantra infesting the airwaves, the media, the WiFi and electro-smog hiss, and it whispers one thing, repeatedly, to every one of us from school to the grave: You Are Powerless!
This is not new. The modern difference is the shear REACH of the Global Psycopathy – and as ever, it is the same old lie. It is our power that they fear. They fear above all that we might refuse to fear them! So the false flags start and their guns appear on streets to “protect the public” and we are herded like sheep to the slaughter of our last shreds of humanity.
Is this what our parents and grandparents fought and died for? Centuries of struggle are on the bonfire of establishment vanity and Assange puts a HUMAN face on it.
XR has a Logo like a runic hourglass charm, but it has no face and it is wise to have none – it exists to say “the clock is ticking”. Meanwhile, we do have a face – We are all Assange.
Medieval abuses of power but with 21st century torture tech toys.
Diabolical.
He is the last straw in exposing world wide corruption, as they destroy him, understand, we are next. He must be saved or we are all lost
And let’s not forget the bravery of Chelsea Manning, who is only back in a US prison because she refused to testify against Julian. After all she went through before, the sheer guts she has to face the same again all for the sake of truth and integrity. How many people would lay down their freedom like that?
Unless that approaches 3-5% of ALL the people then we may well be doomed. Together we are strong. As divided protesters we are just target practice for establishment snipers (sometimes the rulers also need to “mow the lawn” just to remind everyone who is in control, so negotiating with the psychopaths is beyond pointless).
Well said. I understand that Chelsea is also being fined for every day that she refuses to testify. NB: unpaid fines in the US can keep you in prison for a long time.