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Assange in Court

craigmurray.org.uk

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Re: Assange in Court

#61

Post by ben_w »

chippy wrote: post #9

"The charge against Julian is very specific; conspiring with Chelsea Manning to publish the Iraq War logs, the Afghanistan war logs and the State Department cables. The charges are nothing to do with Sweden, nothing to do with sex, and nothing to do with the 2016 US election" I'd like to call out the popular and prolific users of hacker news who previously were all about Sweden, sex and election interference and who…

He was in the UK when he was arrested for extradition to Sweden. He was in the UK [1] when he was arrested for extradition to the USA.

As I have said before, the very fact that the USA is having essentially zero difficulty with extraditing him from the UK even thought the rape case preceded the USA case and is ongoing and is nearly facing the statute of limitations demonstrates that his claim “going to Sweden will cause me to be face the death penalty in the USA” is bogus — the USA neither needed nor benefited from him being in Sweden.

If anything, I am as angry with the USA for preventing him from facing his rape accusers in trial in Sweden as for interfering with anti-warcrime whistleblowing (journalism or not) by going after him like this.

[1] I neither know nor care if he was technically in the embassy at the time as they had just kicked him out anyway.

Re: Assange in Court

#62

Post by tomp »

pjc50 wrote: post #37
chippy wrote: post #9

"The charge against Julian is very specific; conspiring with Chelsea Manning to publish the Iraq War logs, the Afghanistan war logs and the State Department cables. The charges are nothing to do with Sweden, nothing to do with sex, and nothing to do with the 2016 US election" I'd like to call out the popular and prolific users of hacker news who previously were all about Sweden, sex and election interference and who…

The Swedish case was a separate issue; he hid in the embassy until the clock ran out on that. It's difficult to say how differently things would have gone if he'd simply gone to Sweden, but I would have expected them to be less likely to re-extradite than the UK. It's perfectly possible for the US to be overreaching in its "national security" prosecutions and also for Assange to have sexually assaulted someone in Swe…

This is a lie.

"The clock ran out" only on some of the crimes he was accused of. Sweden simply dropped the case (i.e. decided not to proceed with extradition request) after he got out of the embassy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Swedish_sexual_...

> the questioning pertained only to the open investigation of "lesser degree rape", whose statute of limitations is due to expire in 2020

> Following Assange's 2019 arrest, the case was reopened under prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson. In September 2019, she revealed that she had interviewed seven witnesses, two of whom had not been previously heard, but had yet to determine how to proceed in the case.

Re: Assange in Court

#63

Post by mmjaa »

FireBeyond wrote: post #17
mmjaa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>objectivity + >considered within the spectrum What is your purpose here? To defend the actions of the UK court, which is clearly being corrupted by following direction from US agents? Or to open the door for the, very definite Assange-haters, to have a way around the argument that Assange is not getting a fair trial, that this case is a total farce , and that anyone who stands up to the military-industrial-pharmaceu…

One example: Very article linked in the original post talks about concerns for Assange's health, saying he has been in the medical ward in jail. Yet apparently it's not at all possible that he is on medications to help with his mental state (which would explain - though in this case note that I would entirely agree that the use of such medication would interfere with his "ability to understand" - his demeanor as bein…

Innocent until proven guilty.

But in the meantime: medicated into oblivion so he can't adequately defend himself.

"Concern for his mental health" is just an excuse for "medically lobotomized".

Re: Assange in Court

#64

Post by guidedlight »

vermilingua wrote: post #22
threeseed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many would argue that Assange isn't a journalist. And so that also is a factor.

What is he if not a journalist? He is not accused of leaking documents himself, but of facilitating their dissemination. Sounds more or less like the textbook definition of journalism to me.

It sounds like the textbook definition of a publisher.

Re: Assange in Court

#65

Post by vintermann »

threeseed wrote: post #31
vermilingua wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is he if not a journalist? He is not accused of leaking documents himself, but of facilitating their dissemination. Sounds more or less like the textbook definition of journalism to me.

So the issue with Assange was that he never showed any "limitation of harm" when he chose not to redact any of the content. It's a pretty core tenant of journalism ethics. Those sort of subtleties are important when you're going to be arguing in front of a judge.

No, that is not the issue. That's just a Gish gallop-like defense coughed up now.

It's not true that you have to limit harm to the government's taste in order to be considered a journalist, and it's not true that Assange did not try to limit harm either.

> Those sort of subtleties are important when you're going to be arguing in front of a judge.

Not in front of this judge. If there's one thing the case against Assange hasn't been, it's subtle!

Re: Assange in Court

#66

Post by peltier »

threeseed wrote: post #28
mikro2nd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll venture that the question of whether he is or is not a journalist is moot. The question is, "Is the offence for which extradition is sought political?"

It's relevant in that his crimes e.g. publishing classified material are permissible if it's done so by a journalist for public interest reasons i.e. Pentagon Papers case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers And all extraditions have a degree of politicisation about them so it wouldn't be at all abnormal here.

WL partnered with journalists from all the world. Questioning if he himself is a journalist is rather dishonest considering he thinks himself one and he is responsible for millions of informative, ground-breaking articles written worldwide.

The Australian Journalist should not be concerned about precedent set in a US court against a US citizen.

Don't kill the messenger.

Re: Assange in Court

#67

Post by bufferoverflow »

rimliu wrote: post #47
enriquto wrote: post #2

In 50 years, people will look in disgust and utter disbelief at our treatment of Assange. Or maybe this is too optimistic. Maybe our grandsons will indeed understand us. They will understand us too well, and be ashamed of us.

He will be forgotten in ten years. And for a good reason.

He absolutely will not be forgotten. He is a hero. Even now he has a wikipedia article, multiple movies about him, tons of support from the people supporting the freedom of information and those who are sick of the secretive bullshit going on behind the curtains.

Re: Assange in Court

#68

Post by bufferoverflow »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #53
jacobush wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help that Assange is kind of unsavory. It should not affect things, but it does.

also that "mainstream" journalists refuse to recognise him as a journalist and defend his rights like they would one of their own.

It doesn't matter, he is still a journalist, and he has accomplished more than they will in a life time.

Re: Assange in Court

#69

Post by vintermann »

FireBeyond wrote: post #17
mmjaa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>objectivity + >considered within the spectrum What is your purpose here? To defend the actions of the UK court, which is clearly being corrupted by following direction from US agents? Or to open the door for the, very definite Assange-haters, to have a way around the argument that Assange is not getting a fair trial, that this case is a total farce , and that anyone who stands up to the military-industrial-pharmaceu…

One example: Very article linked in the original post talks about concerns for Assange's health, saying he has been in the medical ward in jail. Yet apparently it's not at all possible that he is on medications to help with his mental state (which would explain - though in this case note that I would entirely agree that the use of such medication would interfere with his "ability to understand" - his demeanor as bein…

True, it's possible. You can also be a complete tool.

As I've been saying constantly, what you can believe is more important than who you can believe (Murray has big problems with this himself, unfortunately). That Assange is being abused is one of the facts you have to concede if you've looked at the case at all - even if you distrust all involved parties.

Re: Assange in Court

#70

Post by Cthulhu_ »

sschueller wrote: post #21

There is a double standard. I doubt that the wife of the US diplomat will ever be extradited to the UK after killing a UK citizens. [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-usa-crash-parents...

That's not a political offense though, that's a hit and run. She could have been extradited for that if she didn't have diplomatic immunity, however, does the US ever extradite someone to a foreign country? I mean the hypothetical scenario of e.g. Bush or Obama being tried for war crimes in The Hague has come up at some point; iirc the statement then was that the US would send in the military to get them out again. And they'd get away with it too - international treaties and/or the UN has little to no power over them.
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