The travesty that is Julian Assange’s extradition hearing resumes fully on 7 September at the Old Bailey. I shall be abandoning my own legal team and going down to London to cover it again in full, for an expected three weeks. How this is going to work at the Old Bailey, I do not know. Covid restrictions presumably mean that the numbers in the public gallery will be tiny. As of now, there is no arrangement for Julian’s friends and family in place. It looks like 4am queuing is in prospect.
By 7 September it will be six months since I applied to resume my membership of the National Union of Journalists. I STILL have not the slightest idea who objected, or what the grounds were for objection. I have not heard from the NUJ for months. A senior official of an international journalists’ organisation has told us that he inquired, and learnt that the NUJ national executive has considered my application and set up a sub-committee to report. But if so, why is this secret, why have I not been informed, and why am I not allowed to know what the objection is? I find this all very sinister. At this stage it is not paranoid to wonder whose hand is behind this.
The practical effect of this is that without NUJ membership I cannot access a Press card, and avail myself of whatever media arrangements are in place for the Assange hearing (just as I was kept out of most of the Salmond trial). I have now reached the stage where I would like to take legal action against the NUJ, but the finances are beyond me. I am not going to ask you to donate because we are going to need all our resources for the contempt case against me, which the Crown drags out.
I shall be writing next week about my own case and that hearing earlier this week. I would just note now that the “virtual hearing” is entirely unsatisfactory and unfair on defendants. There was at least one occasion when my QC agreed with a suggestion of the judge when I would have instructed them not to had I been, as I should normally have been, seated near them in court and able to instruct.
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As of now, there is no arrangement for Julian’s friends and family in place. It looks like 4am queuing is in prospect.
4am queuing … good on You, Craig.
I had an optimistic time for the first Two months of Shielding … Then it Dragged on … Stretching my nerves and patience … I have a garden that I could be out and busy and occupied, a wee Fire pit for the evenings … But I always felt bad for those in tenements ect… Children… Cooped up. Then I would think of the Absolute Extreme … Julian cadged for 23 hours a day. They ( Evil UK Gov ) are doing this Torturing KNOWING Julian is an innocent Man.
Regarding Julian’s Partner and Children — Stella Moris has a Tweet up in the last few hours:-
I haven’t spoken to Julian for days. Knowing he’s alone for many hours and days without being able to speak to him is excruciating. Why is the UK acquiescing to his punishment? When will this cruelty stop? Journalism is not a crime. He’s innocent. We’re being robbed of our lives.
https://twitter.com/StellaMoris1/status/1300497803165261824
My Stretched Quarantine
But Think of Tortured Julian
Hear his Silent Screams
” Yes Scotland is fortunate to be able to generate more than 50% of energy from renewables,thanks mainly to a hydro power network instigated by the farseeing Victorians/Edwardians. ” – Jennifer Allan.
50% of what energy, Jennifer ?
‘The vast majority of Scotland’s renewable generation comes from wind – 71.8% of all renewable electricity in 2018.’
https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-2019/pages/3/
‘51.7% of electricity generated in Scotland was generated by renewable technologies, compared to just 29.3% for the UK as a whole (or 25.6% for the rest of the UK, excluding Scotland).’
I am all for renewables, but let’s not delude ourselves that Scottish renewables will power cars, buses, boats,planes,household gas requirements, agricultural machinery and fertilizers and supply the energy to replace those renewable energy machines.
This subject was discussed in greater depth here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/08/sugar/comment-page-2/#comment-952561
There’s a danger in becoming too reliant on wind, you can have too little or too much. In April, Scotland was importing more than 1,200MW, equivalent to a second Torness, to keep the becalmed country functioning. No doubt imported a lot more in August but I’ve not seen any figures yet and don’t forget demand has been low because of the lockdown.
Now one of the two remaining nuclear stations, Hunstanton, is to close early because of safety concerns.
As the countdown to Mr Assange’s extradition trial begins, it is perhaps timely to review the awfulness of it all. An excellent review is published on Off-Guardian. Below is the link:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/09/01/waiting-for-the-old-bailey-julian-assange-and-britains-judicial-establishment/
The main thing on trial is so-called British justice and the long trumpeted myth of fair play!
It appears the plan is to delay and obfuscate beyond the January 2021 EU exit transition date so no appeal can be made to a European Supreme Court? And a baraitser also free to rule documents be sealed for 70 years a la hutton. The turkish crypto (no other way he could have gotten into astors daughters knickers), may be gone by then and we may have establishment lad shahbaz starbucks in the driving seat, Assange, from the frying pan into the fire, woe.
It could be that Baalfour, but leaving the EU will not prevent Mr Assange taking the matter to the court in Strasbourg which hears cases dealing with breaches of Human Rights. Britain will have to repeal the Human Rights Act. Which may well be the next step of this morally bankrupt and corrupt government.
“The solution is obvious and free, stop thinking like a diplomat that you want to exercise any kind of soft or hard power over the world.”
What are you saying, that the “solution” is for Craig to stop writing? Surely you can’t mean that, but what do you mean?
Twirlip
What I mean is that Corbyn thought that being nice to people in foreign countries while not exercising soft or hard power, would allow them and us to developed in our own styles, and in our directions.
Craig has said he sees nothing wrong with trying to change foreign countries, but of course that assumes that the person trying to influence has some kind of claim to moral superiority. To me that is completely ridiculous assumption.
In fact the malign British state has done everything in its power to destroy all that is good in the Middle East and replace it with jihadist violence which is directed against Muslims. Nothing could be further from the religion of Islam.
I therefore have to conclude that in some way, contrary his stated views, Craig believes in interference in foreign countries, even if not the kind presently used by the British FCO.
I totally disagree.
Furthermore, in this little pastime called politics the rules of the game are that for the purpose of the game all human decency shall , for the duration of the game, be abandoned. Arm-twisting, cheating, threats of violence and counter-violence are normalised for the duration of the game.
What does that mean? It means that players, like British agents in Iraq will be tortured, to teach them in the immortal cynicism of Henty Kissinger, that secret operations are not social work.
Craig imho should remember this cynicism because by defending Salmond and Assange, he is entering the game. The game is not social work.
Far be it from me to remind Craig of something he is far more aware of than I am. But it would be wrong to assume that all those players in the annals of politics that he studied in history books were immune from threats of violence or imprisonment .
He is not writing about a historical actor, he is up to his eyeballs in the game of politics. Politics is a very dirty game. If you can’t take heat, get out of the kitchen.
As always the mids say I’m off topic. They are off topic. They don’t like what I’m saying.
I wonder if the Covid lockdown and the switch to staff working at home or via the internet could partly account for the delay. Are there comparable delays in getting passports, for instance?
I think it’s because they don’t want him to have one; I know that’s going out on a limb.
Smear and grind with your own court concerns. While i’m not saying they are on purpose stretching your case out to increase the costs and keep you in a state of fear, it seems a tactic used for decades. Maybe they hope your funding dries up. What a crappy world for the kids who inherit it.
Is Mike Pompeo becoming like Disraeli’s Colonial Secretary Lord Kimberley behind an unhinged conservative Donald Trump, hoping to put together a varied collection of rotting republics worldwide behind Japan in the plan to contain China? Can we expect a new version of Hobson’s Imperialism appearing soon?
We are already seeing victims suffering from its costs, like Shinzo Abe quitting because of recurring health problems, and Richard Morris apparently committing suicide at the prospect of becoming Britain’s High Commissioner for Fiji.
‘@EastHantsCops
·
1h
Officers investigating the disappearance of Richard Morris from Bentley have yesterday found a body in Alice Holt Forest.
Formal identification has not yet taken place, but his family have been notified. They are being supported.
The death is not being treated as suspicious.’
_____________________________
NB.
After the public was urged by the police not to look for him, except on their own property, and now, month later, the body being found, there are absolutely no suspicious circumstances whatsoever.
Thanks to Brians eloquent piece from the waters edge, his words ring bells.
I asked myself many times what I would do if I was tortured with rigmarole and false imprisonment in Belmarsh, living in the Grenfell tower, or being watched by a drone paddling the channel for a safe haven, situations out of the ordinary normal life; I have not come to any sensible solutions or answers as all these cases are out the ordinary, prolonged by a onesided deliberate confusion and obfusecation. It seems as if the judiciary stalls when the interests of the establishment and friends in high places are threatened.
Thanks also to Ingwe, for the interesting link this morning.
Right, the state isn’t responsible for PTSS. My father just drank himself to death not to upset his new wife and block her any insurance because of the Pentagon not giving him his due. Looks like what drove Morris to do it.
As your blog is read world wide, could you not apply for an overseas journalist membership e.g. US? Russia Today (see Alex Salmond), Germany, The EU? etc. etc. ?
Probably delay Assange case till they want trade deal. Give us what we want or we let him walk. At the moment any advantage however big/small is worth keeping. He is now just a bargaining chip. If Trump gets back in, his (Assange) value would not be insignificant.
Best luck getting in sept7
Richard Morris was being demoted from being the Ambassador to Nepal where he had access to its Prime Minister in an Asian hot spot to being High Commissioner of Fiji, nowhere in the Pacific of strategic importance, explaining why they didn’t look too hard for the deceased.
@Trowbridge H.Ford
I take i you’re not a rugby fan then?
I like rugby about as well as other professional sports, but don’t understand why you think I don’t.
BBC News — Richard Morris: Body found in search for missing diplomat
Suspicious ?
The Guardian has long been a megaphone for use by The security Services of The British State. One would have to be rather dim not to see that
People might like to sign this:
RootsAction petition — Tell Trump: Pardon Edward Snowden
I would, but can’t get Safari to open it, or RootsAction to have a thread for it.. Can you provide something else?
Think Trump who I would never vote for has taken a big risk by looking into pardoning Snowden, who the Democrats assert is a traitor who should just be executed, which he cannot easily escape from.
The message from the authorities is increasingly “We don’t need no stinking badges“, across a wide range of areas.
We see this in the Assange case where they have allowed the foreign regime concerned to change the indictment. Both the British and the US authorities are absolutely taking the p*ss.
We also see it in today’s statement by schools minister Nick Gibb, who asserts that “school is mandatory in this country” while the government through craven news editors threatens parents with “fines” for keeping their children out of school, even though parents have a statutory right (under section 8(1)(d) of the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006) to educate a child at home and to instruct a school to remove a child from its register, without asking anybody’s permission and without giving a term of notice. If you decide to educate your child at home you are supposed to be able to tell a headteacher that he and his school can f*** off out of your life forever and that if he wants to fine anybody he can fine himself sideways.
The regime and its media are frightening people with fines for breaking a law that does not exist.
(And the two reasons they want children back at school anyway are 1) so they can forcibly vaccinate them with an unlicenced vaccine in the next stage of their long-awaited Malthusian celebrations, and 2) in the case of older children, because universities want to keep on accepting students in present numbers so as to keep the banks happy, and they don’t want lecturer morale to fall even further than it has already fallen by accepting too many students who can’t read and write (but can’t half tweet).
Hmmm, should we, as voters, be allowed to fine our MP’s for not showing up in the house and or not representing us were it counts?
What will happen if untested school children mix with one hapless positive child after returning, do they shut the class down? or the school? do they test track trace and destroy every virus in town, lasso it and take it down.
They are fumbling in the dark, national and local Government are bereft of ideas and common sense, we are the guinea pigs who either die or implement their poor plans and agendas.
Cummings is Boris’s brain? more like a brain fart.
There are roughly a few dozen MPs present in the chamber for PMQs. The rest can always have a get out that they were online. Handy that!
They go after the kids first, then up they go. I note people talking about “laws” like it is some kind of authority. I cannot begin to explain what a disgusting system there is, you must use government money only, break the rules and get punished, simply slaves with a master, thats all most people are and are so happy wearing masks which do nothing to prevent the spread of anything, other than the foul pigs who cough over everyone. All the systems on this planet are control systems, from football to religion to politics. Its so big and would it matter? most people don’t want to address the real concern to humananity that something somewhere wants to cause us harm. Wants to kill us is statement 1, wants to cause us harm is statement 2. One is true. One statement was enough to start a massive drill recently. Bob used to think danger came in the form of war with say Russia. Bob has come to realise there was never opposing sides, they all worked together. And that is hard to accept. That can be clearly seen now. David Cameron mentioned what is happening now, he said it was coming, he knew, and so did many others who moved aside. It is not going to get better. Tell the people that aliens are real and they won’t stop asking questions. They want to ask pointless questions over and over. So many preaching looking for an audience and have people believe them. Nothing they know will help, if they know anything. The people that know stuff don’t talk about it and never will. There won’t be a book released on death. There’s no point listening to others because you should know when something does not add-up. In the event some are correct, no one has mobilised and created groups for self defence, completely necessary when tyranny arrives. People cannot actually believe the much marketed virus is as deadly as some infer, because they would never leave the house if they did. What I think they fear is the government and that if they don’t do as they are told they will be punished or fined. That, my friends, call it want you wish, tyranny etc, but cannot be anything other than a wake-up call to group up and prepare to defend yourself against the state.
Mistrial
David Cameron had already put on the electronic body armour and been made to acquire Libyan oil for the US hegemony. He had previously taken an imperialist avuncular interest in Somalia, and used to regularly check on how the colonial fruit was ripening.
He knew from Blair that Syria would drive him mad waging a terrorist proxy war on Europe’s borders. So he resigned. After all a poxy little economy propped up by bank interest and QE had got to get out of the EU pretty quick or get Greeced.
I haven’t noticed Boris do anything yet, except try toliberalise planning laws. He is sheltering from doing a war under the chair of covid 19 and under the shelter if his own village idiot act. That doesn’t mean the British state wants to fight another war for Israel. They’re sick and tired of using their expensive stuff on foreign wars.
What it means is that the British establishment calculated that Boris had the blithering idiot capacity to pretend not to understand the next war commands from the nutter in the White House.
Fortunately the nutter in the White House is also fairly good at pretending . And Biden would probably genuinely not understand the next set of instructions to eliminate a sovereign nation.
The technique in politics is to trash enough for the PTB to get a few fat billions, and then have an attack of conscience and retire. Use a gipsy caravan and pretend you are insane. Or scruff your hair like you really are the village idiot, so nobody entrusts you with a military task.
Mistral
Sorry , I didn’t spot the auto correction.
No , our next scheduled war will be run by none-of-you–miserable-worms-are-fit-enough Lisa Nandy. Everybody loves a tart.
Q Mistral. Who is Bob?
Mary
Bob is Ukraine, October 2016.
Re “I would like to take legal action against the NUJ, but the finances are beyond me”. Craig you can take them to an Employment Tribunal which is free, using the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, in particular:
“174 Right not to be excluded or expelled from union.
(1) An individual shall not be excluded or expelled from a trade union unless the exclusion or expulsion is permitted by this section.
(2) The exclusion or expulsion of an individual from a trade union is permitted by this section if (and only if)—
(a) he does not satisfy, or no longer satisfies, an enforceable membership requirement contained in the rules of the union,
(b) he does not qualify, or no longer qualifies, for membership of the union by reason of the union operating only in a particular part or particular parts of Great Britain,
(c) in the case of a union whose purpose is the regulation of relations between its members and one particular employer or a number of particular employers who are associated, he is not, or is no longer, employed by that employer or one of those employers, or
(d) the exclusion or expulsion is entirely attributable to conduct of his (other than excluded conduct) and the conduct to which it is wholly or mainly attributable is not protected conduct….
An individual who claims that he has been excluded or expelled from a trade union in contravention of this section may present a complaint to an employment tribunal. [which is free]”
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/52/section/174
More evidence were any needed that mainstream journalism is a tighttly-controlled cabal of centrist-liberals, conservatives and NeoCons, with its perimeter of acceptable opinion shrinking year on year. The gravity of the threat Assange’s persecution poses to their own profession has been clear for years now but not one of them has seriously put their head above the parapet in his defence. In fact many have been eager to aid his persecution.
The media is paid for by the advertisers, not the consumers. It might have no readers, no listeners, no agreement from the public. A journalist has become chunks of polystyrene filling space , next to which advertisers can advertise their wares or opinions.
The only requirement therefore to become a journalist is to produce copy that will not offend advertisers.
Somehow I don’t think CM fits the Union’s job description.
The union ‘s job has been narrowed down to the protection of jobs.
On top of that there was the BBC around the last election.
If any one presenter told enough whoppers in the X factor competition for best whopper awards, gold was showered from the ceiling. BBC news reporting is such a load of tripe.
Commentary on the Pressenza website
The U.S. Is Determined to Make Julian Assange Pay for Exposing the Cruelty of Its War on Iraq
02.09.2020 –
US, United States – Independent Media Institute
Vijay Prashad
https://www.pressenza.com/2020/09/the-u-s-is-determined-to-make-julian-assange-pay-for-exposing-the-cruelty-of-its-war-on-iraq/
Still little or nothing in the UK MSM – printed or audio visual.
Here is the harpy, Kay Burley, attempting her usual hatchet job, but failing, on Vaughan Smith.
‘The arrest of Julian Assange is spiteful self-interested politics’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdVXffj2Iyw&ab_channel=SkyNews
She has been given the run of Sky News and is now on from 7am – 10am. Murdoch has sold his interest in Sky to Disney. Enough said.
On 19 June 2018, Disney formally agreed to acquire Sky News as part of Fox’s proposed bid, with a 15-year commitment to increase its annual funding from £90 million to £100 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Group
Sky News were reporting live outside the Old Bailey this morning as the trial opens. Good luck Julian.
Incredible that it’s Baraitser again.
‘Because of physical distancing requirements, only a few seats have been made available to the media and other observers, including NGOs and MEPs, in a separate courtroom in the Old Bailey. They will watch proceedings on a screen.
The case is being heard by the district judge Vanessa Baraitser, who normally sits at Westminster magistrates court and regularly hears extradition cases.’
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/sep/07/julian-assange-due-court-latest-stage-fight-against-us-extradition