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Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

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Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#81

Post by friendlybus »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #11

Craig Murray has done a remarkable job independently attending and reporting on each day’s testimony. He is widely criticized for his other views and accused of being an Assange sympathizer by parties who believe Assange may be guilty. I personally don’t see any evidence for bias impacting his reporting, but just wanted to raise the issue because there is usually a deluge of sniping comments attacking Murray’s covera…

His characterization of people's behaviours is quite colourful, easy to pick a bias out of that.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#82

Post by nsajko »

awild wrote: post #26
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #11

Craig Murray has done a remarkable job independently attending and reporting on each day’s testimony. He is widely criticized for his other views and accused of being an Assange sympathizer by parties who believe Assange may be guilty. I personally don’t see any evidence for bias impacting his reporting, but just wanted to raise the issue because there is usually a deluge of sniping comments attacking Murray’s covera…

The biggest problem with Assagne is the fact that the US managed to assasinate his character with the swedish rape accusations dropped last year (after 10 years). They managed to make him untouchable , as journalists would have had to argue to show support for a "supposed rapist". There is an excellent interview in german with the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture about him that was very revealing: https:…

Yeah, but for the fact that Melzer is full of shit. He's basically a demagogue; making many vague, unsubstantiated, unverifiable or nonfalsifiable claims.

Turns out that Melzer's only concrete accusation is based on a misreading of evidence at best; the one against the Swedish police, of how they supposedly tampered with (even fabricated) one of the testimonies. The evidence for that is inconclusive, Melzer was possibly confused with the format of the Freedom of Information documents released by the police, but in any case Melzer is making a big fuss out of nothing and downplaying rape with his other comments at the same time.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209868

EDIT: also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...

> One of the women interviewed by Melzer later sharply criticised him and demanded his resignation. She said that by defining how a "proper rape-victim" would have to act, Melzer was engaging in victim blaming and that his report was partially "untrue and defamatory".

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#83

Post by jonnycomputer »

cassepipe wrote: post #31

I am baffled to see that the majority of the comments here are at best showing no support for what Assange did and at worst are trying to find excuses not to be disturbed in their belief that since we are in a democracy hence everything that's happening is normal. I thought the people here had a sharper political view on what kind of society we could/should live in but I just read people that are always in a hurry to…

I do not have a good opinion of Julian Assange or of Wikileaks, and I am not afraid to say it. At best it has been an unwitting tool of Russian disinformation campaigns; just as likely it is complicit.

One must also wonder why Assange spends so much time talking to folks like Sean Hannity, Dana Rohrbacher, and Charles C. Johnson.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/09/19/wherein-wikileaks-brag...

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#84

Post by hombre_fatal »

pmachinery wrote: post #53
demarq wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not seeing that in the comments I'm seeing it everytime someone prefaces their comment with something along the lines of: "I'm not an Assange supporter But ..." in fact you're comment is really no different: > not supporting what Assange did, I didn't Are people worried the FBI will break down their door, if they don't put up the disclaimer?

Maybe people can be critical of the way Assange is being treated and/or the way the US/UK regimes are behaving, while not necessarily supporting what he did or liking the guy. Edit: In fact prefacing with "I'm not an Assange supporter but..." sounds to me like someone trying to give their argument in support of him/against the US/UK governments more weight, ie, even people who aren't the usual suspect fans of his are…

> sounds to me like someone trying to give their argument more weight

People do this all the time on any subject, it's a weak rhetorical device. "I'm not one to support Javascript but", "I don't normally disagree with @pmachinery but".

We should just try to make our point without trying to artificially weigh it with rhetoric.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#85

Post by LatteLazy »

I feel like the powers that be have decided to make this extradition happen.

Most people don't care because they don't pay attention. Of those that do, the noisy attention payers like us, a sizeable group have decided Assange isn't likeable and so should suffer for upsetting people more powerful than him.

Now we have to go through all this theatrics simply so those people can say things like "he got a fair hearing" and "the magistrate ruled against him so that must be the law".

It's very disappointing, because the whole point of laws is that it shouldn't matter whether you're pretty or funny or sympathetic. And after thousands of years of civilisation, people still rely on their gut feelings.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#86

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #80
shuntress wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last few notable years of his career had been less about "defending that natural right to whistleblowing" and more about "make sure only the right whistles get blown"

That's debatable but even if true doesn't mean he's not one of the most valuable and important journalists in history

"One of the most valuable and important journalists in history" is quite a grand description. Can you clarify what makes him so special? I worry this is something where people's opinions have escalated far beyond what the underlying facts support in a cycle of outrage and counter-outrage.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#87

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

rootsudo wrote: post #60
colordrops wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you'll find that twitter only marks Russian and Chinese accounts as "state media".

To be fair, the name of the state is in BBC itself.

Twitter's been fairly open about their decisionmaking process here, so we know that's not the relevant factor - they say they don't label BBC because it has editorial independence.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#88

Post by megous »

rootusrootus wrote: post #63
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assange is an extra controversial figure in the US due to events in the 2016 election unrelated to this case. Before that happened I rarely saw such disclaimers.

I agree with this. It sure appears that he took sides in the US election in 2016. It makes sense to see a 50/50 split in support, likely correlated roughly with political partisanship.

Easy to see someone who published secrets related to american imperialism, would publish secrets about the candidate that was viewed as imperialist at the time.

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#89

Post by chokolad »

rootsudo wrote: post #60
colordrops wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you'll find that twitter only marks Russian and Chinese accounts as "state media".

To be fair, the name of the state is in BBC itself.

> To be fair, the name of the state is in BBC itself.

As opposed to RT ?

Re: Why are Amnesty International monitors not able to observe the Assange hearing?

#90

Post by indigo945 »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #83
cassepipe wrote: post #31

I am baffled to see that the majority of the comments here are at best showing no support for what Assange did and at worst are trying to find excuses not to be disturbed in their belief that since we are in a democracy hence everything that's happening is normal. I thought the people here had a sharper political view on what kind of society we could/should live in but I just read people that are always in a hurry to…

I do not have a good opinion of Julian Assange or of Wikileaks, and I am not afraid to say it. At best it has been an unwitting tool of Russian disinformation campaigns; just as likely it is complicit. One must also wonder why Assange spends so much time talking to folks like Sean Hannity, Dana Rohrbacher, and Charles C. Johnson. https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/09/19/wherein-wikileaks-brag...

No matter what anyone's opinion on Assange is, it is clear that he still deserves a fair trial. And given the public's lack of access to the proceedings, as well as Nils Melzer's testimony, it is clear that that isn't what he is getting.
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