It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
A new study shows that a widespread decline in abundance of emergent insects - whose immature stages develop in lakes and streams while the adults live on land - can help to explain the alarming decline in abundance and diversity of aerial insectivorous birds (i.e. preying on flying insects) across the USA. In turn, the decline in emergent insects appears to be driven by human disturbance and pollution of water bodies, especially in streams. This study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, is one of the first to find evidence for a causal link between the decline of insectivorous birds, the decline of emergent aquatic insects, and poor water quality.
Human activities, such as urbanization and agriculture, have adverse effects on aquatic ecosystems. In the US, 46% of streams are in poor condition, while 57% of lakes suffer from strong human disturbance. The immature stages of aquatic insects, especially stoneflies, mayflies and caddisflies, are known to be highly sensitive to pollution, which is why they have often been used as biomonitors for water quality. But the authors of the present study predicted a priori that emergent insects - whose adult flying stages are important sources of food for birds, spiders, bats and reptiles - should likewise be powerful biomonitors for the health of terrestrial ecosystems. This prediction is borne out by the new results.
"The massive decline in bird fauna across the USA requires that we adopt new paradigms for conservation. Currently, most management and conservation agencies and plans are separated into aquatic and terrestrial divisions. However, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are inextricably linked through a suite of ecological connections," says author Dr Maeika Sullivan, associate professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources and Director of the Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park at Ohio State University.
Sullivan and colleagues analyzed data from multiple open-access surveys monitoring water quality, aquatic invertebrates and 21 species of aerial insectivorous birds from the contiguous United States. "The task of putting together these big data sets, collected by different US agencies with different goals and objectives, revealed several new questions and challenges which will require interdisciplinary thinking to resolve," says corresponding author Dr David Manning, assistant professor in the Department of Biology, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
First, the authors show that water quality is a good predictor for local relative abundance of emergent insects. Then they show for the first time that water quality and the associated abundance of emergent insects explains a moderate but significant proportion of the variation in local abundance of aerial insectivorous birds in the US, including both upland and riparian (i.e. foraging on river banks) species.
Not all bird species were equally negatively impacted by declines in the abundance of emergent insects, suggesting that factors such the birds' microhabitat and foraging strategy may also play a role. The western wood pewee (Contopus sordidulus, an upland bird species), the olive-sided flycatcher (C. cooperi, which facultatively lives in riparian zones), and the Acadian flycatcher (Empidonax virescens, which almost exclusively occurs near water) depended most strongly on the local abundance of overall emergent insects. The eastern phoebe (Sayornis phoebe), violet-green swallow (Tachycineta thalassina), tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor), eastern wood-pewee (C. virens), barn swallow (Hirundo rustica), and chimney swift (Chaetura pelagica), were specifically sensitive to the relative abundance of stoneflies, mayflies and caddisflies.
The authors emphasize the need for interdisciplinary research to develop new conservation and biomonitoring strategies focused on the effects of water quality on endangered birds and other terrestrial wildlife.
"We need a better understanding of the common mechanisms that could drive declines in both aquatic insects and many bird species. We would like to explore some of these shared mechanisms in future research, but at a much larger scale than previously. Tackling these questions will require collaboration among freshwater ecologists, ornithologists, landscape ecologists, entomologists, data scientists, and others," says Manning.
###
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
There's too much nitrogen and phosphorus in U.S. waterways
Even minor amounts of human activity can increase nutrient concentrations in fresh waters that can damage the environment, according to a new study.
These findings suggest most U.S. streams and rivers have higher levels of nitrogen and phosphorus than is recommended. Although nutrients are a natural part of aquatic ecosystems like streams and rivers, too much of either nutrient can have lasting impacts on the environment and public health.
In Florida, toxic blue-green algal blooms have been triggered by releases of phosphorus-laden waters from Lake Okeechobee. Algal blooms produce a foul odor along waterways, decrease dissolved oxygen, threaten insect and fish communities and can even produce toxins that are harmful to mammals and humans.
"Ecosystems are being loaded with legacy and current nitrogen and phosphorus, and their capacity to hold these nutrients in many cases is decreasing," said FIU associate professor John Kominoski, an ecologist and co-author of the study. "Not only are they being overwhelmed by nutrients, but they also have and continue to undergo hydrological and land use alterations."
As human populations and demands increasingly grow, more land—including wetlands—is converted to agricultural and urban uses. This can introduce more nitrogen and phosphorus onto the land, which eventually makes its way into bodies of water. To make matters worse, soil erosion and climate change are also impacting nutrient pollution, leading to nutrient export to coastal waters, Kominoski said.
Nitrogen is most likely to come from transportation, industry, agriculture and fertilizer application, while increased phosphorus is more commonly the result of sewage waste, amplified soil erosion and runoff from urban watersheds.
"High concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in our waterways are concerning because they threaten both human and ecosystem health," said David Manning, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and lead author on the paper. "Nutrients are essential for all life, but when they get too high in our waterways, they can fundamentally change the way a stream looks and operates."
In addition to causing algal blooms, these elevated nutrient concentrations can lead to a lack of species diversity and oxygen depletion. High nutrient concentrations can also affect the purity of the water we drink.
Nutrient pollution is a complex problem. While there's still a lot of work to be done to develop management tools and set thresholds for nutrient concentrations in streams and rivers, better understanding of how nutrients are transported through the interconnected network of waterways can help lead to solutions. Kominoski emphasized the importance of management solutions at local-to-global scales required to effectively manage various sources of nitrogen and phosphorus.
"Water is a shared resource that connects communities, landscapes, and continents across the globe," Kominoski said. "We must increase the protection and rehabilitation of ecosystems and water resources throughout the world, especially as human populations increase and climate changes."
The study was published in Ecological Applications
More information: David W.P. Manning et al. Transport of N and P in U.S. streams and rivers differs with land use and between dissolved and particulate forms, Ecological Applications (2020). DOI: 10.1002/eap.2130
He’s not a US citizen and US can’t try Assange for treason
The Sydney Morning Herald,
LETTERS
December 15, 2021 —
I have seen Julian Assange portrayed as a journalist, a whistleblower and as a traitor by the US government (“In a decent society, Assange is entitled to justice”, December 14). The fact is that neither he, nor any other Australian citizen, has ever had any formal requirement or commitment of loyalty or allegiance to the US government. It would therefore be an incredible stretch to describe his actions as treasonous. For the US to claim sovereignty over the globe and seek to apply their law to anyone anywhere in the world at will is sheer arrogance. The arrogance succeeds only because of the meek complicity of governments such as ours and that of Britain. Assange released material showing US forces committing atrocities during the Afghan war. This material made the US government look bad. They didn’t like it, expressed confected and selective moral outrage and hunted Assange down. Even if the extradition fails, the US government will have succeeded in warning off any other potential whistleblowers.
John Slidziunas, Woonona
Congratulations to Joyce for the most rational statement I’ve heard from him in a long time. I applaud his statements such as “rights … apply equally … to those who have been less fortunate” and “you can judge a society on whether the protection … is actively pursued in a form where all are truly equal”. I could not help thinking, though, that it is his government that has denied those rights to whistleblowers, Aborigines, and refugees, many of whom, although guilty of no crime, have been held in prison-like conditions for years.
Ron Pretty, Farmborough Heights
Maybe if Assange played top tennis, and preferably doubles, he’d currently be getting high-volume support from many more of all our nakedly hypocritical politicians and governments in the “free” West. Apparently, human rights and associated moral outrage are not universal but can be selectively applied when politically expedient – and when it suits.
Peter Bower, Naremburn
The Deputy PM has said that Julian Assange should either be put on trial in Britain or brought back to Australia. However, a trial outside the US is not likely. The alleged crime was against the United States and courts do not have authority to try someone except for violation of local criminal laws. Julian Assange was indicted in June 2020 by the US Federal Grand Jury in Virginia on multiple counts of criminal conspiracy. It is simply not a crime in Britain or Australia to violate the United States Code and British courts may not try someone for violating American criminal conspiracy laws unless the activity also happens to be a crime in Britain and then the trial would be under British criminal laws.
Harry Melkonian, Vaucluse
Assange embarrassed the US and is paying a high price for doing so. There is no question deals have been done to keep Assange incarcerated without any conviction. According to the present Australian Coalition government, your Australian passport is not worth the paper it is written on.
David Goldstein, Balgowlah
Assange broke no law on American soil and should not be tried for a crime there.
Ron McQuarrie, Budgewoi
The Deputy PM’s stance on Assange is commendable. There is too much political pressure in the US to assure Assange a fair trial in that country. Being tried in Britain or Australia seems a just outcome for all parties.
Clive Hughes, Freshwater
Judging by the newfound power of logical thinking articulated in Joyce’s opinion piece on Assange, maybe self-isolation and a mild dose of COVID-19 should be mandatory for all politicians.
Col Burns, Lugarno
Extradiction of Assange Darkens Human Rights Day: Russia Says WikiLeak founder Julian Assange, London, U.K. |
Photo: Twitter/ @ToddRoy48029477
Over the last 12 years, the U.S. has persecuted the Australian journalist for having denounced the crimes committed by its troops and security agencies in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Friday, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova harshly criticized the decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales to approve the extradition of WikiLeaks Julian Assange to the United States.
"The U.K. High Court has authorized Julian Assange's extradition to the United States. This shameful verdict as part of the political case is yet another manifestation of the Anglo-Saxon tandem's cannibalistic worldview… What a 'fitting' way for the West to mark the Human Rights Day and the end of the 'Summit for Democracy',” Zakharova pointed out.
Previously, the UK High Court upheld a motion presented by the US Department of Justice on the extradition of Assange, who has been held in London's Belmarsh prison since April 2019. Over the last 12 years, the United States has persecuted the Australian journalist for having denounced the crimes committed by U.S. troops and security agencies in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For defending press freedom, Assange could receive sentences of up to 175 years in the United States, a country which accuses him of crimes against its "National Security."
“Julian Assange's extradition is being sought for such revelations as the collateral murder gunning down of civilians, including children and two Reuters journalists by the U.S. in Iraq for which they tried to evade accountability,” WikiLeaks recalled.
In January, the British courts ruled against his extradition. Now, however, the judges authorized it, arguing that the U.S. government had promised not to subject Assange to harsh detention conditions.
"The English decision to extradite Assange to the United States is ignoble. It is a murder under judicial guise. Shame on those who let it happen," said French socialist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who asked his country to grant him political asylum.
On Why We Should Oppose The Persecution Of Julian Assange
Julian Assange is a polarising personality. Admired by many for his work as a whistle-blower, Assange is famously loathed by other people who still hold him accountable for the sexual assault charges that the Swedish authorities finally dropped back in November 2019. All along, Assange and his legal team argued that the Swedish prosecution had the ultimate aim of getting him extradited back to the United States. At the time, Assange’s critics claimed that those fears of extradition were merely an excuse to evade prosecution in Sweden.
Well, it turns out that Assange’s fears about extradition were soundly based. The US continues to seek his extradition to face charges under the US Espionage Act that on conviction carry up to 175 years in prison. Last week – on December 10, Human Rights Day! - the UK courts took a giant step to making that outcome possible. The High Court overturned a previous ruling that Assange’s health and likely treatment (solitary confinement in a US Supermax facility) were sufficient grounds for refusing his extradition.
Not any more. After receiving cross-your-heart promises from the US (a) that Assange, if convicted, would have his physical and mental health needs adequately met and (b) that he might not be sent to a Supermax and might be allowed to serve some of his sentence in an Australian prison, the same UK judge who had made the earlier decision changed his mind, and gave the extradition the green light. This ruling will now be appealed to the UK Supreme Court where – hopefully – the wider issues raised by his case might be revisited. It will take at least two years to go through this process, during which time Assange will continue to be held in Britain’s Belmarsh prison. Assange has now spent almost ten years in confinement, after he first sought refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London in 2012.
For those hung up on Assange’s celebrity status – hero or villain, altruist or narcissist? – His personality traits are beside the point. His prosecution, imprisonment and extradition proceedings amount to a wide-ranging attack on freedom of speech, on press freedom and on the ability of the media to hold governments to account. As the Guardian recently pointed out, the High Court decision is not only a blow for his family and friends, who fear he would not survive imprisonment in the US. It is also a blow for all those who wish to protect the freedom of the press:
The case against him relates to hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, which were made public by WikiLeaks working with the Guardian and other media organisations. They revealed horrifying abuses by the US and other governments which would not otherwise have come to light
Assange’s alleged “crime” was to publish on Wikileaks a trove of documents and cables obtained by Chelsea Manning, a US soldier stationed in Iraq. The material included evidence of war crimes committed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The diplomatic cables contained hundreds of examples of US diplomats being engaged in clandestine activities without the knowledge or consent of the public at home, or in the countries affected. The public interest served by revealing such activities should be obvious. Revealing the atrocities, lies and deceptions of the powerful is what journalism exists to do, in a free society.
Uniquely though, Assange has been prosecuted for doing so, as the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out in 2019:
For the first time in the history of our country, the government has brought criminal charges under the Espionage Act against a publisher for the publication of truthful information. This is a direct assault on the First Amendment.
…This case is nothing less than the first time in American history that the US government has sought to prosecute the act of publishing state secrets, something that national security reporters do with some regularity. While many of the charges [contained in the Assange indictment] involve conspiracy or aiding and abetting, three counts are based on “pure publication”—the argument that Assange broke the law just by posting classified documents on the Internet.
And furthermore:
Read literally, the Espionage Act criminalizes the solicitation, receipt, and publication of any government secret, not just the names of informants. The Justice Department has long taken the position that it can prosecute the act of publishing classified information. But it has not done so, until now, because of concerns that it would open a Pandora’s box of media censorship.
With Assange, Pandora's box has now been opened. If Assange can be prosecuted for publishing leaked information – on the grounds it was “stolen” and because the disclosures (in the state’s opinion) damaged “ national security” then any other journalist is at risk of the same fate for doing their job. The CJR article gives an interesting example of how these things used to be handled. In the mid 1970s, the Ford administration decided not to prosecute the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh for revealing (in a front page New York Times story) the full details of a secret US submarine programme. On that occasion, the US Justice Department chose to go straight to the NYT publishers and quietly remind them it would be in everyone’s best interests if they took national security more seriously next time around.
Thankfully, the Internet has made those sort of cosy arrangements impossible. Yet if Assange is successfully extradited, the precedent cannot avoid having a chilling effect on any revelations about government wrong-doing, given that the documents proving it will almost certainly belong to the state. The evidence will always have been “stolen” and “national security” is a conveniently elastic term. Truth and the public interest don’t provide any defence at all. Governments can always claim that what the public may be interested in isn’t always in their best interest to know.
What To Do
To date, the Australian government has refused to make any critical comment about this ongoing abuse of the legal process to prosecute/persecute one of its citizens abroad. This silence allegedly, is out of “respect” for the legal proceedings. No doubt, the New Zealand government would use the same excuse to avoid taking a stand. Let the court process run its course etc. etc.
Yet only last week PM Jacinda Ardern participated in an online democracy summit hosted by US president Joseph Biden, in which Biden posed as a sterling defender of press freedom:
Opening his Summit for Democracy this week, Joe Biden urged his guests to “stand up for the values that unite us”, including a free press. The US president boasted of his new initiative for democratic renewal, including measures to support an unfettered and independent media: “It’s the bedrock of democracy. It’s how the public stay informed and how governments are held accountable. And around the world, press freedom is under threat.”
You bet it is, including by the Biden White House.(At the same online gathering US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken described a free press as an ‘’indispensable” part of a modern democracy.) With those fine words still ringing in her ears, Ardern surely has a mandate to remind Biden that the US needs to practice what it has just preached – by- for instance, dropping the Assange prosecution.
There’s more. Over the course of the past two decades, the Clark and Ardern governments have made much of New Zealand’s reliance on a rules based international order based on shared norms. One of those norms that has existed for the best part of 200 years, is that you don’t extradite people for offences of a political nature, and (especially) you don’t send them back to where they will be treated inhumanely, for actions and expressions arising from their political opinions.
This is a platform readily available to Ardern to comment on the Assange case. Supposedly we look to the United Nations to take the lead in establishing and defending the rules-based international order. Well, in the Revised Draft Model for Extradition Law that the UN recommends that its member states should adopt, Articles 3a, 3b, and 3f say this:
Article 3: MANDATORY GROUNDS FOR REFUSAL Extradition shall not be granted in any of the following circumstances: (a) If the offence for which extradition is requested is regarded by the requested State as an offence of a political nature….
(b) If the requested State has substantial grounds for believing that the request for extradition has been made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing a person on account of that person's race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, political opinions, sex or status, or that that person's position may be prejudiced for any of those reasons; [bolded emphasis mine]
(f) If the person whose extradition is requested has been or would be subjected in the requesting State to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or if that person has not received or would not receive the minimum guarantees in criminal proceedings, as contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 14…
Sure, this is only a model treaty. No-one has signed it. Yet it strongly indicates what principles with respect to extradition law that the UN wants and expects its member states to adopt and uphold. My point being, our declared support for a rules based international order give us grounds to urge the US to cease its attempts to extradite Assange - because (contrary to UN principles) that extradition is clearly for an offence of a political nature, is held to be motivated by his political opinions, and will result in degrading and inhumane treatment within the US prison system.
Ultimately, if it truly believes in the UN and the international rule of law, New Zealand should not be standing passively on the side-lines while an injustice of this magnitude is being perpetrated - especially given the precedent that Assange’s conviction and continued imprisonment has for the role of the media, here and abroad.
Footnote One: The US government offensive against leakers and journalists who publish leaked information did not begin with Assange, even though his case has taken that campaign to new heights. Barack Obama was the main offender:
President Barack Obama, in fact, set a record for any president with his number of prosecutions against leakers using the Espionage Act. Some observers fear that Obama’s crackdown on leaks paved the way for Trump to do the same.
Footnote Two: Over the years, only a handful of US soldiers have been convicted for war crimes committed during service in Iraq or Afghanistan. See here and also here and also here for some of those examples. Even on the even rarer occasions when a conviction results, the punishment has often been of little deterrent value. For example : the group of US soldiers eventually prosecuted for prisoner torture and maltreatment at Bagram air base in Afghanistan were either acquitted, or fined and demoited, or in the most extreme case, imprisoned for five months.
In a couple of instances (eg Sgt Clint Lorance and Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher) the uniformed murderers in US war zones abroad were pardoned by US President Donald Trump. The rarity of these prosecutions (and the issuing of a presidential pardon to someone as noxious as Gallagher) underlines the double standard being displayed by the dogged US pursuit of Assange:
As Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, has noted: “Virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail.”
On the evidence, the US regards the publishing of the evidence of its war crimes to be a worse offence than committing such crimes in the first place.
Footnote Three: There’s a lucid brief history here of the “political offence” exemption in extradition requests, and of the three main ways- the US, the UK and the Swiss models – that the exemption has evolved over the centuries.
Footnote Four : You might be wondering why Julian Assange can be held liable for the content on Wikileaks, when the famous section 230 ‘safe harbour ‘provision (Available under US telecommunications law), protects other online platforms like Facebook and Youtube from legal liability for the content they carry, and regardless of any harms caused by that content. Moreover, the case law on section 230 extends that safe harbour protection extraterritorially, regardless of where the Wikileaks “head office” (if there is such a thing) is located.
The difference seems to depend on the “stolen” status of the Wikileaks content, and the “national security” harms allegedly caused. Clearly though, the disclosures by Wikiieaks were in the public interest, and it is open to argument as to whether in the long run they did more good than harm to America’s genuine national security concerns. All too often, government use the claim of “national security” like a blanket thrown over a parrot cage, with the aim being to keep the bird in the dark, and silent.
London’s High Court has scheduled two days of hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday to decide whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may appeal a United States request for extradition to stand trial on espionage charges.
Those charges carry maximum penalties of 175 years, but the real danger, says Assange’s wife Stella, is that he may suffer an inadvertent death penalty instead.
“His health is in decline, physically and mentally,” Stella Assange recently told reporters. “His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison, and if he’s extradited, he will die.”
If Wednesday’s decision goes against Assange, his legal team plans to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights – though a favourable ruling there may not come in time to stop an extradition.
Assange will not attend court due to illness, his lawyers said on Tuesday.
A British judge agreed in January 2021, ruling he should not be extradited to the US because he was likely to commit suicide in near total isolation.
“I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” judge Vanessa Baraitser said.
But the US has continued to press for his extradition.
The 17 charges of espionage from a district court in East Virginia stem from Assange’s publication in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of pages of classified US military documents on his website, WikiLeaks.
US prosecutors say Assange conspired with US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack the Pentagon’s servers to retrieve the documents.
The files, widely reported in Western media, revealed evidence of what many consider to be war crimes committed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. They include video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists. ‘The most important press freedom case in the world’
Since it came to prominence in 2010, Wikileaks has become a repository for documentary evidence uncovered by government or corporate whistleblowers.
In 2013, Edward Snowden, a contractor with the US National Security Agency, leaked documents to WikiLeaks revealing that the NSA had installed digital stovepipes in the servers of email providers, and was secretly filtering private correspondence.
Three years later, millions of documents were leaked from the Panamanian offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca, revealing that corporations and public officials had set up offshore companies to evade taxes and hide money that could be used for illicit purposes.
Snowden called Assange’s case “the most important press freedom case in the world” on X, formerly Twitter, and legal experts agree.
“This case is the first in which the US government has relied on the 1917 Espionage Act as the basis for the prosecution of a publisher,” Jameel Jaffer, a professor of law and journalism at Columbia University, told Al Jazeera.
“A successful prosecution of Assange on the basis of this indictment would criminalise a great deal of the investigative journalism that is absolutely crucial to democracy,” Jaffer said, including cultivating sources, communicating with them confidentially, soliciting information from them, protecting their identities from disclosure, and publishing classified information.
“I really can’t imagine why the Biden administration would want this dangerous, short-sighted prosecution to be part of its legacy. The Justice Department should drop the Espionage Act charges, which should never have been filed in the first place.”
Although the leak happened in 2010, Assange was not prosecuted by the administration of Barack Obama, then in power.
The prosecution came from the administration of Donald Trump eight years later, and US President Joe Biden seems to be doubling down on it.
Stella Assange argued that her husband acted as a publisher in posting information beneficial to the public, and publishers have customarily not been prosecuted for doing their job.
“Julian has been indicted for receiving, possessing and communicating information to the public of evidence of war crimes committed by the US government,” Stella Assange said. “Reporting a crime is never a crime.”
But US prosecutors say he was not merely the receiver of information.
“Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defence computers,” his indictment says. Helping to hack the Pentagon’s servers was a crime of commission that also put US intelligence sources at risk and “could be used to the injury of the United States”, said prosecutors. ‘He’s suffered enough’
In addition to upholding fundamental press freedoms, Assange’s friends and family have argued that he should be released from the charges on humanitarian grounds.
Assange has already spent seven years in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he sought asylum, and since 2019 has been in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison.
Assange’s allies consider that his 11 years of imprisonment amount to punishment enough.
WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson called it “punishment through process”.
“It is obviously a deliberate attempt to wear him down to punish him by taking this long,” Hrafnsson recently told reporters.
Julian and Stella Assange have two sons conceived while he lived in the Ecuadorean embassy, who have only met their father behind bars.
The government of Assange’s native Australia has also asked for a rapid conclusion to the gruelling legal process.
On February 14, the federal parliament in Canberra passed a resolution supporting that Assange’s 2010 leak had “revealed shocking evidence of misconduct by the USA” and underlining “the importance of the UK and USA bringing the matter to a close so that Mr Assange can return home to his family in Australia”.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pointed out that the resolution had the support of diverse political forces that “would have a range of views about the merits of Mr Julian Assange’s actions”.
Yet, he said, “they have come to the common view … that enough is enough and that it is time for this to be brought to a close”.
Australia “has sought to advance that position by making appropriate diplomatic representations,” Donald Rothwell, a professor of international law at the Australian National University, told Al Jazeera. “However, its ability to advance that is limited by the fact that legally and politically the matter really rests with the UK and US.”
The US also pursues Snowden under the 1917 Espionage Act, but “because he is currently a Russian citizen and living in Russia he is effectively protected from US prosecution because Russia will not extradite him,” said Rothwell.
Julian Assange begins last-ditch battle to stop extradition to US
Sam Tobin and Michael Holden Feb 20, 2024, "Julian needs his freedom and we all need the truth," Julian Assange's wife Stella told protesters in London on Tuesday.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is about to begin what could be his last chance to stop his extradition from Britain to the United States after more than 13 years battling the authorities in the English courts.
US prosecutors are seeking to put Assange, 52, on trial on 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks’ high-profile release of vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables.
They argue the leaks imperilled the lives of their agents and there is no excuse for his criminality.
Assange’s supporters hail him as an anti-establishment hero and a journalist, who is being persecuted for exposing US wrongdoing.
Outside the High Court in London, a large, noisy crowd gathered, chanting “Only one decision, no extradition”.
“We have two big days ahead. We don’t know what to expect, but you are here because the world is watching,” Assange’s wife Stella told the crowd.
“They have to know they can’t get away with this. Julian needs his freedom and we all need the truth.”
Assange’s legal battles began in 2010, and he subsequently spent seven years holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London before he was dragged out and jailed in 2019 for breaching bail conditions.
He has been held in a maximum-security jail in southeast London ever since, even getting married there.
Britain finally approved his extradition to the US in 2022 after a judge initially blocked it because concerns about his mental health meant he would be at risk of suicide if deported.
His lawyers will try to overturn that approval at a two-day hearing in front of two judges in what could be his last chance to stop his extradition in the English courts.
They will argue that Assange’s prosecution is politically motivated and marks an attack on free speech, as the first time a publisher has been charged under the US Espionage Act.
Assange’s supporters include Amnesty International, media groups that worked with WikiLeaks and politicians in his country of birth Australia, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who last week voted in favour of a motion calling for his return to Australia.
If Assange wins this case, a full appeal hearing will be held to again consider his challenge.
If he loses, his only remaining option would be at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) where he has an appeal lodged pending the London ruling.
Speaking last week, Stella Assange said the decision was a matter of life and death and his lawyers would apply to the ECHR for an emergency injunction if necessary.
“His health is in decline, physically and mentally,” she said. “His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison – and if he is extradited he will die.”
Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton compared the WikiLeaks founder with Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition activist who died in prison on Friday while serving a three-decade sentence.
WikiLeaks first came to prominence in 2010 when it published a US military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
It then released thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables that laid bare often highly critical US appraisals of world leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.
-Reuters, with AP
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's final bid
to contest extradition to US begins amid
protests
Should this legal recourse falter, Assange would exhaust all available avenues for appeal within UK legal system, consequently triggering extradition process
Aysu Bicer |20.02.2024
LONDON
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing what could potentially be his last chance to contest his extradition from the UK to the US as a two-day hearing commences Tuesday amid fervent protests outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
Assange, detained in a UK prison since 2019, faces extradition over allegations of leaking classified military documents between 2010 and 2011.
The UK High Court, in a pivotal ruling in 2021, decreed that Assange should be extradited, disregarding assertions regarding his fragile mental state and the potential risks he might face in a US correctional facility.
Following suit, the Supreme Court in 2022 upheld this decision, while then-Home Secretary Priti Patel affirmed the extradition order, intensifying the legal battle.
In his latest bid for reprieve, Assange is seeking authorization to scrutinize Patel's determination and challenge the initial 2021 court verdict.
Should this legal recourse falter, Assange would exhaust all available avenues for appeal within the UK legal system, consequently triggering the extradition process.
Meanwhile, outside the Royal Courts of Justice, supporters of Assange have gathered in solidarity, brandishing banners that read "Free Assange" and "Free journalism."
'America is war criminal'
Esla, one of the protesters who only gave her first name, said: "All of us we are here because we want Julian Assange free today. Julian Assange represents the truth of the press and our right to know. Release Julian Assange from prison to see sunlight for the first time."
"After so many years of psychological torture, to be with his wife, his little children, his friends, his family, and all of us, and Julian Assange can continually bring us the truth. We need truth more than ever," she added.
Another supporter, who did not want to be named, condemned actions of the US, stating: "America should be in the dark, America is a war criminal, the worst rogue terrorist state there is. They've been prosecuting wars for years."
"They are terrible the way about what they do. Helicopter gunships killing people all over the Middle East. Julian Assange has published this, which we all need to know because it's our taxes that go to support these wars, for oil for business contracts. And he's just he's just presented the truth through WikiLeaks. And now he's in prison. What's he done? He's done nothing. He's a publisher, a journalist, and this is journalism in prison," he added.
Assange steadfastly maintains that the accusations against him are politically motivated, a claim echoed by his legal team. They have hinted at a potential recourse to the European Court of Human Rights should the UK appeal fall short.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange starts final UK legal battle to avoid extradition to US on spy charges
Associated Press
Feb 20, 2024
Julian Assange supporters gather outside the High Court in London where his lawyers begin their final U.K. legal challenge to stop the WikiLeaks founder from being sent to the United States to face spying charges.
(AP Video: Kwiyeon Ha)
'I don't have hope': Stella Assange speaks out ahead of Wikileaks founder's final hearing
Timeline of the Julian Assange legal saga as he makes a final bid to avoid extradition to the U.S
LONDON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been fighting for more than a decade to avoid extradition to the United States to face charges related to his organization’s publication of a huge trove of classified documents. He has been in custody in a high-security London prison since 2019, and previously spent seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
As his lawyers begin a final round of legal challenge Tuesday to stop him from being sent from Britain to the U.S., here is a look at key events in the long-running legal saga:
2006
Assange founds WikiLeaks in Australia. The group begins publishing sensitive or classified documents.
2010
In a series of posts, WikiLeaks released almost half a million documents relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
August
Swedish prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for Assange based on one woman’s allegation of rape and another’s allegation of molestation. The warrant is withdrawn shortly afterward, with prosecutors citing insufficient evidence for the rape allegation. Assange denies the allegations. September
Sweden’s director of prosecutions reopens the rape investigation. Assange leaves Sweden for Britain.
November
Swedish police issue an international arrest warrant for Assange.
December
Assange surrenders to police in London and is detained pending an extradition hearing. High Court grants Assange bail.
2011
February
District court in Britain rules Assange should be extradited to Sweden.
2012
June
Assange enters Ecuadorian Embassy in central London, seeking asylum on June 19, after his bids to appeal the extradition ruling failed. Police set up round-the-clock guard to arrest him if he steps outside. August
Assange loses his bid to have an arrest warrant issued in Sweden against him canceled. A judge in Stockholm upholds the warrant alleging sexual offences against two women.
2015
March
Swedish prosecutors ask to question Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.
August
Swedish prosecutors drop investigations into some allegations against Assange because of the statute of limitations; an investigation into a rape allegation remains active. October
Metropolitan Police end their 24-hour guard outside the Ecuadorian embassy but say they’ll arrest Assange if he leaves, ending a three-year police operation estimated to have cost millions.
2016
February
Assange claims “total vindication” as the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finds that he has been unlawfully detained and recommends he be immediately freed and given compensation. Britain calls the finding “frankly ridiculous.”
2018
September
Ecuador’s president says his country and Britain are working on a legal solution to allow Assange to leave the embassy.
October
Assange seeks a court injunction pressing Ecuador to provide him basic rights he said the country agreed to when it first granted him asylum.
November
A U.S. court filing that appears to inadvertently reveal the existence of a sealed criminal case against Assange is discovered by a researcher. No details are confirmed.
2019
April
Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno blames WikiLeaks for recent corruption allegations; Ecuador’s government withdraws Assange’s asylum status. London police arrest Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy for breaching bail conditions in 2012, as well as on behalf of U.S. authorities.
May
Assange is sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012. May
The U.S. government indicts Assange on 18 charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. November
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Westminster Magistrates Court, after he was arrested in London, Britain April 11, 2019.
REUTERS/Hannah McKay
The legal saga of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange neared its end Monday as Britain's High Court considered his final appeal of a U.S. extradition request.
Facing 17 espionage charges and one for computer misuse over the 2010 publication of classified war documents, the Australian native asserts he acted as a journalist and is protected by the First Amendment. His supporters, including members of the Australian Parliament, have called for his release on legal and humanitarian grounds.
Why has this case dragged on so long? In 2012, Assange sought sanctuary in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape charges. In 2019, Ecuador revoked asylum, and UK authorities detained Assange in Belmarsh Prison for bail evasion. While Sweden retracted its sex crimes accusations, the US filed espionage charges in 2019 and sought Assange’s extradition — a move he has resisted, citing suicide risks and declining health.
If convicted, the 52-year-old Assange faces a possible 175-year sentence, though American officials claim the figure would be much lower. Assange’s spouse Stella argues the case is a political witch hunt, asserting, “If he’s extradited, he will die.”
What’s next? The UK court will hear the case for two days. If it greenlights extradition, Assange’s legal team may try to get an emergency injunction from the European Court of Human Rights.
“The right of journalists to report the facts that governments and corporations don’t wish to have revealed will be virtually criminalised if the extradition of Assange is successful.”
Julian Assange’s very last chance to escape extradition to the US will happen this week in the Royal Courts of Justice.
There could not be more at stake in a single court case than there is in the Assange case. The right of journalists to report the facts that governments and corporations don’t wish to have revealed will be virtually criminalised if the extradition of Assange is successful.
The continued persecution of Assange, who has just spent his fifth Christmas in Belmarsh prison, is part of a wider attack on civil liberties by the Tories.
The government are implementing greater powers for the police to curb political protest, a raft of anti-union legislation which will make it virtually impossible to organise a legal and effective strike, a new official secrets act, and new limitations on freedom of speech.
Success for the Tories in extraditing Julian Assange will embolden them in every other attack they are making on civil liberties and trade union rights. That’s why its in the interest of every trade unionist, everyone who cares about preserving civil liberties, to join the protests outside the Royal Courts next Tuesday and Wednesday.
The National Union of Journalists, and the International Federation of Journalists which represents 300,000 members worldwide, are supporting the protests. So is Amnesty International. They have been joined by film directors Ken Loach and Oliver Stone, musicians Brian Eno, Lowkey, and Roger Waters, MP’s Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Burgeon, and the President of the Muslim Association of Britain, Raghad Al Tikriti.
There is now a growing consensus that the Assange extradition is a wholly unjustified assault on freedom of the press. Moreover, the revelations during the extradition hearings themselves have raised the gravest doubts about the legality of the process itself.
In the course of the court hearings, it has become public knowledge that a lead witness for the prosecution lied, that Assange and his lawyers were spied on by the CIA, and that the CIA discussed at the highest levels plans to abduct or assassinate Assange.
In any normal trial any one of these, let alone all of them, would have had the case dismissed.
That has not happened in the Assange case because there is too much at stake in the ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK governments. It is this above all else that marks the Assange case out as a political trial.
In a political trial it is crucial that political pressure outside the courtroom is brought to bear to halt the abuse of the legal system that takes place in the courtroom.
That’s why protest at the court is so important.
A protest to defend a free press. Day X is here. Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st February. 8.30AM outside the Royal Courts of Justice, WC2A 2LL
The rally and demonstrations for Julian Assange take place outside the Royal Courts of Justice, WC2A 2LL, from 8.30am on Tuesday and Wednesday February 20-21.
WikiLeaks' Assange in last-ditch battle to stop U.S. extradition
A protestor holds signs outside the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court ahead of a hearing to decide whether Assange should be extradited to the United States, in London, Britain September 8, 2020.
REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo
FEB 20, 2024
LONDON - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange begins what could be his last chance to stop his extradition from Britain to the United States on Tuesday after more than 13 years battling the authorities in the English courts.
U.S. prosecutors are seeking to put Assange, 52, on trial on 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks' high-profile release of vast troves of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables.
They argue the leaks imperilled the lives of their agents and there is no excuse for his criminality. Assange's many supporters hail him as an anti-establishment hero and a journalist, who is being persecuted for exposing U.S. wrongdoing and committing alleged war crimes.
Assange's legal battles began in 2010, and he subsequently spent seven years holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London before he was dragged out and jailed in 2019 for breaching bail conditions. He has been held in a maximum-security jail in southeast London ever since, even getting married there.
Britain finally approved his extradition to the U.S. in 2022 after a judge initially blocked it because concerns about his mental health meant he would be at risk of suicide if deported.
His lawyers will try to overturn that approval at a two-day hearing in front of two judges at London's High Court in what could be his last chance to stop his extradition in the English courts. His wife Stella last week described it as a matter of life and death.
They will argue that Assange's prosecution is politically motivated and marks an impermissible attack on free speech, as the first time a publisher has been charged under the U.S. Espionage Act.
His supporters include Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, media organisations which worked with WikiLeaks and Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who last week voted in favour of a motion calling for his return to Australia.
Pope Francis even granted his wife an audience last year.
'HE WILL DIE'
If Assange wins permission in the latest case, a full appeal hearing will be held to again consider his challenge. If he loses, his only remaining option would be at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) where he has an appeal already lodged pending the London ruling.
Speaking last week, Stella Assange said they would apply to the ECHR for an emergency injunction if necessary. She said her husband would not survive if he was extradited.
"His health is in decline, physically and mentally," she said. "His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison – and if he is extradited he will die."
Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton compared the WikiLeaks founder with Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition activist who died in prison on Friday while serving a three-decade sentence.
"I know exactly what it feels like to have a loved one unjustly incarcerated with no hope," he told the BBC. "To have them pass away, that's what we live in fear of: that Julian will be lost to us, lost to the U.S. prison system or even die in jail in the UK."
WikiLeaks first came to prominence in 2010 when it published a U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
It then released thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables that laid bare often highly critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.
REUTERS
While Assange is in court, the government will also be trying to remove a crucial legal defence for activists
On 21 February at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, on the application of the Attorney General, the Court of Appeal will consider whether to remove the last remaining legal defence for many activists: the belief that the owners of property would have consented to the damage caused if they fully understood the circumstances. It is commonly known as “belief in consent“.
Until recently, it was almost unheard of for the government to interfere with legally available defences in this way.
However, following the acquittal of the Colston Four – who toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol harbour – Attorney General Victoria Prentis’ predecessor Suella Braverman made a similar intervention to prevent such a verdict being repeated in the future, which the Court of Appeal supported.
Pattern of acquittals based on belief in consent
Despite this, and other decisions of the higher courts, removing otherwise available defences (such as ‘necessity’), juries have continued to find ways to acquit people whose fundamental argument is that they are taking proportionate and necessary action to prevent a far greater harm.
In just the last few months of 2023, there were a number of high profile acquittals of activists based on belief in consent, including:A group who sprayed the Treasury with fake blood, to draw attention to the scale of UK Export Finance’s investments in fossil fuels around the world.
Nine women who broke windows at HSBC to shine a spotlight on HSBC’s £80bn financing of fossil fuel projects since the Paris Agreement. Members of Palestine Action, who defaced the property of Elbit, the British-based arms company, profiteering from the bloodshed in Gaza. Political interference in jury trials
On 20 December 2023, with public attention elsewhere, Prentice asked the Court of Appeal to consider removing this defence, citing high numbers of recent acquittals in criminal damage cases.
Just a few months previously, the Guardian reported:
Israeli embassy officials in London attempted to get the attorney general’s office to intervene in UK court cases relating to the prosecution of protesters, documents seen by the Guardian suggest.
Defendants prevented from explaining their actions in court
As a result, more and more people taking nonviolent direct action as a matter of conscience could find themselves in court with no legal defence and effectively banned from explaining their motivations to the jury.
Extinction Rebellion co-founder Dr Gail Bradbrook has already been denied the use of this defence and was therefore left without any legal defence in her trial last November for breaking a window at the Department for Transport. Others have been imprisoned just for using the words ‘climate change’ and ‘fuel poverty’ in court.
This situation, in which peaceful activists are left silenced and defenceless in court, has been described by UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, Michel Forst as “extremely concerning”.
Last month, in a report commissioned and released by the UN, he noted that:
It is very difficult to understand what could justify denying the jury the opportunity to hear the reason for the defendant’s action, and how a jury could reach a properly informed decision without hearing it, in particular at the time of environmental defenders’ peaceful but ever more urgent calls for the government to take pressing action for the climate.
When is a ruling expected?
Time and time again, when people have been to explain their motivations to a jury of their peers, and to communicate the evidence that direct action is effective in bringing about political change, juries find them not-guilty.
The Attorney General is attempting to end the pattern, even if it means compromise to fundamental legal principles, such as the right of a defendant to a serious criminal charge to explain their action to a jury of their peers.
The hearing of the Attorney General’s application will be completed on 21 February. Although the hearing may give a good indication of the Court’s position, it is common for the Court of Appeal to reserve judgement (ie to issue their ruling at a later date).
Crowds to gather for three momentous hearings
On the same day, two other momentous cases will also be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice.
The final appeal of Julian Assange against extradition to the US; and the legal challenge to the Government’s ‘net zero strategy’ brought by the Good Law Project and Friends of the Earth.
Crowds will gather at 9am on 21 February outside the court to hear from a number of expert witnesses concerning the implications of the Attorney General’s application, including a number of those who have been acquitted on the basis of the defence of consent. Featured image via Defend Our Juries
Why even Julian Assange’s critics should defend him
Britain’s political class rightly responded to the mysterious death of Alexei Navalny with an assortment of horror, outrage and indignation. The Kremlin critic’s treatment was an “appalling human rights outrage”, foreign secretary Lord Cameron said. Putin has to be “held to account”, Labour leader Keir Starmer added. So, when Julian Assange arrives at the High Court today for his final hearing, after being held without trial in Belmarsh maximum-security prison for almost five years, will the country’s political elite once again proclaim their commitment to human rights? I suspect not.
If the court rules out a further appeal, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks could be immediately extradited to the United States, where he will almost certainly be incarcerated for the rest of his life on charges of espionage — most likely in extremely punitive conditions. “If he’s extradited, he will die,” his wife Stella has said.
The British Government’s lack of concern for Assange’s fate is not surprising: they are the ones that put him in prison in the first place, after all. More worrying is the fact that much of the public also seems relatively unconcerned. This is probably the result of a campaign waged against Assange over the past decade and a half, aimed at destroying his reputation and depriving him of public support. Those not privy to the case’s details may even think that Assange is in jail because he’s been convicted for one of the many crimes he’s been accused of over the years — from rape to cyber-crime to espionage.
Yet this would be a gross misreading. Since 2019, Assange has been imprisoned in Belmarsh — and subjected to “prolonged psychological torture”, according to a UN report — despite being technically innocent before British law, since he’s never been convicted of any crime except violating his bail order when, 12 years ago, he sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 12 months.
Assange’s ordeal began in August 2010, when he was investigated in Sweden for rape and sexual molestation. Four months later, the Swedish authorities ordered his arrest. Many viewed the timing as deeply suspicious: that year, WikiLeaks’ series of exposes had rattled Western governments and dominated front pages.
By releasing hundreds of thousands of confidential Pentagon, CIA and NSA files, the organisation had exposed civilian massacres in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture, illegal “renditions”, mass surveillance programmes, political scandals, pressure on foreign governments and widespread corruption. Assange took on the ultimate level of power — that which operates behind our societies’ official democratic façade, where state bureaucracies, military-security apparatuses and all-powerful financial-corporate enterprises collude in the shadows. The Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi, who has collaborated with WikiLeaks for several years, coined the term “secret power” to describe this reality, over which citizens have no control, and often don’t even know exists.
Until WikiLeaks came along, this secret power had been largely shielded from public scrutiny, except for rare occasions, and thus allowed to operate with impunity. “For the first time in history, WikiLeaks ripped a gaping hole in this secret power,” Maurizi wrote. Today, many of us are aware of the way in which the national-security complex operates in lockstep with Big Tech and the media to censor dissenting voices. But Assange was warning us about it more than a decade ago. No wonder the system came down on him so hard.
Was there any basis to the accusations that kickstarted 14 years of “lawfare” against Assange? Several years after the Swedish authorities opened the investigation, it emerged that neither of the two alleged victims had wanted to press charges against Assange — let alone accuse him of rape. As Nils Melzer, former United National Special Rapporteur on Torture, wrote in a scathing report on the Assange case, there are “strong indications that the Swedish police and prosecution deliberately manipulated and pressured [at least one of the alleged victims], who had come to the police station for an entirely different purpose, into making a statement which could be used to arrest Mr Assange on the suspicion of rape”.
One of the many myths surrounding the case is that it never went to trial because Assange evaded justice. In reality, Assange, who was then in the UK, made himself available for questioning via several means, by telephone or video conference, or in person in the Australian embassy. But the Swedish authorities insisted on questioning him in Sweden. Assange’s legal team countered that extradition of a suspect simply to question him — not to send him to trial, as he had not been charged — was a disproportionate measure.
This was more than a technicality: Assange feared that if he were extradited to Sweden, the latter’s authorities would extradite him to the US, where he had good reason to believe he wouldn’t be given a fair trial. Sweden, after all, always refused to provide Assange a guarantee of non-extradition to the US — the reason why, when in 2012 the British Supreme Court ruled that he should be extradited to Sweden, Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. From there, however, he continued to make known his availability to be interrogated by the Swedish authorities inside the embassy, but they never replied.
And thanks to a FOIA investigation by Maurizi, we now know the reason. During this period, the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), then led by one Keir Starmer, played a crucial role in getting Sweden to pursue this highly unusual line of conduct. In early 2011, while Assange was still under house arrest, Paul Close, a British lawyer with the CPS, gave his Swedish counterparts his opinion on the case, apparently not for the first time. “My earlier advice remains, that in my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant in the UK,” he wrote. Why did the CPS advise the Swedes against the only legal strategy that could have brought the case to a rapid resolution, namely questioning Julian Assange in London, rather than insisting on his extradition?
In hindsight, the motivation behind this was more than murky: it appears to have been a matter of keeping the case in legal limbo, and Assange trapped in Britain for as long as possible. A year after Assange sought refuge in the embassy, the Swedish prosecutor was considering dropping the extradition proceedings, but was deterred from doing so by the CPS. She was concerned, among other things, about the mounting costs of the British police force guarding the embassy day and night. But for the British authorities this was not a problem; they replied that they “do not consider costs are a relevant factor in this matter”.
Meanwhile, it took the Swedish prosecutor five years to finally agree to question Assange in London — but only because the statute of limitations for two of the allegations was about to expire. However, deliberately or out of sheer incompetence, the request was sent too late for the Ecuadorian authorities to process it in time. The case relating to the two allegations thus expired.
The case regarding the third allegation, minor rape, was also closed two years later — thus ensuring that the two alleged victims would never receive any closure, and the accusations would stick to Julian forever. At this point, there was no arrest warrant hanging over Assange’s head anymore, but he remained in the embassy because if he had stepped off the premises, he would have been immediately arrested by the British police for violating his bail order (and, he feared, extradited to the US).
As a result of the Swedish authorities’ highly unusual behaviour, Assange had by then been arbitrarily and illegitimately forced into detention for seven years, as was concluded even by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Melzer, the former UN Rapporteur, would later list 50 perceived due-process violations by the Swedish authorities, including “proactive manipulation of evidence”, such as replacing the content of the women’s statement unbeknown to the latter. “[T]he Swedish authorities did everything to prevent a proper investigation and judicial resolution of their rape allegations against Assange,” Melzer concluded.
It seems, then, that the Swedish “investigation” was never about bringing justice to the alleged victims or establishing the truth; it was a way of destroying Assange by setting in motion the legal machinery that has been crushing him ever since — and of course sullying his reputation by associating his name, in the public sphere, with rape. “The Swedish “investigation” was never about bringing justice to the alleged victims.”
What role, if any, did Starmer play in all this? During the period when the CPS was overseeing Assange’s extradition to Sweden, Starmer made several trips to Washington as Director of Public Prosecutions. US records show Starmer met with Attorney General Eric Holder and a host of American and British national security officials. Using the FOIA, the British media organisation Declassified requested the itinerary for each of Starmer’s four trips to Washington with details of his official meetings, including any briefing notes. CPS replied that all the documents relative to Starmer’s trips to Washington had been destroyed. Asked for clarification, and whether the destruction of documents was routine, the CPS did not respond.
Similarly, when Maurizi submitted a FOIA request to the CPS to shed light on the correspondence between Close and the Swedish authorities, she was also told that all the data associated with Close’s account had been deleted when he retired and could not be recovered. The CPS added that the Close’s email account had been deleted “in accordance with standard procedure”, though Maurizi would later discover that this procedure was by no means standard. Since then, Maurizi has been waging a years-long legal fight to access documents related to the CPS and Assange case, but she has been systematically stonewalled by CPS — even though a judge ordered the CPS to come clean about the destruction of key documents on Assange.
Assange’s worst fears came true when, in 2019, the British authorities finally arrested him, after reaching a deal with the new pro-US Ecuadorian government. Following his arrest, the US immediately announced that it was charging Assange for computer fraud — to which they added 17 much more serious counts of alleged violations of the Espionage Act — and requested his extradition. This was the first time, in the 102 years since the draconian law’s enactment, that a journalist was charged under the Espionage Act, which makes no distinction between a spy working for a foreign government and a journalist like Assange.
The WikiLeaks founder has been fighting his extradition to the US ever since, against a British judiciary system apparently intent on punishing Assange, even disregarding fundamental principles of due process. Melzer has described the proceedings as “a show trial more redolent of an authoritarian regime than a mature democracy… whose sole purpose is to silence Assange and to intimidate journalists and the broader public worldwide”.
Paradoxically, however, this simply confirms what WikiLeaks’ had already exposed: that nominally democratic states are willing to bend and even break the law to silence those who threaten the status quo, including journalists.
This is why, even if you disagree with Assange’s methods or political ideas, this case should matter. For it is about so much more than one man: it is about whether you want to live in a society where journalists can expose the crimes of the powerful without the fear of being persecuted and imprisoned. If the British state allows Assange to be extradited to the US, it won’t just be dealing a potentially deadly blow just to one man, but to the rule of law itself.
Thomas Fazi is an UnHerd columnist and translator. His latest book is THE COVID CONSENSUS, co-authored with Toby Green.
Julian Assange’s Final Appeal
Julian Assange will make his final appeal this week to the British courts to avoid extradition. If he is extradited it is the death of investigations into the inner workings of power by the press.
If Julian Assange is denied permission to appeal his extradition to the United States before a panel of two judges at the High Court in London this week, he will have no recourse left within the British legal system. His lawyers can ask the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a stay of execution under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But it is far from certain that the British court will agree. It may order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction or may decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard by the court.
The nearly 15-year-long persecution of Julian, which has taken a heavy toll on his physical and psychological health, is done in the name of extradition to the U.S. where he would stand trial for allegedly violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, with a potential sentence of 170 years.
Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010, which were provided by U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. This vast trove of material revealed massacres of civilians, torture, assassinations, the list of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they were subjected to, as well as the Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Those who perpetrated these crimes — including the U.S. helicopter pilots who gunned down two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injured two children, all captured in the Collateral Murder video — have never been prosecuted.
Julian exposed what the U.S. empire seeks to airbrush out of history.
Julian’s persecution is an ominous message to the rest of us. Defy the U.S. imperium, expose its crimes, and no matter who you are, no matter what country you come from, no matter where you live, you will be hunted down and brought to the U.S. to spend the rest of your life in one of the harshest prison systems on earth. If Julian is found guilty it will mean the death of investigative journalism into the inner workings of state power. To possess, much less publish, classified material — as I did when I was a reporter for The New York Times — will be criminalized. And that is the point, one understood by The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El PaÃs and The Guardian, who issued a joint letter calling on the U.S. to drop the charges against him.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other federal lawmakers voted on Thursday for the United States and Britain to end Julian’s incarceration, noting that it stemmed from him “doing his job as a journalist” to reveal “evidence of misconduct by the U.S.”
The legal case against Julian, which I have covered from the beginning and will cover again in London this week, has a bizarre Alice-in-Wonderland quality, where judges and lawyers speak in solemn tones about law and justice while making a mockery of the most basic tenants of civil liberties and jurisprudence.
How can hearings go forward when the Spanish security firm at the Ecuadorian Embassy, UC Global, where Julian sought refuge for seven years, provided videotaped surveillance of meetings between Julian and his lawyers to the CIA, eviscerating attorney-client privilege? This alone should have seen the case thrown out of court.
How can the Ecuadorian government led by Lenin Moreno violate international law by rescinding Julian’s asylum status and permit London Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian Embassy — sovereign territory of Ecuador — to carry Julian to a waiting police van?
Why did the courts accept the prosecution’s charge that Julian is not a legitimate journalist?
Why did the United States and Britain ignore Article 4 of their Extradition Treaty that prohibits extradition for political offenses?
How is the case against Julian allowed to go ahead after the key witness for the United States, Sigurdur Thordarson – a convicted fraudster and pedophile – admitted to fabricating the accusations he made against Julian?
How can Julian, an Australian citizen, be charged under the U.S. Espionage Act when he did not engage in espionage and wasn’t based in the U.S when he received the leaked documents?
Why are the British courts permitting Julian to be extradited to the U.S. when the CIA — in addition to putting Julian under 24-hour video and digital surveillance while in the Ecuadorian Embassy — considered kidnapping and assassinating him, plans that included a potential shoot-out on the streets of London with involvement by the Metropolitan Police?
How can Julian be condemned as a publisher when he did not, as Daniel Ellsberg did, obtain and leak the classified documents he published?
Why is the U.S. government not charging the publisher of The New York Times or The Guardian with espionage for publishing the same leaked material in partnership with WikiLeaks?
Why is Julian being held in isolation in a high-security prison without trial for nearly five years when his only technical violation of the law is breaching bail conditions when he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy? Normally this would entail a fine.
Why was he denied bail after he was sent to HM Prison Belmarsh?
If Julian is extradited, his judicial lynching will get worse. His defense will be stymied by U.S. anti-terrorism laws, including the Espionage Act and Special Administrative Measures (SAMs). He will continue being blocked from speaking to the public — except on a rare occasion — and being released on bail. He will be tried in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia where most espionage cases have been won by the U.S. government. That the jury pool is largely drawn from those who work for or have friends and relatives who work for the CIA, and other national security agencies that are headquartered not far from the court, no doubt contributes to this string of court decisions.
The British courts, from the inception, have made the case notoriously difficult to cover, severely limiting seats in the courtroom, providing video links that have been faulty, and in the case of the hearing this week, prohibiting anyone outside of England and Wales, including journalists who had previously covered the hearings, from accessing a link to what are supposed to be public proceedings.
As usual, we are not informed about schedules or timetables. Will the court render a decision at the end of the two-day hearing on Feb. 20 and Feb. 21? Or will it wait weeks, even months, to render a ruling as it has previously? Will it permit the ECtHR to hear the case or immediately railroad Julian to the U.S.? I have my doubts about the High Court passing the case to the ECtHR, given that the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, which created the ECtHR, along with their Commissioner for Human Rights, oppose Julian’s “detention, extradition and prosecution” because it represents “a dangerous precedent for journalists.” Will the court honor Julian’s request to be present in the hearing, or will he be forced to remain in the high-security HM Prison Belmarsh in Thamesmead, south east London, as has also happened before? No one is able to tell us.
Julian was saved from extradition in January 2021 when District Judge Vanessa Baraitser at Westminster Magistrates’ Court refused to authorize the extradition request. In her 132-page ruling, she found that there was a “substantial risk” Julian would commit suicide due to the severity of the conditions he would endure in the U.S. prison system. But this was a slim thread. The judge accepted all the charges leveled by the U.S. against Julian as being filed in good faith. She rejected the arguments that his case was politically motivated, that he would not get a fair trial in the U.S. and that his prosecution is an assault on the freedom of the press.
Baraitser’s decision was overturned after the U.S. government appealed to the High Court in London. Although the High Court accepted Baraitser’s conclusions about Julian’s “substantial risk” of suicide if he was subjected to certain conditions within a U.S. prison, it also accepted four assurances in U.S. Diplomatic Note no. 74, given to the court in February 2021, which promised Julian would be treated well.
The U.S. government claimed in the diplomatic note that its assurances “entirely answer the concerns which caused the judge [in the lower court] to discharge Mr. Assange.” The “assurances” state that Julian will not be subject to SAMs. They promise that Julian, an Australian citizen, can serve his sentence in Australia if the Australian government requests his extradition. They promise he will receive adequate clinical and psychological care. They promise that, pre-trial and post-trial, Julian will not be held in the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colorado.
It sounds reassuring. But it is part of the cynical judicial pantomime that characterizes Julian’s persecution.
No one is held pre-trial in ADX Florence. ADX Florence is also not the only supermax prison in the U.S. where Julian can be imprisoned. He could be placed in one of our other Guantanamo-like facilities in a Communications Management Unit (CMU). CMUs are highly restrictive units that replicate the near total isolation imposed by SAMs. The “assurances” are not legally binding. All come with escape clauses.
Should Julian do “something subsequent to the offering of these assurances that meets the tests for the imposition of SAMs or designation to ADX” he will, the court conceded, be subject to these harsher forms of control. If Australia does not request a transfer it “cannot be a cause for criticism of the USA, or a reason for regarding the assurances as inadequate to meet the judge’s concerns,” the ruling reads. And even if that were not the case, it would take Julian 10 to 15 years to appeal his sentence up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would be more than enough time to destroy him psychologically and physically. Amnesty International said the “assurances are not worth the paper they are written on.”
Julian’s lawyers will attempt to convince two High Court judges to grant him permission to appeal a number of the arguments against extradition which Judge Baraitser dismissed in January 2021. His lawyers, if the appeal is granted, will argue that prosecuting Julian for his journalistic activity represents a “grave violation” of his right to free speech; that Julian is being prosecuted for his political opinions, something which the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty does not allow; that Julian is charged with “pure political offenses” and the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty prohibits extradition under such circumstances; that Julian should not be extradited to face prosecution where the Espionage Act “is being extended in an unprecedented and unforeseeable way”; that the charges could be amended resulting in Julian facing the death penalty; and that Julian will not receive a fair trial in the U.S. They are also asking for the right to introduce new evidence about CIA plans to kidnap and assassinate Julian.
If the High Court grants Julian permission to appeal, a further hearing will be scheduled during which time he will argue his appeal grounds. If the High Court refuses to grant Julian permission to appeal, the only option left is to appeal to the ECtHR. If he is unable to take his case to the ECtHR he will be extradiated to the U.S.
The decision to seek Julian’s extradition, contemplated by Barack Obama’s administration, was pursued by Donald Trump’s administration following WikiLeaks’ publication of the documents known as Vault 7, which exposed the CIA’s cyberwarfare programs, including those designed to monitor and take control of cars, smart TVs, web browsers and the operating systems of most smart phones.
The Democratic Party leadership became as bloodthirsty as the Republicans following WikiLeaks’ publishing of tens of thousands of emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and senior Democratic officials, including those of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman during the 2016 presidential election.
The Podesta emails exposed that Clinton and other members of Obama’s administration knew that Saudi Arabia and Qatar — which had both donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation — were major funders of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They revealed transcripts of three private talks Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs — for which she was paid $675,000 — a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe. Clinton was seen in the emails telling the financial elites that she wanted “open trade and open borders” and believed Wall Street executives were best positioned to manage the economy, a statement that contradicted her campaign promises of financial reform. They exposed the Clinton campaign’s self-described “Pied Piper” strategy which used their press contacts to influence Republican primaries by “elevating” what they called “more extreme candidates,” to ensure Trump or Ted Cruz won their party’s nomination. They exposed Clinton’s advance knowledge of questions in a primary debate. The emails also exposed Clinton as one of the architects of the war and destruction of Libya, a war she believed would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate.
Journalists can argue that this information, like the war logs, should have remained secret. But if they do, they can’t call themselves journalists.
The Democratic leadership, which attempted to blame Russia for its election loss to Trump — in what became known as Russiagate — charged that the Podesta emails and the DNC leaks were obtained by Russian government hackers, although an investigation headed by Robert Mueller, the former FBI director, “did not develop sufficient admissible evidence that WikiLeaks knew of — or even was willfully blind to” any alleged hacking by the Russian state.
Julian is persecuted because he provided the public with the most important information about U.S. government crimes and mendacity since the release of the Pentagon Papers. Like all great journalists, he was nonpartisan. His target was power.
He made public the killing of nearly 700 civilians who had approached too closely to U.S. convoys and checkpoints, including pregnant women, the blind and deaf, and at least 30 children.
He made public the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians and the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 to 89, at Guantánamo Bay detention camp.
He showed us that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the U.K., spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords.
He exposed that Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA backed the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing him with a murderous and corrupt military regime.
He revealed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians.
No other contemporary journalist has come close to matching his revelations.
Chris Hedges who graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School, worked for nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, National Public Radio and other news organizations in Latin America, the Middle East and the Balkans. He was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of global terrorism. Hedges is a fellow at the Nation Institute and the author of numerous books, including War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
