Tag Archives: Julian Assange’s health

Britain treats convicted mass killers better than it’s treating Julian Assange. From Joe Lauria at consortiumnews.com:

WikiLeaks on Wednesday said it was gravely concerned for the health of its publisher, Julian Assange, and questioned Britain’s “standing as a human-rights abiding nation.”

WikiLeaks has condemned Britain for its treatment of Julian Assange, expressing “grave concerns” for the health of its publisher who has been transferred to the health ward of Belmarsh prison in London.

In a statement released on Twitter on Wednesday, the publication also condemned Ecuador for having created conditions “incompatible with basic human rights” for Assange, who had been granted asylum in its London embassy and remained there for seven years. He was cutoff the last year from the internet with only minimal visits permitted.

Assange is serving a 50-week sentence in the maximum-security prison for skipping bail in 2012 when he was wanted for questioning by Sweden on sexual assault allegations. That year he entered Ecuador’s embassy and remained there until British police were invited in to arrest Assange on April 11.

He had sought asylum fearing onward extradition from Sweden to the United States to face charges under the Espionage Act.  As he had predicted, the U.S. filed an extradition request with Britain the day he was arrested, and last Thursday he was charged under the Espionage Act for possessing and disseminating classified information.

Britain had twice ignored rulings by the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention that the UK should let Assange free and pay him compensation. “The UK’s refusal to abide by UN rulings, and its subsequent treatment of Mr. Assange since his arrest, presents serious questions about the UK’s standing as a human rights-abiding nation,” WikiLeaks said in its statement.

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There’s no denying that it would be extremely convenient to many of the powers that be if Assange helpfully died while in prison. May they’re helping him along. From Caitlin Johnstone at medium.com:

Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer Per Samuelson has told the press that “Assange’s health situation on Friday was such that it was not possible to conduct a normal conversation with him.”

This jarring revelation has been reported by a small handful of outlets, but only as an aside in relation to Sweden refusing Samuelson’s request for a postponement of a scheduled hearing regarding Assange’s detention in absentia for a preliminary investigation of rape allegations. The fact that the imprisoned WikiLeaks founder is so ill that he can’t converse lucidly is itself far more significant than the postponement refusal, yet headlines mentioning Samuelson’s statement focus on the Swedish case, de-emphasizing the startling news from his lawyer.

As of this writing I’ve been able to find very few news outlets reporting on this at all, the most mainstream being a Reuters article with the very tame headline “Swedish court rejects delay of Assange hearing over ill-health: lawyer”. The Sydney Morning Herald also covered the story without even mentioning illness in headline, instead going with “Swedish court rejects effort to delay Assange hearing”. The much smaller alternative media outlet World Socialist Website has been the only outlet I’ve found so far which reports on Samuelson’s statement in anything resembling its proper scale, publishing a good article titled “Despite Assange’s ill-health, Swedish court rejects delay to hearing” a few hours ago.

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