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Assange in Court

craigmurray.org.uk

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Re: Assange in Court

#81

Post by cryptonector »

threeseed wrote: post #16
pulse7 wrote: post #3

"Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense." If an American journalist in UK is publishing Chinese military secrets, he will not be extradited to China. If an Australian journalist in UK is publishing American military secrets, will he be extradited to America? This is the question now...

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

In the U.S. there's no such thing as being a licensed journalist. Anyone can be a journalist.

Re: Assange in Court

#82

Post by vintermann »

LandR wrote: post #25
henearkr wrote: post #6

How is it possible there is not yet a huge mob gathering near the court and threatening to burn everything. Because, this is literally revolting. How many people support that? And how many people are disgusted by that? Would nobody regret doing nothing?

I doubt most people care. Outside of a few friends, I doubt most people I know know that this is 1) going on and 2) who Assange even is.

It's ten years since he was arrested (just weeks after the Cablegate release - but they'll have you believe that was a complete coincidence).

Kids who were 8 years old at the time can vote now.

It makes you wonder what the world would have looked like, had Wikileaks not been shattered.

It's not just Assange. Arjen Kamphuis disappeared without a trace on a trip in Norway. Ola Bini is jail in Ecuador. Aaron Swartz and James Dolan, who worked on SecureDrop and probably on Wikileaks' own submission system, both committed suicide.

State propaganda ops from all sides rushed in to fill the void after Wikileaks was crippled.

Re: Assange in Court

#83

Post by ramblerman »

sudoaza wrote: post #79

This exposes the sham that is western "democracy". Everything is allowed to persecute those who oppose the status quo. The so called freedom they claim for themselves when they attack Russia, China or Venezuela in the corporate media is a right reserved for those who have money and who submit to the ruling class.

> This exposes the sham that is western "democracy".

Comparing western democracy to Venezuela is facetious at best, but I agree it's a sham. Just for entirely different reasons. If people really cared about this issue, then western democracy still has checks and balances for the people to make change.

The problem is Assange has long become a boring item in the news cycle, and we as a people in that democracy just don't care enough anymore.

The narrative of him being a rapist, and letting it simmer for enough years, was very effective.

Re: Assange in Court

#84

Post by enriquto »

rimliu wrote: post #78
bufferoverflow wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

one man's hero is another man's villain.

And in either case, when they are relevant enough, they are not forgotten.

Re: Assange in Court

#85

Post by rimliu »

enriquto wrote: post #84
rimliu wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one man's hero is another man's villain.

And in either case, when they are relevant enough, they are not forgotten.

But do you honestly believe he will be relevant enough in 10 years? No doubt some will remember him, but I say way more people will know Snowden than Assange in ten years.

Re: Assange in Court

#86

Post by peltier »

Following the WikiLeaks story from its early days until today leave me incredibly demoralized and to be frank, angry. If I where to list the amount of injustices WikiLeaks and those who have associated with them have suffered, I would sit here all night, and I strongly suspect that is by intelligent design.

This story, if the end of it is as it seems, it will mark a shift in the perceived ideals of the "free world".

Re: Assange in Court

#87

Post by roenxi »

oliwarner wrote: post #71
mmjaa wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> Innocent until proven guilty And for that to hold, you have to let him be tried. Justice isn't automatic. But people (maybe not you) seem far too quick to start muddying up the due process. It seems that if he is found guilty, nobody will accept that. From here, it seems perfectly plausible that he actively helped Manning leak. If the US have evidence to that end, they have a case. Can we just let that case be hear…

> It seems that if he is found guilty, nobody will accept that.

It depends what they find him guilty of and what the sentence is. It is unacceptable to have someone on trial for openly telling the truth about what a foreign country is doing.

He went into the Ecuadorian embassy saying that the Swedish case against him was basically trumped up and that he was going to be extradited to the United States. His justification for staying in the embassy on the basis that he would be extradited to the US if he walked out. His excuses were dismissed by critics as unconvincing. He is now out of the embassy and, surprisingly, appears to be going through an extradition process to the US.

The US is reaching out and nabbing him on the flimsiest of pretexts; more a process crime than doing anything material. Australians in Europe cannot be reasonably held subject to US laws related to classified documents. And how materially he helped Manning is a very open question. Maybe the US government is going to have something convincing but the odds are great it is some word game that they are going to try and nail him with.

> Can we just let that case be heard and stop assuming that every actor here is a Bond villain?

If the US government is going to treat Assange the way they treat other non-US-citizens they don't like then by the time the case is heard it will be too late.

Re: Assange in Court

#88

Post by thefounder »

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...

Well is not the first time a US citizen kills an european one in an accident and gets away with it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teo_Peter

Re: Assange in Court

#90

Post by UncleSlacky »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #46
ryanlol wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK-US extradition treaty is already not well regarded in the UK, if the US diplomat does not show up in the UK this is likely to play a big part in how the press treats high profile US extradition cases. It’s definitely an interesting situation.

Further complicated by diplomatic immunity in this case. If it was just an extradition case the US would probably be more willing to play ball.

Of course, she never had diplomatic immunity - her husband works for the NSA, and was not on the official list of diplomats (those whose credentials are presented and accepted at the Court of St James).
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