A group of over 160 current and former politicians endorsed a letter that demands the UK government release WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange immediately. The publisher is currently fighting extradition to the US at Old Bailey court in London and could face up to 175 years in prison for exposing US war crimes.
The group includes heads of state, congressional members, diplomats, and lawmakers from all across the globe. Notable endorsees include the President of Argentina Alberto Fernandez, former President of Brazil Lula da Silva, former Prime Minister of Spain Jose Luis Zapatero, and UK PM Jeremy Corbyn. The only US politicians on the list are former Senator Mike Gravel from Alaska and former Rep. Ron Paul from Texas.
The letter is addressed to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other UK officials and was written by the group Lawyers for Assange.
The letter demands the UK grant Assange his freedom: “We call on you to act in accordance with national and international law, human rights and the rule of law by bringing an end to the ongoing extradition proceedings and granting Mr. Assange his long overdue freedom – freedom from torture, arbitrary detention and deprivation of liberty, and political persecution.”
The group says that if Assange is extradited, he would not face a fair trial and could be subject to torture. The letter cites UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer.
“Professor Nils Melzer has expressed with certainty that, if extradited to the US, Mr. Assange will be exposed to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Assange has been held in Belmarsh Prison in London since April 2019. After examining Assange in Belmarsh with medical experts in May 2019, Melzer said that the publisher exhibited, “all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety, and intense psychological trauma.”
The US is indicting Assange on 17 counts of espionage. The letter says these counts, “Present standard and necessary investigative journalistic practices as criminal.” Assange is also facing an indictment on conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The letter says initial indictment criminalized Assange’s efforts to protect his source’s identity, which “falls squarely under the standard journalistic practice and duty of protecting the source.”
The US added a new superseding indictment to its case in June, which Assange’s lawyers were not given sufficient time to prepare a defense for. “The new indictment has emerged unjustifiably late in the day, is based on no new information and the testimony of two highly compromised sources,” the letter reads.
Because of the reasons listed above, the letter says that if Assange is extradited, it would “gravely endanger the free press.”
The UK court has been fixed, the judge is biased and the proceedings are little more than theater.
“The only US politicians on the list are former Senator Mike Gravel from Alaska and former Rep. Ron Paul from Texas.”
Examples of people gaining wisdom as they age. And we’re stuck with Trump or Biden.
“UK PM Jeremy Corbyn”
Ah, that would have been nice, but it isn’t true.
And unfortunately diminishes the validity of this article and thereby the letter.
U.K. and U.S. is listening. /s
“UK PM Jeremy Corbyn” should be MP and former Labour Party leader.
All the angst in the USA now is in re the new Justice. The Notorious RBG is greatly lamented for her ‘heroic’ defense of voting rights, abortion, and women’s right to join the US killing machine. This while the US flagrantly trashed international law, treaties, and conventions, carried on aggressive wars and torture, and had only contempt for its own Constitution and Bill of Rights. Could any profession be more insipid? Assange is correct to despair of Law in the USA, …and its vassals.
What is shocking is that the western Zionist owned corporate media are completely silent on covering this high profile travesty of justice,
It’s so hard to believe that our normal thinking and acting anymore is as horrific as it is, with our reactions as citizens as something our elected criminals in government don’t even care about. Somehow we the citizens in many countries have in common is “we” have become the enemies to our/their elected governments, with the cameras that supposedly protect all of us, pointed in our direction, at us. And with the Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas and the Trumps and now Biden, the world continues to spiral into this amazing shit hole we’ve managed to create for ourselves, pretty much since our glorious creation as a nation and before. The most exciting next few months of winter is going to be a propaganda storm of biblical proportion with either a Worldwide Revolution or an Evolution as the possible summer of 2021. Let’s hope the Mayans weren’t referring to 12-21-21 as the day we either blew ourselves up versus the day we all woke up because with Trump or Biden and the other criminal psychopaths running their nations, who knows?