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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Come on Elda, spies are spies no matter their citizenship
Come on Elda, spies are spies no matter their citizenship
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
[B][/Julian Assange: A Court of Star Chamber — cruelty beyond belief B]
by Professor Stuart Rees -- 11 December 2019 -- Comment Analysis, Government
In the 15th century, King Henry VII of England established a Court of Star Chamber. Operated by Privy Counsellors and judges, it developed a reputation for arbitrary power leading to cruel and unusual punishments.There was no due process and no rights of appeal for the accused. Professor Stuart Rees reports.
Publisher, whistleblower, journalist Julian Assange has been the victim of a 21st century Court of Star Chamber operated by media intent on smears, by politicians not wanting to offend Washington and by opponents who decided on hearsay that they knew the consequences of the WikiLeaks cables, what he did in Sweden, how he behaved in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Kristinn Hrafnson, editor in chief of WikiLeaks (Image courtesy National Press Club of Australia)
A week ago, Kristinn Hrafnson, editor in chief of WikiLeaks, flew from Iceland to address the National Press Club in Canberra about the extradition proceedings against Julian Assange. In common with Nils Melzer the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and 60 doctors who have expressed serious concern about Julian’s health, Hrafnson said he worried that Julian would die in prison.
Assange’s offence, for which he faces 17 charges under a US 1917 Espionage Act is to have exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He is in solitary confinement, jailed in a prison which specialises in the containment of murderers and individuals convicted of terrorism offences. Denied the means of preparing for the legal case against him, part of the revenge-type punishment (nothing to do with law) has been to cut him off from the outside world.
The fight for Julian Assange’s freedom depends in part on repudiating the stereotype labels placed on him, as in the view that he is strange, even dangerous and with personal habits different from those of supposed normal people.
Scott Morrison is a leading stereotype promoter. He mouths the platitude that justice must take its course and that Assange must face the music. That “justice” has included the “we-always-know-best” arrogance of the British government and judges who want to make an example of Assange and deter anyone who might challenge the abusive power of a sovereign state.
Another platitude which politicians use to explain why they are not demanding the release and return of citizen Assange is that in Australia we abide by the tradition of not interfering in the affairs of another country. That is a lazy, robot-like excuse. It is also a massive hypocrisy.
Australia had little hesitation in joining a Coalition to invade Iraq. We applaud the US support for protesters in Hong Kong. We stood by the Bahrain footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi, criticized the Thai military government for imprisoning and shackling him and identified the vicious brutality of the regime in Bahrein. The Australian Government has protested the incarceration of Uighur people in so called re-education camps in north west China and the slaughter of protesters in Iraq and Iran.
But when it comes to Australia’s patrons the US and UK, Julian Assange is left to “face the music” and rot in Belmarsh prison.
Julian’s father John Shipton, with the support of Greg Barns and Aloysia Brooks, has been encouraging journalists and politicians to speak on behalf of his son. Significant journalists, Phillip Adams, Mary Kostakidis, Mark Davis and Kerry O’Brien have supported Julian. Federal politicians Andrew Wilkie, George Christensen, Richard Di Natale, Barnaby Joyce and others, plus former Foreign Minister Bob Carr have taken a lead in saying this injustice must end. At their own expense, Wilkie and Christensen propose to visit Julian in Belmarsh.
But why isn’t there an avalanche of politicians declaring that the cruelty to Assange must end ? What else do privileged, comfortable, well paid politicians need to need to know as they journey home to celebrate the spirit of Christmas?
A cue as to why the political support for Assange should be magnified overnight was given on 7 December in Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s address to the Chifley Research Centre Conference.
Albanese said, “We’re the party of social justice.” He criticized the Coalition Government because
“It won’t support the freedom to protest.”
He insisted:
“Labor stands with Australia’s journalists and the Right to Know Coalition in their united campaign to defend and strengthen press freedom.”
He would protect whistleblowers, expand their protections and the public interest test. He demanded,
“Don’t prosecute journalists for just doing their job.”
In addition to telling the Chifley Conference, “We don’t need a culture of secrecy, we need a culture of disclosure”, he could have added, “We need to show courage by refusing to comply with the demands of powerful bullies. We need to know that justice is not some empty slogan.”
There is more in the article...plus a video............to read all...........just go to the link below/
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/julia...beyond-belief/Comment
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Recently there have been many articles in the newspapers on this ongoing saga......................I will just post the latest.
Julian Assange and his Australian lawyers were secretly recorded in Ecuador's London embassy
ABC Investigations By Dylan Welch, Suzanne Dredge and Clare Blumer
Barrister Geoffrey Robertson shuffles into the entrance to Ecuador's embassy in London, a camera recording the sound of his shoes echoing on the hard tiles.
Key points:
•A security company embedded in the Ecuadorian embassy during Julian Assange's residence is under investigation
•Recordings and other surveillance were allegedly passed on to 'American intelligence', according to statements from former workers
•Australian lawyers were among those surveilled in 'Operation Hotel'
It's just after 7:00pm on January 12, 2018.
The camera rolls as Robertson stops at the front door, unbuttons his overcoat and removes his cap.
Once inside the embassy, other cameras follow him as he's ushered into a meeting room, where the storied Queen's Counsel is offered a cup of tea.
After a few minutes, he is greeted by the embassy's most famous resident, Julian Assange.
The camera continues to roll, recording every word of the confidential legal conversation which follows.
While this may be typical surveillance at a secure diplomatic property, what Robertson did not know was he and a handful of other lawyers, were allegedly being targeted in a remarkable and deeply illegal surveillance operation possibly run at the request of the US Government.
And recordings such as Robertson's visit are at the heart of concerns about the surveillance: privileged legal conversations between lawyer and client in a diplomatic residence were recorded and, later, accessed from IP addresses in the United States and Ecuador.
Robertson was only one of at least three Australian lawyers and more than two dozen other legal advisers from around the world that were caught up in the surveillance operation.
Long-time WikiLeaks adviser Jennifer Robinson was one of the other Australian lawyers caught in the spying operation.
"It's important that clients can speak frankly and freely in a confidential space with their lawyers in order to be able to protect themselves and ensure that they have the best possible legal strategy and that the other side does not have advance notice of it," Robinson said.
Referring to a Spanish allegation that the US Government had advance notice of legal conversations in the embassy, she said: "That is … a huge and a serious breach of [Assange's] right to a defence and a serious breach of his fair trial rights".
On Monday evening (Sydney time), Assange will face an extradition hearing relating to US criminal charges against him for his role in the WikiLeaks releases of classified US Government material.
The extradition hearing comes amid a flurry of activity related to Assange: on Friday his legal team also confirmed they will try to seek asylum for the WikiLeaks boss in France, and on Thursday an English court heard that Assange was offered a US presidential pardon if he agreed to say that Russia was not involved in a 2016 leak of Democratic Party emails.
The offer of a pardon was allegedly made by the US congressman Dana Rohrabacher when he visited Assange in the embassy in August 2017. Rohrabacher has denied he was making the offer on behalf of Donald Trump.
'It's an occupational hazard for human rights lawyers'
The surveillance was uncovered via a very public investigation into the Spanish company contracted by the Ecuadorian Government to provide security at the embassy, UC Global.
WikiLeaks Spanish lawyer, Aitor Martinez, told the ABC the surveillance came to light after Assange was arrested, when former UC Global employees provided a large file of material.
"This consisted of recordings from cameras installed in the embassy and hidden microphones; recordings made with secret microphones placed inside the embassy; hundreds of secret copies of the passports of Mr Assange's visitors; multiple emails exchanged between the company owner and the employees," Martinez said.
The recording of lawyers and legal conversations was not accidental, according to the Spanish criminal case, which is now investigating UC Global and its owner, former Spanish Navy marine David Morales.
"David Morales was justifying himself by saying that he had been expressly asked for this information, sometimes referring to 'the Americans'," a UC Global employee turned prosecution witness said.
"He sent on several occasions — via email, by phone and verbally — some lists of targets in which we had to pay special attention … they were mainly Mr Assange's lawyers."
"I wasn't surprised at all. It's an occupational hazard for human rights lawyers. You're bugged, you're followed by secret police, you're spied upon," said Robertson, one of Australia and the UK's most respected human rights barristers for almost 50 years.
Assange in the past decade. (Reuters: Eva Plevier/AAP: Lukas Coch)
Robinson — also an Australian citizen — was spied on while providing confidential legal advice to Assange.
"It is incredibly troubling that our secret and privileged legal conversations with Julian Assange were recorded and apparently handed to US authorities," she told the ABC.
"It is one of the most fundamental principles of protecting attorney-client relationships that we are able to have confidential and private meetings, to discuss legal strategy."
The concerns about illegal monitoring of confidential legal discussions may become part of his defence, with his lawyers expected to argue that the espionage has denied Assange his basic legal rights
Foreign Minister Marise Payne did not respond to ABC questions about the Spanish case. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) also declined to discuss it, only noting that it had previously sought assurances that Assange would be treated appropriately under UK law.
"The Australian Government cannot intervene in any extradition request for Mr Assange, which is a matter for the UK authorities," a DFAT spokeswoman said.
Robinson said that she believed Canberra had not done enough to protect Assange, an Australian citizen.
"This is a case in which an Australian citizen is facing 175 years in prison in the United States for the same publication for which he won a Sydney Peace Prize and the Walkley award for the most outstanding contribution to journalism," she said, referring to WikiLeaks' publication in 2010 and 2011 of confidential US documents that revealed, among other things, war crimes and illegal spying on world leaders.
"His Australian lawyers — all of us Australian citizens — have [also] had our rights as lawyers and our ability to give him a proper defence superseded by the US and potentially the UK Government.
"This is something that the Australian Government ought to be taking very seriously and ought to be raising both with the UK and with the United States. It is time the Australian Government stands up for this Australian citizen and stops his extradition."
this Australian citizen and stops his extradition."
The file
The ABC has obtained hundreds of internal UC Global documents, videos, audio files and photos tendered in the Spanish case, which commenced in April last year days after Spanish newspaper El Pais published videos and audio of Assange and guests being spied on in the embassy.
The files reveal the remarkable and expanding secret surveillance targeting the WikiLeaks boss and his guests.
In an email from September 2017, Morales ordered UC Global staff to find out what the walls around Assange's bedroom were made of, and to photograph the embassy's rooms and its furniture.
Then in December, UC Global updated the embassy's camera system, installing audio-capable cameras.
Remainder of article and images/videos are available at the link below.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-...tions/11985872Comment
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Re: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Scotty from Marketing is too busy crawling up Trumps *rseComment
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