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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?

#151

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

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...

This is a completely baseless claim, and it is directly contradicted by testimony in Assange’s extradition hearing.

For example, John Sloboda of Iraq Body Count testified both to the crucial role Wikileaks diplomatic cables played in corroborating many illegal civilian deaths in the Iraq War, and also the huge degree of care and effort Assange and Wikileaks put into carefully redacting identifying information and weighing the moral balance of information that was too important to be fully redacted.

If your comments on Russian disinformation are about the DNC leaked emails, then you’ve unfortunately got it backwards.

Assange and Wikileaks didn’t assist or engender Russian disinformation, rather the DNC members whose behavior was revealed by the emails did that. The DNC did that via their behavior. Assange reported it.

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

#152

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

LegitShady wrote: post #94
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the article explains their remote access was revoked (unlike many other public observers).

>We've made 3 applications requesting recognition as expert fair trial monitors. Judge states that no 'special provision' will be made for our trial monitor's attendance,” They requested they get special status as "fair trial monitors". The judge said they get treated like everyone else. They should have no better access than you or I. They are nobody - a group that got together to push their agenda. They have no sta…

> “ They can monitor the trial without some special recognition.”

No, their remote access request was denied. This is separate from any request for standing as an expert trial observer (which is a whole other can of worms).

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

#153

Post by colordrops »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #122
colordrops wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with your assessment, especially after seeing the Hamilton 68 "Russian backed media" dashboard that included a lot of progressive and alternative media, directed by a mix of DNC elite and Neo-cons, which was created by the orwellian sounding "Alliance for Securing Democracy". It's obvious that the RussiaGate campaign is really a smear campaign used to take down enemies left and right if you pay close at…

What are some of the better tools for generating timeline data from text (I hate all the gui tools). I have often found creating just basic timelines (just org files with dates as headings) has really helped me understand and find novel insights into issues of a convtroversial nature, so I think you are on to something.

https://visjs.github.io/vis-timeline/examples/timeline/

This will generate from textual data I believe.

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

#154

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

colordrops wrote: post #149
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds hand-wavy. How is editorial independence measured?

I agree with your skepticism of the objectivity here. Twitter says only that they "consulted with a number of expert groups": https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/new-label...

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

#155

Post by chillwaves »

colordrops wrote: post #107
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 know that talking about propaganda and shills on HN is frowned upon, but it seems relevant to this discussion. I believe that the negative opinions of Assange mostly consist of either propaganda by sock puppets, people that heard this propaganda and repeated themselves, or a bit of both. Assange was held in high esteem by the public until they finally got a foothold on how to bury him. Intelligence agencies and the…

It's not helpful to say "the people who I disagree with are repeating propaganda."

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

#156

Post by pydry »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #87
rootsudo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Twitter is wrong then. They used to have editorial independence before the Hutton enquiry.

Any editorial independence they have now is purely nominal.

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

#157

Post by k1m »

tssva wrote: post #14

Because Amnesty International has no standing in the law above that of the general public and are therefore being given the same level of access as the general public. The real debate should be whether the general public should have greater access.

Posted this in another thread about this issue recently:

You don't see a problem when a legal hearing that's been criticised as "undermining of due process and the rule of law" by the International Bar Association only offers a tiny number of hard-to-get seats to the public and then asks Amnesty International to compete with them on a first-come, first-serve basis?

From the Amnesty tweet thread: "The general public has a right to the few seats in the public gallery; trial monitors should not be competing with the public to secure a seat that belongs to the public-at-large." - https://twitter.com/JuliaHall18/status/1306198935816613889

> Amnesty International has no standing in the law above that of the general public

I found this in one of their documents:

"Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have for many years sent observers to significant political trials. The acceptance of international trial observers (whether sent by foreign governments or by non-governmental organizations) has arguably become an international legal norm. The practice is well established and accepted within the international community." - https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/156000/pol3000219...

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

#158

Post by boomboomsubban »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #73
res0nat0r wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's being downvoted because the OP already answered the question. They're being treated exactly the same as the rest of the public.

You are factually wrong. Amnesty was granted remote access, and it was revoked. This has not happened to many other public observers. It seems you only read the parts about physical access, and the point about space limitation might be valid in that case. But that part is merely a footnote. The real issue is the remote access being revoked.

Actually, around 40 other public observers from across Europe had the same access granted and then revoked. Many of them were from other countries, happy not to need to travel during the pandemic, and they woke up the morning of the first day to discover their access revoked.

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

#159

Post by chillwaves »

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

If true, it means he is just another cog in a propaganda machine, which is against the principles he claims to operate under.

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

#160

Post by cmiles74 »

pmachinery wrote: post #66
res0nat0r wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's being downvoted because the OP already answered the question. They're being treated exactly the same as the rest of the public.

The rest of the public is also having its remote access revoked?

This is a good question. Coverage of this trial has been hard to come by. Craig Murray is posting details to his blog but he's also not the most objective witness. Still, he wrote the following[0]:

"Magistrate Baraitser then made a statement about access to the court by remote hearing, by which she meant online. She stated that a number of access details had been sent out by mistake by the court without her agreement. She had therefore revoked their access permissions."

When I read this, I thought that only certain people had their remove access revoked, for instance Amnesty International. But then he goes on...

"Baraitser went on to say that it was important that the hearing was public, but she should only agree remote access where it was 'in the interests of justice', and having considered it she had decided it was not. She explained this by stating that the public could normally observe from within the courtroom, where she could control their behaviour. But if they had remote access, she could not control their behaviour and this was not in the 'interests of justice'."

That sounds to me like _everyone's_ remote access had been revoked.

[0]: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...

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