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Paul Farrell and Amy Donaldson write on 23 January 2020

The office of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton was suspected of leaking information it was told was classified about the cost of medically evacuating refugees to Taiwan, as the Government geared up to campaign against newly passed medevac legislation last year.

. . .

A spokeswoman for the Department of Home Affairs told 7.30 that “following changes to the AFP’s referral process earlier this year, referrals must now identify the harm to the Department, national security or Australia’s interests now and/or in the future.

Read whole article in the ABC News

Editors Comment: Note the apparent preferential treatment of Dutton over Assange as the WikiLeaks publications are documented by relevant security organisations as being of no harm to national security of any involved country

Ben Quinn reports 27 January 2020

Julian Assange’s detention “sets a dangerous precedent for journalists”, according to politicians from the Council of Europe’s parliamentary arm, who voted on Tuesday to oppose the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition to the US.

The words of support for Assange and implicit criticism of the UK government will be contained in a final report produced by the Labour peer Lord Foulkes for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which focuses on upholding human rights across the continent.

…

Foulkes had drafted an initial report – Threats to Media Freedom and Journalists’ Security in Europe – that will now contain amendments referring to Assange tabled by a number of European parliamentarians.

One of the amendments backs the recommendation of the UN special rapporteur on torture who called last year for Assange’s release and for extradition to the United States to be blocked. The other states that his possible extradition to the US “would set a precedent and threaten journalists’ freedoms in all member states”.

Foulkes told the Guardian that campaigners and supporters of Assange had written to him while he was writing the report, which addresses media freedoms and threats to journalists in countries including Russia, Turkey and Malta, and asked that he consider including an amendment mentioning Assange.

As a rapporteur for the assembly, he said it was not his role to do so but that colleagues from other states had done so.

Read full article in the Guardian

Google translation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Secretary General, Anthony Bellanger, given to the Council of Europe on January 27, 2020 in Strasbourg (France).

The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, was at the heart of an event this Monday, January 27 at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Andrej Hunko, German MEP, invited the IFJ Secretary General, Anthony Bellanger, John Shipton, Julian Assange’s father, and Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, to attend.

Here is the IFJ Secretary General’s full speech:

“On behalf of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the world’s leading organization for the profession with 600,000 members in 146 countries, I would like to sincerely thank MEP Andrej Hunko for organising this extradition event (most unfortunately) for Julian Assange.

Founder and former editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, Julian Assange is a member of MEAA, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the IFJ affiliate in Australia. And as a member of the MEAA, he is by extension a member of the IFJ and even the holder of our International Press Card (ICC).

But Julian Assange is still the man under attack. The remarkable investigation published Sunday evening (January 26) by my colleagues from Mediapart is so enlightening: Julian Assange has become the number one public enemy of the United States, of President Donald Trump in particular. Thanks to the complicity of the CEO of the company UC Global, in charge of security at the Embassy of Ecuador in London, Mediapart explains that Trump and his services have spied on the slightest gestures of Julian Assange within the embassy , as well as those of those close to him, his family and his supporters. A surveillance device worthy of a spy film with in particular the very expensive placement of laser microphones, a device allowing to listen to a conversation through a window, thanks to the laser measuring the vibrations of the glass! We are almost in the last James Bond!

But the CEO of UC Global did not stop there. He photographed then sent all the information concerning the visitors of Julian Assange: he extracted the personal data of the mobile phones left at the entrance, copied the emails, the SMS exchanges, but also the identification numbers of the phones, allowing remote monitoring and hacking.

The whole was of course sent to the American services, which paid the director of the company handsomely.

Among these spied visitors, we find the journalist Sarah Harrison, close collaborator of Julian Assange, Jennifer Robinson, his English lawyer, Baltasar Garzon, his Spanish lawyer, or Renata Avila, Guatemalan activist and member of his defence team.

On the side of the IFJ and its affiliates, the mobilization has never weakened since our last intervention in November in Brussels, at the European Parliament, with John Shipton, Julian’s father, and Nils Melzer, the special rapporteur of the United Nations on torture.

After having received the editor of Wikileaks, Kristinn Hrafnsson, during our world congress in Tunis, we are in discussion with the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe (CoE), Dunja Mijatovic, in order to verify with her if the arrest of Julian Assange and his detention comply with the criteria of the European Convention on Human Rights.

With the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), we have published an alert on the Platform to strengthen the protection of journalism and the safety of CoE journalists. Here again we denounce the arbitrary and scandalous conditions of detention of Julian Assange, obviously relying on the report of Nils Melzer, who visited him in May 2019 in his cell.

Obviously, the United Kingdom did not respond to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, who challenged the British government immediately after the publication of this alert.

And on Wednesday, still in the company of John Shipton, I will participate on behalf of the IFJ in two major events in Brussels dedicated to Julian Assange and whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden among others.

We dare to hope that all this mobilization will bear fruit, in particular due to the deterioration of the state of health of Julian Assange: last week, the English prison administration agreed to remove him from the isolation district where he was imprisoned since April 2019 and transfer him to a wing where he can socialize with other prisoners. A Wikileaks member told me this morning that his fellow prison inmates also mobilized for him, because they did not understand the emergency regime that was imposed on him!

But it is more likely that this sudden decision by the prison administration is linked to the hearings which begin on February 24. Better to question a man in a decent state of health …

So it is not all over because we are very worried about the outcome of these hearings in February and May, which should lead to a possible extradition, given the political connections between the American President and the English Prime Minister.

Finally, the current editor of Wikileaks, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told us a few days ago that the American justice system had added a new document to the file of Julian Assange. This piece specifies that non-American citizens cannot benefit from the first amendment to the American Constitution, which protects freedom of expression and freedom of the press!

All is said.

The IFJ reminds each time it has the opportunity, here again at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg: “Journalism is not a crime. Julian Assange must be released ”.

His only crime was to expose the embezzlement and atrocities of others! Atrocities committed in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan by the American army.

The IFJ pursues its international mission and is at the disposal of all of you, European parliamentarians, United Nations special rapporteurs, activists for human rights and freedom of expression, to continue this essential fight for democracy.

Thank you for your attention

Full speech in French International Federation of Journalists’ web site

2020-01-22 AAPT reports

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been moved out of solitary confinement in a British prison after a series of petitions by his legal team and fellow inmates, his organisation says.

The Australian has been held almost incommunicado with severe restrictions on his access to visitors in Belmarsh prison near London since April as he awaits his US extradition trial set to start on February 24.

Wikileaks ambassador Joseph Farrell says the 48-year-old was moved out of solitary in the medical wing into a different wing with 40 other inmates on Friday.

He says the breakthrough occurred after his legal team and three separate petitions by inmates to the prison governor that his treatment was unjust and unfair.

After meetings between the prison authorities, Assange’s legal team and inmates, he was transferred.

“The move is a huge victory for Assange’s legal team and for campaigners who have been insisting for weeks that the prison authorities end the punitive treatment of Assange,” Mr Farrell said in a statement to AAP.

…

At a recent case management hearing solicitor Gareth Pierce said the defence team had only been allowed three hours with Assange to discuss the case.

“He is still being denied adequate access to his lawyers as even the judge recognised at a case management hearing in Westminster Magistrates Court,” Mr Farrell said.

“And campaigners continue to insist that Assange should not be in jail at all, least of all in Belmarsh high security prison.”

Read article in Canberra Times

Editors Note: We wonder what part the Prerogative of Mercy with 250,000 petition signatories delivered to the Queen of England and Australia may have played in this change. After all HMPPS is Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and managed under her name

Phillip Adams presented this request on 2020/01/22

Prerogative-of-Mercy-Julian-Assange-Notice-of-251000-V-no-email

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ASSANGE: both sides ask for more time to deal with “great volume ofevidence”
* arguments about political prosecution, surveillance and conditions in the US prison system will be raised in a bifurcated extradition hearing starting on 24 Feb AT Woolwich Crown Court
* the second part of the hearing will open on 18 May, for three weeks
* Council of Europe institutions set to speak out about conditions at Belmarsh Prison as international monitors prepare to head to London next month
* Medical professionals attending court warn that Assange’s health is in a “downwards spiral”

Arguments about political prosecution, surveillance and conditions inthe US prison system will take centre stage as WikiLeaks publisherJulian Assange fights extradition to the United States. Assange, who isfacing an unprecedented Espionage Act prosecution for journalisticactivity, appeared via video-link during a case management hearing thismorning at Westminster Magistrates Court, the last significant court date before his main extradition hearing opens on 24 February atWoolwich Crown Court.

Both the prosecution and Assange’s defence team came to court with arequest for more time to prepare. District Judge Baraitser accepted theproposal for the hearing to be bifurcated, with a first week ofarguments to begin on 24 February, with a further three weeks to followon 18 May.
Tens of thousands of pages of evidence have been submitted by Assange’slegal team. Proposed defence witnesses include several who will give evidence anonymously. Two of these witnesses are connected with on going criminal proceedings in Spain against security company UC Global, who conducted a surveillance operation against Assange and his legal team while he was living in Ecuador’s London embassy.

Edward Fitzgerald of Doughty Street Chambers, acting for Assange, also indicated that the defence will raise detailed arguments aboutWikiLeaks’ publication process during the main extradition hearing.

Assange’s team also intends to argue that there has been an abuse ofprocess in the conduct of this extradition case. Two alleged WikiLeaks sources, Chelsea Manning and Jeremy Hammond, are currently being held in contempt in the United States for not cooperating with grand jury investigations in the Eastern District of Virginia.

As in previous hearings, counsel for Assange indicated that they had faced difficulties in gaining access to their client. Ed Fitzgerald told the court that, in addition to the logistical difficulties “it’s not an easy process to enable him to follow everything that’s going on.”

Assange remains in custody on the medical ward at HMP Belmarsh where,since 22 September 2019, he has been detained solely for the purposesof the US extradition request. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer has stated that Assange’s life is at risk and an open letter from 60 medical professionals has called for Assange’s transfer to a university teaching hospital. [1][2]

On Monday 27 January, Régis Brillat, Executive Secretary of CPT, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman orDegrading Treatment or Punishment, will become the first member of a Council of Europe institution to make a public statement on the Assange case. The CPT is an independent monitoring body which visits places of detention in the member states of the Council of Europe to see how persons deprived of their liberty are treated. [3]

Two independent medical observers were in court this morning to review proceedings on behalf of the campaign group Doctors4Assange. Dr Derek Summerfield, a psychiatrist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at Kings College London viewed proceedings from the public gallery alongside Dr Felicity De Zulueta, Emeritus Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

Speaking before the hearing, Dr Summerfield – who was for a decade principal psychiatrist at the Medical Foundation for the Victims ofTorture – said: “The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer found that Mr Assange is the victim of prolonged psychological torture and that his health has entered a ‘downward spiral’ inside Belmarsh Prison.

“Professor Melzer has raised fundamental medical-ethical questions.These must urgently be answered. Mr Assange must be moved from Belmarsh Prison immediately and provided expert medical assessment and care.”

Doctors4Assange are one of the groups who has committed to monitoringAssange’s main extradition hearing at Woolwich Crown Court, next month. More than 25 elected representatives from across Europe have already resolved to monitor proceedings and delegations from Germany, Italy and the European Parliament will travel to London. [2]

Marketa Gregorova MEP, who intends to attend Woolwich Crown Court, said:
“Investigative journalism and press freedom are on trial here as much as Julian Assange is. A dangerous precedent might be set that wouldmake the immensely important work of journalists reporting onintelligence agencies and the government acriminal act. At a time when democracies around the world are indecline, strong protections of the free press are ever more essential.”
Julian Assange has been charged in the Eastern District of Virginiawith 17 counts under the 1917 Espionage Act, all related to WikiLeakspublications of 2010-11. He also faces a further conspiracy chargerelated to journalist-source communications. EDVA is a judicialdistrict located in the greater Washington DC metropolitan area.

Assange was represented at this hearing by Ed Fitzgerald QC of DoughtyStreet Chambers, instructed by Birnberg Peirce.

Notes
[1]https://bridgesforfreedom.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Letter_from_medical_doctors_re_Mr_Julian_Assange_22_Nov_2019_EMBARGO_TILL_MIDNIGHT_NOVEMBER_24.pdf
[2]https://bridgesforfreedom.media/25-parliamentarians-to-monitor-julian-assange-extradition-hearing-in-february/
[3]
ASSANGE: Council of Europe event this Monday 27 January
WHO:Anthony Bellanger, General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists Régis Brillat, Executive Secretary of CPT, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment orPunishmentNils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Andrej Hunko MdB and Member of PACE Gianni Marilotti, Member of the Italian Senate
WHEN: 1pm Monday 27 JanuaryWHERE: Strasbourg, Palais de l’Europe, Room 6
The Council of Europe will host an event on the case of WikiLeakspublisher Julian Assange at 1pm this Monday, 27 January. Assange is fighting extradition to the United States in an unprecedented EspionageAct prosecution for journalistic activity.

The event takes place during the Parliamentary Assembly’s plenary week.A written declaration has also been prepared for members of PACE to sign.

Event speakers include Régis Brillat, Executive Secretary of CPT, theEuropean Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Brillat is the first member of aCouncil of Europe institution to make a public statement on the Assangecase.
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer, who will also be speakingat Monday’s event, has issued a number of warnings about Assange’swelfare in Belmarsh prison in southeast London, where he is detained onthe medical wing. The final speaker will be Anthony Bellanger, theGeneral Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists.

Ahead of the opening of Assange’s main extradition hearing on 24February, the Council of Europe will also hear from elected representatives who have committed to efforts to monitor the proceedings in London, including event sponsor Andrej Hunko MdB andItalian Senator Gianni Marilotti. Senator Marilotti leads the ItalianParliamentarian Intergroup for the Monitoring of Julian Assange’s case,formed last December by a group of cross-party MPs and Italian MEPs.