Here's savage, satanic, and criminal treatment being inflicted upon heroic journalist, Julian Assange

Apollonian

Guest Columnist

Julian Assange’s Lawyer Reveals New Information On What Is Happening to Him in Prison And It’s Shocking​

April 3, 2022​


Link: https://www.activistpost.com/2022/0...-with-him-in-the-prison-and-its-shocking.html



By Mayukh Saha

The co-founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is to remain in prison even after his term ends due to his “history of absconding,” as reported by a judge. He is “crumbling” psychologically and physically, as Chris Hedges reports.
Hedges attended Julian Assange’s wedding to his partner Stella Moris at London’s Belmarsh prison. Assange has been behind bars for nearly three years awaiting possible extradition to the United States on espionage charges for publishing documents revealing war crimes committed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hedges says Assange exposed the “most important information” of this generation, along with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
He was supposed to be released on September 22, 2019, after serving his sentence for breaching bail conditions. The Magistrate’s Court in Westminster believed that he would abscond again on “substantial grounds.”
He was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he took refuge in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations – which he has denied.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser on Friday told Assange, who appeared by video link:
“You have been produced today because your sentence of imprisonment is about to come to an end. When that happens your remand status changes from a serving prisoner to a person facing extradition.”
She said that his lawyer had declined to make an application for bail on his behalf, adding “perhaps not surprisingly in light of your history of absconding in these proceedings”.
“In my view, I have substantial ground for believing if I release you, you will abscond again.”

Aitor Martinez Tells Julian Assange’s Story, Shared That His Life Was Being Destroyed In Prison​

Julian Assange’s lawyer, Aitor Martinez, came to the forefront and expressed his feelings and shared how Assange was doing in the prison.
He shared how Assange was being “tortured,” as per some reports, and was living a “real nightmare.”

The reporter from 60 Minutes Australia asked him if Julian would keep fighting in this condition or would he eventually give up, to which the lawyer replied, “No, he will keep fighting.” Julian Assange has been suffering this persecution for 12 years and has the support of his entire team, to date.
The lawyer added:

.

“He has been living isolated for 12 years, without any rights.
What was the crime?
Publishing truthful information.
The US committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is the duty of the whole international community to prosecute those crimes.
The journalist that published those war crimes is in jail and the people who committed those crimes are not even under investigation.”

This was “absolutely crazy” as stated by Aitor Martinez.

Julian Assange had asked for asylum from the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 and Ecuador dropped the news on the US and asked if there were any criminal actions against Julian. The US did not give a straightforward answer.
When Ecuador inquired to Australia if they would provide any diplomatic protection to its citizen, they simply denied it, according to Aitor. They denied it and added that “it was a domestic matter for the UK.”
Julian Assange did not receive any help from the consulate nor did he have a passport, as his own had expired.
 

The British Government Has Flushed Honor​

June 19, 2022 |

Link: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/06/19/the-british-government-has-flushed-honor/

The British Government Has Flushed Honor

As Putin says, the British government is nothing but an American lackey

Paul Craig Roberts

The British are now ruled by their former colonial lackeys. An Indian who is the British Home Secretary has ruled, as he was ordered to do, the extradition of a foreign national who is not a citizen of the country extraditing him or a citizen of the country requesting his extradition. India, long an English colony, has some idea of British justice, but Priti Patel does not sufficiently appreciate the essence of British justice to be able to defend it. One can say that neither did the judges on the British courts who approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the US where Washington wants him for revenge. Britain, it seems, is no longer British, and America is no longer American.

Julian Assange has committed no crime in Britain, where he was held for years without charges in complete and total violation of habeas corpus for no other reason than Washington’s ability to control British “justice.” Assange has committed no crime in the US. He is a citizen of Australia. Yet he is being charged with treason against the US because as a journalist he did the same thing that Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times did in 1971. He published leaked information that showed the US government knowingly committed and covered up war crimes and knowingly kept secret its deception of its gullible, trusting dumbshit allies who are without any doubt a pathetic bunch unable to act independently of Washington. Nothing happened to Ellsberg, because in those days the US Constitution and the First Amendment had more authority than embarrassed government officials–criminals actually who should be in prison. Today the corrupt, criminal government officials, backed up by their media whores, have far more authority than the US Constitution. Watching the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, the BBC lambast Julian Assange as a “Russian agent” made it clear that the freedom of the press was no longer a value of the Anglo-American press.

It is not a value of elected and appointed government officials either. As far as I can tell not a single sitting Western government believes in the principles of a free people and a free society. Vengeance, not law, rules in the West. As the illegal Covid protocols proved, the governments of the “free world” now order their citizens around with the same disregard of their rights as dictators do.

Edward Snowden, who had to flee America because he leaked evidence that the US government is illegally spying on its citizens, says that Assange’s extradition shows that there is nothing left of any meaningful aspect of Western freedom. We are free to commit all sorts of sexually depraved acts, but we cannot speak freely or hold government accountable. A man is free to claim that he is a woman, but he cannot safely reveal government crimes or misbehavior. He can’t, even if he is the most authoritative medical scientist in the world, challenge the Covid protocols without punishment. https://sputniknews.com/20220617/ha...decision-to-extradite-assange-1096414615.html

We are handed narratives that serve secret agendas, and we are not permitted to question them. This is the hallmark of a totalitarian system. Totalitarian systems are now what exist everywhere in the Western world. Freedom, except for sexual perversion, exists nowhere in the Western world. Today in American universities, supposedly fonts of free inquiry, tenured professors are fired for using gender pronouns. People are excluded from social media if they disagree that a sexually fully equipped male is a female by self-declaration or if they disagree that the Covid vaccination is safe. This is still the case even though the court-ordered release of Pfizer documents prove beyond all doubt that the vaccine is, and was known to be prior to its use, deadly.

So as Pontius Pilate delivered Jesus to the Jews, the British Home Secretary has delivered an honest journalist to the criminal American government officials he exposed. Vengeance, said the Indian Priti Patel speaking for Britain, rules. Not law. Not justice. British honor is gone with the wind.

Julian Assange Faces an Election Year Show Trial Based on a Mountain of Lies

Assange should be given the Medal of Honor, Not Subjected to a Stalinist Show Trial

https://www.rt.com/news/557429-assange-extradition-trial-us/
 

Julian Assange Is Enduring Unbearable Persecution for Exposing US War Crimes​

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn
Global Research, June 26, 2022
Truthout 21 June 2022

Link: https://www.globalresearch.ca/julia...le-persecution-exposing-us-war-crimes/5784556

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Ever since U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel formally ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S. last week, press freedom advocates around the world have been mobilizing.
Assange Defense, on whose advisory board I serve, is organizing a national and international campaign to pressure U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden to drop the extradition request and dismiss the charges against Assange. The stakes could not be higher.
The charges, which include 17 counts under the infamous Espionage Act, could result in 175 years in prison for the journalist who exposed U.S. war crimes.
Last week, Assange’s brother, filmmaker Gabriel Shipton, wrote in an email to Truthout,
“UK Home Secretary has decided today that any publisher who exposes national security information of an allied country may face extradition to two lifetimes in prison. Julian will appeal this decision and this once in a lifetime fight for freedom of the press continues.”
Assange’s indictment is based on WikiLeaks’s 2010-2011 disclosures of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and the military prison at Guantánamo. Those revelations 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.” 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.
WikiLeaks also published the notorious “Collateral Murder” video, which documented how in 2007, a U.S. Army Apache helicopter gunship targeted and fired on unarmed civilians in Baghdad. At least 18 civilians were killed. They included two Reuters reporters and a man who came to rescue the wounded. Two children were injured. Then, a U.S. Army tank drove over one of the bodies, severing it in half. That video contains evidence of three separate war crimes that are prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Army Field Manual.
As several civil liberties and human rights organizations declared in October 2021, when they asked Garland to dismiss the case against Assange, his prosecution poses a significant threat to First Amendment freedom of the press.
The UK’s decision to extradite Julian Assange to the nation that plotted to assassinate him — the nation that wants to imprison him for 175 years for publishing truthful information in the public interest — is an abomination,” wrote Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Alice Walker — co-chairs of Assange Defense — in reaction to Patel’s extradition order. “The U.S. government argues that its venerated Constitution does not protect journalism the government dislikes, and that publishing truthful information in the public interest is a subversive, criminal act. This argument is a threat not only to journalism, but to democracy itself.”

Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, warned that if Assange is extradited to the United States and convicted of the charges against him, it “would potentially make receiving classified information, asking for sources for more information, and publishing certain types of classified information a crime.” Timm noted, “Journalists, of course, engage in all these activities regularly.”
Moreover, Assange has suffered psychological torture while confined in the U.K. for more than a decade, according to Nils Melzer, United Nations special rapporteur on torture. In December 2021, Melzer tweeted that the “U.K. is literally torturing him to death.”
On June 10, more than 300 doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists calling themselves “Doctors for Assange” wrote to Patel that Assange’s “deteriorating health” made it “medically and ethically unacceptable” to extradite him.
“Julian’s 13-year persecution culminates in a decision of ostentatious callous indifference,” John Shipton, Assange’s father, told Truthout.“Who amongst us would not burn with indignation and loathing?”
Stella Assange, who recently married Julian in prison, called Patel’s decision “a dark day for press freedom and for British democracy.” She told the Associated Press, “Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher, and he is being punished for doing his job.”
Yet U.K. officials disregarded Assange’s health and the injustice of his prosecution, insisting that the U.S. would treat him “appropriately.” In its June 17 statement ordering Assange’s extradition, the U.K. Home Office wrote:
In this case, the UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr Assange. Nor have they found that extradition would be incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression, and that whilst in the US he will be treated appropriately, including in relation to his health.
But after a three-week evidentiary hearing, U.K. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled in January 2021 that if Assange were extradited to the United States, he would likely attempt suicide because of his mental state and the onerous conditions of confinement in U.S. prisons.
The United States later came forward with qualified “assurances” that Assange wouldn’t be kept in solitary confinement and the U.K. High Court reversed Baraitser’s decision in January 2022. The U.K. Supreme Court affirmed the High Court’s dismissal of Assange’s appeal in March, paving the way for Patel’s decision ordering extradition.
Amnesty International’s Agnes Callamard — former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution — was skeptical of the so-called assurances that Assange would be treated humanely in U.S. custody. “Diplomatic assurances provided by the U.S. that Assange will not be kept in solitary confinement cannot be taken on face value given previous history,” Callamard said, referring to the U.S. reneging on past extradition assurances.
Assange now has until July 1 to appeal Patel’s decision and will apply to the High Court to reverse Baraitser’s rulings on other issues Assange raised at the extradition hearing. They include:
  • The U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty prohibits extradition for a political offense and “espionage” is a political offense;
  • Extradition is forbidden as the U.S. request is based on Assange’s political opinions;
  • The request for extradition is an abuse of process as it was made for a political motive and not in good faith;
  • Extradition would be oppressive or unjust because so much time has passed;
  • The charges against Assange do not comply with the “dual criminality test” because they encompass acts that are not criminal offenses in both the U.S. and the U.K.; and
  • Extradition would violate Assange’s rights to free expression and a fair trial, in addition to the prohibition against inhuman and degrading treatment in the European Convention on Human Rights.
Assange will also raise on appeal the CIA’s plot to kidnap and assassinate him while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy under a grant of asylum.
If Assange loses his appeals to the U.K. High Court and Supreme Court, he could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The appeals could take several months or even years.
The indictment against Assange has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton, who jailed former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2019 for refusing to appear before a federal grand jury investigating Assange. The indictment charges that Assange conspired with Manning to gain access to a government computer.
This is the first time the United States has prosecuted a journalist or media outlet for publishing classified information. The extradition, trial and conviction of Julian Assange would have frightening ramifications for investigative journalism. On June 17, the editorial board of The Guardian wrote, “This action potentially opens the door for journalists anywhere in the world to be extradited to the US for exposing information deemed classified by Washington.”
 

As Americans Celebrate July 4, Assange Makes Last-Ditch Appeal Against US Extradition​

BY TYLER DURDEN
SUNDAY, JUL 03, 2022 - 07:10 AM
Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

Link: https://www.zerohedge.com/political...akes-last-ditch-appeal-against-us-extradition

In a last-ditch effort to avoid extradition to the United States, lawyers for jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday appealed to the United Kingdom's High Court to block the transfer. Assange's brother, Gabriel Shipton, told Reuters that the Australian publisher's legal team appealed his extradition, which was formally approved by U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel last month.
"We also urge the Australian government to intervene immediately in the case to end this nightmare," Shipton said.

Supporters of Assange held protests ahead of his 51st birthday on Saturday, including one in an open-top double-decker London tour bus that passed by British government buildings in Westminster on Friday. One of the demonstrators, 79-year-old Gloria Wildman, told Agence France-Presse that Assange has "been in prison for telling the truth."
"If Julian Assange is not free, neither are we; none of us is free," she added. Myriad human rights, journalistic, and other groups have condemned Assange's impending extradition and the U.S. government's targeting of a journalist who exposed American war crimes. In a Thursday statement, the Australian Journalists Union said that "the charges against Assange are an affront to journalists everywhere and a threat to press freedom."
Assange—who suffers from physical and mental health problems including heart and respiratory issues—faces U.S. charges including Espionage Act violations for which he faces up to 175 years behind bars if fully convicted.
Among the classified materials published by WikiLeaks—many provided by whistleblower Chelsea Manning—are the infamous "Collateral Murder" video showing a U.S. Army helicopter crew killing a group of Iraqi civilians, the Afghan War Diary, and the Iraq War Logs, which revealed American and allied war crimes.
According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Assange has been arbitrarily deprived of his freedom since he was arrested on December 7, 2010. Since then he has been held under house arrest, confined for seven years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London while he was protected by the administration of former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, and jailed in London's notorious Belmarsh Prison.
Advocates contested Patel's assurance that the extradition would not be "incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression." In a video published by WikiLeaks on Friday, Conservative British parliamentarian David Davis said that "the simple truth is, Assange won't get what we think of as a fair trial in the U.S."

"And in addition to that, there's a wider issue of imbalance in the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty," he asserted. "When America requests an extradition from Britain, they have to have reasonable suspicion and the home secretary must process the request."
"When Britain requests an extradition to America, we have to demonstrate probable cause, and the American secretary of state may process our request, he's not forced to process that request," Davis noted. "The effect of this shows up in the statistics: Many, many more people are sent to America than are sent to Britain to face criminal trial."
The MP added that extradited Britons "face an alien justice system" in which "they're frog-marched in chains, they're jailed with hardened criminals, they're denied access to legal papers, they face really coercive plea-bargain systems which essentially say either plead guilty or face a huge length of time in prison."
"That sort of thing," Davis said, "does not give the sort of justice system that we're used to in the United Kingdom."
 

CIA, Pompeo Sued for Allegedly Spying on US Attorneys and Journalists Who Met with Assange​

By Kevin Gosztola
Global Research, August 16, 2022

Link: https://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-p...attorneys-journalists-who-met-assange/5790314

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A group of journalists and lawyers, who visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange while he was living under political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, sued the CIA and former CIA director Mike Pompeo. They allege that the agency under Pompeo spied on them in violation of their privacy rights
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Undercover Global S.L., a private security company in Spain, and the company’s director David Morales are also named as defendants. UC Global ramped up surveillance against Assange and shared audio and video footage from the embassy with “American intelligence.”
“The United States Constitution shields American citizens from US government overreach even when the activities take place in a foreign embassy in a foreign country. Visitors who are lawyers, journalists and doctors frequently carry confidential information in their devices,” declared Richard Roth, who is the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs.
“They had a reasonable expectation that the security guards at the Ecuadorian embassy in London would not be US government spies charged with delivering copies of their electronics to the CIA,” Roth added.
Two of the plaintiffs are attorneys who have represented Assange—Margaret Rather Kunstler, a civil rights activist and human rights attorney, and Deborah Hrbek, a media lawyer.
The other two plaintiffs are journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz, who worked for Der Spiegel when the German media organization first partnered with WikiLeaks to publish documents on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
The lawsuit comes around two months after United Kingdom Home Secretary Priti Patel approved the US extradition request against Assange. His legal team has submitted two separate appeals in the UK courts, yet it is increasingly evident that Assange could be flown to the US to face Espionage Act charges that civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom organizations around the world have condemned.
According to the complaint [PDF] filed in a US court in the Southern District of New York, Glass, Goetz, Hrbek, and Kunstler, like all visitors, were required to “surrender” their electronic devices to UC Global employees hired by Ecuador to provide security for the embassy. What they did not know is that UC Global “copied the information stored on the devices” and allegedly shared the information with the CIA. Pompeo allegedly authorized and approved the action.

Security required plaintiffs to leave their devices with them, which contained “confidential and privileged information about their sources or clients. This information was copied and allegedly shared with the CIA.
It is estimated that “well over 100 American citizens who visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy” had their privacy rights violated. This includes attorneys who were there to represent Assange, journalists who traveled to interview him, and even doctors who came to the embassy to assess and treat his deteriorating health. Their privileged communications stored on electronic devices were compromised.
The CIA-backed spying operation began around January 2017 and lasted until UC Global’s contract was terminated around April 2018. By that time, the Justice Department under President Donald Trump already had a sealed indictment against Assange.
Pompeo allegedly approved the placement of hidden microphones in new cameras at the embassy. He allegedly approved bugging the embassy with hidden microphones. He allegedly signed off on a plan to allow the CIA to “observe and listen to Assange’s daily activities at the embassy.”
Also, the complaint claims Pompeo approved the copying of visitors’ passports, “including pages with stamps and visas.” He ensured that all “computers, laptops, mobile phones, recording devices, and other electronics brought into the embassy,” were “seized, dismantled, imaged, photographed, and digitized.” This included the collection of IMEI and SIM codes from visitors’ phones.
Morales did not speak very good English, yet as further evidence that UC Global was working for the CIA, the complaint notes that UC Global employees were given “written technology instructions” for live streaming and audio associated with the surveillance” that were in “perfect English.”
There was an “external streaming access point” for “American intelligence” sent from the “Venetian Hotel,” or the Las Vegas Sands, the complaint asserts.
Around January 2017, Morales traveled to the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor (SHOT) convention at Las Vegas Sands. The convention was an expo for the private security industry. Security personnel for Las Vegas Sands spoke with Morales and reportedly recruited Morales to spy on Assange for the CIA. (The Las Vegas Sands was owned by Sheldon Adelson, the late billionaire who bankrolled Trump’s campaign.)
When Morales returned to Spain, at least one whistleblower from UC Global has said Morales told employees the company was now “in the big league,” and they would be working for the “dark side.” He indicated “the Americans” would help UC Global secure major contracts throughout the world.
The complaint says former UC Global employees believe the “deal included selling information obtained through the illegal surveillance of Assange to the CIA.”
Additionally, the complaint claims that CIA handlers in the US were collecting recordings from Morales either through delivery to Las Vegas, Washington, DC, or New York or through transfers on an FTP server at UC Global offices that gave CIA personnel external access to the material.

Reporting from the Spanish newspaper El País previously corroborated many of the claims in the complaint. Their journalism was based upon primary source materials shared with them by whistleblowing UC Global employees.
Some of these revelations were part of Assange’s challenge to the US extradition request, but a UK magistrates’ court dismissed the allegations as irrelevant to the indictment from the US Justice Department.
There is a criminal case in a Spanish court against Morales and UC Global associates. US officials have refused to cooperate with requests from a Spanish judge for information about the CIA’s alleged involvement.
Pompeo was summoned by the Spanish court to provide testimony back in June.
In September 2021, Yahoo! News published a bombshell report on “secret war plans” against Assange that involved proposals for kidnapping and assassinating Assange after Pompeo became obsessed with the WikiLeaks founder following the media organization’s publication of CIA hacking materials that became known as the “Vault 7” materials.
Pompeo labeled the organization a “non-state hostile intelligence agency,” and in April 2017, he made it the focus of his first speech as CIA director. “The one thing [current] whistleblowers don’t need is a publisher,” since the internet already enables enough sharing of information.
During the speech, Pompeo called Assange a “coward,” a “fraud,” and a “narcissist.” He pledged to pursue a “long term” campaign to neutralize WikiLeaks.
“Assange remained in the embassy in London for 7 years, believing he would face extradition to the US if he left the building,” stated Deborah Hrbek. “He was pilloried as a paranoid narcissist for this belief. As it turns out, he was right.”
The lawsuit is a Bivens action, which stems from a precedent-setting case that established the ability of US citizens to sue US government officials.
US courts have been historically reluctant to allow plaintiffs to pursue damages, especially if it involves sensitive national security or foreign policy matters.
 

Giant Mobile Billboard Campaign for Julian Assange Goes Viral and Will Keep On Truckin’ Round the Nation’s Capital​

By Steve Brown
September 9, 2022

Link: https://covertactionmagazine.com/20...ll-keep-on-truckin-round-the-nations-capital/

https://covertactionmagazine.com/20...l-keep-on-truckin-round-the-nations-capital/#
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Assange billboard in front of the Capitol Building. [Source: Photo Courtesy of Randy Credico]

What started as a one-man “shame-on-you” protest against the Justice Department—launched by comedian-activist Randy Credico—has gone viral as “Buy-a-Billboard-for-Julian” Campaign supported by activists worldwide

Co-Founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Ben Cohen, pledged: “I’ll Match Each and Every Donation to The Julian Assange Mobile Billboard Campaign”

Two weeks ago CovertAction Magazine reported on the 15-foot-wide satirical billboards mounted on trucks and driven all over the nation’s capital to publicly shame the Justice Department and Democratic Party leaders for their illegal and immoral persecution of Julian Assange.
[IMG alt="A picture containing text, person, outdoor, person

Description automatically generated"]https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagaz...person-1.jpeg?resize=696,426&ssl=1[/IMG]Randy Credico addresses Assange Billboard Rally in front of Justice Department, August 17, 2022. [Source: Photo courtesy of Steve Brown]
Randy Credico never dreamed that his personal “poke-in-the-eye” campaign against the Justice Department would catch on the way it has. He had started with just one truck and one driver for a few hours a day—which was all he could afford. But suddenly, after CovertAction Magazine broke the story and posted photos of Credico’s billboards popping up all over Washington D.C., other news organizations started covering the story.
Then activist journalists like John Pilger, Max Blumenthal, John Kiriakou and many others began writing about the billboard campaign, praising it for the hope it inspired in so many who fervently campaigned and prayed for Assange’s release.
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John Pilger [Source: alchetron.com]
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Stefania Maurizi [Source: journalismfund.eu]
John Pilger—”When people ask, ‘What can I do?’, my response is to point to the billboard campaign created by the ever-imaginative direct action of one man, Randy Credico.”
Stefania Maurizi—”We need people taking to the streets to protest against the horrific treatment of Julian Assange. The Billboard project does a valuable work.”
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Gabriel Shipton (Julian Assange’s brother) [Source: twitter.com]
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John Kiriakou [Source: ncnewsonline.com]
Gabriel Shipton (Julian Assange’s brother)—”A billboard cruising the streets of D.C. with pictures of imprisoned and murdered journalists? This brainchild of Randy Credico is a powerful in-your-face message to those who decide who lives or dies.”
John Kiriakou—”I don’t usually experience ‘joy’ when walking the streets of Washington D.C.. But joy is what I felt when I saw a truck urging support for Julian Assange. I first saw it on Capitol Hill in front of of the Senate office buildings—then later in Chinatown, outside the Capital Arena where Roger Waters was performing—and then again the next day at Farragut Square, arguably the most heavily trafficked place in all of D.C., I wasn’t the only one who saw it. Thousands of Washingtonians did. And if it made even one go home and research Julian’s case, it was worth it. I can’t wait to see that truck again.”
After that, the dam broke, as the thousands who follow those journalists began reposting and retweeting the billboard photos to their thousands of friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.
As a result, many who may never have heard of Julian Assange were now, at least, aware of him. And some—or, hopefully, many—might even look him up on their computers and smart phones, and start wondering exactly what kind of justice our Justice Department was really pursuing.
To top it off, Roger Waters, founder of Pink Floyd and longtime Assange supporter, showed up at the August 17 street rally for Assange in front of the Justice Department and delivered a resounding thumbs up to Credico’s billboard campaign.
[IMG alt="A picture containing person, outdoor, mammal, people

Description automatically generated"]https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagaz...l-peop-1.jpeg?resize=696,805&ssl=1[/IMG]Roger Waters gives a thumbs up to Assange mobile billboard campaign in front of the Justice Department on August 17, 2022. [Source: Photo courtesy of Steve Brown]
Waters also plans to deliver an ear-splitting, 100-decibel shoutout for Assange to more than 400,000 cheering fans during his “This Is Not a Drill” concert tour, a radical political rock extravaganza he is taking to more than 20 major U.S. and Canadian cities, including Washington D.C., New York City, Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, Las Vegas, Dallas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Montreal and Toronto.
Like those at Waters’ sold-out Washington D.C. concert on August 16 (which this writer attended), his fans around the country will hear songs such as “The Bravery of Being Out of Range,” accompanied by 30-foot-high video-wall images of U.S. presidents, with captions like (under Ronald Reagan), “War criminal—killed 30,000 innocents in Guatemala.” And under Barack Obama, “War criminal—normalized the use of drone strikes.” And finally, under Joe Biden, the caption, “War criminal—just getting started.”
The cascading publicity and media attention now focused on Credico’s mobile billboards have sparked an international fundraising campaign to “BUY A BILLBOARD FOR JULIAN.” Its intent is to keep Credico’s trucks rolling, and keep the pressure on Joe Biden, and on Attorney General Merrick Garland, day after day, until they cease their illegal persecution of Julian Assange.

Co-Founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Pledges: “I’ll Match Each and Every Donation to the Julian Assange Mobile Billboard Campaign”

A person wearing glasses Description automatically generated with low confidence
Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream [Source: jewishbusinessnews.com]
Ben Cohen, activist co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, intends to make sure that the provocative giant billboards calling for Julian Assange’s freedom continue to roll up and down the streets of Washington DC.
In a recent message to Randy Credico (the radio journalist and political satirist who created the Julian Assange Mobile Billboard Campaign), Cohen pledged to match—not only the donations already given to the campaign—but also to personally match every new donation going forward.

Cohen urges, “If you haven’t given yet, please chip in what you can HERE to help FREE ASSANGE NOW—and I will double it.”

Credico’s brilliant idea for a mobile billboard campaign started small; it was his own one-man “shame-on-you” protest against the Biden Justice Department for its persecution of Julian Assange. But it soon went viral, inspiring donations from all over the world that have helped increase the frequency of the billboards.
They now show up and draw crowds at every iconic site in the nation’s capital—from the Department of Justice to the Washington Monument to the Capitol Building to the White House. Thousands of residents and visitors to the nation’s capital have seen them.
[IMG alt="A picture containing text, outdoor, sky, road

Description automatically generated"]https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagaz...d-des.png?resize=565,476&ssl=1[/IMG]Billboard truck driving past Washington Monument. [Source: Photo courtesy of Randy Credico]

Ben Cohen is waiting to personally match your donation

[IMG alt="A picture containing text, person, person, sign

Description automatically generated"]https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagaz...son-sign-d.jpeg?resize=652,492&ssl=1[/IMG]Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. [Source: tbnweekly.com]
It costs $500 a day to keep a truck and driver patrolling the streets of D.C. with Julian Assange billboards. If you would like to join those who are helping to keep those billboard trucks rolling, you can donate to buy all–or part–of a Julian Assange billboard HERE.
Further, don’t let Ben’s generous offer go to waste. It costs a lot of money to keep trucks and drivers patrolling the streets of DC every day of the week with Julian Assange billboards. You can help keep them rolling by donating HERE. Ben Cohen will be delighted to match your donation.
 

Major News Organizations Finally Urge US to Drop Charges Against Julian Assange​

Link: https://news.antiwar.com/2022/11/28...ge-us-to-drop-charges-against-julian-assange/

The New York Times and four other organizations tell the US government that 'publishing is not a crime'

by Dave DeCamp Posted onNovember 28, 2022

Five major Western news organizations have finally spoken out for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and are calling on the US government to drop the charges against him.

In a letter to the US government, the editors and publishers of The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, DER SPIEGEL, and El País said that “publishing is not a crime” and that it was time for the US “to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets.”
The five news outlets benefited greatly from documents released by WikiLeaks and worked with the organization to publish State Department cables in a release known as “Cable Gate.” The letter explains that for receiving those leaks and the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs from whistleblower Chelsea Manning, Assange has faced “the most severe consequences.”
The letter reads: “On 12 April 2019, Assange was arrested in London on a US arrest warrant, and has now been held for three and a half years in a high-security British prison usually used for terrorists and members of organized crime groups.”
While being held in Belmarsh Prison on no charges, Assange has been subject to psychological torture, a UN special rapporteur has determined. If extradited to the US, he could face up to 175 years in a maximum security prison.
The US Department of Justice indicted Assange under the Espionage Act even though he used standard journalistic practices to receive the information he published. The letter explains that the Obama administration refrained from seeking Assange’s indictment due to the precedent it could set and that the Trump administration decided to pursue charges.
“Under Donald Trump however, the position changed. The DOJ relied on an old law, the Espionage Act of 1917 (designed to prosecute potential spies during World War 1), which has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster,” the news organizations said.
The Trump administration’s decision to indict Assange was likely related to WikiLeaks’ publication of documents that detailed the CIA’s hacking tools, known as Vault 7. While there was nothing illegal about the release, and Assange is being charged for unrelated leaks, Vault 7 enraged the CIA and then-Director Mike Pompeo.
Last year, in a bombshell report, Yahoo News revealed that the CIA under Pompeo plotted to kidnap and discussed assassinating Assange over the release of Vault 7. The report has been cited by Assange’s legal team to argue against the UK’s former Home Secretary’s decision to extradite him to the US, which is currently being appealed.
 

'Operation Pelican': Details Of UK's Secret Op To Seize Assange Revealed​

BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, DEC 01, 2022 - 02:30 AM
Authored by Matt Kennard via Consortium News/Declassified UK,

Link: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/operation-pelican-details-uks-secret-op-seize-assange-revealed

The British government assigned at least 15 people to the secret operation to seize Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, new information shows. The WikiLeaks founder was given political asylum by Ecuador in 2012, but was never allowed safe passage out of Britain to avoid persecution by the U.S. government.
The Australian journalist has been in Belmarsh maximum-security prison for the past three and a half years and faces a potential 175-year sentence after the High Court of England and Wales green-lighted his extradition to the U.S. in December 2021. "Pelican" was the secret Metropolitan Police operation to seize Assange from his asylum, which eventually occurred in April 2019. Asylum is a right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Julian Assange speaking from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, Wikimedia Commons.
The operation’s existence was only revealed in the memoirs of former Foreign Minister Sir Alan Duncan which were published last year. The U.K. government routinely blocks, or obfuscates its answers to information requests about the Assange case.
But the Cabinet Office recently told Parliament it had seven officials working on Operation Pelican. The department’s role is to "support the Prime Minister and ensure the effective running of government," but it also has national security and intelligence functions.
It is not immediately clear why the Cabinet Office would have so many personnel working on a police operation of this kind. Asked about their role, the Cabinet Office said these seven officials "liaised" with the Metropolitan Police on the operation.
The Home Office, meanwhile, told Parliament it had eight officials working on Pelican. The Home Office oversees MI5 and the head of the department has to sign off extraditions to most foreign countries. The then home secretary, Priti Patel, ordered Assange’s extradition to the U.S. in June.
‘Disproportionate Cost’
Other government ministries refused to say if they had staff working on Pelican, including the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). The MoJ is in charge of courts in England and Wales, where Assange’s extradition case is currently deciding whether to hear an appeal. It is also in control of its prisons, including Belmarsh maximum security jail where Assange is incarcerated.
When asked if any of its staff were assigned to Pelican, the MoJ claimed: "The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost." It is unclear why the Home Office, a bigger department with more staff, could answer such a question, but the MoJ could not. There is no obvious reason why the MoJ would have staff assigned to Pelican, so revelations that it did would cause embarrassment for the government.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Office told Parliament it had no staff "directly assigned" to Pelican, but refused to say if people working on the operation were located on its premises.
‘Julian Assange’s Special Brexit Team’
Sir Alan Duncan, foreign minister for the Americas from 2016-19, was the key U.K. official in the diplomatic negotiations between the U.K. and Ecuador to get Assange out of the embassy. In his memoirs he wrote that he watched a live-feed of Assange’s arrest from the Operations Room at the top of the Foreign Office alongside Pelican personnel.

After Assange had been imprisoned in Belmarsh, Duncan had a drinks party at his office for the Pelican team.
"I gave them each a signed photo which we took in the Ops Room on the day, with a caption saying ‘Julian Assange’s Special Brexit Team 11th April 2019,’" he wrote.
Ecuador’s president from 2007-17, Rafael Correa, recently told Declassified he granted Assange asylum because the Australian journalist "didn’t have any possibility of a fair legal process in the United States." He added that the U.K. government "tried to deal with us like a subordinate country."
In September 2021, 30 former U.S. officials went on the record to reveal a CIA plot to "kill or kidnap" Assange in London. In case of Assange leaving the embassy, the article noted, "US officials asked their British counterparts to do the shooting if gunfire was required, and the British agreed, according to a former senior administration official." These assurances most likely came from the Home Office.
 

PETER HITCHENS: There is still time for us to do right – and save Julian Assange from dying in US dungeon​

By PETER HITCHENS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 17:00 EDT, 17 June 2023 | UPDATED: 17:02 EDT, 17 June 2023

There is still just time for our Government to do a good, brave deed, which will be recognised as such decades hence. There is still just time for prominent figures in politics and the media to place themselves on the side of justice and liberty, where they ought always to be.
Julian Assange must not be extradited to the US, for such an action will shame our country.
If in doubt they should consider the very similar case of Daniel Ellsberg, who has just died. Mr Ellsberg was excoriated, hounded and put on trial when, half a century ago, he publicised documents revealing the nasty truth about the Vietnam War. President Richard Nixon mobilised the law to silence and punish him. Ellsberg died a much-honoured hero of liberty. Nixon died in shame and disgrace.
PETER HITCHENS: Julian Assange must not be extradited to the US, for such an action will shame our country


PETER HITCHENS: Julian Assange must not be extradited to the US, for such an action will shame our country
Yet the shadows are closing fast around Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who infuriated the US government by revealing a trove of embarrassing material about its misdeeds.
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A few weeks from now, he could be bundled into a van at Belmarsh prison, the high-security fortress where he has been cruelly held for years. And then he could be led on to an aircraft and flown to the US, where there is a strong chance that he will spend the rest of his life buried alive in some federal dungeon.
I wrote here in September 2020: 'Do we really want the hand of a foreign power to be able to reach into our national territory at will and pluck out anyone it wants to punish? Are we still even an independent country if we allow this? The Americans would certainly not let us treat them in this way. It is unimaginable that the US would hand over to us any of its citizens who had been accused of leaking British secret documents. Yet if Mr Assange is sent to face trial in the US, any British journalist who comes into possession of classified material from the US, though he has committed no crime according to our own law, faces the same danger.
PETER HITCHENS: If in doubt they should consider the very similar case of Daniel Ellsberg, who has just died


PETER HITCHENS: If in doubt they should consider the very similar case of Daniel Ellsberg, who has just died
'This is a basic violation of our national sovereignty, and a major threat to our own press freedom. I think that no English court should accept this demand. And if the courts fail in their duty, then I think that any self-respecting Home Secretary should overrule them.'
Please raise your voices while you can. This is a political prosecution and we should not permit such a thing against anyone on our soil.

Glenda classic that's strangely gone missing​

Reading the obituaries of Glenda Jackson, I realised that I must have actually seen her on stage before she was a superstar.
PETER HITCHENS: What on earth has happened to the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday, starring Jackson and the great Peter Finch


PETER HITCHENS: What on earth has happened to the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday, starring Jackson and the great Peter Finch
If only I'd known, perhaps I'd have enjoyed the evening more. It was a mad, ghastly agitprop play called US, about the general wickedness of America, in which (as I recall) everybody shouted all the time and I seem to remember a large cardboard model of a nuclear missile and the burning of a butterfly (later revealed to be a fake). Gosh, the 1960s were bizarre.
I've no wish to see that again.
But what on earth has happened to the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday, starring Jackson and the great Peter Finch – a terrific prophecy of the new era then just beginning?
How come, in an age when we can supposedly watch anything, that such things can just disappear?

A lax law destroys two more lives​

Abortion is the only legal medical procedure in which a human being is intentionally killed. We have lied to ourselves about this for decades, by using the dismissive, harsh Latin term 'foetus' – instead of recognising that what we are destroying is a future human being.
In almost all cases, I really cannot see why adoption would be worse than abortion, if the mother truly does not want the baby.
So how should we view the case of Carla Foster, a mother of young children sent to prison for 14 months for unlawfully aborting her baby, long after our very liberal law permits this? You might be interested to know that, in this case, the aborted baby's name was Lily. I think this helps us to realise that we are dealing with two human beings, not just one.
PETER HITCHENS: I think it is precisely our lax abortion laws which put Carla Foster in the terrible circumstances that led her to panic and then entangled her in an impossible knot of lies


PETER HITCHENS: I think it is precisely our lax abortion laws which put Carla Foster in the terrible circumstances that led her to panic and then entangled her in an impossible knot of lies
The abortion lobby thinks the case may damage its cause and its relentless efforts to make abortion even easier to obtain. I hope it does damage that cause. I think it is precisely our lax abortion laws which put Carla Foster in the terrible circumstances that led her to panic and then entangled her in an impossible knot of lies. That is why she did something we know she now deeply regrets.
Those laws encourage women (and also irresponsible, selfish men) to think they can behave just as they like, and be rescued from any consequences, by aborting the resulting child.
If they did not think this, I believe they would be more careful in the first place. You cannot blame this sad, hard case on the severity of the law, which is anything but severe. It is important to know that if only Carla Foster had pleaded guilty sooner, her sentence could legally have been suspended and probably would have been. Plainly, she lied because she panicked and her private life was in a dreadful mess and who cannot sympathise with that?
But why was she in this plight in the first place? I believe it is because abortion is too easy, not because it is too difficult.
 
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