More than 60 doctors have written an open letter saying they fear Julian Assange’s health is so bad that the WikiLeaks founder could die inside a top-security British jail.

The 48-year-old Australian is still fighting a US bid to extradite him from Britain on charges filed under the Espionage Act that could see him given a sentence of up to 175 years in a US prison.

In the letter to the British home secretary, Priti Patel, the doctors called for Assange to be moved from Belmarsh prison in southeast London to a university teaching hospital.

They based their assessment on “harrowing eyewitness accounts” of his 21 October court appearance in London and a 1 November report by Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/25/julian-assanges-health-is-...

 

Please note that the Guardian is coming hypocritically late in the "save Julian Assange" article... See:

pilger blasts the guardian for good reasons... in interesting...

 

Actually, ASSANGE HAS ALREADY SERVED HIS 50 WEEKS SENTENCE, WHICH FOR HYPOCRITICAL REASONS HAS BEEN EXTENDED BY A BOUGHT OUT UK JUDGE, IN THE POCKET OF THE USA. FREE ASSANGE NOW!

Newspapers and other media in the United States, Britain and Australia have recently declared a passion for freedom of speech, especially their right to publish freely. They are worried about "The Assange Effect”.  

It is as if the struggle of truth-tellers like Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning is now a warning to them: that the thugs who dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorean embassy in April may one day come for them.

A common refrain was echoed by The Guardian last week.

The extradition of Assange said the paper: 

'is not a question of how wise Mr Assange is, still less how likeable. It’s not about his character, nor his judgement. It’s a matter of press freedom and the public’s right to know.' 

What The Guardian is trying to do is separate Assange from his landmark achievements, which have both profited The Guardian and exposed its own vulnerability, along with its propensity to suck up to rapacious power and smear those who reveal its double standards.

 

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/john-pilger-journalis...

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Rest assured, hypocrite media, you're not brave enough to tell the truth anymore — and you're vile enough to suck up to governments as required, so they won't come for you... The public right to know becomes a tiny fiddle, drowned by your orchestra of double dealings and entertaining cartwheels... And you even hate the ABC, that to say the least has had to tone down the truthometer in order to survive with the government pittance, after yet another round of staff sacking.

A full extradition hearing in Julian Assange’s case is set to begin in February, after a London judge threw out his plea for a three-month delay. Medical experts are concerned that the WikiLeaks founder might not make it until the hearing because of the immense pressure inflicted on his physical and mental health in recent years.

Pamela Anderson has called on Scott Morrison to “pick up the phone and call” Washington and London to free Julian Assange, but the Australian prime minister has refused to intervene.

The former Baywatch star had been invited to give a speech before Australian lawmakers on Monday, but had to cancel it due to scheduling issues. A copy of her planned speech was obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald.

What was Anderson's speech about?

Anderson, who has visited Assange in prison in London this year, was to tell Parliament that the Australian-born whistleblower was facing “psychological torture” and was “looking to us for hope.”

She was set to encourage Morrison to solicit help for Assange from his counterparts in the UK and the US, just like his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull did when he intervened on behalf of film director James Ricketson, who had been imprisoned in Cambodia on charges of espionage.

“Pick up the phone and call President Trump and call Prime Minister Johnson and tell them to do their part to save the people’s democratic right in the Western world and free Julian Assange,” her speech read. “Silence is complicity when faced with the onset of tyranny and the destruction of human rights as this case symbolises in the highest order.”

Scott Morrison had previously pledged that Assange would receive consular assistance but no special treatment, to which Anderson intended to respond: “He doesn’t want ‘special treatment’, he just wants to be treated like any other Australian citizen and journalist, he has not committed any crime for which a precedent in law stands.”

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201911261077408529-australias-pm-morrison-...

 

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Regardless of his health,  ASSANGE SHOULD BE FREE. SCUMBAG SCUMDUNG (also known as Scott Morrison) PLAYS hypocritical POLITICS while trying to appear like a righteous Christian. JESUS WOULD BE ASHAMED OF BEING ASSOCIATED WITH THIS unforgivable SCUMDOG. But what one can expect of this low scummy life who treated refugees with contempt? Scott Morrison could confess his sinning crimes to 100 priests without absolution because the only way to get redemption from inhumanity is to become human. Let's not be coy about it, letting Assange rot in a jail or be extradited to the USA IS A CRIME.

 

FREE ASSANGE TODAY !!!!

...

But in a letter to Ms Anderson, published by News Corp, the Prime Minister said the Australian Government could not intervene in the legal proceedings. 

"The Australian Government continues to monitor Mr Assange's case closely, as it would for any other Australian citizen in detention overseas," the letter says.

"Beyond providing consular assistance, it is important to note that Australia has no standing and is unable to intervene in Mr Assange's legal proceedings."

Assange facing 'psychological torture', Anderson says

Pamela Anderson has been a vocal supporter of the 48-year-old, visiting him in prison in May and at the Ecuadorian embassy in London on several occasions. 

 

She was reportedly due to give a speech at Parliament House this week, but cancelled due to a scheduling conflict. 

But in a post on her website to the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, titled: "From Pamela to Australia" she declares Julian Assange is facing "psychological torture".

 

"I make a heartfelt personal plea to every parliamentarian that is charged with the responsibility to uphold the protection of the citizens of Australia to now stand and protect Julian Assange by initiating contact with your counterparts in the USA and Britain and demand no extradition," she said.

"Allowing him to return to his home and hug his mother, father and his children.

"This will in turn also uphold the sovereign rights of your citizens which is the highest order of an elected parliamentarian."

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-27/pamela-anderson-receives-letter-f...

 

Scumchamberpot can do better than this. This Pontius Pilatus of miraculus dungus washes his "clean" hands for the millionth time with the hypocritical soap of international crappy relations, and will hang Jesus Assange, to satisfy the hordes of Poms and Yamerikans who prefer someone like Blair, Howard and Bush be out of prison despite their grand larceny against Iraq.

...

Fowler added: “What so enrages the journalists’ ‘club’ is the challenge from those who question their power, journalists like Julian Assange. His revelations threatened them.”

Commenting on the significance of WikiLeaks, Fowler said that it had “laid the path for the future of journalism, where journalists would be expected to produce primary source documents,” and “share them with the general public.”

Fowler warned: “Journalists should also understand that they could be next.” He noted that in a press conference last week, the AFP’s acting commissioner Neil Gaughan stated that it had carried out its raids to show the “international community” that Australia “takes the ‘leaking of sensitive information seriously’.”

“The ‘international community’ in this case means only one thing, the United States, Australia’s most significant intelligence sharing ally,” Fowler wrote.

He concluded: “If Assange is left to swing in the breeze, it will be an open invitation for any journalist, anywhere in the world, to be extradited to the US if the administration deems that they have published material which threatens US national security.”

Fowler’s article follows other signs of a breach in the official media’s complicit silence on the attacks against Assange.

In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald last week, Waleed Aly pointed to the fact that the WikiLeaks founder was being pursued for carrying out actions that are “basic elements of so much investigative journalism.” Aly stated that the AFP raids took place in the context of a “cravenly bipartisan political scene” and “an absence of public debate of anything that can be vacuumed up under the heading of ‘national security’.”

On Sunday, the Sydney Morning Herald’s European correspondent published an article highlighting the warnings of CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou that Assange would not “stand a chance” of a fair trial if he were extradited to the US.

The sympathetic coverage of Assange’s plight indicates a growing recognition that the US attempts to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder have opened the floodgates for a broader assault on press freedom. This has been exemplified by the AFP raids and the moves by the French government to prosecute journalists for exposing its complicity in Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen.

As WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson told a London press briefing on Tuesday, the persecution of Assange “has a connection to other crackdowns we’ve seen in recent weeks,” including in Australia. “It’s part of the same systemic attack on investigative journalism when it comes to reporting on national security issues,” he said. “It has a chilling effect, it’s sending a signal.”

Hrafnsson called upon journalists to come to Assange’s defence, declaring: “This is an attack on journalism, and it’s all interlinked. It’s a watershed moment for the preservation of journalism.” His comments were in the lead-up to a British hearing on the US extradition request this Friday.

John Shipton, Assange’s father, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei visited Assange at Belmarsh Prison yesterday. Shipton reported that his son’s deteriorating health had “stabilised,” but that he had lost a substantial amount of weight during his two-month incarceration in the maximum security facility.

Shipton noted that the conditions of Assange’s imprisonment, including a severe restriction on visits and no access to a library, computer or documents, were obstructing his son’s preparations to defend himself against extradition.

Weiwei added that Assange was “very much like a person holding the last straw, worried about his life.” He added: “I’m very concerned about him, especially his psychological condition. The man has been under such pressure… I’m deeply worried.”

Weiwei said they had discussed “how fragile human rights are in the world today.”

Supporters of WikiLeaks and democratic rights are holding rallies around the world this week against the threat of US extradition and to demand Assange’s freedom. On Friday, there will be a demonstration in London outside Westminster Magistrates' Court where Assange’s hearing is being held, starting at 9am.

In Australia, the Socialist Equality Party has announced protests later this month in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The SEP demands that the Australian government fulfil its obligations to Assange as a citizen, by using its legal discretion and diplomatic powers to secure his immediate return to Australia, with a guarantee against extradition to the US.

Join the fight to defend Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning!

Read more:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/12/assa-j12.html

 

 

 

Joe Lauria, the editor-in-chief of Consortium News and the author of the book "How I Lost, By Hillary Clinton,” joined Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear Tuesday to discuss Assange’s deteriorating health and how media corporations should be strongly opposed to Assange’s detainment if they care in the slightest about their own publishing protections. 

 

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201911271077412328-symbol-of-dystopian-...

 

 

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RUPERT? Here's your cue!...  DO SUMPTHIN' TO DEMAND ASSANGE'S FREEDOM !!!!   "...if they care in the slightest about their own publishing protections"????... Who are you kidding? Most media do not care about "protections" because they mostly tow the line of what governments want — and should some "documents" or "titbits" fall on their lap, it's usually about tits and bum-gossip about cebels who need a bit of publicity after their public appeal has gone south... 

Release Julian Assange!

Since 11 April 2019, Julian Assange has been held in London’s high security Belmarsh prison. Primarily because he violated British bail terms by fleeing to the embassy. 

    He is currently still being held exclusively in relation to the pending extradition request from the USA. This after nine years of persecution, because he dared to reveal war crimes of the USA. Julian Assange was arrested seven months ago at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he took refuge seven years ago. Assange is facing the extradition request by the US over charges he violated the US Espionage Act by publishing a huge cache of military and diplomatic files on war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

     If extradited to the USA, he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted (see Current Concerns No 12 of 31 May, No. 13 of 12 June, No 14 of 25 June and No 15 of 11 July 2019).

    On 21 October 2019, a public hearing was held at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London. Significantly. Clearly marked by the miserable prison conditions, Julian Assange appeared before the court. He had requested a postponement of the extradition hearing, but the court had refused. The main hearing in the extradition proceedings will take place end of February next year. 

    Assange and his defending lawyers had taken more time to prepare the trial. Judge Vanessa Baraitser allowed them just two months. The judge will decide in the main trial whether Assange will be extradited to the USA. For those who want to get an impression of the scandalous course of the hearing on 21 October, we recommend the shocking reports of two prominent observers from the courtroom (John Pilger https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/25/john-pilger-did-this-happen-in-the-home-of-the-magna-carta/ and Craig Murray https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/10/assange-in-court/). 

Meanwhile Sweden dropped investigation  into sexual assault allegations against Julian Assange. More than 60 doctors from around the world wrote an open letter to the U.K. home secretary warning that Julian Assange “could die in prison”.

(https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/23/doctors-petition-uk-home-secretary-over-julian-assange/)
In his statement (see below), the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Swiss Nils Melzer, once again calls on the international commune to stress the now life-threatening condition of Julian Assange. The report of the British journalist Sara Chessa (see below) describes the courageous action of the then Minister of the Interior of Iceland, Ögmundur Jónasson. Without further ado, he threw out the FBI agents who had come to the island in 2011 to frame Julian Assange. Kristinn Hrafnsson lives in Reykjavik. He was the spokesman for Wikileaks and is now its editor-in-chief. Jónasson is thus an example that even politicians have a lot on their hands if they feel committed to the protection of democracy and human rights, ethical acting and human dignity.

* * *

Pro memoria February 2012: Publication of 5 million e-mails from the Texas “security company” Stratfor, a private secret service that works closely with US and Israeli services. In an e-mail Stratfor Vice President Fred Burton claims: “We have a ‘sealed complaint’ against Assange.” (Current Concerns No. 12 dated May 31, 2019)

Eva-Maria Föllmer-Müller

 

https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/numbers/2019/no-25-26-november-2019/releas...

 

 

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By George Galloway

The grand old Duke of York sleeps tonight on a feather pillow in a royal palace. Julian Assange, the publisher of the century sleeps in the hell of Belmarsh Prison, Britain’s own Guantanamo Bay.

The Duke of York lied about the length duration and nature of his relationship with the presumed deceased child-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Julian Assange told the truth about the high crimes and misdemeanours of the rich and powerful during times of war and peace.

The FBI need to speak to the Queen’s favorite son, but no power on earth will be deployed to make him testify about what he might have seen, or even have participated in, at the townhouse in Manhattan, a Sodom and Gomorrah of our times.

The same US Justice system has caused the cruel incarceration of Assange and his Kafkaesque entrapment in an extradition saga which may last for years - if he doesn’t die before it is over as no less than 60 doctors have recently warned he may well do.

The US-UK extradition arrangements may be the most unequal treaty ever concluded by Her Majesty’s ministers. In this case the former Blair government Home Secretary David Blunkett, a blind man who could, nonetheless, see exactly what he was doing.

In essence extradition from Britain to the US became virtually on request without the slightest need to show just cause. But not vice versa. It would be easier to pull a camel through the eye of a needle than for Britain to extradite a US citizen to face justice in the UK.

I was a member of the British Parliament at the time this treaty was signed. Not that this mattered a jot or tittle. The Treaty was signed during the Summer Recess when no Parliament was sitting and through the exercise of the Royal Prerogative.

Only when it was already in operation was I even able to oppose the extradition of its first victims - alleged City of London financial fraudsters, as well as a fitted-up “terrorist” London man Babar Ahmad.

Under the old extradition rules neither case could have satisfied the previous requirement to produce prima facia evidence sufficient to persuade a British judge. Under the new Treaty it was easy peasy lemon squeezy. And off they went.

Prince Andrew will face no such ordeal albeit now banished from Royal Circles and effectively reduced to the ranks, his epaulettes ripped off his glittering array of obscure medals turned to scrap metal on his tunic. 

Although accused of sexual abuse of a teenager and with an admitted close relationship to the alleged procurer of underage female victims, Ghislaine Maxwell, in whose London home it is alleged one of the sexual encounters took place - the US will never require the Prince to give evidence and the UK will never offer him up.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/474374-prince-andrew-epstein-assange/

 

 

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A private security firm that allegedly spied on Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London bragged about its nefarious activities and ties to US intelligence, according to German public broadcaster NDR.

The troubling revelations are part of a criminal complaint filed by NDR against Undercover Global, a Spanish security company contracted by the Ecuadorian government to film and review guests at their embassy in London.

The firm is accused of using the commission to carry out a vast spying operation targeting the WikiLeaks co-founder, who sought political asylum in the embassy for seven years before his hosts handed him over to British authorities. The German broadcaster claims to have a huge cache of documents detailing the illegal surveillance operation – which also targeted NDR journalists who visited Assange.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/474735-assange-spy-lawsuit-undercover-global/

 

 

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