This afternoon Julian’s Spanish lawyer, Baltasar Garzon, left court to return to Madrid. On the way out he naturally stopped to shake hands with his client, proffering his fingers through the narrow slit in the bulletproof glass cage. Assange half stood to take his lawyer’s hand. The two security guards in the cage with Assange immediately sprang up, putting hands on Julian and forcing him to sit down, preventing the handshake.
That was not by any means the worst thing today, but it is a striking image of the senseless brute force continually used against a man accused of publishing documents. That a man cannot even shake his lawyer’s hand goodbye is against the entire spirit in which the members of the legal system like to pretend the law is practised. I offer that startling moment as encapsulating yesterday’s events in court.
Day 2 proceedings had started with a statement from Edward Fitzgerald, Assange’s QC, that shook us rudely into life. He stated that yesterday, on the first day of trial, Julian had twice been stripped naked and searched, eleven times been handcuffed, and five times been locked up in different holding cells. On top of this, all of his court documents had been taken from him by the prison authorities, including privileged communications between his lawyers and himself, and he had been left with no ability to prepare to participate in today’s proceedings.
Magistrate Baraitser looked at Fitzgerald and stated, in a voice laced with disdain, that he had raised such matters before and she had always replied that she had no jurisdiction over the prison estate. He should take it up with the prison authorities. Fitzgerald remained on his feet, which drew a very definite scowl from Baraitser, and replied that of course they would do that again, but this repeated behaviour by the prison authorities threatened the ability of the defence to prepare. He added that regardless of jurisdiction, in his experience it was common practice for magistrates and judges to pass on comments and requests to the prison service where the conduct of the trial was affected, and that jails normally listened to magistrates sympathetically.
Baraitser flat-out denied any knowledge of such a practice, and stated that Fitzgerald should present her with written arguments setting out the case law on jurisdiction over prison conditions. This was too much even for prosecution counsel James Lewis, who stood up to say the prosecution would also want Assange to have a fair hearing, and that he could confirm that what the defence were suggesting was normal practice. Even then, Baraitser still refused to intervene with the prison. She stated that if the prison conditions were so bad as to reach the very high bar of making a fair hearing impossible, the defence should bring a motion to dismiss the charges on those grounds. Otherwise they should drop it.
Both prosecution and defence seemed surprised by Baraitser’s claim that she had not heard of what they both referred to as common practice. Lewis may have been genuinely concerned at the shocking description of Assange’s prison treatment yesterday; or he may have just had warning klaxons going off in his head screaming “mistrial”. But the net result is Baraitser will attempt to do nothing to prevent Julian’s physical and mental abuse in jail nor to try to give him the ability to participate in his defence. The only realistic explanation that occurs to me is that Baraitser has been warned off, because this continual mistreatment and confiscation of documents is on senior government authority.
A last small incident for me to recount: having queued again from the early hours, I was at the final queue before the entrance to the public gallery, when the name was called out of Kristin Hrnafsson, editor of Wikileaks, with whom I was talking at the time. Kristin identified himself, and was told by the court official he was barred from the public gallery.
Now I was with Kristin throughout the entire proceedings the previous day, and he had done absolutely nothing amiss – he is rather a quiet gentleman. When he was called for, it was by name and by job description – they were specifically banning the editor of Wikileaks from the trial. Kristin asked why and was told it was a decision of the Court.
At this stage John Shipton, Julian’s father, announced that in this case the family members would all leave too, and they did so, walking out of the building. They and others then started tweeting the news of the family walkout. This appeared to cause some consternation among court officials, and fifteen minutes later Kristin was re-admitted. We still have no idea what lay behind this. Later in the day journalists were being briefed by officials it was simply over queue-jumping, but that seems improbable as he was removed by staff who called him by name and title, rather than had spotted him as a queue-jumper.
None of the above goes to the official matter of the case. All of the above tells you more about the draconian nature of the political show-trial which is taking place than does the charade being enacted in the body of the court. There were moments today when I got drawn in to the court process and achieved the suspension of disbelief you might do in theatre, and began thinking “Wow, this case is going well for Assange”. Then an event such as those recounted above kicks in, a coldness grips your heart, and you recall there is no jury here to be convinced. I simply do not believe that anything said or proved in the courtroom can have an impact on the final verdict of this court.
So to the actual proceedings in the case.
For the defence, Mark Summers QC stated that the USA charges were entirely dependent on three factual accusations of Assange behviour:
1) Assange helped Manning to decode a hash key to access classified material.
Summers stated this was a provably false allegation from the evidence of the Manning court-martial.
2) Assange solicited the material from Manning
Summers stated this was provably wrong from information available to the public
3) Assange knowingly put lives at risk
Summers stated this was provably wrong both from publicly available information and from specific involvement of the US government.
In summary, Summers stated the US government knew that the allegations being made were false as to fact, and they were demonstrably made in bad faith. This was therefore an abuse of process which should lead to dismissal of the extradition request. He described the above three counts as “rubbish, rubbish and rubbish”.
Summers then walked through the facts of the case. He said the charges from the USA divide the materials leaked by Manning to Wikileaks into three categories:
a) Diplomatic Cables
b) Guantanamo detainee assessment briefs
c) Iraq War rules of engagement
d) Afghan and Iraqi war logs
Summers then methodically went through a), b), c) and d) relating each in turn to alleged behaviours 1), 2) and 3), making twelve counts of explanation and exposition in all. This comprehensive account took some four hours and I shall not attempt to capture it here. I will rather give highlights, but will relate occasionally to the alleged behaviour number and/or the alleged materials letter. I hope you follow that – it took me some time to do so!
On 1) Summers at great length demonstrated conclusively that Manning had access to each material a) b) c) d) provided to Wikileaks without needing any code from Assange, and had that access before ever contacting Assange. Nor had Manning needed a code to conceal her identity as the prosecution alleged – the database for intelligence analysts Manning could access – as could thousands of others – did not require a username or password to access it from a work military computer. Summers quoted testimony of several officers from Manning’s court-martial to confirm this. Nor would breaking the systems admin code on the system give Manning access to any additional classified databases. Summers quoted evidence from the Manning court-martial, where this had been accepted, that the reason Manning wanted to get in to systems admin was to allow soldiers to put their video-games and movies on their government laptops, which in fact happened frequently.
Magistrate Baraitser twice made major interruptions. She observed that if Chelsea Manning did not know she could not be traced as the user who downloaded the databases, she might have sought Assange’s assistance to crack a code to conceal her identity from ignorance she did not need to do that, and to assist would still be an offence by Assange.
Summers pointed out that Manning knew that she did not need a username and password, because she actually accessed all the materials without one. Baraitser replied that this did not constitute proof she knew she could not be traced. Summers said in logic it made no sense to argue that she was seeking a code to conceal her user ID and password, where there was no user ID and password. Baraitser replied again he could not prove that. At this point Summers became somewhat testy and short with Baraitser, and took her through the court martial evidence again. Of which more…
Baraitser also made the point that even if Assange were helping Manning to crack an admin code, even if it did not enable Manning to access any more databases, that still was unauthorised use and would constitute the crime of aiding and abetting computer misuse, even if for an innocent purpose.
After a brief break, Baraitser came back with a real zinger. She told Summers that he had presented the findings of the US court martial of Chelsea Manning as fact. But she did not agree that her court had to treat evidence at a US court martial, even agreed or uncontested evidence or prosecution evidence, as fact. Summers replied that agreed evidence or prosecution evidence at the US court martial clearly was agreed by the US government as fact, and what was at issue at the moment was whether the US government was charging contrary to the facts it knew. Baraitser said she would return to her point once witnesses were heard.
Baraitser was now making no attempt to conceal a hostility to the defence argument, and seemed irritated they had the temerity to make it. This burst out when discussing c), the Iraq war rules of engagement. Summers argued that these had not been solicited from Manning, but had rather been provided by Manning in an accompanying file along with the Collateral Murder video that showed the murder of Reuters journalists and children. Manning’s purpose, as she stated at her court martial, was to show that the Collateral Murder actions breached the rules of engagement, even though the Department of Defense claimed otherwise. Summers stated that by not including this context, the US extradition request was deliberately misleading as it did not even mention the Collateral Murder video at all.
At this point Baraitser could not conceal her contempt. Try to imagine Lady Bracknell saying “A Handbag” or “the Brighton line”, or if your education didn’t run that way try to imagine Pritti Patel spotting a disabled immigrant. This is a literal quote:
“Are you suggesting, Mr Summers, that the authorities, the Government, should have to provide context for its charges?”
An unfazed Summers replied in the affirmative and then went on to show where the Supreme Court had said so in other extradition cases. Baraitser was showing utter confusion that anybody could claim a significant distinction between the Government and God.
The bulk of Summers’ argument went to refuting behaviour 3), putting lives at risk. This was only claimed in relation to materials a) and d). Summers described at great length the efforts of Wikileaks with media partners over more than a year to set up a massive redaction campaign on the cables. He explained that the unredacted cables only became available after Luke Harding and David Leigh of the Guardian published the password to the cache as the heading to Chapter XI of their book Wikileaks, published in February 2011.
Nobody had put 2 and 2 together on this password until the German publication Der Freitag had done so and announced it had the unredacted cables in August 2011. Summers then gave the most powerful arguments of the day.
The US government had been actively participating in the redaction exercise on the cables. They therefore knew the allegations of reckless publication to be untrue.
Once Der Freitag announced they had the unredacted materials, Julian Assange and Sara Harrison instantly telephoned the White House, State Department and US Embassy to warn them named sources may be put at risk. Summers read from the transcripts of telephone conversations as Assange and Harrison attempted to convince US officials of the urgency of enabling source protection procedures – and expressed their bafflement as officials stonewalled them. This evidence utterly undermined the US government’s case and proved bad faith in omitting extremely relevant fact. It was a very striking moment.
With relation to the same behaviour 3) on materials d), Summers showed that the Manning court martial had accepted these materials contained no endangered source names, but showed that Wikileaks had activated a redaction exercise anyway as a “belt and braces” approach.
There was much more from the defence. For the prosecution, James Lewis indicated he would reply in depth later in proceedings, but wished to state that the prosecution does not accept the court martial evidence as fact, and particularly does not accept any of the “self-serving” testimony of Chelsea Manning, whom he portrayed as a convicted criminal falsely claiming noble motives. The prosecution generally rejected any notion that this court should consider the truth or otherwise of any of the facts; those could only be decided at trial in the USA.
Then, to wrap up proceedings, Baraitser dropped a massive bombshell. She stated that although Article 4.1 of the US/UK Extradition Treaty forbade political extraditions, this was only in the Treaty. That exemption does not appear in the UK Extradition Act. On the face of it therefore political extradition is not illegal in the UK, as the Treaty has no legal force on the Court. She invited the defence to address this argument in the morning.
It is now 06.35am and I am late to start queuing…
With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible.
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Richard Stallman, pioneer of software freedom, comments on Craig’s first article:
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-nov-feb.html#26_February_2020_(Sabotage_of_justice)
26 February 2020 (Sabotage of justice)
Craig Murray reports on how Julian Assange’s extradition hearing is being stage-managed as a show trial. The public is nearly excluded, and the mainstream media quote from prosecutors’ press release instead of reporting on the real matters at stake.
The whole article is worth reading. The details are far worse than I would have supposed.
Reminder: please post additional information in comments under corporate media articles wherever you can. Link back to Craig’s article as citation. Craig’s work puts the corporate media to shame, and the technique of commenting in the corporate media has worked on previous occasions.
It’s heartening, isn’t it, how people of good will usually see eye to eye about important matters?
It is, but have compassion for those who are not. The science of psychology has established that aggression is a common response to the feeling of being threatened, and everyone is so very threatened in the modern neoliberal environment. Even the very rich feel threat, for they could lose their wealth; the more they have the greater the feared loss, and their competitors hold wealth and hence power comparable to their own. This whole process operates subconsciously in most people.
It is a bitter irony that the neoliberal environment nurtures the very threat and hence aggression that it thrives upon, in a vicious spiral.
The remedy is love, and love is a verb, a doing word. Spill your teardrops onto the fire that human society has become.
concur
I think the theme song for Julian should be the Blue Bird of Happiness…..for his mental health and for his human rights
The beggar man and his mighty king are only diff’rent in name
For they are treated just the same by fate
Today a smile and tomorrow tears
We’re never sure what’s in store
So learn your lesson before too late, so
Be like I, hold your head up high
Till you find a bluebird of happiness
You will find greater peace of mind
Knowing there’s a bluebird of happiness
And when he sings to you
Though you’re deep in blue
You will see a ray of light creep through
And so remember this, life is no abyss
Somewhere there’s a bluebird of happiness
Life is sweet, tender and complete
When you find the bluebird of happiness
You will find perfect peace of mind
When you find the bluebird of happiness
Two hearts that beat as one
‘Neath a new found sun
We are in a world that’s just begun
And you must sing his song, as you go along
When you find the bluebird of happiness
Be like I, hold your head up high
Till you find a bluebird of happiness
You will find greater peace of mind
Knowing there’s a bluebird of happiness
And when he sings to you
Though you’re deep in blue
You will see a ray of light creep through
And so remember this, life is no abyss
Somewhere there’s a bluebird of happiness
Because many readers probably had moved on and will have missed my recent response to a very early comment, let me reprise it here:
from Article VI of the United States Constitution
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Acts of Congress, whether promulgated prior to or subsequent to the ratification of any Treaty, cannot overrule said Treaty.
Thanks for doing this Craig, for queuing and reporting the truth and for supporting an innocent man who was only doing thr same.
Sorry for typos! I will make a donation later this morning.
meantime bush, cheney, rumsfeld, blair, campbell et al bestride the earth like colossi. we have gone behind the looking glass.
Nothing new, Churchill starves 3 million Indians and he’s consider the star of WW2.
“The basic principle I use for my decisions is this: Guilt is always beyond a doubt. Other courts could not follow this principle, for they are made up of many heads and, in addition, have even higher courts above them.”
Kafka, In the penal Colony.
https://youtu.be/GcwKzA5G9s0
The judge is repeating the performance of Nazi judge Roland Freisler in the Volksgerichtshof – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3qsImhAswo
When zionists control jurisprudence, the citizens are f’ked – like halibut in a forest. If there is no change – there’s no change.
Thank you for helping us to understand that ‘from bitter searching of the heart’ REAL change must come… damned soon.
“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security.
Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’… must someday lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing…. Each act… is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.” — They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 – Milton Mayer
That Milton Mayer book disturbed the hell out of me when I was a kid. It’s why I spend so much time shouting about what s going on.
The two security guards in the cage with Assange immediately sprang up, putting hands on Julian and forcing him to sit down, preventing the handshake.
Psychological torture in the form of dehumanization can be witnessed in public. It consists in teaching self-contradictory conditioned reflexes, which consists in associating the fact of being reassured with a feeling of shame.
She stated that if the prison conditions were so bad as to reach the very high bar of making a fair hearing impossible, the defence should bring a motion to dismiss the charges on those grounds. Otherwise they should drop it.
Literally that’s what she’s asking to do. Then it should be done.
Both prosecution and defence seemed surprised by Baraitser’s claim that she had not heard of what they both referred to as common practice
She was simply expressing her detachment from this issue, which requires a separate appeal.
It is fascinating how Baraitser’s inability to express herself properly is appropriate to an implacable charge.
The only realistic explanation that occurs to me is that Baraitser has been warned off, because this continual mistreatment and confiscation of documents is on senior government authority
Well, yes.
At this stage John Shipton, Julian’s father, announced that in this case the family members would all leave too, and they did so, walking out of the building. They and others then started tweeting the news of the family walkout. This appeared to cause some consternation among court officials, and fifteen minutes later Kristin was re-admitted.
.This behavioral oscillation is the borderline between violence and the return of the stick of violence.
But she did not agree that her court had to treat evidence at a US court martial, even agreed or uncontested evidence or prosecution evidence, as fact. Summers replied that agreed evidence or prosecution evidence at the US court martial clearly was agreed by the US government as fact, and what was at issue at the moment was whether the US government was charging contrary to the facts it knew. Baraitser said she would return to her point once witnesses were heard.
In fact the issue is that the extradition court does not have to rule on these charges, but it has to suspect that they are knowingly false. Confidence in the justice system of the United States is at issue. Extraditions are made to be denied to dictatorships, particularly in the case of a political trial. But here the political trial is taking place.
Baraitser was no making no attempt to conceal a hostility to the defence argument, and seemed irritated they had the temerity to make it.
Well, yes.
Summers stated that by not including this context, the US extradition request was deliberately misleading as it did not even mention the Collateral Murder video at all.
Nice demonstration! (of a political trial)
“Are you suggesting, Mr Summers, that the authorities, the Government, should have to provide context for its charges?”An unfazed Summers replied in the affirmative and then went on to show where the Supreme Court had said so in other extradition cases. Baraitser was showing utter confusion that anybody could claim a significant distinction between the Government and God.
.Lol
Once Die Freitag announced they had the unredacted materials, Julian Assange and Sara Harrison instantly telephoned the White House, State Department and US Embassy to warn them named sources may be put at risk. Summers read from the transcripts of telephone conversations as Assange and Harrison attempted to convince US officials of the urgency of enabling source protection procedures – and expressed their bafflement as officials stonewalled them. This evidence utterly undermined the US government’s case and proved bad faith in omitting extremely relevant fact. It was a very striking moment.
Nice work.
For the prosecution, James Lewis indicated […] wished to state that the prosecution does not accept the court martial evidence as fact, and particularly does not accept any of the “self-serving” testimony of Chelsea Manning […]. The prosecution generally rejected any notion that this court should consider the truth or otherwise of any of the facts; those could only be decided at trial in the USA
Can we afford the luxury of assuming that the American judgment will be fair? That is the question.
Then, to wrap up proceedings, Baraitser dropped a massive bombshell. She stated that although Article 4.1 of the US/UK Extradition Treaty forbade political extraditions, this was only in the Treaty. That exemption does not appear in the UK Extradition Act. On the face of it therefore political extradition is not illegal in the UK, as the Treaty has no legal force on the Court. She invited the defence to address this argument in the morning.
Ouch! Surprise check!
The question will be: what is the point of the treaty? And is it intended to be limitative? What about Human Rights, for example?
Thank you for taking the time, efforts and investing so much money in getting these facts out into the open. The world has become an increasingly difficult place to report already, and everyone should make more of an effort to see behind the “clicks” and “likes”.
Well done, keep going for their (her) throats !
The senior judge overseeing the case, Lady Arbuthnot, is not only married to a man connected to the
Bristish Stasiintelligence services, she has personally received financial benefits from two very shadowy organisations connected to the UK’s Foreign Office: Tertulias and Tatlidil.Arbuthnot’s son is “linked to an anti-data leak company created by the UK intelligence establishment and staffed by officials recruited from US intelligence agencies behind that country’s prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder.”
Of course this is all hushed up in the media. Now, Baraitser should technically be “independent”, but what would her career prospects be if she dared to go against the very obvious interests of her supervisor?
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-02-21-revealed-chief-magistrate-in-assange-case-received-financial-benefits-from-secretive-partner-organisations-of-uk-foreign-office/
The process reminds me of the Judicial Review into the refused request to the Attorney General (Dominic Grieve) for an Inquest to be held into the death of Dr David Kelly.
Lots of Pomp and Learned Counsel and the pantomime played out in public view but with the Ruling written before anyone had sat down.
There were two objectives 1) To make sure that the circumstances of Kelly’s death were not properly explored and 2) (as equally as important or more so) To demonstrate that the Ruling Elite are above the Law and there is nothing that the public can do about it.
The importance of the second cannot be over emphasised, the masses must come to accept that there is nothing they can do. Justice is not a Right or even a privilege, it is a tool of the Totalitarian State which enables the State to enforce its will. Acceptance of that is key to a peaceful Fascist existence.
Blind obediance, complete subservience and unwavering recognition that the Ruling Elites know what is best for us and will bring about a balanced and controlled society.
That’s the plan but history may have indicated that it doesn’t work and injustice in any form leads to unintended consequences hence the mess the world is in now.
Rubbing our noses in it just makes it worse for them in the long run.
By the way Craig, Googling “magistrate Baraitser” gives your article as the first search result. Not linked to this site of course (presumably your site has been manually given a severe penalty weighting, but a copy of your article on the New Zealand site “Scoop”.
Readers here can help to keep the result at the top by Googling the above and clicking on the result. Google’s algorithm will increase the “useful result” weighting, helping to keep it at or near the top. (Until someone inteferes manually to override the algorithm.)
I won’t put the links here in case they are picked up by Google’s algorithms.
In the case of non-jury trials the judiciary is simply an agent of the State there to see the government gets what it wants. The bias here is obvious. Human rights are only for those they deem human which reminds me of a conversation with the MoJ where they sought to advise me of their human rights. My response was they have no human rights, human rights exist to protect the public from the likes of them.
As the USA lawyers made false claims about Julian Assange assisting Manning to get into the computers to obtain classified information then the following applies. MORIATY v LONDON, CHATMAM & DOVER RY Queen’s Bench 1870 L.R. 5 Q.B. 314;39 L.T.Q.B. 109;22 L.T. 163;34 J.P. 692;18 W.R. 625 in which the plaintiff sued a railway company for personal injuries sustained and this plaintiff has gone about suborning false evidence and it was held by the Court that even so the plaintiff would have had a genuine and justify to case to sue normally, by the plaintiff conduct to suborn false evidence this was seen by the Court that this conduct amounted to an admission that he had no case.
In Schorel-Hlavka v Elms (1994) I as the custodian parent was imprisoned for 3 weeks of not providing on one occasions access. I was denied by prison authorities to prepare my case and the Full Court then ordered the Prison authorities to provide me with a type writer and writing material to be able to prepare my appeal (self represented).
When the non-custodian mother failed to exercise access subsequently, time and time again, the court held that the mother was not compelled to comply with court orders. I have for decades exposed the rot of the Family Court of Australia and in fact proved that the order for imprisonment were issued 2 days before the case was completed. The High Court of Australia subsequently claimed it was a mistake by the judge. To me a pre-planned final order is invalid in law and so any subsequent final order for the same. it simply was the court tried to silence me but failed miserably in this.
The following may underline that the Framers of the Constitution embedded a legal principle in the constitution that our political and other liberties was no less than that of the USA. (Which then had its constitution and 14 Amendments)
Hansard 11-3-1891 Constitution convention Debates (Official Record of the Debates of the National Australasian Convention)
QUOTE Mr. GILLIES:
Surely we are not to be told that, because that is in contemplation, there is at the same time some secret purpose or object of depriving the people of their right on any particular occasion when possibly there may be some great difference of opinion on a great public question. There have been no peoples in these colonies who have not enjoyed the most perfect freedom to express their opinions in public, and through their representatives in parliament, on any public question of importance. There has never been any occasion when such an opportunity has not been given to every man in this country, and so free and liberal are our laws and public institutions that it has never been suggested by any mortal upon this continent that that right should be in any way restricted. On the contrary, we all feel proud of the freedom which every one in this country enjoys. It is a freedom not surpassed in any state in the world, not even in the boasted republic of America.
END QUOTE
As such, it was not the High Court of Australia in the Albert Langer case to create political liberty and free speech but it was existing from onset
Hence, FREEDOM OF SPEECH (1st Amendment to the USA constitution) is enshrined as a legal principle in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (UK) and I view the British Court are bound to accept the legal principles as it was a Constitution Act of the British Parliament and so applied within the UK also.
Suggestion: perhaps the prosecuting attorney, from now on, could refer, in sweet gentle tones, to Her Eminence as Judge Berateshim?
But the entire situation is absurd: as our blogger already pointed out in the past Assange is an australian citizen detained in the UK for publishing in Sweden something that might or not be a secret in the USA, but that is not a crime in Australia, Sweden or the UK.
Suppose that a chilean journalist were detained in the UK for publishing in Thailand some russian secrets, would they be extradited to Russia?
To me it is clear that the Assange persecution is simply a way to make him an example, “hit one to educate one hundred”, to intimidate any other journalist into self-censorship.
Here is my latest two stories with a round up of the court last week and my own opinion piece of the MSM who are ignoring this story.
https://www.politicalite.com/latest/court-updated-glass-box-defence-lawyers-slam-courts-for-imprisoning-julian-assange/
So very sad about the shocking treatments that were used during the Victorian age. It’s seems that many leaders of our socalled modern society are still living in de dark ages….what are they scared of?
Thank you so much for your daily court hearing reports for Julian. Here in New York we really depend on them to keep current. You have done a fantastic job and I hope to donate in the future as soon as I can. We have a group here in New York – NYCFreeAssange @gmail.com if people want to be on our mailing list, contact us – one email a week only. We keep you informed of events. Thursdays we are in Grand Central Train Terminal 42nd Street and Lexington Ave. from 4:30 to 5:30 every week. Yesterday, Tuesday, we joined students at New York University who had a demonstration in support of Julian and Chelsea. Anyone can start a group no matter how small. It can only grow with the outrageous things that the British Government and Courts think they can pull off in violation of Julian’s rights. It won’t happen – all the injustices are being noted by the whole world and they won’t hold up, not if we stay current and Craig Murray ‘s contribution to our awareness is extremely valuable. Please donate as I cannot do so yet.