The United States has had years to clarify its intention to give Assange a fair trial, but refuses to do so. The real goal is to keep him locked up forever.
The endless and abhorrent saga of Julian Assange's imprisonment for the crime of journalism continues.
And once again, the headlines are a lie, designed both to buy our passivity and to buy more time for the British and American establishments to maintain censorship of Wikileaks. The founder has permanently disappeared from view.
THE GUARDIAN – which has a gigantic undeclared conflict of interest in its coverage of the extradition proceedings against Assange (you can read about that here and here) – titled the UK High Court ruling on Tuesday as “temporary relief” for Assange. Could not be farther from the truth.
Five years later, Assange is still caged in the high-security Belmarsh prison, without being convicted of anything at all.
Five years later, he is still facing trial in the United States on ridiculous charges under a draconian, century-old law called the Espionage Act. Assange is not a US citizen and none of the charges relate to anything he did in the United States.
Assange supporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday. (Steve Eason, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Five years later, the English judiciary continues to approve his show trial, a warning to others not to expose state crimes, as Assange did by publishing details of British and American war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Five years later, London judges continue to turn a blind eye to Assange's sustained psychological torture, as former United Nations legal expert Nils Melzer has documented.
The word "relief" is there - as is the judges' headline ruling that some of the grounds for his appeal have been "granted" - to hide the fact that he is a prisoner of an endless legal charade as much as he is a prisoner. in a Belmarsh cell.
In fact, the ruling is further evidence that Assange is being denied due process and his most basic legal rights – as he has been for a decade or more.
Assange at the Stop the War Coalition rally in Trafalgar Square, London, October 8, 2011. (Haydn, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In the ruling, the court strips him of any substantial grounds for appeal, precisely so that there is no hearing at which the public can learn more about the various British and American crimes he exposed, for which he is imprisoned.
He is thus denied a public interest defense against extradition. Or, in the court's terminology, your “request to present new evidence is denied.”
Even more significantly, Assange is specifically stripped of the right to appeal for the same legal reasons that should guarantee him an appeal, and he should have ensured that he was never subjected to a show trial in the first place. His extradition would clearly breach the prohibition in the Extradition Treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States against extradition for political reasons.
However, in their wisdom, the judges rule that Washington's vendetta against Assange for exposing his crimes is not driven by political considerations. There also apparently was no political factor in the CIA's kidnapping and murder efforts after Ecuador granted him political asylum, precisely to protect him from the wrath of the US administration.
Instead, what the court “grants” are three technical grounds for appeal, although in the fine print, that “granted” is actually subverted into “deferred.” The “pardon” celebrated by the media – supposedly a victory for British justice – actually pulls the legal rug out from under Assange.
Each of those grounds of appeal can be overturned – that is, rejected – if Washington presents “assurances” to the court, no matter how useless they may be in practice. In which case, Assange is on a flight to the United States and has effectively disappeared into one of his national black sites.
Pro-Assange protester outside the High Court in London on January 22, 2022. (Alisdare Hickson, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Those three pending grounds of appeal on which the court is seeking assurances are that extradition will not:
denying Assange his basic freedom of expression rights;
discriminate against him because of his nationality, as a non-U.S. citizen;
or place him under threat of the death penalty in the American criminal system.
The judiciary's latest effort to accommodate Washington's intention to keep Assange permanently out of sight comes after years of perverse legal proceedings in which the United States has repeatedly been allowed to change the charges it brings against Assange. at short notice to circumvent your legal rights. equipment.
It also follows years in which the United States has had the opportunity to make clear its intention to give Assange a fair trial, but has refused to do so.
Washington's true intentions are now more than clear: the US spied on Assange's every move while she was under the protection of the Ecuadorian embassy, violating her attorney-client privilege; and the CIA conspired to kidnap and murder him.
Both are reasons that alone should have caused the case to be dismissed.
But there is nothing normal – or legal – about the trial against Assange. The point has always been to buy time. Disappear Assange from public view. To vilify him. Crush the revolutionary publishing platform he founded to help whistleblowers expose state crimes.
Send a message to other journalists that the United States can reach them wherever they live if they try to hold Washington accountable for its criminality.
And worst of all, providing a final solution to the nuisance Assange had become to the global superpower by trapping him in an endless process of imprisonment and trial that, if allowed to drag on long enough, would most likely I killed him.
Tuesday's ruling is certainly not a "pardon." It is simply another stage in a protracted and sham legal process designed to provide constant justifications for keeping Assange behind bars and endless postponements to the day of trial, when Assange is released or the British and American justice systems are exposed as a hand in hand. hand. servants of brutal and naked power.
* Thanks to Jonathan Cook, CONSORTIUM NEWS and the collaboration of Federico Aguilera Klink
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