Wikileaks - Julian Assange Discussion

"Julian's personal possessions have been seized by the Ecuadoreans to be given to the US government. These include not only computers but his legal and medical papers. This is yet another example of completely illegal state action against him. Furthermore, any transfer must involve the stolen material physically transiting London, and the British government is taking no steps to prevent that, which is yet another of multiple signs of the degree of international governmental coordination behind the flimsy pretence of independent judicial action.

Julian is imprisoned for at least another five months, even with parole (which they will probably find an excuse not to grant). After that he will be held further on remand. There is therefore no need for rush. The refusal of the Swedish court to delay a hearing on a potential extradition warrant at all, to allow Julian to recover to the extent he can instruct his lawyer, and the very brief postponement of the US extradition hearing in London, with the intimation it may be held inside Belmarsh prison if Julian is too unwell to move, are both examples of an entirely unaccustomed and unnecessary haste with which the case is being rushed forward. The mills of God grind slowly; those of the Devil seem to spin dangerously fast."

 
"The mills of God grind slowly; those of the Devil seem to spin dangerously fast." Indeed genero8.Do we have hope? Their wishful thinking is our hope...
 
An inmate published over RT a video of Assange inside the prison and possibly also Assange's cell can be seen, also when RT cannot verify it that it is his cell:


 
The U.S. Justice Department has formally asked Britain to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face charges that he conspired to hack U.S. government computers and violated an espionage law, the U.K has confirmed.

U.S. formally asks UK to extradite WikiLeaks' Assange
FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures during a news conference at the Ecuadorian embassy in central London August 18, 2014. REUTERS/John Stillwell/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures during a news conference at the Ecuadorian embassy in central London August 18, 2014. REUTERS/John Stillwell/File Photo

“Mr Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States of America. He is accused of offenses including computer misuse and the unauthorized disclosure of national defense information,” a spokesperson for the Home Office, Britain’s internal security department said.

“We have now received the full extradition request,” the official told Reuters.

Lawyers for Assange had no immediate comment.

U.S. and British security sources said U.S. prosecutors sent the formal extradition request to UK authorities last week, shortly before the expiration of a legal deadline. The formal submission of the request was first reported on Tuesday by the Washington Post.

Britain will now consider the U.S. extradition request and any possible new request from Sweden. A European government source familiar with British extradition procedures said it could take anywhere from two to five years for the U.S. request for Assange’s extradition to be resolved.


The Murdering of Julian Assange
The Murdering of Julian Assange - Global Research

Julian Assange is being slowly murdered by “Her Majesty’s Prison Service” at Belmarsh prison in the south-east of London. The prison is notorious for holding people who have never been charged with a crime indefinitely. It is also called the British version of Guantanamo, and, typically used to detain so-called terrorists, thus called by the British police and secret service and aped by the British MSM and establishment. Terrorists that become terrorists by continuous and repeated accusations, by media propaganda, but not necessarily by fact.

Julian Assange’s case goes even farther than breaking all the rules of “democratic” free speech. The way he is treated is a serious infraction on Human Rights. The US and British governments intend to silence and punish a champion of free speech, torturing him for the world to see, and especially as a deterrent for would-be whistleblowers and other free-speech advocates.

Julian Assange has been condemned to a ‘temporary’ prison sentence of 50 weeks for jumping bail, when he sought and was granted refuge in 2012 in the Ecuadorian Embassy. And why did he jump bail? Because he was about to be extradited to neofascist Sweden, who acting in the name of Washington, accused him with phony rape and sexual misconduct charges, from where he would have most likely been extradited to the US – where he might have faced a kangaroo court and a fake trial with possible death sentence, or indefinite incarceration at Guantanamo.

That’s why he jumped bail and why he escaped to the Ecuadorian Embassy, because western injustice was already then played out with false propaganda, for everyone, but the blind and indoctrinated, to see. Rafael Correa, then President of Ecuador, saw the truth behind it all and granted Julian asylum, and later gave him Ecuadorian citizenship – which in 2018 was revoked by Correa’s traitor and fascist successor, US-implant, Lenin Moreno, who, as a reward, it is said, got an IMF loan of US$ 4.2 billion to help the government carry out its neoliberal economic reform program, meaning undoing much of the social programs of improving economic equality for the Ecuadorian population, implemented during the Correa presidency.

Julian Assange was first accused by Washington of fake charges of computer hacking and conspiring to defraud the United States. In fact, what this is all about is the 2010 publication by Wikileaks of the infamous video that circulated the world a million times, depicting the purposeful, malicious ‘collateral killing’ of harmless civilians by the crew of a US Army helicopter – and of other data of atrocious acts of the US military revealed by Chelsea Manning, and published by Wikileaks. Chelsea Manning has been and is herself serving prison sentences.

In the meantime and to reach that objective, Julian is most likely being tortured, possibly physically and psychologically. Julian Assange has suffered “prolonged exposure to psychological torture”, the UN’s torture expert, Nils Melzer, said in a BBC interview, and urged Britain not to extradite Assange to Washington. According to retired USAF lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, he may have been doped with psychotropic drugs, like 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, known as BZ that produces hallucinations, mental confusion and memory loss. This may have been the reason, why he was unable to speak clearly, and to participate in a Swedish Court hearing – and had to be transferred to the hospital wing of Her Majesty’s Belmarsh prison. One of the few pictures that emerged at the time of his transfer to the hospital was one of a zombie.

The Western world keeps looking on – worse, they even support Her Majesty’s Prison Service, to which Julian Assange is subjected. They largely applauded the brutal British arrest of Julian Assange, when the police dragged him out of the Ecuadorian Embassy into a van and off to preventive custody, and hours later he was convicted to 50 weeks on a phony charge for jumping bail.
 
Britain's Home Secretary revealed he has signed a request for the extradition of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange to the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act.

British Home Secretary Signs Extradition Order to Send Assange to US
British Home Secretary Signs Extradition Order to Send Assange to US


Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Sajid Javid said that he signed and certified the papers on Wednesday (6.12.2019), with the order going before the UK courts on Friday.

"He’s rightly behind bars. There’s an extradition request from the US that is before the courts tomorrow but yesterday I signed the extradition order and certified it and that will be going in front of the courts tomorrow," he added.

Next step in Assange extradition case due in UK court on Friday
FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves Southwark Crown Court after being sentenced in London, Britain, May 1, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo/File Photo - RC133EC4E9D0

WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange is due before a London court on Friday, facing the next stage of a U.S. attempt to try him on spying charges after Britain's interior minister said he had validated the American extradition request.

“I am very pleased the police were finally able to apprehend him and now he’s rightfully behind bars because he broke UK law,” British Home Secretary Sajid Javid told BBC radio.

“Yesterday I signed the extradition order and certified it and that will be going in front of the courts tomorrow. It is ultimately a decision for the courts.”

Javid's certification simply means the extradition request is a valid one but it will be for a judge to decide whether Assange can be sent to the United States, taking into account issues such as whether it would breach his human rights.

Swedish prosecutors have also said they want to extradite Assange as part of a rape investigation that was dropped in 2017 although no formal request has yet been submitted.

He was too ill to attend that hearing and is due to appear by videolink on Friday at Westminster Magistrates' Court where a date for his full U.S. extradition hearing is likely to be set.
 
My feeling is that the authorities are playing "cat and mouse" with Assange, to wear him down physically, so they can manipulate him psychologically into a mental nervous break down? The hearing for extradition has now been move to February 25, 2020. It's like - they are placing Assange in "limbo" extending an uncertain outcome, to produce more mental stress? I also can't locate any information on Chelsea Manning? Given the extension on Assange extradition hearing, how does that affect Manning, who was taken back into custody?

The full extradition hearing to decide whether Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be sent to the United States to face accusations including spying charges will take place in February next year, a London court ruled on Friday.

UK court sets Assange U.S. extradition hearing for February 2020
A demonstrator holding a placard protests outside of Westminster Magistrates Court, where a case hearing for U.S. extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is held, in London, Britain, June 14, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay - RC17C61BCDA0

A demonstrator holding a placard protests outside of Westminster Magistrates Court, where a case hearing for U.S. extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is held, in London, Britain, June 14, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay - RC17C61BCDA0

"It is important that people aren't fooled into believing that WikiLeaks is anything but a publisher," said Assange, who appeared by videolink from a London prison, dressed in a gray T-shirt and wearing black-framed glasses.

“The U.S. government has tried to mislead the press,” he told Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

As Ben Brandon, the lawyer representing the United States, ran through a summary of the charges against him including that he had cracked a U.S. Defense network password, Assange said: “I didn’t hack anything.”

[...] However, Assange’s lawyer Mark Summers said the charges were an “outrageous and full fronted assault on journalist rights and free speech” and that his client did not have access to a computer to allow him to follow the case.


He told the court that Assange, who had been too ill to attend the previous hearing in May, was receiving healthcare. He did not elaborate.

Judge Emma Arbuthnot said the full extradition case would be heard in the week starting Feb. 25 next year.
 
Swedish prosecutor will not appeal court ruling on Assange detention
Sweden’s prosecution authority said on Thursday it would not appeal a court ruling rejecting a formal request that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be detained while an allegation of rape is investigated.

Sweden wants to question Assange over the allegation, made in 2010, but cannot request his extradition from Britain without a detention order and a European Arrest Warrant.

“Work is now focused on assessing the evidence in the investigation through holding certain complementary interviews,” Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson said in a statement.

The statute of limitations for the rape allegation runs out in August 2020 and the prosecutor must decide whether to bring charges before that date.

Ecuador judge frees Swedish programer close to Assange; probe continues
FILE PHOTO: Swedish software developer Ola Bini (L) sits at court in Quito, Ecuador May 2, 2019. REUTERS/Daniel Tapia

An Ecuadorean judge on Thursday ordered that a Swedish citizen and personal friend of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be freed, two months after he was detained for alleged participation in a hacking attempt on the government.

But Ola Bini, a 36-year-old software developer who has lived in Ecuador for five years, remains under investigation in the case and will be barred from leaving the country, according to the court ruling.

Bini was detained in April at the Quito airport before boarding a flight to Japan, hours after Ecuador withdrew asylum for Assange, who had lived at its London embassy for almost seven years while facing spying charges related to WikLeaks’ 2010 publication of secret U.S. diplomatic cables.

Ecuador’s Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo had accused him of seeking to destabilize the Andean country’s government and compromising its national security. Bini has denied those allegations, but has acknowledged being close to Assange.

“His right to freedom was violated,” judge Patricio Vaca said, reading the Thursday court ruling. “We accept the habeas corpus action proposed by the Swedish citizen Ola Bini, who can be immediately freed.”

Bini worked at the Quito-based Center for Digital Autonomy, an organization focusing on cybersecurity and data privacy. His lawyer, Carlos Soria, told journalists on Thursday that he would ask “international courts” to determine any “prejudice” to the case that may have resulted from his arrest.

“We will take actions against everyone because the court has determined that his detention was arbitrary. Now they will have to pay,” Soria said. “We will demonstrate Ola Bini’s innocence.”
 
Now that’s one heck of a twist. But why am
I suspicious that this is not just triumph of democracy and freedom of speech?


Dismissed! Judge throws out Democrat lawsuit against Trump campaign, Russia & WikiLeaks
Published time: 30 Jul, 2019 23:59
RT


REUTERS/Dominick Reuter

Arguments by the Democratic National Committee in a lawsuit against Russia, WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign over the 2016 election were “entirely divorced” from facts, a federal judge in New York said as he threw out the case.

The DNC sued in April 2018, claiming that the Trump campaign welcomed “help”from Russia and WikiLeaks, who stole and published the party’s emails in an effort to sway the US electorate during the 2016 presidential election, in which Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, US District Judge John Koeltl disagreed.

The DNC “raises a number of connections and communications between the defendants and with people loosely connected to the Russian Federation, but at no point does the DNC allege any facts ... to show that any of the defendants – other than the Russian Federation – participated in the theft of the DNC's information,” Koeltl wrote in the 81-page opinion dismissing the lawsuit with prejudice.

There can be no liability for publishing materials of public interest under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, so long as those disseminating it “did not participate in any wrongdoing in obtaining the materials in the first place,” Koeltl wrote, explaining that the DNC offered no proof that either Trump campaign staff or WikiLeaks did so.

“The Witch Hunt Ends!” Trump tweeted celebrating the ruling, noting that Koeltl was “a highly respected judge who was appointed by President [Bill] Clinton.”

The judge did take for granted that Russia was responsible for hacking the DNC servers and obtaining the emails, though this has never actually been proven and remains an assertion based on the claims of DNC contractor CrowdStrike. However, he told the DNC that it could not sue the Russian government in US courts, due to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

The DNC lawsuit’s dismissal is the latest victory for Trump in the fast-unraveling 'Russiagate' narrative. A two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller concluded in March, failing to find any evidence of Trump’s “collusion” with Russia during the 2016 campaign and trying instead to paint Trump as “obstructing” the probe without actually saying so or leveling charges against the president.

Mueller’s indictment of a dozen Russian nationals he accused of an “active measures” campaign on social media was seriously undermined by another federal judge in May. In court filings unsealed earlier this month, District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich pointed out that Mueller’s report treated as established fact that the group was affiliated with the Russian government, without the indictment actually proving that in any way.
When Mueller testified before two House committees last week, it quickly became obvious that he had very little to do with writing the final report that bore his name, was unfamiliar with its basic premises and conclusions, and had not looked into the probe’s dubious origins with DNC-funded opposition research because it was “not in his purview.”
 
Like Epstein, Julian Assange Will Never Make It To Trial
Like Epstein, Julian Assange Will Never Make It To Trial
Killing Julian Assange 62ba5

August 14, 2019 - Since April 11 when unlawfully dragged from Ecuador’s London embassy to captivity, Assange has languished under draconian conditions in a UK dungeon at the behest of the Trump regime, wanting him tried in the US for the “crime” of truth-telling journalism. More on this below.

Dark forces in the US, other Western States, Israel, and most everywhere else greatly fear widespread public knowledge of their wrong doing against ordinary people to benefit privileged ones.

They want it kept out of the mainstream, notably not on television and in print publications with widespread readership.

If the fourth estate gave news consumers a daily diet of what’s vital to know about domestic and geopolitical issues, another world would be possible — plowshares replacing swords, social justice over neoliberal harshness, equity and justice for all, nations fit and safe to live in for all their citizens and residents.

Notably in hegemonic America, if ordinary people understood the bipartisan plot against their rights and welfare in service to money interests, a national convulsion could follow, a possible revolutionary uprising, maybe yellow vest-type protests involving millions demanding justice.

That’s why dark forces in America want whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and investigative journalists like Julian Assange silenced and punished.

Digital democracy is the last frontier of free and open expression, the only reliable independent space for real news, information and analysis – enabling anyone to freely express views on any topics.

Government censorship is an ominous possibility. In America and other Western societies, democracies in name only, the real thing prohibited, censorship increasingly is the new normal.

What’s going on is the hallmark of totalitarian rule – controlling the message, eliminating what conflicts with it, notably on major geopolitical issues.

Losing the right of free expression endangers all others. When truth-telling and dissent are considered threats to national security, free and open societies no longer exist – the slippery slope America and other Western societies are heading on.

On August 11, Activist Post.com reported that “leaked documents show (the) White House is planning (an) executive order to censor the Internet.”

If indeed planned, the Trump regime plot involves having the corporate-controlled FCC and FTC decide what’s permitted and banned online, a frightening prospect.

In America, Big Brother watches everyone. Will the same dark force henceforth end digital democracy as now exists by executive order — to become the law of the land if not judicially overruled.

Are things heading toward criminalizing truth-telling independent journalists, risking a fate similar to Assange.

John Pilger tweeted the following: “Do not forge Julian #Assange. Or you will lose him. I saw him in Belmarsh prison and his health has deteriorated.”

“Treated worse than a murderer, he is isolated, medicated and denied the tools to fight the bogus charges of a US extradition. I now fear for him. Do not forget him.”

His mother Christine tweeted the following: “My son Julian Assange is being slowly, cruelly & unlawfully assassinated by the US/UK Govts for multi-award winning journalism revealing war crimes & corruption! I’m tweeting/retweeting #FreeAssangeNOW.”

In May, UN special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer said the following:

“My most urgent concern is that, in the United States, Mr. Assange would be exposed to a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” adding:
“In the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination.”
On May 9, Melzer visited him at London’s high-security Belmarsh prison, accompanied by two medical experts on the effects of torture and other forms of abuse, explaining the following:

“It was obvious that Mr Assange’s health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years” — compounded by imprisonment at Belmarsh on orders by the Trump regime.
Besides poor physical health needing treatment not adequately gotten, Assange showed “all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”
Three months later, he likely deteriorated further, last spring too weak and ill to communicate normally.

Britain in cahoots with the Trump regime may want him dead from prolonged imprisonment and neglect.

They may not want him extradited following a federal district court dismissal of a DNC suit against Russia, WikiLeaks, and the Trump campaign.

Judge John Koeltl said “(t)he DNC cannot hold these defendants liable for aiding and abetting publication when they would have been entitled to publish the stolen documents themselves without liability,” he stressed, adding:

Its lawsuit was “entirely divorced” from the facts…(riddled with) substantive legal defect(s).”
“The Court has considered all of the arguments raised by the parties. (They’re) either moot or without merit.”
Absolving WikiLeaks of wrongdoing applies to Assange, its founder and editor-in-chief when active — meaning US federal courts at the district, appeals, and highest level could absolve him at trial, citing First Amendment free expression rights, defeating the Trump regime’s aim to imprison him longterm.

With this in mind, they may want him languishing behind bars in London, wanting him killed by neglect to avoid an embarrassing judicial defeat if US courts support First Amendment speech and media freedoms — what earlier Supreme Court rulings upheld.

WikiLeaks is an investigative journalism operation. Media freedom is a constitutional right — no matter how unacceptable or offensive views expressed may be to certain parties.

Abolishing the right jeopardizes all others. Injustice to Chelsea Manning and Assange threatens the right of everyone to express views freely.

It’s the most fundamental of all rights. Without it, anyone expressing views publicly that challenge the official narrative on vital issues is vulnerable to prosecution for the “crime” of speech or media freedom.


WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Decoding the National Security Commentariat
WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Decoding the National Security Commentariat
Julian Assange 3acaf

The Fourth Estate, that historical unelected grouping of society’s scrutineers, has become something of a rabble, and, as a confederacy of strewn dunces and the ongoing compromised, is ripe for analysis. An essential premise in the work of WikiLeaks was demonstrating, to a good, stone-throwing degree, how media figures and practitioners had been bought by the state or the corporate sector, unwittingly or otherwise. At the very least, the traditionalists had swallowed their reservations and preferred to proclaim, rather unconvincingly, that they were operating with freedom to scrutinize and question, facing down the rebels from the WikiLeaks set.

The Fourth Estate has, however, been placed on poor gruel and life support. Gone are the days when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein ferreted their way through sources and obtaining the material – leaks from confidential sources, no less – that would make them famous and lay the way for the demise of a US President. Such energy is frowned upon these days; the investigative journalist is being treated more as an irritating remnant, a costly undusted fossil. The way for what Nozomi Hayase calls the “Global Fourth Estate” is being well and truly paved as a result.

The corporate factor in this process is undeniable. The Australian media tycoon and aging tyrant Rupert Murdoch has proven to be the kiss of death to much decent journalism, though he is by no means the only contributor. As a man who takes pride in directly intervening in the policies and directions of his newspapers, identifying the credible view from the crafty slant is a hard thing. Political and business interests tend to converge in such an empire. Balanced reporting is for the bleeding hearts.

Meshed in this compromised journalism is a particular type of commentator, the holder of opinions with an open channel to the national security establishment. They are the Deep Throats turned into media judges and avengers. They might be flatteringly called the national security fraternity, a club of the military and espionage clubbables, the sort who find it inconceivable that someone from the public might throw open the larder of government secrets to expose a state’s misdeeds. It went without saying that such individuals would see, in WikiLeaks, the incarnation of a pseudo-intelligence service, or at the very least, its tailor for one.

The national security fraternity is typified by the revolving door. It whirs around, not merely in oil companies, the US State Department and merchant banks, but the issue of the media stable. The state demands its permanent loyalties; those who have served in advisory roles in the state will keep paying once they leave. Security-trained and watered thoroughbreds are bound to see outliers and vigilantes as challengers who need to be put down.

Samantha Vinograd supplies a nice example. The crossover into journalism from the National Security State (NSS) is made from experience as advisor to the National Security Council as the Director for Iraq. (That could hardly have gone that well.) Her teeth well cut on security matters and advice, her journalism is bound to be tinged and flavored by the apparatus of the state. Julian Assange, she argues, is “the self-anointed director of his own intel service.”

The evidence she assesses on whether Assange requires punishment is deemed self-evident; the evidence comes from a source that need not be questioned. Vinograd exudes the confidence of one clutching to the inside of the establishment, and one with lapels suggesting patriot and defender of state. An Assange-like figure is bound to not merely be poison making its way to the vestal virgins; it is a figure to be extirpated.

In casting her own eye over the list of expanded charges against Assange, has taken the allegations against him of espionage to be factual. But she does so by attempting to repudiate his credentials as a publisher and journalist. “If anyone is making the [sic] Assange is a free speech champion, read paragraph 36,” she intones. “He knowingly endangered the lives of journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents and did incredible harm to all our security.” This devious interpretation on the part of the drafters has the purpose of demonizing Assange – self-interested, maniacal, even sociopathic, they imply – while tagging, at the end, the only issue that concerns the US security apparatus: the fictional endangering of US national security. Absent here are observations and studies by the Pentagon which claimed on several occasions that there was little in way of evidence that lives had been compromised in the leak.

The same goes for former FBI types who see the accumulating dossier against Assange as an incriminating tissue of evidence. The issue here was pre-determined; it is shut and done. There is no broader philosophical point, because the only point that matters is realpolitik and the beating heart of the secretly minded patriot. Curiously enough, the distinction between liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, ceases to exist in such circles. We are left with the operating rationale of the big bad NSS, decked out in all its nasty, modern tinsel.

Asha Rangappa, former FBI “special agent” and editor at Just Security, is one of the NSS’s glorified commentators, even if much of her strategy lies in cringeworthy self-advertising. She was drooling with a certain social media imbecility at the news that an 18-count superseding indictment against Assange had been issued by the Department of Justice. “Awwwww yeah,” came her remark on Twitter. Don the gloves; go into action: Team America needs you.

Rangappa is a wonderful illustration of a corrupted type of journalist cum commentator, one conscious of a cop culture that is celebrated rather than questioned, paraded rather than critiqued. She is even featured in Elle Magazine, with a slush-filled gooey tribute from Sylvie McNamara. “I’m at Asha Rangappa’s dinner table because, for the past few years, her commentary on CNN and Twitter has helped hundreds of thousands of people understand the news.”

If a certain type of blinkered understanding is what you are out for, then she is your glamorous source. She was keen on putting away “bad guys”; she “rooted for the United States to beat the Soviet Union in the Olympics”; she acknowledges who “we had to fight for our values”. McNamara is won over, and hardly one to question. “Rangappa knows from previous experience how the FBI handles Russian spies and disinformation; add to the mix her professional skill at explaining complex ideas, and she is ideally positioned to break down the bewildering political events in recent years.” If you consciously avoid or fail to spot the inauthenticity in any of that, then you are well on the way to joining the National Security Club.
 
"La Repubblica"
Interview with the co-founder of Pink Floyd. You oppose Brexit, what do you think will happen to your country? "I think it will become a full-bloated dictatorship"

He is one of the legends of rock famous for his progressive battles. At seventy-six, the Pink Floyd co-founder, Roger Waters, has not given up at all and does not hesitate to call his country, Great Britain, "disgusting" for its treatment of Julian Assange. Last Monday, Waters sang his great classic, "Wish You Were Here" in front of the UK Home Office in London in support of Assange, while the Australian journalist, John Pilger, explained the serious risk the WikiLeaks founder runs of being extradited to the US, and Assange's brother, Gabriel, described an emotional meeting with Julian Assange. Roger Waters is currently in Venice to present his film "US + Them". Repubblica interviewed him.

What made you go very public about Julian Assange's situation?
"Clearly, there has been a really powerful and international smear campaign, really since the Collateral Murder video. I have been watching it developing. Assange is the pet hate of Western governments, particularly the government of the United States, because he published evidence that shows the United States to have committed heinous war crimes, crimes against humanity in a big way. This smear campaign against him is all about getting him extradited to the US. They want him dead as a warning: they want to persuade any young person who might be thinking about the work of Julian Assange, or any whistleblower or any investigative journalist, that to pursue the path of truth-telling is extremely bad for your health. The message is: if you tell the truth, we will kill you, watch! The same with Chelsea Manning".

When a Russian journalist, Golunov, was arrested, we saw a lot of solidarity from Russian journalists and it worked: the Russian authorities did finally give up. We see a lack of solidarity with Assange from the British media. How do you explain this?
"I think it is disgusting, they don't want to lose their jobs. And it is disgusting, because a free press is absolutely fundamental".

Where are other artists, musicians and young artists? How do you explain their silence on Assange?
"I think they are frightened. And they have absorbed the notion that this is what everybody believes, so it must be right, we shouldn't go against it. It's very like what we saw in Venezuela in February this year [the attempt to get rid of Nicolás Maduro], very few of us stood up and said: this is insane".

If Julian Assange ends up in jail in the United States, it will be the first time in US history that a journalist has been imprisoned for his work. Do you believe that it will be used as a precedent to undermine the role of the press, just as terrorism has been used since 9/11 to pass laws which have seriously eroded fundamental rights?
"Yes. What we are looking at, which is why it is so fundamentally important - and totally here in Italy where you have the rise of populist right wings, like Salvini - if we look back at the model of Germany in 1930 to 1934, it went from a socially democratic relatively free country to a total dictatorship in 4 years. That is what they are doing with Assange, they are trying to create a precedent. In America there is a president, Trump, who publicly boasted about the fact that he could go out on Fifth Avenue and kill somebody and get away with it. And now in the UK the leader of the Conservative party, hopefully for not very long, the Prime minister of the oldest Parliamentary democracy in the world, is an exact carbon copy of Trump. He is a buffoon, from the moneyed élite, just as everybody knows that Trump is a complete buffoon"

You oppose Brexit, what do you think will happen to your country?
"I think it will become a full-bloated dictatorship. The propaganda of the extreme right-wing, and I would include all the Tories, what they have discovered is all you have to do is to treat the people really, really badly and then explain to them it wasn't you that did it, it was the Blacks, the Muslims, and then you might lead them down 1934 Germany. It is exactly the German model, with the Germans it was Jews, with this populist model , it's immigrants".

Your father was a conscientious objector, but during the Second World War he fought the Nazis and the fascists and was killed in action in Anzio, south of Rome. Do you think this family background made you sympathise with conscientious objectors, like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden?
"Of course. My father was a conscientious objector on the grounds that he believed in the teachings of Jesus Christ, he believed it was wrong to kill people, but then he realised that Hitler had to be fought. My mother was very left-wing anyway, and she used to say to me: if anything comes out in your life, particularly politically, there is nearly always the right thing to do, all you have to do is figure out what it is and do it, irrespective of the consequences. And I said: how do you decide what is the right thing to do? Well, it took me some time to figure it out, you have to ask yourself fundamentals, very simple questions, like: do I believe in the Universal Declaration of Human rights? If you do, you don't have to join the BDS [The Boycott and Divest movement], but you have to condemn the Israeli government until they change the laws so everybody who lives there has equal rights".

You experienced backlash for your criticism of Israel's policies toward Palestinians: American Express withdrew its sponsorship for your 2017 tour. How did you fight this financial pressure?
"My work is popular. Clearly, I am not an anti-Semite, I try keep this thing simple if and when I get the opportunity, the mainstream media won't print anything I say. The stuff that is going on behind the scenes against me from the Israeli lobby in the United States will be in my memoir, it will be beyond imagination".
 
Sep 15 2019 - Court Orders Julian Assange to Stay in Prison while Awaiting US Extradition
Court Orders Julian Assange to Stay in Prison while Awaiting US Extradition

A Judge ordered Julian Assange to remain in prison indefinitely while awaiting extradition to the US because of his "history of absconding".

The WikiLeaks founder was due to be released on September 22 after serving his sentence for breaching bail conditions when he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Assange spent almost seven years inside the embassy, according to RT.

On Friday, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court claimed there were “substantial grounds” for believing he would flee if released from prison.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser stated that Assange’s lawyer had not made an application for bail on his behalf, adding “perhaps not surprisingly in light of your history of absconding in these proceedings”.

WikiLeaks and Assange’s mother Christine criticized the court proceedings, saying the judge had refused bail before the defense team had a chance to even request it.

The extradition hearing will start on February 25, 2020, after British Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed off on the extradition request in June.

The Australian citizen is fighting extradition to the US where he faces prosecution for allegedly leaking government secrets.
 
Words ... fail me! :barf:

Sheldon Adelson and Mike Pompeo - figure heavy in this illegal "livestream" surveillance. It may be possible - Trump was totally unaware of it?


Working directly with Ecuador’s corrupt government, the U.S. government abandoned all sense of legality and moral decency by spying on Assange twenty-four hours a day via an illegal livestream surveillance operation set up by a private security firm and approved by Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno. The revelation was made by Spanish news outlet El Pais, and it’s as stunning as the corporate media’s complicity.

How the Trump Admin Used a Secret Livestream to Spy on Julian Assange
 
This is a four weeks old press release from Swedish Prosecution Authority website regarding the rape investigation on Assange. It's still ongoing and Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson is the person who will decide if the case should be continued or discontinued.

Update on the Assange Case
09-09-2019
Over the course of the summer, a total of seven witness interviews have been conducted as part of the investigation concerning Julian Assange. An analysis of this material is now underway, after which the public prosecutor will decide how to proceed with the case.
Assange is suspected of committing a rape in 2010. The investigation was reopened on 13 May 2019.

“During the summer, we have conducted interviews intended to verify the evidence, as nine years have passed since the suspected crime. We have concentrated on the inquiries possible to conduct here in Sweden. The interviews are now being transcribed and analysed. We have mainly re-interviewed those individuals who were interviewed in 2010, although two of the persons interviewed have not previously been interviewed,” says Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson.

What happens now?

“Once we have analysed the interviews, I will decide how to proceed with the case. The investigation may then be discontinued or I may decide to conduct further inquiries. If I make the assessment that the next step is to interview Julian Assange, I will issue a European Investigation Order, in which case I shall write to the British authorities with a request to conduct an interview,” says Eva-Marie Persson.

Once the prosecutor has reached a decision, this will be communicated via a press release.

The limitation period expires on 20 August 2020. If a prosecution is commenced before that date, the period of limitation will be extended on condition that Assange is served with a summons before 20 August 2020.
 
WikiLeaks founder Assange appears confused at extradition hearing
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in the courtroom sketch during a case management hearing in Assange's U.S. extradition case at Westminster Magistrates Court, in London, Britain, October 21, 2019. Julia Quenzler/Handout via REUTERS
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in the courtroom sketch during a case management hearing in Assange's U.S. extradition case at Westminster Magistrates Court, in London, Britain, October 21, 2019. Julia Quenzler/Handout via REUTERS

October 21, 2019 - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared confused at a London court hearing on Monday, struggling to recall his name and age in his first public appearance in months as he sought to fight extradition to the United States.

On Monday he appeared clean-shaven, without the long beard he had worn at his last public appearance in May, when he was sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for skipping bail.

He appeared in good health, with his white hair combed back and wearing a navy suit over a light blue sweater and white shirt. But Assange mumbled and stuttered for several seconds as he gave his name and date of birth at the start of a preliminary hearing in the case.

When the judge asked him at the end of the hearing if he knew what was happening, he replied “not exactly”, complained about the conditions in jail, and said he was unable to “think properly”.


“I don’t understand how this is equitable,” Assange said. “I can’t research anything, I can’t access any of my writing. It’s very difficult where I am.”

Assange is being held in a British jail pending the U.S. extradition, having served his sentence for skipping bail.

He fled to Ecuador’s embassy in 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden to face sex crimes accusations. He says the U.S. charges against him are a political attempt to silence journalists and publishers, and the Swedish allegations were part of a plot to catch him. Sweden is reviewing the sex crimes cases.

The Australian-born Assange made global headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.

WikiLeaks later angered the United States by publishing caches of leaked military documents and diplomatic cables.

In court on Monday, former London mayor Ken Livingstone was among Assange’s supporters in the public gallery, while protesters gathered outside court.

Assange’s lawyer Mark Summers argued that Assange’s extradition hearing, scheduled for February 2020, should be delayed by three months due to the complexity of the case.

Criminal Case
Summers said the U.S. government had been listening to conversations between Assange and lawyers while he was in the Ecuadorean embassy in London from 2012 to 2019.

He said there was a criminal case in the Spanish courts allegedly involving Spanish contractors used by the U.S. government and that hooded men broke into offices, without giving details.

“This is part of a concerted and avowed war against whistleblowers including investigative journalists and publishers,” Summers said.

He argued that his team needed more time to gather and provide evidence, saying the challenges in this case would test the limits of most lawyers and citing the difficulty of communicating with Assange who doesn’t have a computer in jail.

The judge denied the request to delay the hearing and said Assange’s extradition hearing would go ahead as planned at Belmarsh magistrates’ court in east London in February.

Admirers have hailed Assange as a hero for exposing what they describe as abuse of power by modern states and for championing free speech. As he entered the dock, people in the public gallery raised their fists in solidarity with him.

His detractors have painted him as a dangerous figure complicit in Russian efforts to undermine the West.

WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson said the case should be thrown out immediately.

“Not only is it illegal on the face of the treaty, the U.S. has conducted illegal operations against Assange and his lawyers which are the subject of a major investigation in Spain.”

Slideshow (7 Images)
WikiLeaks founder Assange appears confused at extradition hearing

WikiLeaks founder Assange denied delay to extradition hearing by London judge
Demonstrators protest outside of Westminster Magistrates Court, where a case management hearing in the U.S. extradition case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is held, in London, Britain, October 21, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
The full extradition hearing of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will go ahead in February 2020 after London judge Vanessa Baraitser declined a request by his lawyers to delay proceedings by three months.

Assange, 48, faces 18 counts in the U.S. including conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law. He could spend decades in prison if convicted.
 
WikiLeaks founder Assange appears confused at extradition hearing

[...]

He appeared in good health, with his white hair combed back and wearing a navy suit over a light blue sweater and white shirt.

[...]

I really do question how good his mental and physical health is. Remember this from back in May? There could be a connection. Sputnik manged to film Assange for a few second yesterday in the police car. It seems the world has forgotten about Assange while he is being tortured and possibly brainwashed in prison.

Craig Murray (friend and close confidant of Assange and former British Ambassador to Usbekistan) was present at the hearing yesterday, and what he saw shocked him. Murray didn't use to believe rumors about torture flying around in regards to Assange, but what he saw yesterday changed his mind. Here is his account of what happened yesterday. Especially his mental health seems to have deteriorated shockingly, so much so that Murray fears Assange could die soon.

Murray also reported about it on his twitter feed and others who were at the hearing seem to confirm his account.

It very much looks like Assange is slowly being tortured to death/insanity while the world seems to have forgotten him already. Very sad story. Notice also that the US seems to push this, as confirmed by Murrays account of yesterday. I tell yeah, what they do to Assange in broad daylight, tells a very dark story of where we are right now and heading in the near future.
 
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