Mitt Romney Heckled As A ‘Traitor’ At The Airport And Inflight To DC

by Gary Leff on January 6, 2021

On Tuesday Senator Mitt Romney was flying from Salt Lake City to Washington DC on Delta – along with a plane loaded with passengers heading to the nation’s Capitol to support Donald Trump in advance of Congressional counting of electoral votes which will formalize Joe Biden as the next President.

Romney – who has said he did not vote for Trump’s re-election – has opposed efforts by some colleagues to attempt to dispute the results of the Presidential election.

In the Salt Lake City airport, a maskless woman came up to him. Before she could accost him he told her to put on her mask noting it’s a legal requirement. She said “Don’t tell me what to do” but then she did it anyway, and then asked why he isn’t supporting Trump. He said he does support the President “in things I agree with.” He wouldn’t go along with her request to support Trump’s challenge to “fraudulent votes.”

Romney responded,

We have a Constitution and the constitutional process is clear and I will follow the Constitution, and then I will explain all that when we meet in Congress.

Onboard a female passenger told a group of Trump supporters to tell Romney “what we think” and the group responded, calling him “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!” along with “Resign Mitt!”

Another man nearby told him “Your legacy is nothing” while the original woman shouted “You’re a joke, absolute joke.” Another demanded “We want to know your connection to Burisma,” the Ukrainian company on whose board Joe Biden’s son sat.

A Delta flight attendant made an announcement for passengers to sit down and clear the aisle.

Mitt Romney frequently stands on principle, it’s just that those principles keep changing. He was pro-choice as Governor of Massachusetts, then he ran for President. He instituted Romeny-care, very similar to Obamacare, but then campaigned on repealing Obamacare. He condemned Donald Trump during the primaries in advance of the 2016 Presidential election, but then sat down with Trump as a Secretary of State posting was dangled in front of him. Running for Senate he offered ‘targeted praise’ of the President before turning into a critic, with six years until any re-election. In other words he’s a politician.

And Joe Biden was probably elected because in swing states people were reading for a return to a normal politician.

Mitt Romney Heckled As A 'Traitor' At The Airport And Inflight To DC - View from the Wing

Democrat Raphael Warnock Defeated Republican Kelly Loeffler In Georgia's Runoff Race, Making Him The State's First Black Senator

The win puts Democrats on the cusp of Senate control, with one runoff race still undecided.

Ryan Brooks BuzzFeed News Reporter

Last updated on January 6, 2021, at 12:55 a.m. ET
Posted on January 5, 2021, at 11:17 p.m. ET

Megan Varner / Getty Images
Rev. Raphael Warnock meets with supporters on Jan. 5 in Marietta, Georgia.

Rev. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, defeated Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a historic runoff election in a state that has been a conservative stronghold for decades.

Decision Desk HQ projected Warnock as the race's winner just after 11 p.m. ET on Tuesday night.

Warnock is the first Black person elected to represent Georgia in the Senate and will be only one of three Black people in the Senate once his term begins. His victory is a testament to the decadeslong political organizing of Black women in Georgia, coming just two months after President-elect Joe Biden beat Trump in the state — the first Democrat to win a presidential race there since 1992.

His win brings Democrats to the cusp of total control of Congress. The party now has at least 49 seats in the Senate. If Democrat Jon Ossoff defeats Republican David Perdue in the state’s other runoff race, Democrats will have 50 seats and tiebreaking control once Vice President–elect Kamala Harris is in office.

Warnock will serve in the seat until 2022 and will be up for reelection during the 2022 midterms.

He declared victory in short remarks broadcast online after midnight Wednesday. Recounting his upbringing in coastal Georgia, Warnock recalled that his mother picked “someone else’s cotton” while he was growing up and now she had gone to the polls to pick her son to become a US senator.

“We were told that we couldn’t win this election, but tonight we proved that with hope, hard work, and with the people by our side anything is possible,” Warnock said. “Georgia, I am honored by the faith you’ve shown in me. I promise you this tonight, I’m going to the Senate to work for all of Georgia.”

Loeffler, in comments soon before Warnock's, did not concede the race, saying that votes still needed to be counted.

His win came in a critical election in the post-Trump era — it tested the limits of Trumpism and if the president’s predilection for chaos and misinformation could work for other Republicans. Would Trump loyalists be motivated to vote in an election where Trump wasn’t on the ballot? Or in one where the candidates he was supporting did not reflect his brand of populism? Would they have faith in the country’s election systems after the president spent two months spreading lies about Georgia’s voting system being rigged against him and attacking establishment Republicans? The questions are not yet fully answered, but Warnock's win helps to bring the limits of the current Republican Party into focus

Warnock has served as the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church since 2005 and often referred to scripture and religious teachings on the campaign trail. Warnock got an early boost out of a crowded field of Democrats from WNBA players who were looking to rebuke Loeffler. As a co-owner of the Atlanta Dream basketball team, Loeffler had been in a public fight with players over their political activism in support of Black Lives Matter.

Warnock, the only Black candidate in the race, faced a majority of the attacks from Republicans throughout the campaign. Loeffler spent much of the campaign labeling Warnock as a “radical” and a “socialist” and tried to tie his campaign to the "defund the police" movement that emerged from the summer of protests following the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. During the only debate of the runoff, Warnock told voters that he did not support defunding the police.

Loeffler often pointed to Warnock’s sermons as the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the spiritual home of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in attack ads and on the campaign trail. After Loeffler’s attacks on Warnock that centered around his sermons, a group of 100 religious leaders demanded that Loeffler stop her campaign’s “false characterizations of Reverend Warnock.”

The leaders said that they saw Loeffler’s attacks against Warnock as a “broader attack against the Black Church and faith traditions for which we stand.”

Warnock spent a majority of the campaign refuting Loeffler’s attacks against him in ads that featured him cuddling the dogs of his supporters. He also spent his time on the campaign trail speaking about the racial inequality that the pandemic and the government’s response to it had exposed. He often scrutinized Loeffler’s stock trading following closed-door briefings in the early days of the pandemic and the delayed coronavirus relief aid, but largely left going on the offensive against Loeffler up to Ossoff.

In a widely shared clip in the final days of the race, Ossoff told a Fox News crew in a live interview that Loeffler had been photographed on the campaign trail with a former Ku Klux Klan member — resurfacing a photo of Loeffler with a man who had been arrested in the ‘90s for assaulting a Black man in Maryland and other photos of Loeffler with white supremacists. Loeffler had previously denied knowing who the man was and denounced “all forms of hate.”

Democrats across the country intensely focused on the races in the weeks leading up to the election, with a result that could determine the first years of Joe Biden’s presidency. Progressive groups like the Working Families Party and the Sunrise Movement promoted Warnock’s campaign in their canvassing operations, hoping his win could lead to the enactment of progressive priorities along with a Democratic Senate.

FINALLY SOMEBODY CALLS IT

Democrat Jon Ossoff Has Defeated Republican David Perdue, Giving Democrats A Stunning Sweep Across Georgia’s Senate Races

Democrats won both of Georgia’s runoff races, giving them control of the Senate and a road map for future success powered by Black organizers.

Ryan Brooks NBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on January 6, 2021

Paras Griffin / Getty Images
Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock greet each other onstage during a rally at New Birth Church on Dec. 28, 2020, in Stonecrest, Georgia.

Democrat Jon Ossoff won his tight Senate race, with both Georgia Democrats defeating their Republican runoff opponents in historic victories for a stunning rebuke of President Donald Trump in a state that had been a Republican stronghold for years. With Ossoff joining Democrat Raphael Warnock in the Senate, their party will be able to take total control of Congress.

Warnock is the first Black person elected to represent Georgia in the Senate and will be one of only three Black people in the Senate once his term begins. Ossoff, 33, would be the youngest member of the Senate.

The results are a testament to the decadeslong political organizing of Black women in Georgia who worked toward expanding the electorate and protecting voting rights in the state.

“It is with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve you in the United States Senate. Thank you for the trust that you have placed in me,” Ossoff said in a video streamed online on Wednesday morning. Hours before, the campaign of his opponent, Sen. David Perdue, said it “will require time and transparency to be certain the results are fair and accurate.”

It is a close race. Decision Desk HQ has projected Ossoff will win. The vote-counting firm currently has Ossoff leading Republican Perdue by about 0.4% of the vote — about 16,000 votes — which is within the 0.5% threshold that allows Perdue to call for a recount. Georgia officials will continue counting the few remaining votes today, which are expected in areas that lean Democrat.

Ossoff’s win would push the Senate into a 50-50 split, with Vice President–elect Kamala Harris serving as a tiebreaking vote. The split would effectively give Democrats control of the Senate, removing the chamber from Sen. Mitch McConnell’s iron grip and dramatically expanding the possibilities for President-elect Joe Biden’s first years in office.

A litany of Black women-led voter registration groups like Stacey Abrams’ New Georgia Project and Black Voters Matter fanned out across the state in recent years to register new voters and protect voters from being purged from rolls. In the weeks ahead of the runoff, Progressive grassroots groups organizing across the state made the shift toward door-knocking and in-person canvassing after the party largely avoided the strategy during the general election because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump, on the other hand, spent the intervening two months claiming Georgia’s election was rigged against him — it was not, as the state’s Republican elected leaders frequently reminded him — attacking establishment Republicans in the state, and undermining the Republican base’s faith in the electoral process, and pushing lawsuits that largely focused on invalidating votes in majority Black cities. Perdue and Loeffler, then both serving in the Senate, often echoed Trump’s false claims about election fraud on the campaign trail, and in the final days of the race, they announced that they would support senators who objected to certifying the Electoral College results.

The runoff was defined by Trump’s meddling in the state’s election results after his loss in November and his failed last-ditch attempt to get more direct aid to people in the coronavirus relief package that passed Congress in December.

Ossoff and Warnock both spent the weeks in the lead up to the race hammering Perdue and Loeffler over the delayed coronavirus relief package that had stalled in Congress for months and for their stock trading during their time in the Senate.

The two Democratic challengers consistently pushed Loeffler and Perdue to support larger direct payments for eligible Americans as the pandemic surged in December. In the final weeks of the race, the two Republican senators touted the latest coronavirus relief package, which Trump then briefly refused to sign as he unsuccessfully called on Congress to increase direct payments to $2,000. Ossoff and Warnock, who supported the higher payments, pummeled the Republicans for their failure to actually make them a reality.

Ossoff, an executive of an investigative documentary production company and former aide to Rep. Hank Johnson, gained national attention in 2017 when he ran against Republican Karen Handel in a special election for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District which was seen as the first referendum on Trump’s presidency. Ossoff lost the 2017 race to Handel by 3.8%.

Warnock has served as the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church since 2005 and often referred to scripture and religious teachings on the campaign trail. Warnock got an early boost out of a crowded field of Democrats from WNBA players who were looking to rebuke Loeffler. As a co-owner of the Atlanta Dream basketball team, Loeffler had been in a public fight with players over their political activism in support of Black Lives Matter.

The Democratic wins in a state where Republicans have typically dominated in statewide elections offer the Democratic Party a road map for building in the South and changing the electoral map for years to come.

WATCH: CN Live!—‘Freedom Denied’ with Roger Waters and John Pilger

January 6, 2021


10 am EST, 3 pm GMT: WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was denied bail on Wednesday and sent back to Belmarsh prison on remand pending U.S. appeals, two days after his extradition to the U,S, was blocked on health grounds.

Join Roger Waters and John Pilger and your hosts Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria as they discussed Wednesday’s decision in Westminster Magistrate Court to deny Julian Assange bail right here:

FULL ASSANGE COVERAGE INCLUDING CHRIS HEDGES

Consortiumnews – Volume 26, Number 6—Wednesday, January 6, 2021

UK: Assange extradition refusal welcome, but UK complicit in setting 'terrible precedent'

‘The UK government should never have so willingly assisted the US in its unrelenting pursuit of Assange’ - Nils Muižnieks, AI

Responding to the decision by the Magistrate’s Court in London not to approve the extradition of Julian Assange to the US where he would face a risk of ill-treatment in prison, Nils Muižnieks, Amnesty International’s Europe Director, said:

“We welcome the fact that Julian Assange will not be sent to the USA and that the court acknowledged that due to his health concerns, he would be at risk of ill-treatment in the US prison system.

“But the charges against him should never have been brought in the first place. The charges were politically-motivated, and the UK government should never have so willingly assisted the US in its unrelenting pursuit of Assange.

“The fact that the ruling is correct and saves Assange from extradition, does not absolve the UK from having engaged in this politically-motivated process at the behest of the USA and putting media freedom and freedom of expression on trial. 

“It has set a terrible precedent for which the US is responsible and the UK government is complicit."

Risk of prolonged solitary confinement

The US extradition request is based on charges directly related to the publication of leaked classified documents as part of Assange’s work with WikiLeaks. Publishing such information is a cornerstone of media freedom and the public's right to information about government wrongdoing. Publishing information in the public interest is protected under international human rights law and should not be criminalised.

If extradited to the US, Julian Assange could have faced trial on 18 charges - 17 under the Espionage Act, and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He would also have faced a real risk of serious human rights violations due to detention conditions that could amount to torture or other ill-treatment, including prolonged solitary confinement.

Julian Assange is the first publisher to face charges under the Espionage Act.

View latest press releases

Reprieve for Assange, with a sting in the tail 

IFJ/ Tim Dawson

As Judge Vanessa Baraitser started to deliver her ruling in the Old Bailey’s number two court yesterday, nothing felt right.

In this file photo Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London. Credit: Justin Tallis/AFP


05 January 2021

Proceedings started late. Julian Assange slumped in the dock, surrounded by bullet-proof glass, his clothes flapping slightly around his diminished frame. The ‘Don’t Extradite Assange’ campaign had decided against a rally outside the court building because of the risk of spreading covid. The very air tasted sour.

As Baraitser intoned her summary judgement, the atmosphere deteriorated. She dismissed the defence case unequivocally, point by point. The protection of those accused of political offences implied by the US/UK Extradition Treaty was worthless in this case. Assange is accused of actions that would be offences in the UK, she told the court. His actions could not be compared to those of an investigative journalist and by dumping data he had adversely affected scores of US contacts.

She declined to consider the uncontested evidence that CIA contacts bugged the Ecuadorian Embassy to snoop on Assange’s meetings with lawyers. And she found ample evidence that a fair trial would be available, once the Wikileaks founder arrived in Virginia.

By now, Assange appeared to be deflating in the dock before our eyes. One sensed a great weight pressing on the usually ebullient shoulders of Edward Fitzgerald QC, who leads Assange’s legal team.

Baraitser’s cautious delivery continued as she reached her conclusion, providing no prompt of a change in her direction of travel.

In September the extradition hearing spent a week considering medical evidence relating to Assange. Much of it was harrowing and, unlike all the other expert statements, written copies were not released to the media – despite formal protests.

Baraitser, however, accepted most of the doctors’ and psychiatrists’ conclusions. Assange has a personal and family history of suicide attempts, he suffers deep, long-term depression. He also has Autism spectrum disorders. These have been managed with some success in HMP Belmarsh, the judge told the court.

Then she turned to conditions in the US ‘supermax’ prison, ADX Colorado, where it is generally accepted Assange would have been sent, if he had been sentenced by a US court.

“Faced with the conditions of near total isolation… I am satisfied the procedures described by the US will not prevent Mr Assange from finding a way to commit suicide and for this reason I have decided extradition would be oppressive by reason of mental harm and I order his discharge”,

The air in court felt suddenly lighter. A broad smile flashed across Assange’s face, and the handful of Wikileaks staff in court were animated anew.

Clair Dobbin, the barrister representing the US government, was quick to her feet, insisting that an appeal against the ruling would be immediately forthcoming. Her interjections are always highly controlled, but anger apparently underscored her words. Edward Fitzgerald, meanwhile, had rediscovered his Tiggerish bounce. He requested his client’s immediate release.

That may happen on Wednesday. The court hearing will reconvene at Westminster Magistrates (its real home). Fitzgerald promises to make a case featuring both the deteriorating conditions at Belmarsh and a considerable package of measures to reassure the court that Assange would not abscond.

This is a stunning victory for free speech, common sense and humanity. Assange heard the news from the same dock where the ‘Guilford Four’ were wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975. It would be refreshing to think that yesterday’s judgement showcases a new era when British justice can be rightly praised for its compassion, fairness and honesty.

A little restraint with the champagne is required, however, as the response from the National Union of Journalists makes clear. “The judge rejected the defence case that the charges against Assange related to actions identical to those undertaken daily by most investigative journalists”, commented General Secretary, Michelle Stanistreet. "In doing so, she leaves open the door for a future US administration to confect a similar indictment against a journalist.”

It is a prudent caution. Of course, it is hard to imagine a similar circumstances prevailing – the most extensive and damaging national security leaks in history, an ex-CIA director running US foreign policy, and a president whose grasp on reality is tenuous at best.

As became clear during the extradition hearing, however, this conjunction appeared against a backdrop that is increasingly challenging for those who report defence and security issues. Several witnesses described US administrations ‘going into overdrive’ to classify more and more information. Rising levels of hostility to the media have been fuelled by administrations of both stripes increasing enthusiasm for chasing down and denigrating leakers who were clearly honestly intentioned. It makes it hard to believe that Assange will be the last person the US tries to prosecute for acts of journalism.

Assange departed the dock yesterday, wreathed in smiles, having caught a quick chat through the security glass with his partner Stella Morris. He faces challenges too – not least adjusting to freedoms that he has not enjoyed for a decade.

His defence made much of his appreciation of transparency, methodical checking, and concern for the welfare of others. If he chooses to return to public life at some point, my hope would be that he makes these his guiding principles.

The IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 146 countries

Reprieve for Assange, with a sting in the tail / Tim Dawson - IFJ

Julian Assange: The right decision for the wrong reason

Andrew Korybko

 Opinion 09:04, 05-Jan-2021

Supporters of Julian Assange protest outside the Old Bailey as the extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange resumes in London, England, September 7, 2020. /Getty

Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

A British judge ruled on January 4, 2021, that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange shouldn't be extradited to the United States. He's been held for a little less than two years after being arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he had previously received asylum. 

Assange is facing 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse for publishing leaked U.S. government documents passed along to him by Chelsea Manning which prove America's complicity in war crimes and diplomatic malfeasance. If convicted, he could face up to 175 years in jail.

The judge disagreed that the charges against him were politically motivated, but believed that he'd try to kill himself if he was sent to the U.S. for trial. She cited his depression, autism spectrum disorder, and the tough prison conditions that he'd suffer under. This was arguably the right decision, but for the wrong reasons. There's no doubt that Assange is being persecuted by the U.S. government for fulfilling his role as an independent journalist by publishing leaked documents that are in the public interest.

It's one thing to claim that Chelsea Manning – an active U.S. army analyst at the time who passed along the documents in question – committed a crime, and another entirely to allege the same about Australian citizen Assange. In effect, the U.S. carried out an international witch hunt against him driven by its unipolar hegemonic obsession with expanding its extrajudicial sway across the world. The purpose in doing so was to deter other foreign journalists from ever following in his footsteps and leaking classified documents.

Assange's saga has been going on for over a decade now since he published the first of Manning's documents in 2010. In the time since, he's become a global icon for press freedom, human rights, and peaceful resistance to the U.S.' aggression abroad. His case captivated the world's attention, and he became the most well-known journalist in the world. His supporters praise him for his bravery in taking what have since become life-changing risks in pursuit of the truth while his detractors regard him as a dangerous threat to U.S. government interests.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange prepares to speak from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy where he continues to seek asylum following an extradition request from Sweden in 2012, in London, England, February 5, 2016. /Getty

There had earlier been some speculation that outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump might consider pardoning Assange, but it was actually his administration under which the sealed indictment against him was revealed in 2018. Arguments in favor of this scenario are that he did nothing wrong with respect to the Manning incident, and that if anything, he inadvertently helped the Trump campaign in 2016 by publishing leaked documents about the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. 

Trump's opponents, meanwhile, predictably argue that any possible pardon would be the result of self-interested corruption because of Assange's role in indirectly influencing the results of the 2016 election. Some of them even believe that the Wikileaks founder was secretly coordinating with the Russian government, which had been accused of hacking those embarrassing documents. It remains to be seen whether Trump will end up issuing the speculated pardon, and whether incoming U.S. President Joe Biden will continue the case if he doesn't.

At any rate, it's a welcome development that Assange wasn't extradited to the U.S., though the American government plans to appeal the decision. This hints that Trump probably won't pardon him like his supporters hope, even though he could still do so on humanitarian grounds and/or to spite Biden. Assange deserves to be free since he's not a spy but a journalist. His whole life was ruined simply for reporting the truth about American military crimes, sensitive diplomatic issues, and embarrassing truths about the DNC and Hillary.

The latest news is that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that he'd be interested in granting Assange asylum if the UK releases him. It's still not clear whether London will ultimately let him go or not, but Obrador deserves to be commended for publicly taking a principled stand on this important issue of press freedom and human rights. The judge was right, Assange will likely try to kill himself if he's extradited to the U.S., but she was wrong in claiming that he's not being politically persecuted.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)

 

Opinion: Julian Assange wins, but threat to press remains

The ruling to block the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder to the United States is good news for Julian Assange. However, it does not go far enough in terms of protecting press freedom, DW's Matthias von Hein writes.

    

Supporters of Assange celebrate the court's ruling not to allow his extradition to the US

Following a trial that was extremely unfair in many respects, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser has ruled against allowing Britain to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States. Many observers had assumed that Britain's judiciary would sacrifice its independence, the rights of Assange and press freedom on behalf of the country's "special relationship" with the United States. After all, the courts had hampered Assange's defense at every turn. It is a cause for celebration that this British court did not give in — but it is not a cause for relief. 

Baraitser did not go to bat for investigative journalism. She merely accepted the argument that Assange would likely face harsh conditions in detention in the United States and could go on to commit suicide under those circumstances. 

DW's Matthias von Hein

The judge expressly contradicted the defense, who argued that Assange was being persecuted because of his journalistic activities, that his exposing of US war crimes and other wrongdoings was in the public interest, and that the trial was politically motivated. In short, Baraitser agreed on almost all points with the arguments put forward by the US government. As a result, both Julian Assange and press freedom remain at risk.

Assange's 'psychological torture'

In December US President Donald Trump pardoned four Blackwater private security contractors who had been convicted of war crimes for a massacre in Baghdad that left 14 unarmed civilians dead. The calls to respect much-vaunted American values and to pardon Assange for his role in exposing war crimes went unheeded. 

The persecution of Assange has undermined the claims that Britain, the United States and the EU are the guardians of humanitarian values. This became abundantly clear in November, when a BBC correspondent confronted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with critical questions about restrictions on press freedoms. Aliyev fired back, saying the UK had no right to lecture other countries about human rights and press freedom given the way it had treated Assange. 

So where do things go from here? The US government has already announced that it intends to appeal the ruling. It could be years before the case makes its way through the courts. Assange should not have to spend this time locked up in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London, which has been dubbed Britain's Guantanamo. After visiting the prison in 2019, UN Special Rapporteur for Torture Nils Melzer said Assange "showed all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture." Assange has spent 19 months in the prison, over half of that time in solitary confinement there, though he has not been convicted of any crime.

The first step should be to finally release Assange into house arrest to await the conclusion of the appeals process. It is hard to understand why an investigative journalist should be detained under harsher conditions than a mass murderer. The Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, for example, was permitted to await his extradition proceedings in house arrest in a mansion in a private estate close to London. 

And we must remember to keep up public pressure on the authorities after this latest decision. We owe it to Julian Assange and to press freedom.

WTF

WikiLeaks founder Assange denied bail despite US extradition block

Issued on: 06/01/2021 - 

Mexico said it was ready to offer political asylum to Assange 

Pedro PARDO AFP

London (AFP)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will have to remain in custody in Britain, pending a US appeal of the decision to block his extradition to face charges for leaking secret documents, a judge in London ruled Wednesday.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser told Westminster Magistrates Court there were "substantial grounds for believing that if Mr Assange is released today he will fail to surrender" for the appeal hearings.

"Mr Assange still has an incentive to abscond from these as yet unresolved proceedings," she said.

"As a matter of fairness the United States must be able to challenge my decision. If Mr Assange absconds during this process then they will have lost the opportunity to do so."

The US had earlier urged Baraitser not to release the 49-year-old, while it prepares to challenge Baraitser's decision on mental health grounds to block his extradition to face charges for publishing secret documents.

Lawyer Clair Dobbin, representing the government in Washington, told the court there were "no conditions that could guarantee his surrender" if he were freed from custody.

"The history of his attempts to evade extradition to the United States demonstrated that he is capable of going to any length to avoid that possibility," she added.

Assange was in court to hear the application and ruling, two days after an unexpected decision Monday to block his removal to the United States on the grounds he was a suicide risk.

Dobbin said the court "should be under no doubt about his resources to abscond", pointing to his previous flouting of bail conditions, and an offer of political asylum, notably from Mexico.

But Assange's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said he should be freed, after spending 15 months in custody awaiting the extradition proceedings.

"We say after all this time, after the long proceedings over a year... the court has given a decision and the decision has been that he should be discharged," he added.

- Diplomatic refuge -

Assange is wanted to face 18 charges relating to the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Washington claims he helped intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal the 2010 documents before exposing confidential sources around the world.

He faces a possible 175-year sentence if convicted but Assange and his lawyers have long argued the case against him is politically motivated.

He has been held at the high-security Belmarsh prison in southeast London.

A previous request for bail in March on the grounds he was vulnerable to Covid-19 while behind bars was rejected because the judge assessed he was likely to abscond.

Assange sought sanctuary in Ecuador's embassy in 2012, after Sweden issued an arrest warrant in connection with sexual assault allegations.

He spent seven years at the South American country's London mission until the government in Quito revoked his citizenship.

British police dragged him out and arrested him in 2019.

He was then sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for breaching his bail terms in connection with the Swedish case, which was later dropped due to lack of evidence.

The UN called the sentence "disproportionate".

- 'Criminalising' journalism -

Assange's long-running legal woes have become a cause celebre for media freedom, even though the judge hearing the case said he did have a case to answer.

Baraitser on Monday said he would have been "well aware" of the effects of his leaking of secret documents, and his actions went "well beyond" the role of a journalist.

But she said extradition would be "oppressive" as his mental health would probably deteriorate in the US penal system, "causing him to commit suicide".

She rejected US experts' testimony that Assange would be protected from self-harm, noting that others such as disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein had managed to kill themselves in custody despite supervision.

UN rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer applauded the decision to block his extradition, and said he should be freed and compensated for his ordeal, which amounted to arbitrary detention.

The United States has called the ruling "extremely disappointing" and has faced calls from WikiLeaks, as well as rights and media freedom groups to drop the appeal.

© 2021 AFP

London court denies bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Issued on: 06/01/2021 -

Police speak to a supporter of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange outside Westminster Magistrates court in London as he appears for a bail hearing on January 6, 2021.

 © Justin Tallis, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will have to remain in custody, pending a US appeal that blocked his extradition to face charges for leaking secret documents, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ordered Assange to remain in prison while the courts consider an appeal by U.S. authorities against a decision not to extradite him.

On Monday, the judge rejected an American request to send Assange to the U.S. to face espionage charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret military documents a decade ago.


She denied extradition on health grounds, saying the 49-year-old Australian was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions.

The judge said Wednesday that Assange “has an incentive to abscond” and there is a good chance he would fail to return to court if freed.

Assange has been detained at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since April 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle seven years earlier.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser was presiding over a bail hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court, two days after she rejected an American request to send Assange to the U.S. to face espionage charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret military documents a decade ago.

The judge denied extradition on health grounds, saying the 49-year-old Australian is likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. The judge ruled "the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America.”

John Pilger

@johnpilger

Judge Baraitser has refused to grant Julian #Assange bail - even though she acknowledges his extreme suffering in prison. Such is the Queen of Cruelty. But there is an informed hint from Washington that Biden may not pursue an appeal to the UK High Court, where Julian will win.

4:58 AM · Jan 6, 2021

Lawyers for the U.S. government say they will appeal the decision, and the U.S. Department of Justice says it will continue to seek Assange’s extradition.

Clair Dobbin, a British lawyer acting for the U.S., said Assange had shown he would go “to almost any length” to avoid extradition, and it was likely he would flee if granted bail.

She noted that Assange had spent seven years inside Ecuadorian Embassy in London after seeking refuge there from a Swedish extradition request in 2012.

Dobbin said Assange had the “resources, abilities and sheer wherewithal” to evade justice once again, and noted that Mexico has said it will offer him asylum.

But Assange's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said the judge's decision to refuse extradition “massively reduces” any motivation to abscond.

"Mr. Assange has every reason to stay in this jurisdiction where he has the protection of the rule of law and this court’s decision," he said.

Fitzgerald also said Assange would be safer at home with his partner Stella Moris and two young sons — fathered while he was in the embassy — than in prison, where there is “a very grave crisis of Covid.”

>> Assange's extradition trial a test for press freedom, rights groups say

U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

U.S. prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that were later published by WikiLeaks.

Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The judge rejected that argument in her extradition ruling, saying Assange’s actions, if proven, would amount to offenses “that would not be protected by his right to freedom of speech.” She also said the U.S. judicial system would give him a fair trial.

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was beyond the reach of U.K. and Swedish authorities — but also effectively was a prisoner in the tiny diplomatic mission.

The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested him for breaching bail in 2012.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed, but Assange has remained in prison throughout his extradition hearing.

(AP)

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange denied bail in UK after avoiding extradition

CGTN   

Europe 20:26, 06-Jan-2021

Julian Assange was told he would not be extradited to the U.S. on Monday. /Jack Taylor/Getty

 

Julian Assange has been refused bail by a London court on Wednesday, two days after successfully avoiding extradition to the U.S. to face charges of breaking a spying law and conspiring to obtain secret documents by hacking government computers.

Lawyers had previously sought bail for the WikiLeaks co-founder, but did so with more confidence after Monday's ruling by judge Vanessa Baraitser that procedures in U.S. prisons might not prevent him from potentially taking his own life.

Assange has been held at the maximum-security Belmarsh prison in southeast London for the past 18 months after being evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he sought asylum for seven years.

On Monday, Baraitser supported arguments by lawyers for the U.S. that Assange should be extradited for publishing vast quantities of military and diplomatic secrets. But she also heard extensive evidence that after years of what Assange's partner Stella Moris described as political persecution, the activist was now a "depressed and sometimes despairing man."

Twice mentioning the suicide of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself on remand in New York two years ago, Baraitser ruled against extradition. The U.S. penal system, she said, was apparently incapable of preventing him from committing suicide.

Flushed with the success of keeping Assange inside UK borders, lawyers sought to make him free to reside in Britain with his partner and two children.

They say conditions at Belmarsh, where he has been held on remand for the past 20 months, are inhuman. His supporters claim the overwhelming majority of inmates on his wing have been infected with COVID-19.

Assange's partner Stella Moris has spoken about how depressed he is. /Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty

Assange's partner Stella Moris has spoken about how depressed he is. /Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty

However, Baraitser will have been acutely aware that after previously being bailed by a British court Assange spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy to escape charges of sex crimes in Sweden – charges which he fully denied and which were eventually dropped.

Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had hailed the British court's Monday ruling as a "triumph of justice," adding that his country would offer Assange political asylum if the UK freed him. Such support might have hindered Assange's case.

However, it remains to be seen if the incoming White House administration under Joe Biden continues to seek Assange's extradition.

Assange was sought for trial by U.S. prosecutor Zachary Terwilliger, but the Donald Trump appointee has recently announced he is stepping down as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia – and publicly expressed doubt as to whether the case will continue. 

"It will be very interesting to see what happens with this case," he said. "There'll be some decisions to be made. Some of this does come down to resources and where you're going to focus your energies."