Tag Archives: Julian Assange

Biden Under Mounting Pressure To Drop Charges Against Julian Assange, by Tyler Durden

Posted on December 13, 2022 | Leave a comment

We’ll believe it when we see it, but this the first time in years anyone in the media has speculated that Julian Assange might be freed. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

While the Biden administration claims to champion a free and transparent press – with Attorney General Merrick Garland instituting expanded protections for journalists in October, during which he said “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy,” calls have been growing for Biden to release perhaps the most famous political prisoner in the world; Julian Assange.

According to The Guardian – which ironically has one of the worst records when it comes to pro-establishment / anti-Assange reporting, “the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act.”

Assange notably exposed US war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, which included 400,000 field reports about the Iraq War; 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians; and systematic rape, torture and murder committed by Iraqi forces after the U.S. military “handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad,” according to TruthOut.

WikiLeaks also disclosed the Afghan War Logs, which are 90,000 reports of more civilian casualties by coalition forces than the U.S. military had admitted to. And its revelations additionally included the Guantánamo Files, 779 secret reports showing that 150 innocent people had been held there for years and documenting the torture and abuse of 800 men and boys in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

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Cryptome Founder Asks to Be Indicted With Assange

Posted on December 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

John Young did the same thing Assange did before Assange did it. Assange is looking at a 170-year prison sentence. John Young has never been indicted, but now he’s asking to be indicted. From Joe Lauria at consortiumnews.com:

John Young, the founder of the Cryptome website, has asked the U.S. Justice Department to also indict him as he published un-redacted State Dept. files before WikiLeaks did, reports Joe Lauria.

The founder of a U.S.-based website that earlier published the same un-redacted documents that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was later indicted for has invited the U.S. Department of Justice to make him a co-defendant with Assange.

“Cryptome published the decrypted unredacted State Department Cables on September 1, 2011 prior to publication of the cables by WikiLeaks,”  John Young wrote in a Justice Department submission form, which Young posted on Twitter on Tuesday.

“No US official has contacted me about publishing the unredacted cables since cryptome published them,” he wrote. “I respectfully request that the Department of Justice add me as a co-defendant in the prosecution of Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act.”

Assange has been charged with possession and dissemination of classified information, some of the same material that Young possesses and disseminated.

Young founded Cryptome, which he calls a “free public library” in 1996. It was a precursor of WikiLeaks in publishing raw, classified and unclassified government documents on the internet.

Young testified at Assange’s extradition hearing in London in September 2020. His sworn statement says:

“I published on Cryptome.org unredacted diplomatic cables on September 1, 2011 under the URL https://cryptome.org/z/z.7z and that publication remains available at the present. … Since my publication on Cryptome.org of the unredacted diplomatic cables, no US law enforcement authority has notified me that this publication of the cables is illegal, consists or contributes to a crime in any way, nor have they asked for them to be removed.”

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The Guardian Could Help Assange By Retracting All The Lies It Published About Him, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on November 30, 2022 | Leave a comment

For unknown reasons, several mainstream media outlets are coming out in support of Julian Assange after years of hostility towards him. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

The Guardian has joined The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País in signing a letter from the five papers which collaborated with WikiLeaks twelve years ago in the publication of the Chelsea Manning leaks to call for the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange. This sudden jolt of mainstream support comes as news breaks that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been personally pushing the US government to bring the Assange case to a close.

The Guardian’s participation in this letter is particularly noteworthy, given the leading role that publication has played in manufacturing public support for his persecution in the first place. If The Guardian really wants to help end the persecution of the heroic WikiLeaks founder, the best way to do that would be to retract those many smears, spin jobs and outright lies, and to formally apologize for publishing them.

This is after all the same Guardian which published the transparently ridiculous and completely invalidated 2018 report that Trump lackey Paul Manafort had met secretly with Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy, not once but multiple times. Not one shred of evidence has ever been produced to substantiate this claim despite the embassy being one of the most heavily surveilled buildings on the planet at the time, and the Robert Mueller investigation, whose expansive scope would obviously have included such meetings, reported absolutely nothing to corroborate it. It was a bogus story which all accused parties have forcefully denied and no serious person believes is true, yet to this day it still sits on The Guardian’s website without retraction of any kind.

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Because ‘Publishing Is Not a Crime,’ Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Assange Charges, by Jake Johnson

Posted on November 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

The appeal is years too late, and the bitter reality is that late may be no better than never. However, the Assange team and its supporters around the world will take whatever they can get at this point. From Jake Johnson at commondreams.org:

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” The Guardian, The New York Times, and other media outlets warned.

The five major media outlets that collaborated with WikiLeaks in 2010 to publish explosive stories based on confidential diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department sent a letter Monday calling on the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange, who has been languishing in a high-security London prison for more than three years in connection with his publication of classified documents.

“Twelve years after the publication of ‘Cablegate,’ it is time for the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets,” reads the letter signed by the editors and publishers of The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País. “Publishing is not a crime.”

The letter comes as Assange, the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, is fighting the U.S. government’s attempt to extradite him to face charges of violating the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. If found guilty on all counts, Assange would face a prison sentence of up to 175 years for publishing classified information—a common journalistic practice.

Press freedom organizations have vocally warned that Assange’s prosecution would pose a threat to journalists the world over, a message that the five newspapers echoed in their letter Monday.

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Media Serve the Governors, Not the Governed, by Joe Lauria

Posted on November 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

The mainstream media afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable. From Joe Lauria at consortiumnews.com:

Since 2006 WikiLeaks has been censuring governments with governments’ own words. It has been doing the job the U.S. constitution intended the press to do, says Joe Lauria.

In his 1971 opinion in the Pentagon Papers case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote:

“In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government.”

That’s what WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have been doing since 2006: censuring governments with governments’ own words pried from secrecy by WikiLeaks’ sources—whistleblowers. In other words, WikiLeaks has been doing the job the U.S. constitution intended the press to do.

Justice Hugo Black. (Library of Congress)

One can hardly imagine anyone sitting on today’s U.S. Supreme Court writing such an opinion. Even more troubling is the news media having turned its back on its mission. Today they almost always serve the governors—not the governed.

The question is why.

Consolidation of media ownership has increased obedience of desperate journalists; entertainment divisions have taken over news departments; and careerist reporters and editors live vicariously through the power of those they cover, rejecting the press’ unique power to hold those officials to account.

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US Officials Concern Troll About World Press Freedoms While Assaulting Them, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on November 24, 2022 | Leave a comment

This is putrid, rank hypocrisy. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

I will never get used to living in a world where our rulers will openly imprison a journalist for telling the truth and then self-righteously pontificate about the need to stop authoritarian regimes from persecuting journalists.

Just today US State Department spokesman and CIA veteran Ned Price tweeted disapprovingly about the Kyrgyz Republic’s decision to deport investigative journalist Bolot Temirov to Russia, where press freedom groups are concerned that the Russian citizen could face conscription to fight in Ukraine.

“Dismayed by the decision to deport journalist Bolot Temirov from the Kyrgyz Republic,” said Price. “Journalists should never be punished for doing their job. The Kyrgyz Republic has been known for its vibrant civil society — attempts to stifle freedom of expression stain that reputation.”

This would be an entirely reasonable statement for anyone else to make. If you said it or I said it, it would be completely legitimate. But when Ned says it, it is illegitimate.

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‘UK executive is wining and dining with people plotting the assassination of my husband’, by Matt Kennard

Posted on November 11, 2022 | Leave a comment

Stella Assange, Julian Assange’s wife, is a remarkable woman. From Matt Kennard at declassifieduk.org:

Declassified sits down with Stella Assange, the wife of the WikiLeaks founder, to talk about how he’s holding up in his fourth year inside Belmarsh prison—and how his case threatens the very core of freedom itself.

 

  • “I think they keep him in Belmarsh because they can get away with it. It’s the most effective way of silencing him.”
  • “I’m convinced Julian cannot survive under the conditions the US will put him in. The only reason he’s surviving now is because he’s able to see me and the children.”
  • “If the UK press had reported fairly and critically about this case, would Julian be in Belmarsh prison today? I don’t believe so.”
  • “These concepts of independence and fairness are the only thing that stand between us and a complete darkness of raw power where they can just crush you.”

“Julian is fighting for his survival and he’s going through hell, that’s the best way to put it,” Stella Assange says when I ask how he’s doing.

The wife of the world’s most famous political prisoner is speaking to Declassified as part of her relentless battle to save her husband’s life.

“Sometimes it’s been really, really very difficult for him, and sometimes when he’s able to see the children, when he’s with the children, when there’s progress in the case, then he’s energised,” she adds. “And he’s energised by all the support that he sees out there for him. He gets letters of support and expressions of support constantly.”

One thing immediately noticeable when talking with Stella is she has the same unusual intensity and focus as her husband. For anyone who has met Julian, the similarities are striking.

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Chris Hedges: The Puppets & the Puppet Masters

Posted on October 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

Julian Assange and Wikileaks revealed how the Deep State operates, and they’re never going to forgive or forget. From Chris Hedges at consortiumnews.com:

This is the speech given by Chris Hedges outside the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Oct. 8, at a rally that called on the U.S. to revoke its extradition request for Julian Assange.

Merrick Garland and those who work in the Department of Justice are the puppets, not the puppet masters. They are the façade, the fiction, that the longstanding persecution of Julian Assange has something to do with justice. Like the High Court in London, they carry out an elaborate judiC.I.A.l pantomime. They debate arcane legal nuances to distract from the Dickensian farce where a man who has not committed a crime, who is not a U.S. citizen, can be extradited under the Espionage Act and sentenced to life in prison for the most courageous and consequential journalism of our generation.

The engine driving the lynching of Julian is not here on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is in Langley, Virginia, located at a complex we will never be allowed to surround – the Central Intelligence Agency. It is driven by a secretive inner state, one where we do not count in the mad pursuit of empire and ruthless exploitation. Because the machine of this modern leviathan was exposed by Julian and WikiLeaks, the machine demands revenge.

The United States has undergone a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion. It is no longer a functioning democracy. The real centers of power, in the corporate, military and national security sectors, were humiliated and embarrassed by WikiLeaks. Their war crimes, lies, conspiracies to crush the democratic aspirations of the vulnerable and the poor, and rampant corruption, here and around the globe, were laid bare in troves of leaked documents.

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Julian Assange and Our Impunity Democracy, by James Bovard

Posted on October 8, 2022 | Leave a comment

In America you’re much more liable to get in trouble for telling the truth, particularly about the American government, than for telling a lie, which has become routine and commonplace. From James Bovard at mises.org:

On Saturday, protests supporting Julian Assange will occur around the world. In London, Assange supporters will link arms around the parliament building. Protests will also occur outside the Justice Department headquarters in Washington (I’ll be one of the speakers), D.C., and in San Francisco, Tulsa, Denver, and Seattle, as well as in Australia.

Four years ago, I wrote a USA Today column calling for Assange to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom. My piece failed to sway the Trump White House and the Biden administration has taken up the prosecution of one of the most important truth tellers of this century. Assange has been locked away for years in a maximum-security prison in Britain. He is facing extradition to face 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information. If the Brits deliver Assange to the U.S. government, he has almost no chance for a fair trial because of how prosecutions are rigged in federal court.

The last four years have revealed why activists like Assange, who has been held for years in a maximum-security British prison, are vital to any hope of making rulers accountable to the citizenry. Attorney General Ramsey Clark warned in 1967, “Nothing so diminishes democracy as secrecy.” At this point, America is an Impunity Democracy in which government officials pay no price for their abuses.

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Watch Stella Assange Slap The Mustache Off John Bolton’s War Criminal Face, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on October 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

There’s a moment we all crave when somebody actually gets to call power to account in a face-to-face encounter. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

Stella Assange just delivered a beatdown on one of her husband’s persecutors that was so scorched-earth demolishing I feel like I need a cigarette after watching it.

In an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the wife of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange explained the threat her husband’s persecution poses to press freedoms around the world and the profound suffering his imprisonment has inflicted upon him. As some kind of bizarre counter-balance to the family of a persecuted journalist pleading for basic human rights, Morgan invited on John Bolton, the man who was the National Security Advisor to President Trump when Assange was imprisoned under a US arrest warrant. Which if you think about i is kind of like having a sex trafficking victim on your show and then bringing in Ghislaine Maxwell for a balanced perspective.

After Morgan introduced the segment and Assange laid out some facts of her husband’s plight, Bolton was given the floor to explain why persecuting a journalist for telling the truth is actually good and right. He went over the usual smearmeister talking points that Assange is not a journalist and endangered people around the world with his publications exposing US war crimes, adding that the possible 175-year sentence Assange stands to face if convicted under Espionage Act was inadequate, and that he hoped Assange “gets at least 176 years in jail for what he did.”

Stella responded by calling Bolton a war criminal, right to his bloodthirsty face.

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