Above photo: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press. Rally at the British Embassy in Washington, DC in 2020. Washington, DC – Led by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), more than 26 antiwar groups and 2,500 individual peace and justice advocates have cosponsored a statement calling for the immediate release of publisher Julian Assange and commending him for his contributions toward global peace. Assange is currently fighting extradition to the United States after the Trump administration indicted him on unprecedented Espionage Act charges. His indictment marked the first time in U.S. history that a journalist has been charged for publishing truthful information. […]
Assange
36 posts
Imprisoned Wikileaks founder, journalist and free speech champion Julian Assange today faces life imprisonment for telling the truth about U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the U.S. torture base in Guantanamo Bay. Assange faces charges under the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act. Prosecution under that WWI anti-democratic law placed thousands of antiwar activists in prison for exercising their free speech right to protest WWI. Ironically, the Dec 19, 2021 New York Times front-page two-part series entitled, Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes, follows in Assange’s footsteps in reporting U.S. war crimes, yet The Times staff writers […]
Above Photo: Screenshot from ‘Collateral Murder’ video released by WikiLeaks. Those who revealed un-redacted cables have never been prosecuted nor requested to remove them from the internet, writes Dean Yates. I wrote a piece for Australian online publisher Crikey just before Julian Assange’s extradition hearings resumed in September 2020 in which I regurgitated a slur that has done enormous harm to his reputation. Australian journalists should stop using the WikiLeaks treasure trove in their stories if they wouldn’t speak up for Assange, I’d written. Journalists like to think they’d go to jail to protect a source. Well, their source was suffering in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison, I said. […]
Above Photo: Mr. Fish. Careerists and Democratic Party apparatchiks successfully leverage corporate money and backing to seize and deform historic rights organizations into appendages of the ruling class. Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, is one of the very few establishment figures to denounce the judicial lynching of Julian Assange. Melzer’s integrity and courage, for which he has been mercilessly attacked, stand in stark contrast to the widespread complicity of many human rights and press organizations, including PEN America, which has become a de facto subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee. Those in power, as Noam Chomsky points out, divide the […]
Above Photo: Committee to Protect Journalists executive director Joel Simon (Screen shot from CPJ promo video on YouTube). A record number of journalists are imprisoned throughout the world, according to the annual prison index released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). But that number excludes WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. CPJ, which is based in New York, opposes the United States Justice Department’s prosecution against Assange. However, for the third year, the press freedom organization declined to classify him as a jailed journalist. In the organization’s press release on the 2021 index, it states, “No journalists were jailed in North America at the […]
On the show, Chris Hedges discusses the torture of Julian Assange with his father, John Shipton. Julian Assange committed the empire’s greatest sin – he exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, callous disregard for human life, rampant corruption, and innumerable war crimes. Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Trump or Biden – it does not matter. The goons who oversee the empire sing from the same satanic songbook. Empires always kill those who inflict deep and serious wounds. Assange is in precarious physical and psychological health, and suffered a stroke during court video proceedings on October 27. […]
Over 300 doctors from around the world have today written to the Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, imploring him to seek Julian Assange’s immediate release from prison in the U.K. on medical grounds. The letter begins by commending Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce for his recent statements calling for the U.S. extradition request against Julian Assange to be dropped. It continues: “We are concerned that Mr. Assange’s apparent mini stroke [reported in the Daily Mail on 11 December] may be the tip of a medical iceberg. Indeed his symptoms suggest as much. It is therefore imperative that Mr. Assange be released from prison, where his […]
Above Photo: Screen shot from Frontline Club. What It Will Take To End This Political Case? The legal systems in the United Kingdom and the United States will not spare WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The only way this political case will end is if U.S. officials conclude the cost is no longer worth the benefit of making an example out of him. Support for prosecuting Assange comes from within U.S. intelligence agencies (particularly the C.I.A.), the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Defense Department, the national security division of the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of […]
Above Photo: Julian Assange supporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, UK, December 10, 2021. (Henry Nicholls / Reuters) Julian Assange is one of the political prisoners that the US claims not to have. The UK is again the good vassal, keeping him locked up until the Biden administration finds an opportune time to ship him off to a kangaroo court. Everyone who believes in press freedom and who opposes imperialism must be a staunch Assange defender. December 10 is International Human Rights Day. It is always a sham holiday for the United States, which locks up its own […]
Above Photo: Screengrab of video showing “outside High Court As It Decides On Overturning US Extradition Ruling On Julian Assange”. RT / YouTube. On Thursday afternoon I was in Edinburgh High Court to get back my passport, which had been confiscated during my own court proceedings avowedly to stop me going to Spain to testify in the trial of David Morales of UC Global. He stands accused by whistleblowers in his own company of spying on Julian Assange, his lawyers and other associates (including myself), on behalf of the CIA, and in engaging with them on plans to kidnap or assassinate Assange. Having […]
Chris Hedges and Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria discuss the British High Court ruling to allow the extradition of Julian Assange. On Friday, the British High Court in London overturned an earlier lower court decision blocking the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States. The ruling sends the case back to the Magistrate’s Court with instructions to allow the extradition to be approved or denied by British Home Secretary Priti Patel. The ruling, which included a decision to continue to hold Assange in a high security prison, is a severe blow to the Wikileaks co-founder’s efforts to prevent his […]
Above Photo: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Cancillería Ecuador). Attorneys for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plan to appeal to the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom after the country’s appeals court overturned a decision that blocked the extradition of Assange to the United States. The High Court of Justice was “satisfied” with diplomatic assurances offered by the U.S. government related to how Assange would be treated in jail or prison, and they stated, “There is no reason why this court should not accept the assurances as meaning what they say.” “There is no basis for assuming that the U.S.A. has not given […]
Above Photo: The High Court at the Royal Courts of Justice. (David Castor/Wikimedia Commons) The High Court allowed the U.S. appeal to reverse an order not to extradite Julian Assange and to send the case back to magistrate’s court. The High Court in London on Friday ruled in the U.S. appeal against a lower court decision not to extradite imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange by sending the case back to Magistrate’s Court with instructions to send the case to the secretary of state to decide on Assange’s extradition. The matter is now in the hands of Dominic Raab, secretary of state for justice, […]
Documents Provided Exclusively To The Grayzone Detail Canberra’s Abandonment Of Julian Assange, An Australian Citizen, And Provide Shocking Details Of His Prison Suffering. Was the government of Australia aware of the US Central Intelligence Agency plot to assassinate Julian Assange, an Australian citizen and journalist arrested and now imprisoned under unrelentingly bleak, harsh conditions in the UK? Why have the country’s elected leaders refused to publicly advocate for one of its citizens, who has been held on dubious charges and subjected to torture by a foreign power, according to UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer? What does Canberra know about […]
The New York Times has published a very solid investigative report on a U.S. military coverup of a 2019 massacre in Baghuz, Syria which killed scores of civilians. This would be the second investigative report on civilian-slaughtering U.S. airstrikes by The New York Times in a matter of weeks, and if I were a more conspiracy-minded person I’d say the paper of record appears to have been infiltrated by journalists. The report contains many significant revelations, including that the U.S. military has been grossly undercounting the numbers of civilians killed in its airstrikes and lying about it to Congress, that special ops forces in Syria have been consistently ordering airstrikes which kill noncombatants with […]
Above Photo: It has been open season on WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange for more than a decade. Caitlin Johnstone/Pixabay. When I first saw Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison, in 2019, shortly after he had been dragged from his refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy, he said, “I think I am losing my mind”. He was gaunt and emaciated, his eyes hollow and the thinness of his arms was emphasised by a yellow identifying cloth tied around his left arm, an evocative symbol of institutional control. For all but the two hours of my visit, he was confined to a solitary cell in […]
On the show, Chris Hedges discusses the extradition hearing of Julian Assange in London with Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News. For the past two days, Chris Hedges has been watching the extradition hearing for Julian Assange via video link from London. The United States is appealing a lower court ruling that denied the US’ request to extradite Assange not, unfortunately, because in the eyes of the court he is innocent of a crime, but because, as Judge Vanessa Baraitser in January concluded, Assange’s precarious psychological state would deteriorate given the “harsh conditions” of the inhumane US prison system, “causing him to commit […]
Above Photo: The Royal Courts of Justice, London, where the Assange-US extradition appeal unfolded. Criminalizing Journalism: The United States Puts Assange’s Mental Health On Trial At The High Court, While Offering Worthless Assurances That Cannot Be Trusted. This week at the High Court in London, US lawyers appealed against a UK judge’s decision in January not to extradite Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Baraitser blocked the extradition on grounds it would be oppressive to his health, and that US prison conditions are too inhumane. Accredited journalist Richard Medhurst reports. Some background information first: Assange’s extradition battle with the United […]
Above Photo: Stella Moris, Julian Assange’s partner, addressing his supporters outside the High Court on Thursday during the U.S. appeal hearing in London. Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign. ‘He’s Only Moderately Depressed and Won’t Go to Isolation.’ The two-day U.S. appeal against the denial of extradition of Julian Assange has ended in London with the U.S. promising humane prison conditions and Assange’s lawyers saying the CIA tried to kill him. The United States vowed that only a “moderately depressed” Julian Assange would serve time in a humane U.S. prison if he is extradited, while lawyers for Assange told the High Court that […]
Above Photo: Mohamed Elmaazi, NUJ member The Central Intelligence Agency’s record of retaliation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, including reported plans to kidnap or assassinate him, was focused on during the second day of the United States government’s appeal hearing. It was part of the Assange legal team’s effort to convince the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom of the gravity of the risks, which Assange would face if they overturn a district judge’s decision and allow extradition. Mark Summers QC, one of Assange’s attorneys, contended this was the “first time the U.S. had sought the assistance of a […]
Above Photo: Julian Assange’s extradition appeal hearing, Oct 27, 2021 (Julia Quenzler / SWNS) Assange Too Unwell To View Proceedings Remotely Julian Assange’s extradition appeal hearing, which will turn in part on determinations about his health and risk of suicide, commenced with the news that Julian was too ill to even follow the proceedings by remote videolink from Belmarsh prison. Julian did enter the viewing box about midway through the morning’s session, but he appeared thin and unwell, and he could be seen leaving the room about an hour later. Assange’s extradition was denied in January of this year when District Judge Vanessa […]
Above Photo: Protesters hold placards and a banner during a march from the BBC to Royal Courts of Justice in support of Julian Assange on October 23, 2021, in London, UK. Loredana Sangiuliano / SOPA Images / LightRocket Via Getty Images. Why is Joe Biden’s Department of Justice continuing Donald Trump’s persecution of WikiLeaks founder, publisher and journalist Julian Assange? Barack Obama, concerned about threats to the First Amendment freedom of the press, decided against indicting Assange for exposing U.S. war crimes. Trump did indict Assange, under Espionage Act charges that could garner him 175 years in prison. A British district judge denied […]
Above photo: Attorney General Merrick Garland, head of the U.S. Justice Department under President Joe Biden. NOTE: Kevin Gosztola will remotely cover the Assange appeal hearing on October 27-28 and will have live updates on proceedings that can be followed on Twitter from @kgosztola. London – On October 27, the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom will hear the Crown Prosecution Service argue on behalf of the United States government that a lower court improperly blocked the U.S. from extraditing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The proceedings in London are expected to last two days and will involve five grounds for […]
The United States government demonstrates repeatedly that it will do whatever it takes to protect the economic and political interests of the elites, even if it means total disregard for human rights and international law. Two cases that highlight this are the recent kidnapping and prosecution of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab and the attempts to extradite the Australian Wikileaks publisher and journalist Julian Assange. Clearing the FOG speaks with Roger Harris of Task Force on the Americas who travelled to Cabo Verde where Saab was detained and tortured for over a year before his rendition to Miami and with Joe Lauria, […]
On the show, Chris Hedges talks to documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist John Pilger about the upcoming appeals hearing in London for the Julian Assange case. On Sept. 26, Yahoo! News published ‘Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA’s secret war plans against WikiLeaks’. The article detailed discussions within the CIA to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange. The revelations came a month before a hearing in Britain’s High Court that will see the US government appeal a decision that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be sent to the United States to face espionage charges. These revelations also coincided […]
Above Photo: Burnett. (Magistrate’s Association) The most senior judge in England and Wales, who let activist Lori Love evade extradition to the U.S. on humanitarian grounds, will join Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde at the U.S. appeal hearing against Julian Assange next week. Ian Duncan Burnett, the most powerful judge in England and Wales, will join Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde on the bench next week for the two-day U.S. appeal in the extradition case of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange at the High Court in London, according to a spokesman at the Royal Courts of Justice. Burnett, known as Baron Burnett of Maldon, was the High Court justice […]
Above Photo: Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde The same judge that overturned an earlier High Court decision to exclude Assange’s health from the U.S. appeal will preside over the substantive appeal hearing next week. Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, the High Court judge who reversed an earlier court order to bar the U.S. from appealing Julian Assange’s medical issues, will preside over the substantive U.S. appeal hearing at the High Court next week. In January, lower court Judge Vanessa Baraitser refused the U.S. request to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher because of his high risk of suicide and the conditions of U.S. prisons. The U.S. applied […]
The War on Terror is put on trial in London through the Belmarsh Tribunal. Just after the bombshell revelations about the CIA plot to kidnap and assassinate WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange while he sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, the Progressive International comes to London with the first physical Belmarsh Tribunal. The intervention comes ahead of Assange’s extradition proceedings, which are set to continue in London’s High Court from 27 to 28 October 2021. Inspired by the famous Russell-Sartre people’s tribunal, the Belmarsh Tribunal places the War on Terror on trial and holds the US government accountable for its war […]
Above Photo: Vanita Gupta in 2018. (UDC David A. Clarke School of Law) Last month Biden’s Haitian envoy resigned on principle. Is there someone in Biden’s Justice Department who would push the attorney general to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange? Last month the U.S. special envoy to Haiti quit in protest over the Biden administration’s decision to repatriate thousands of Haitian migrants from the United States. In his letter (pdf) of resignation to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Daniel Foote wrote, ““I will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal […]
Yahoo! News (9/26/21) published a bombshell report detailing the US Central Intelligence Agency’s “secret war plans against WikiLeaks,” including clandestine plots to kill or kidnap publisher Julian Assange while he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Following WikiLeaks‘ publication of the Vault 7 files in 2017—the largest leak in CIA history, which exposed how US and UK intelligence agencies could hack into household devices—the US government designated WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service” (The Hill, 4/13/17), providing legal cover to target the organization as if it were an adversarial spy agency. Within this context, the Donald Trump administration reportedly requested “sketches” or “options” for how to kill Assange, according to […]
Above Photo: MYND: SAMSETT / STUNDIN The judgment utilizes a rarely invoked law intended to stop repeat offenders from running amok and accumulating criminal cases before the system has a chance to catch up. Sigurdur Thordarson, a key witness for the FBI against Julian Assange, has been jailed in Iceland. The notorious alleged hacker and convicted pedophile was remanded to custody in Iceland’s highest security prison, Litla Hraun, on September 24. Þórðarson´s lawyer, Húnbogi J. Andersen, confirms that he is in custody. Thordarson was given immunity by the FBI in exchange for testimony against Julian Assange. Thordarson was arrested the same […]
Above photo: Flickr. The US prosecution of Julian Assange has been dealt another blow following revelations that the CIA plotted the kidnap and rendition or murder of the WikiLeaks founder. The revelations also directly implicate Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and secretary of state, and US president Donald Trump. Separately, there’s evidence of how cyber activists foiled a 2012 attempt by British police to break into and enter the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange had sought asylum. Permission to act In April 2017, Pompeo publicly declared that “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service”. Arguably, that could be interpreted as an invitation to the CIA and […]
Above Photo: Aerial view of CIA headquarters.in Langley, Virginia. (Carol M. Highsmith/Wikimedia Commons) The Yahoo! report provides important new details of facts reported a year ago, but contains several errors, including a fabricated story about Russian operatives exfiltrating Assange from the Ecuador embassy, writes Joe Lauria. The Yahoo! News report that is mistakenly being credited for breaking the story of a CIA plot to assassinate or kidnap WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is filled with crucial errors, while at the same time providing important new details about inside-Washington deliberations on how the plot came about. Consortium News, along with other outlets, reported a year ago today, on Sept. 30, 2020, […]
As the Biden administration continues to seek the extradition of Julian Assange, new details have emerged about the Trump administration’s secret CIA-led war against Assange and his organization, Wikileaks. Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News discusses his team’s reporting on the CIA plot to surveil, kidnap, and even kill Assange — all overseen by Michael Pompeo. In response, Pompeo has called for the prosecution of all the sources involved. The story builds on previous disclosures including a May 2020 exposé by The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal, which revealed that the CIA was working with Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson and the Spanish security firm UC Global to target […]
Above Photo: Screen shot from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event, where CIA Director Mike Pompeo singled out WikiLeaks. NOTE: Show your support for Julian Assange by sending in a brief video statement. Click here for details. Shows Clearest Evidence Yet Of Improper Pressure On Prosecutors. The district judge who denied the extradition request previously dismissed evidence of improper pressure from the CIA to charge the WikiLeaks founder. Though District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the United States’ extradition request, she rejected the argument from the legal team for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that hostility within U.S. intelligence […]
Above Photo: WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange holds up a copy of The Guardian newspaper on July 26, 2010 in London. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) “The Biden administration must drop its charges against Assange immediately.” Under the leadership of then-Director Mike Pompeo, the CIA in 2017 reportedly plotted to kidnap—and discussed plans to assassinate—WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange, who is currently imprisoned in London as he fights the Biden administration’s efforts to extradite him to the United States. Citing conversations with more than 30 former U.S. officials, Yahoo News reported Sunday that “discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred ‘at the highest levels’ of the Trump administration.” According […]