Former British ambassador Craig Murray has published a very disturbing account of Julian Assange's court appearance yesterday which I recommend reading in full.
There have been many reports published about Assange's case management hearing, but the combination of Murray's prior experience with torture victims, his familiarity with British courts, his friendship with Assange, and his lack of reverence for western power structures allowed for a much more penetrating insight into what happened than anyone else has been able to provide so far.
Assange's extradition hearing will commence without delay on February of next year, despite the case violating the 2003 US/UK extradition treaty, and despite new evidence emerging of CIA-tied espionage on Assange and his lawyers while he was at the Ecuadorian embassy.
Assange's lawyer Mark Summers told the court that the case was "a political attempt" by the United States "To signal to journalists the consequences of publishing information." And of course he's right.
Nobody sincerely believes that the 175-year sentence that Assange is looking at if he's successfully extradited to the US by the Trump administration is a reasonable punishment for publishing activities which the Obama administration had previously declined to prosecute based on the exact same evidence, citing concern for the damage the precedent would do to press freedoms.
Cowardice is driving public support for Assange's persecution.
We are watching a great tragedy unfold in a fractal-like way, from the zoomed-out meta tragedy of the worldwide death blow to press freedom, drilled down to the personal tragedy of this death blow to a man called Julian Assange.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/only-cowards-and-sadists-support-the-persecution-of-assange-b717b1b07dfe
There have been many reports published about Assange's case management hearing, but the combination of Murray's prior experience with torture victims, his familiarity with British courts, his friendship with Assange, and his lack of reverence for western power structures allowed for a much more penetrating insight into what happened than anyone else has been able to provide so far.
Assange's extradition hearing will commence without delay on February of next year, despite the case violating the 2003 US/UK extradition treaty, and despite new evidence emerging of CIA-tied espionage on Assange and his lawyers while he was at the Ecuadorian embassy.
Assange's lawyer Mark Summers told the court that the case was "a political attempt" by the United States "To signal to journalists the consequences of publishing information." And of course he's right.
Nobody sincerely believes that the 175-year sentence that Assange is looking at if he's successfully extradited to the US by the Trump administration is a reasonable punishment for publishing activities which the Obama administration had previously declined to prosecute based on the exact same evidence, citing concern for the damage the precedent would do to press freedoms.
Cowardice is driving public support for Assange's persecution.
We are watching a great tragedy unfold in a fractal-like way, from the zoomed-out meta tragedy of the worldwide death blow to press freedom, drilled down to the personal tragedy of this death blow to a man called Julian Assange.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/only-cowards-and-sadists-support-the-persecution-of-assange-b717b1b07dfe
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