Category: Uncategorized

On 23rd June 2020, Michael Selby-Green reports

Editor’s Note: The Assange case is about prosecuting the publisher for exposing war crimes that have not been prosecuted. This article explains how a Government creates a system to frustrate the rule of law

The British army’s choice of unqualified junior officers to lead its police investigations unit during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq contributed to soldiers escaping accountability for abuses, former members of the unit have told Declassified UK.

Senior army commanders pressured a junior officer to stop an internal investigation into a British war crime in Iraq, writing it off as an “unfortunate incident in war”, a former member of the Royal Military Police’s Special Investigations Branch (SIB) has told Declassified UK. 

Another former senior SIB officer has said that British paratroopers should have been convicted of killing another Iraqi but they escaped punishment when a trial collapsed after failings in an SIB investigation. 

Declassified UK has spoken to four former soldiers in the SIB, which deployed to the Iraq conflict in 2003 alongside conventional troops, ready to investigate serious incidents involving UK forces, including potential British war crimes. None wanted to be named.

Decisions were made not to send sufficiently qualified senior investigating officers to command the SIB during the invasion and early tours, the former SIB members said. This made it easier for the army’s senior command to influence the investigations into abuses and created a backlog of unresolved cases,they say.

“I did not feel qualified to deal with an investigation of this scale and did not have sufficient resources,” one of the unit’s leaders later said. The SIB should have sent their “A-team” to Iraq, but instead dispatched officers who were “completely unqualified” to lead serious investigations in a theatre of war, a former senior SIB officer told Declassified UK. 

“They sent the wrong people… And to this day I don’t know why,” the source said. “The more I think about it, the more mad it becomes.”

The former senior SIB officer said that one would “absolutely 100%” expect to see more UK military prosecutions coming out of Iraq. He added, “You look at the amount of people who were prosecuted – virtually none. You know, how many people got away with murder?”

There have been only four publicly disclosed cases of UK soldiers facing court martial over abuses in Iraq, with five soldiers convicted, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has confirmed.

The killing of Zahir Zaher 

An Iraqi man, Zahir Zaher, was killed by British soldiers on 24 March 2003, at a roadblock on the outskirts of Zubayr near Basra in southern Iraq. Zaher had approached a UK checkpoint guarded by British tanks and started throwing stones while advancing. 

Sergeant Steven Roberts of the 2nd royal tank regiment warned Zaher to stop, before shooting at him with a pistol. The Iraqi survived and continued to throw stones. Soldiers from two of the tanks fired and hit the Iraqi, but also killed Roberts. Zaher was still alive and another soldier killed him with shots from close range.

At a 2006 inquest into the death of Sgt Roberts, the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith told the House of Lords the case would be closed, saying, “There is insufficient evidence to institute criminal proceedings in this case” and that “there is no suggestion that the chain of command acted unlawfully.”

…

The killing of Zahir Zaher 

An Iraqi man, Zahir Zaher, was killed by British soldiers on 24 March 2003, at a roadblock on the outskirts of Zubayr near Basra in southern Iraq. Zaher had approached a UK checkpoint guarded by British tanks and started throwing stones while advancing. 

Sergeant Steven Roberts of the 2nd royal tank regiment warned Zaher to stop, before shooting at him with a pistol. The Iraqi survived and continued to throw stones. Soldiers from two of the tanks fired and hit the Iraqi, but also killed Roberts. Zaher was still alive and another soldier killed him with shots from close range.

…

The killing of Nadhem Abdullah 

In November 2005 a UK judge stopped a trial of seven British soldiers from 3 Para of the Parachute Regiment who were accused of murdering an Iraqi civilian during Parke-Robinson’s time as head of the SIB unit.

The British soldiers were accused of dragging 18-year-old Nadhem Abdullah and another Iraqi out of their car in the town of Al-Ferkah, southern Iraq, in May 2003, forcing them to lie down and battering them with rifle butts, helmets, fists and feet. 

Abdullah was taken to hospital with internal bleeding to the back of the head and died on the way. The other man survived. The prosecution said blood found on one of the rifle butts matched the DNA of Abdullah’s family. The soldiers pleaded not guilty in court.

…

‘No intention of prosecuting any soldier’

But flaws in the RMP went beyond the use of inexperienced commanders and ineffective investigations. The document written by government legal employees noted that before 1 November 2009, commanding officers were able to investigate but then dismiss incidents which occurred under their own command without the need for a report to come from the RMP and service police.

…

Read whole article in Daily Maverick ‘s Declassified UK

On 21st June 2020, 60 minutes posted this video as screened on 9 News

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has made his name – and plenty of enemies – by publishing military and other highly sensitive secrets of multiple governments around the world. As a consequence, he now calls a maximum-security jail in England home while he fights a bitter battle with the Trump administration which wants him extradited to the United States. Before prison, the controversial – and now very frail – Australian spent seven years holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. And that’s where Assange conceived his own top secrets – two sons with his, until now, equally secretive fiancée, Stella Moris.

Editors Note: Interviews with Still Morris, Andrew Wilkie and Pamela Anderson

Read more in 9News including statements from
Australian Government re Julian Assange
John Shipton and Stella Morris appeal for support from
the Australian Government

On the 24th June 2020, the Department of JusticeOffice of Public Affairs of the United States of America blind sided the legal world by announcing

New Allegations Assert Assange Conspired With “Anonymous” Affiliated Hackers, Among Others

A federal grand jury returned a second superseding indictment today charging Julian P. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, with offenses that relate to Assange’s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.   

The new indictment does not add additional counts to the prior 18-count superseding indictment returned against Assange in May 2019.  It does, however, broaden the scope of the conspiracy surrounding alleged computer intrusions with which Assange was previously charged.  According to the charging document, Assange and others at WikiLeaks recruited and agreed with hackers to commit computer intrusions to benefit WikiLeaks.

Since the early days of WikiLeaks, Assange has spoken at hacking conferences to tout his own history as a “famous teenage hacker in Australia” and to encourage others to hack to obtain information for WikiLeaks.  In 2009, for instance, Assange told the Hacking At Random conference that WikiLeaks had obtained nonpublic documents from the Congressional Research Service by exploiting “a small vulnerability” inside the document distribution system of the United States Congress, and then asserted that “[t]his is what any one of you would find if you were actually looking.”

In 2010, Assange gained unauthorized access to a government computer system of a NATO country.  In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack.  With respect to one target, Assange asked the LulzSec leader to look for (and provide to WikiLeaks) mail and documents, databases and pdfs.  In another communication, Assange told the LulzSec leader that the most impactful release of hacked materials would be from the CIA, NSA, or the New York Times.  WikiLeaks obtained and published emails from a data breach committed against an American intelligence consulting company by an “Anonymous” and LulzSec-affiliated hacker.  According to that hacker, Assange indirectly asked him to spam that victim company again.

In addition, the broadened hacking conspiracy continues to allege that Assange conspired with Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password hash to a classified U.S. Department of Defense computer. 

An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime.  Assange is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count except for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, for which he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties.  A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and James A. Dawson, Special Agent in Charge, Criminal Division, FBI Washington Field Office, made the announcement. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Doherty-McCormick, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kellen S. Dwyer, Thomas W. Traxler, Alexander P. Berrang, and Gordon D. Kromberg, and Trial Attorneys Adam L. Small and Nicholas O. Hunter of the Justice Department’s National Security Division are prosecuting the case.

Assange is currently detained in the United Kingdom on an extradition request from the United States.  Assange’s extradition to the United States is being handled by the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and UK authorities, including the Home Office and the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales.

Refer to ‘Offical’ announcement on the Department of Justice web site

Editor’s Note: This announcement has not been communicated to Julian’s legal team

On the 21st June 2020 Consortium News posted this special broadcast on Youtube

Wikileaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnnson & Julian Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson respond to two Guardian articles this week that delivered significant context to Wikileaks‘ 2010 “Collateral Murder” video release: In this video by Don’t Extradite Assange, Hrafnnson and Robinson are joined by former Reuters’ Baghdad bureau chief Dale Yates and Sami Ramadani, an Iraqi lecturer and writer.

Yates, subject of one of The Guardian articles, held the Baghdad post in 2007 when an Apache helicopter airstrike killed two of his staff members, Saeed Chmagh and Noor-Eldeen. Yates wasn’t allowed to report on what two U.S. Generals had shown Reuters at the time.

What we learn now is what Reuters wasn’t able to report, in particular how the death of one Reuters employee strongly appears to be a war crime. Yates reels at the deception and says Reuters was cheated by the U.S. brass.

Sami Ramadani speaks of the Iraqi reaction to the ‘Collateral Murder’ release and the evidence WikiLeaks published of torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The second Guardian article points out that in Assange’s indictment there is no mention of the Baghdad air strike footage, even though 40 of the 175 years in prison Assange faces relates to “Collateral Murder.”

Robinson explains that the charges are in fact about the publication of the Rules of Engagement, which Manning leaked to show that the Baghdad air strike had violated them.

Watch the replay of Saturday night’s program here, courtesy of Don’t Extradite Assange.

The two Guardian articles are:

1. Julian Assange indictment fails to mention WikiLeaks video that exposed US ‘war crimes’ in Iraq ( Paul Daley)

US prosecutors have failed to include one of WikiLeaks’ most shocking video revelations in the indictment against Julian Assange, a move that has brought accusations the US doesn’t want its “war crimes” exposed in public.

2. ‘All lies’: how the US military covered up gunning down two journalists in Iraq (Paul Daley)

For all the countless words from the United States military about its killing of the Iraqi Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, their colleague Dean Yates has two of his own: “All lies.”

On 16th June 2020 Paul Daley reports

Former Reuters journalist Dean Yates was in charge of the bureau in Baghdad when his Iraqi colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were killed. A WikiLeaks video called Collateral Murder later revealed details of their death

For all the countless words from the United States military about its killing of the Iraqi Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, their colleague Dean Yates has two of his own: “All lies.”

The former Reuters Baghdad bureau chief has also inked some on his arm – a permanent declaration of how those lies “fucked me up”, while he blamed first Namir – unfairly – and then himself for the killings.

…

Is the US concerned that referring to the video will give rise to war crimes charges against the military personnel involved in the attack? Certainly, bringing the video into the prosecution case against Assange could only vindicate his role in exposing the US military’s lies about the ghastly killings.

‘Loud wailing broke out’

Early on 12 July 2007 Yates sat in the “slot desk” in the Reuters office in Baghdad’s red zone. He was ready for the usual: a car bomb attack while Iraqis headed to work, a militant strike on a market, the police or the Iraqi military. It was quieter than usual.

Yates recalls: “Loud wailing broke out near the back of our office … I still remember the anguished face of the Iraqi colleague who burst through the door. Another colleague translated: ‘Namir and Saeed have been killed.’”

Reuters staff drove to the al-Amin neighbourhood where Namir had told colleagues he was going to check out a possible US dawn airstrike. Witnesses said Namir, a photographer, and Saeed, a driver/fixer, had been killed by US forces, possibly in an airstrike during a clash with militants.

While the bureau was in a crisis of anger and mourning, Yates still had to write the early stories about the two men killed on his watch. He initially wrote that they had died in what Iraqi police called “American military action”.

Yates says: “Pictures taken by our photographers and camera operators showed a minivan at the scene, its front mangled by a powerful concussive force … There was much we didn’t know. US soldiers had seized Namir’s two cameras, so we couldn’t check what he’d been photographing.”

By early evening the military spokesman still had not replied. Yates pressed him for a response – and for the return of Namir’s cameras. Just after midnight, the US military released a statement headlined: “Firefight in New Baghdad. US, Iraqi forces kill 9 insurgents, detain 13.” 

It quoted a US lieutenant as saying: “Nine insurgents were killed in the ensuing firefight. One insurgent was wounded and two civilians were killed during the firefight. The two civilians were reported as employees for the Reuters news service. There is no question that Coalition Forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force.”

Yates, shaking his head, says: “The US assertions that Namir and Saeed were killed during a firefight was all lies. But I didn’t know that at the time, so I updated my story to take in the US military’s statement.”

It was a shocking time for locally engaged staff of foreign news organisations in Baghdad. On 13 July, the day of Namir and Saeed’s funerals, Khalid Hassan, a New York Times reporter/translator, was shot dead.

After the funerals Yates pressed the US military for Namir’s cameras and for access to cameras and air-to-ground recordings involving the Apache that killed his colleagues.

On 14 July, Yates learned that militants had murdered a Reuters Iraqi text translator.

In an effort to save employees’ lives, he began collaborating with other foreign news organisation managers to engage with the US military to better understand its rules of engagement. 

“We dealt with them in good faith,” he says. “What a joke that turned out to be.” 

‘Cold-blooded murder’

On 15 July the US military returned Namir’s cameras. Namir had photographed the aftermath of an earlier shooting and, a few minutes later (just before his death), US military Humvees at a nearby crossroads. There were no frames of insurgent gunmen or clashes with US forces. Date and time stamps show that three hours after Namir died his camera photographed a US soldier in a barrack or tent. The troops who mopped up the killing scene evidently messed around with his cameras afterwards.

Reuters staff had by now spoken to 14 witnesses in al-Amin. All of them said they were unaware of any firefight that might have prompted the helicopter strike.Advertisement

Yates recalls: “The words that kept forming on my lips were ‘cold-blooded murder’.”

The Iraqi staff at Reuters, meanwhile, were concerned that the bureau was too soft on the US military. “But I could only write what we could establish and the US military was insisting Saeed and Namir were killed during a clash,” Yates says.

The meeting that put him on a path of destructive, paralysing – eventually suicidal – guilt and blame “that basically fucked me up for the next 10 years”, leaving him in a state of “moral injury”, happened at US military headquarters in the Green Zone on 25 July.

Yates and a Reuters colleague met the two US generals who had overseen the investigation into the killings of Namir and Saeed.

It was a long, off-the-record meeting. The generals revealed a mass of detail, telling them a US battalion had been seeking militias responsible for roadside bombs. They had called in helicopter support after coming under fire. One Apache had the call sign Crazy Horse 1-8.

“They described a group of men spotted by this Apache,” Yates says. “Some appeared to be armed and Crazy Horse 1-8 … had requested permission to fire because we were told these men were ‘military-aged males’ … and they appeared to have weapons and they were acting suspiciously. So, we were told those men on the ground were then ‘engaged’.”

The generals showed them photographs of what was collected after the shooting, including “a couple of AK-47s [assault rifles], an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] launcher and two cameras”.Advertisement

“I have wondered for many years how much of that meeting was carefully choreographed so we would go away with a certain impression of what happened. Well, for a time it worked,” Yates says.

There was some discussion about what permitted Crazy Horse 1-8 to open fire if there was no firefight. One of the generals insisted the dead were of “military age” and, because apparently armed, were therefore “expressing hostile intent”. 

Yates says: “Then they said, ‘OK, we are just going to show you a little bit of footage from the camera of Crazy Horse 1-8.’”

The generals showed them about three minutes of video, beginning with a group including Saeed and Namir on the street.

“We heard the pilot seek permission from the ground to attack.” After the pilot receives permission, the men are obscured. The chopper circles for a clear aim.

Yates says: “When the chopper circled around, Namir can be seen going to a corner and crouching down holding something – his long-lens camera – and is taking photographs of Humvees. One of the crew says, ‘He’s got an RPG’ … He’s clearly agitated. And then another 15, 20 seconds the crew gets a clear line of sight … I’m watching Namir crouching down with his camera which the pilot thinks is an RPG and they’re about to open fire. I then see a man I believe to be Saeed walking away, talking on the phone. Then cannon fire hits them. I’ve got my head in my hands … The generals stop the tape.”

The generals downplayed a slightly later incident when they said a van had pulled up and Crazy Horse 1-8 assessed it as aiding the insurgents, removing their bodies and weapons.

“At some point after watching that footage it became burnt into my mind that the reason the helicopter opened fire was because Namir was peering around the corner. I came to blame Namir for that attack, thinking that the helicopter fired because he made himself look suspicious and it just erased from my memory the fact that the order to open fire had already been given. They were going to open fire anyway. And the one person who picked this up was Assange. On the day that he released the tape [5 April 2010] he said that helicopter opened fire because it sought permission and was given permission. And he said something like, ‘If that’s based on the rules of engagement then the rules of engagement are wrong.’”

Reuters asked for the entire video. The general refused, saying Reuters had to seek it under freedom of information laws. The agency did so, but its requests were denied.

During the next year, Yates checked when it might be released. All the while he and other executives from foreign news organisations continued their good faith meetings with various US generals to enhance the safety of their Baghdad staff.

Read whole article with many photos in the Guardian

And a follow up interview of Dean Yates by Fran Kelly on ABC Radio National Breakfast

On the 6th January 2020, Jean-Paul Radet posted in French with the following English translation

A NICE ARTICLE IN “PARIS-MATCH” ABOUT ASSANGE, FATHER AND SON

ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN N°3690 FROM JANUARY 23RD TO 29TH, 2020

FOR JOHN, HIS FATHER, PEOPLE WHO ACCUSE ASSANGE OF ENDANGERING LIVES SWIM UP TO THEIR NECKS IN A RIVER OF BLOOD.

By Sarah Mabrouk and Flore Olive

During his last visit, which lasted an hour and a half, Julian smiled at him once. If John Shipton points this out, it is because his son is no longer smiling: “As you can see from the photos taken when he was arrested in April, he is no longer the one we all knew, so sweet, funny and smart. “Julian Assange’s face is swollen, a common symptom, according to his father, in people under constant stress. “It can lead to swelling… When he was at the Ecuadorian embassy, he had a dental abscess, a nerve infection that he was not allowed to treat. He also suffered from musculoskeletal problems and could no longer lift his arm… Since he’s been incarcerated, he’s lost 15 kilos”.

Julian Assange has been detained since 11 April near London in Belmarsh, the prison the British call “our Guantanamo” (“our Guantanamo”). Initially placed in the high-security unit among the most dangerous criminals in the country, he had to be transferred on 18 May to the medical service, where his condition has continued to deteriorate. At the October 21 hearing on his extradition request to the United States (postponed until February 2020), the public saw a frail, sickly man on the stand who was having trouble “declaring his identity and date of birth”. Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, visited him with two doctors. “Unless the United Kingdom urgently changes course and improves its inhuman situation, Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse could soon cost him his life,” he wrote. He calls for his release. In his wake, sixty doctors have issued an open letter to the Interior Minister asking that Julian Assange be transferred to hospital. According to them, in view of the “available evidence”, there are “real fears that he will die in prison”.

In an interview he gave us in 2010, Julian Assange spoke of his immoderate taste for long walks or horseback rides, fishing, hunting. “I grew up like Tom Sawyer, on farm. I like to live outdoors,” he said. Today, he is in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. As he confided to his friend Srecko Horvat, he has found a way of “escaping” in this tight cell: he walks back and forth, imagining that he is walking across Europe, covering 10 to 15 kilometres a day. During the forty-five minutes he spends in the walking yard, the other prisoners are kept away. He meets them only at mass, twice a week. Julian is not a believer but, explains his father, he goes there “just to socialize. His bedside book is Solzhenitsyn’s “Pavilion for Cancer Patients”, but he is not allowed to go to the library and has only recently been given a computer. According to a UN report released in November, the prolonged isolation causes irreparable damage and can be considered torture. Since 2015, the United Nations has prohibited its extension beyond 15 days.

Julian Assange gets two visits a month, lasting two hours. To get to him, you have to pass through three airlocks and submit to the control of a sniffer dog. Mobile phones are forbidden, as well as paper and food. His father brings him some canteen food (£20), but does not address any issues that make him angry: Julian is too depressed. He prefers to keep him informed of what is being done for his cause. He also gives him news about his children, his mother, his sister and his brother. Julian is very worried about dying in the United States,” he says, “about never seeing the people he cares about. It’s heartbreaking. When you imagine that they’re going to take away everything that makes you human, you only have a feeling of desolation.”

John Shipton no longer has any photographs with his son. All his albums, as well as many documents, were stolen from his home in Australia three years ago. Then family’s been threatened, harassed. Because whistleblower Chelsea Manning refused to testify against the man suspected of helping her crack a password, she went back to prison. Did Julian Assange have any idea what his revelations would cost him? In 2010, he told us: “I have become the main target, because such powerful organizations cannot lose face. To do so, they have to shoot the central figure, which is me. During my detention, I asked myself this question: “Is what I am doing worthwhile? Have I made mistakes? But in the end, my conviction was strengthened”.

So far, Julian Assange has not been convicted of any crime, but of a minor offence: violating the conditions of his bail by taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. He feared that Sweden, where he was being prosecuted for sexual assault, would extradite him to the United States. He remained in the embassy for seven years, as if he were walled up, until the new Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno, ordered his surrender to the British authorities. That was on 11 April and his sentence ended in September. Assange remained in prison, however, under an extradition request from the United States, which accuses him of spying for publishing classified information. These include “Collateral Murder,” a video of a 2007 US army air raid on Baghdad in which several civilians were killed, including two Reuters journalists, and “War Logs,” secret documents about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some of the information was published by Der Spiegel, the New York Times and the Guardian even before WikiLeaks, “which, when we released it, had a technical problem,” said investigative journalist John Goetz, who spent several days with Assange and other journalists studying the documents. “We discussed what to put forward, we made all the decisions as a team. It’s absurd to pretend that Julian is not a journalist. We were doing the same thing. “In the name of that status, Assange advocates the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. A New York judge ruled in his favor and dismissed the Democratic National Committee, which was suing for the release of his e-mails prior to the 2016 presidential election. But many U.S. politicians claimed that Assange was just a “hacker. Thus, for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, WikiLeaks is not a media organization but a “hostile intelligence service. “This Secretary of State, like the American officials who slandered Julian, are the same ones who were responsible for planning the destruction of Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Sudan,” explains John Shipton, who recalls that Assange received 16 major journalism awards. “These people are responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million people and the suffering of millions more, they are swimming up to their necks in a river of blood, but they point their fingers at Julian Assange and claim that he “put lives in danger.” This is beyond grotesque, it’s obscene! “He said that if extradition is decided, it would mean that in the future “the media, including the European media, could be attacked for publishing information that the United States does not want to be disclosed”.

Niels Melzer, the UN rapporteur, who sees espionage charges as the basis for “classic political crime”, explained that British law prohibits extradition for this type of offence. He denounces the conditions under which a trial would take place. “They will present evidence to which the defence will not have access and it will take place behind closed doors, in Alexandria, Virginia, with a jury constituted, in an area where 85% of the people work for the Ministry of Defence, the CIA and the NSA. “Melzer hopes the European Court of Human Rights will intervene. “If it allows extradition in these circumstances,” he said, “it will be a failure of The Rule of Law”.

John Shipton also knows that his son’s salvation depends on Europe. He hopes that not only MEPs, but also the people – what he calls “the grassroots” – will be able to exert pressure. Through him, Julian Assange made us say: “I miss France and Paris very much and France’s unfailing support is much appreciated. “If convicted, the founder of WikiLeaks could face up to 175 years in prison under these inhumane conditions. John Shipton wants to believe that no matter what happens, the movement started by his son will continue: “We may be moving slowly but, like a glacier that joins the sea, inescapably”.

JOHN SHIPTON KNOWS HIS SON’S SALVATION DEPENDS ON EUROPE

Original posting in Jean-Paul’s Facebook page

Radio Free Assange is a 24/7 radio program dedicated to ending the political persecution of Julian Assange. 

Radio Free Assange is an algorithmically curated collage of sound bits found online: songs and remixes, podcasts, documentaries, speeches, protests, interviews…

It bursts with surprising soundscapes, spanning from joy to anger, in defense of uncompromising journalistic activities worldwide.

Radio Free Assange invites all people, musicians, artists, to give a voice, a song or some noise, shedding light on Assange’s situation, and contribute to ongoing efforts aiming towards his liberation.

send suggestions (including links) to this email radiofreeassange[@]protonmail.com

Tune in and take action! 

PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT WAR CRIMES

Media Release: 

Assange must be released to his family
In the time of COVID, this is a matter of life and death

On the twelve-month anniversary of the release of the US superseding indictment, we call on the Australian government to make diplomatic representations to the US and UK and have Julian Assange released to his family. The US extradition hearing is set to commence on the 7 September 2020 due to the Covid epidemic, unreasonably extending Assange’s time in detention to 18 months. Assange is not serving time as a convicted prisoner.

Julian’s father, John Shipton, stated “Julian misses Stella and their kids. He just wants to come home and be with his family. These governments aren’t just punishing Julian for exposing their crimes against humanity, they are pushing us as a family. We are all suffering.”

Australian Assange Campaign adviser, Greg Barns SC said “Given his health conditions, it is reasonable for the family to request that the Australian government make diplomatic representations to ensure Julian is released and safe with his family. This is a matter of life and death and there is a duty of care for any detaining authority to ensure the safety of prisoners and access to adequate medical care – Belmarsh is unable to provide this.”

“Julian is not serving time as a convicted prisoner, there is no valid reason why he can’t be released to his family for the duration of the extradition hearing” Barns said.

Craig Tuck, head of LawAid International Chambers added “the due process violations in this case are extensive. This is not about applying the law. Julian is not being given a fair chance to defend himself.”

Assange’s legal representatives have confirmed that communications with their client have become even more difficult since commencement of the Covid epidemic. Speaking at a recent hearing, Edward Fitzgerald QC, said ‘We’ve had great difficulties in getting into Belmarsh to take instructions from Mr Assange and to discuss the evidence with him.’ Mr Fitzgerald continued: ‘We simply cannot get in as we require to see Mr Assange and to take his instruction.’

Julian Assange is facing 175 years in a US prison for allegedly publishing evidence of US war crimes. 

Media contact: 
Greg Barns SC +61419691846
Both Mr Barns SC and Mr John Shipton are available for interview.

On the 11th May 2020, Mads Andenas, former UN special rapporteur on arbitrary detention and the chair of UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, reports

“They have a duty to maintain, to defend (Assange‘s) rights against arbitrary detention, against torture and a duty to set the bar particularly high in this individual case because Freedom Of Expression is involved.”

On the 4th May 2020, Julie Furlong sent this article to the Australian Assange Campaign. The article was written for  #Campaign Outline as contribution to the UN’s Press Freedom Day 

Google Translation

The professional ethics of WikiLeaks CEO Julian Assange has been able to arouse the real conviction towards a safe, faithfully informed life path that axiomatically leads to continual renewal. It has recreated in the global citizen the will to want and be able to be responsible for their participation in the world of which they are a part.

Faced with the entry of a new era and culture that begins the history of humanity, the authorship in press of the best journalist in the world, boasted with innumerable international recognitions, has allowed the world citizen to safeguard its already assimilated ethics, thus innovating the work of a reforming journalism. Burying the old ways of doing journalism with flawed behavior that condemns the new Age of man.

The British judgment that tries to be as such, applied by England martyring the life of Julian Assange, does not aspire to continue being a rule of conduct, it has no similarity with logical rules of legal thought. The correctness of thinking globally in legal matters depends absolutely on logic, as the judicial function must be when applied.
The interpretation of law, to clarify the sense in which it should be applied, is also a strictly logical mental operation.

It denigrates world society, seeing a country of supposed 1st. World, applying retrograde justice in the trial of the Julian Assange, under a profoundly pernicious and controversial climate in absolute social deterioration. All judgment must be tempered in the crucible of formal logic, which occupy the laws of thought, especially those of reasoning.

The fine tact required by those who exercise the profession of Jury, Judge or Prosecutor in the trial of the digital Icon of the current Era, a very high level of importance for the rest of the world, can only be applied by mastering logic, since it is the Legal Axiology that includes the study of the supreme values ​​of law.

Given WikiLeaks’ ethics, already considered of innovative value in times of instability and continental catastrophes, its objective in the field of professional practice has been, above all, under moral standards founded on truth, honesty and honor.

The forms of journalism until the twentieth century that had served the most competent journalists and hundreds of media outlets are today in rusty expiration.

Axiological ethics, a set of norms originated in the journalism of Julian Assange, has led the world to prior reflection on false values ​​imposed centuries ago. supported by truth, in the reason of world morality, changing paradigms worthy of the new culture of humanity. Deontologically, the codes and norms that support the truth are the concrete-future path already begun by Julian Assange, in the vertical formation of new communicators. Thus, Julian Assange inevitably sheds new light on universal principles, renewing cultural paradigms that stand out as the backbone of Ethical-Professional-Moral and virtuous in journalism of the new human culture, already begun in the XXI century.

Only by virtue of the condition of Human Being, by axiom does Julian Assange have an absolute right to have his life respected, especially that which violates universal laws. No consideration of totalitarian order, social or judicial tyranny, much less outside his national territory, justifies torturing him psychologically, and continually inciting him to death for revenge – political favor – personal convenience – or simply for the enjoyment of brutality.

Without committing any crime, beyond telling the truth, above all living being in Globo Terraquio_ Respect for the life of Julian Assange prevails, which bases his rights to live without brutal siege and in full freedom.

Julie Furlong

Original in Spanish

La ética profesional del CEO de WikiLeaks Julian Assange ha sido capaz de originar la convicción real hacia un seguro camino de vida, fidedignamente informada que lleva axiomáticamente continua renovación. Ha recreado en el ciudadano global la voluntad de querer y poder ser responsable de su participación en el mundo del que forma parte.

Ante la entrada de una nueva Era y cultura que inicia la historia de la humanidad, la autoría en prensa del mejor periodista del mundo, vanagloriado con innumerables reconocimientos internacionales, ha permitido al ciudadano mundial salvaguardar su ética ya asimilada, innovando así el quehacer de un periodismo reformador. Enterrando las añejadas formas de hacer periodismo con viciadas conductas que condena la nueva Era del hombre.

El juicio británico que intenta serlo como tal, aplicado por Inglaterra martirizando la vida de Julian Assange, no aspira siguiera a ser una regla de conducta, no tiene similitud alguna con reglas lógicas del pensamiento jurídico. Lo correcto de pensar global en materia legal, depende absolutamente de la lógica, como ha de serlo la función judicial al aplicarse.
La interpretación de ley, para esclarecer el sentido en que debe ser aplicada, es también una operación mental rigurosamente lógica.

Denigra a la sociedad mundial, el ver a uno país de supuesto 1er. Mundo, aplicando una justicia retrógrada en el juicio del Julian Assange, bajo un clima profundamente pernicioso y controversial en absoluto deterioro social. Todo juicio se debe templar en el crisol de la lógica formal, que ocupan las leyes del pensamiento, en especial las del raciocinio.

El fino tacto que requieren tener quienes ejercen la profesión de Jurado, Juez o Fiscal en el juicio al Icono digital de la Era actual, altísimo nivel de importancia para el resto del mundo., sólo puede ser aplicado mediante el dominio de la lógica, pues es la Axiología Jurídica que comprende el estudio de los valores supremos del derecho.

Ante la ética de WikiLeaks, ya considerada de valor innovador en tiempos de inestabilidades y catástrofes continentales, su objetivo en el terreno de la práctica profesional ha sido ante todo, bajo normas morales fundadas en la verdad, la honradez y el honor.

Las formas de hacer periodismo hasta el siglo XX que hubo servido a los periodistas más competentes y a cientos de medios de información, hoy se encuentran en oxidada caducidad.

La ética axiológica, conjunto de normas originadas en el periodismo de Julian Assange, ha conducido al mundo hacia la reflexión previa sobre falsos valores impuestos siglos ha., pues está
apoyada en la verdad, en la razón de la moral mundial, cambiando paradigmas dignos de la nueva cultura de la humanidad.
Deontológicamente los códigos y las normas que fundamentan la verdad son el camino concreto- futural ya iniciado por Julian Assange, en la formación vertical de los nuevos comunicadores.
Es así que Julian Assange insoslayablemente da nueva luz a principios universales, renovando paradigmas culturales que se pronuncian como la espina dorsal de la Ética-Profesional-Moral y virtuosa en el periodismo de la nueva cultura humana, ya iniciada en siglo XXI.

Sólo por virtud de la condición de Ser Humano, por axioma Julian Assange tiene absoluto derecho a que se respete su vida, sobre todo aquello que infringe las leyes universales. Ninguna consideración de orden totalitarismo, tiranismo social o judicial, mucho menos fuera de su territorio nacional, justifica torturarlo psicológicamente, e incitarlo por años continuamente a la muerte por venganza- favor político- conveniencia personal- o simplemente por disfrute de la brutalidad.

Sin cometer crimen alguno, más allá de decir la verdad, ante todo ser viviente en Globo Terraquio_Impera el respeto a la vida de Julian Assange que fundamenta sus derechos a vivir sin asedio brutal y en plena libertad.

Julie Furlong