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WikiLeaks & Pamela Anderson make last ditch pardon pleas ahead of judge’s ruling on Assange extradition to US
3 Jan 2021 10:46
Pamela Anderson leaves Belmarsh Prison in south-east London, after visiting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in May 2019. © Gareth Fuller/PA via AP
Baywatch icon Pamela Anderson has joined WikiLeaks in making an 11th hour plea for the United States to drop charges against Julian Assange ahead of a judge’s ruling on whether he will be extradited from the UK.
The WikiLeaks co-founder is set to appear at England’s Central Criminal Court on Monday, where District Judge Vanessa Baraitser will deliver her judgment on whether he should be extradited to the US to face charges of violating the 1917 Espionage Act.
If convicted in the US, the 49-year-old could be hit with a 175-year prison sentence due to WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to US wars in the Middle East, as well as diplomatic cables.
Bombshell actress Anderson has been a vocal supporter of Assange for several years and the 53-year-old made an impassioned, last-ditch plea seeking a presidential pardon for the Australian.
“Julian is being charged with journalism. Documents that have exposed war crimes and human rights abuses. Now the US wants to punish him for exposing crimes,” she told the New York Post.
“This will set a precedent where any US journalist can be charged and sent to any country that requests their extradition… And don’t think ‘it won’t happen to me,’ because it absolutely could, and countries will use it to silence whatever they don’t like the sound of,” she added.
The comments were echoed by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, who said “The mere fact that this case has made it to court let alone gone on this long is a historic, large-scale attack on freedom of speech.”
Anderson met Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2014 after being introduced to him by fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.
She visited him multiple times during his seven-year exile in the embassy before he was handed over to British police by the Ecuadorian authorities. She was also reportedly Assange’s first visitor, outside of his legal team, when he was moved to Belmarsh Prison in southeast London.
“It’s madness. He is… crammed in amongst murderers in a prison that is rife with Covid,” she said of the conditions Assange is facing. “It’s the middle of winter and it’s freezing in there and his winter clothes haven’t been delivered. The whole thing is a medieval madness.”
Supporters have been vocal in urging US President Donald Trump to pardon Assange before the end of his presidency.
“The US government should listen to the groundswell of support coming from the mainstream media editorials, NGOs around the world such as Amnesty and Reporters Without Borders and the United Nations who are all calling for these charges to be dropped,” Hrafnsson said.
“This is a fight that affects each and every person’s right to know and is being fought collectively,” he added.
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange cannot be extradited to U.S., British judge rules
By Jill Lawless The Associated Press
Posted January 4, 2021, 8:11 am
A British judge on Monday rejected the United States’ request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face espionage charges over the publication of secret U.S. documents a decade ago, saying he was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions.
In a mixed ruling for Assange and his supporters, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected defence arguments that the 49-year-old Australian faces a politically motivated American prosecution that rides roughshod over free-speech protections. But she said Assange’s precarious mental health would likely deteriorate further under the conditions of “near total isolation” he would face in a U.S. prison.
“I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” the judge said.
Lawyers for the U.S. government said they would appeal the decision, and the U.S. Department of Justice said it would continue to seek Assange’s extradition.
“While we are extremely disappointed in the court’s ultimate decision, we are gratified that the United States prevailed on every point of law raised,” it said in a statement. “In particular, the court rejected all of Mr. Assange’s arguments regarding political motivation, political offence, fair trial and freedom of speech.”
Assange’s lawyers said they would ask for his release from a London prison where he has been held for more than 18 months at a bail hearing on Wednesday.
Assange, who sat quietly in the dock at London’s Central Criminal Court for the ruling, wiped his brow as the decision was announced. His partner Stella Moris, with whom he has two young sons, wept.
Outside court, Moris said the ruling was “the first step towards justice,” but it was not yet time to celebrate. “I had hoped that today would be the day that Julian would come home,” she said. “Today is not that day, but that day will come soon.”
The ruling marked a dramatic moment in Assange’s long legal battles in Britain _ though likely not its final chapter. It’s unclear whether the incoming Biden administration will pursue the prosecution, initiated under President Donald Trump.
I doubt the Deep-State President Biden will have any mercy on Assange.
Assange’s American lawyer, Barry Pollack, said the legal team was “enormously gratified” by the British court’s decision. “We hope that after consideration of the U.K. court’s ruling, the United States will decide not to pursue the case further,” he said.
Moris urged Trump to pardon Assange before he leaves office this month. “Mr. President, tear down these prison walls,” she said. “Let our little boys have their father.”
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.
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.
Lawyers for the U.S. government denied that Assange was being prosecuted merely for publishing, saying the case “is in large part based upon his unlawful involvement” in the theft of the diplomatic cables and military files by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
The British judge sided with U.S. lawyers on that score, saying Assange’s actions, if proven, would amount to offences “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.
What about being a whistleblower? Isn't there protection for someone who reveals horrible crimes even if they were performed by the state?
The defence also argued during a three-week hearing in the fall that Assange risked “a grossly disproportionate sentence” and detention in “draconian and inhumane conditions” if he was sent to the United States.
The judge agreed that U.S. prison conditions would be oppressive, saying there was a “real risk” he would be sent to the Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado. It is the highest security prison in the U.S., also holding Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
She accepted evidence from expert witnesses that Assange had a depressive disorder and an autism spectrum disorder.
“I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate, causing him to commit suicide with the single-minded determination of his autism spectrum disorder,” the judge said.
She said Assange was “a depressed and sometimes despairing man” who had the “intellect and determination” to circumvent any suicide prevention measures taken by American prison authorities.
Britain’s extradition agreement with the U.S. says that extradition can be blocked if “by reason of the person’s mental or physical condition, it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.”
This is not the first time the U.K. has refused extradition to the United States on those grounds.
In 2018, a British court refused to extradite Lauri Love, a hacker accused of penetrating U.S. government networks, because of the risk he would kill himself. In 2012 then-Home Secretary Theresa May blocked the extradition of Gary McKinnon, who was accused of breaking into U.S. military and space networks, because of the risk he would end his life.
The prosecution of Assange has been condemned by journalists and human rights groups, who say it undermines free speech and imperils journalists. They welcomed the judge’s decision, even though it was not made on free-speech grounds.
“This is a huge relief to anyone who cares about the rights of journalists,” The Freedom of the Press Foundation tweeted.
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, unable to leave the tiny diplomatic space in London’s tony Knightsbridge area.
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 London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison throughout his extradition hearing.
HMP Belmarsh
‘It’s shocking’: China Daily chief calls out NYT, WaPo, & Australian PM for refusal to defend Julian Assange
4 Jan 2021 11:54
China Daily EU bureau chief Chen Weihua publicly shamed the New York Times, Washington Post, and Australian PM Scott Morrison for their lack of support for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he faced extradition to the US.
In the early hours on Monday – the day Assange faced extradition in a trial at London’s Old Bailey court, which was ultimately rejected – Weihua tweeted, “It’s shocking that none from New York Times and Washington Post [are] coming out to support Julian Assange.”
He also took aim at the Prime Minister of Australia, where Assange was born, calling it “shocking” and a “shame” that Morrison has been “dead quiet about the greatest Australian citizen.”
Weihua tweeted and retweeted several posts calling for Assange’s release, and signed a statement by international journalists in support of the Wikileaks founder, putting most Western reporters – who have stayed silent on the matter – to shame.
Think about this: Weihua's criticism of USA mainstream media are well deserved. They have abandoned the idea of free speech and protecting journalism as one might expect for media outlets controlled by Deep State, as they are.
But to have the criticism come from China Daily, China's English language daily, which is controlled by the state, is pretty astonishing.
Though the New York Times has defended Assange in the past, it did not publish any article in support of the Wikileaks founder in the lead-up to his extradition trial on Monday. The only pieces the paper has run with are Sunday’s straight explanation piece about the trial – which included the claim that Assange had been “criticized as a publicity seeker with an erratic personality” – and a defense of Assange by documentary director Laura Poitras on December 21.
Back in May 2019, the NYT’s editorial board defended Assange against the US Espionage Act charges, but this piece was also critical, describing him as “no hero.”
Like the NYT, the Washington Post published straight news articles on Assange’s trial, but no editorial board defense.
In one of its news pieces, the Post opined that the trial “could have profound implications for press freedoms,” but it has a track record for attacking the Wikileaks founder, with headlines that included “Julian Assange is not a free-press hero. And he is long overdue for personal accountability.”
The Australian Prime Minister has repeatedly demonstrated that Assange’s home country would not stick its neck out to support him. Morrison declared in 2019 that he would not receive any “special treatment” from the Australian government, and has rejected pleas from Assange’s family and friends to intervene in the matter.
Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the extradition of Assange to the United States on Monday, citing both the risk to his mental health and the fact that conditions in US prisons breach Britain’s human rights laws.
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