Tag Archives: Belmarsh jail

The Unrelenting State, by Craig Murray

The British and US governments are going to destroy Julian Assange by any means they can. From Craig Murray at craigmurray.org:

We are seriously worried about the condition of Julian Assange. He was too unwell to appear in court yesterday, and his Swedish lawyer, Per Samuelson, found him in a state where he was unable to conduct a conversation and give instructions. There are very definite physical symptoms, particularly rapid weight loss, and we are not satisfied that genuine and sufficient diagnostic efforts are being made to determine the underlying cause.

Julian had been held for the last year in poor, highly confining and increasingly oppressive conditions in the Ecuadorean Embassy and his health was already deteriorating alarmingly before his expulsion and arrest. A number of conditions, including dental abcesses, can have very serious consequences if long term untreated, and the continual refusal by the British government and latterly the Ecuadoreans to permit him access to adequate healthcare while a political asylee was a callous denial of basic human rights.

I confess to feeling an amount of personal relief after his arrest that at least he would now get proper medical treatment. However there now seems to be no intention to provide that and indeed since he has been in Belmarsh his health problems have accelerated. I witnessed enough of the British state’s complicity in torture to know that this may be more than just the consequence of unintended neglect. That the most lucid man I know is now not capable of having a rational conversation is extremely alarming.

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The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society, by Caitlin Johnstone

They’re killing Julian Assange. His death would be so convenient, and save everyone all that legal bother connected with rule of law, due process, and individual rights. From Caitlin Johnstone at ronpaulinstitute.org:

On the eighth of April, shortly before London police forcibly carried WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy, a doctor named Sondra S Crosby wrote a letter to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights requesting that the office look into Assange’s case. Today, following a scorching rebuke of multiple governments by UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer, mass media outlets around the world are reporting that Julian Assange has been found to be the victim of brutal psychological torture.

Melzer, who by his own admission began his investigation as someone who had “been affected by the same misguided smear campaign as everybody else” regarding Assange, speaks of Assange’s plight with the fresh-eyed ferocity of a man who has not been immersed in a soul-corroding career in establishment politics or mass media. A man has not been indoctrinated into accepting as normal the relentless, malicious character assassinations of the western political/media class against a publisher of inconvenient facts about the powerful. A man who, when looking deeply and objectively into the facts with uncorrupted vision, was able to see clearly just how unforgivably abusive Assange’s treatment has been.

“In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law,” Melzer said. “The collective persecution of Julian Assange must end here and now!”

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Julian Assange Must Never Be Extradited, by Matt Taibbi

The Espionage Act as applied to the Julian Assange indictment could set a precedent that destroys freedom of the press. From Matt Taibbi at rollingstone.com:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today sits in the Belmarsh High Security prison in southeast London. Not just for his sake but for everyone’s, we now have to hope he’s never moved from there to America.

Related: Everything Julian Assange Is Accused of, Explained

The United States filed charges against Assange early last month. The case seemed to have been designed to assuage fears that speech freedoms or the press were being targeted.

That specific offense was “computer hacking conspiracy” from back in 2010. The “crime” was absurdly thin, a claim that Assange agreed (but failed, apparently) to try to help Chelsea Manning develop an administrative password that could have helped her conceal identity as she downloaded secrets. One typewritten phrase, “No luck so far,” was the damning piece of evidence.

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Julian Assange Shows ‘Trauma’ Symptoms, UN Torture Expert Says, by Kaye Wiggins

Julian Assange’s treatment in Britain’s Belmarsh prison raises grave concerns. From Kaye Wiggins at bloomberg.com:

Julian Assange leaves Southwark Crown Court in a security van on May 1.

Julian Assange leaves Southwark Crown Court in a security van on May 1.

Photographer: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is suffering from “intense psychological trauma” as he serves a British jail sentence, and his human rights could be seriously violated if he’s extradited to the U.S., the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture said.

Assange is suffering from extreme stress and chronic anxiety, Nils Melzer, who visited him in jail this month, said Friday in a statement. If transported to the U.S. he may face a life sentence or possibly the death penalty if new charges are added, Melzer said, urging the U.K. government not to send him there.

The comments come after Assange’s attorney said her client was unwell when the Australian failed to show up for a London court hearing on Thursday in his extradition battle. The 47-year-old is serving a 50-week sentence in the U.K.’s Belmarsh jail for skipping bail and has been moved to the prison’s health ward, according to Wikileaks.

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