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UN Rapporteur on torture: “Julian Assange is a political prisoner.”

154 points by dotcoma 6y ago

cryptica 6y ago
The irony of the whole situation is that in trying to prosecute Assange, the US government has lost more public trust from its own actions than it did because of Wikileaks. Nobody trusts the government today. The whole thing is absolutely Kafkaesque and ridiculous.
- austincheney 6y ago
  This might be true is some echo chamber, but it doesn't seem like almost anybody cares. Is there some kind of survey that says otherwise? Unless you are a huge fan of Assange prior to all this I cannot think of anybody (person, media, or otherwise) that is even following this.
  - cryptica 6y ago
    They do care but for now they pretend not to care because they don't think that they can do anything about it. But the pressure is building up. It's going to be released eventually. All at once, violently and in the most unexpected way as history has shown time and time again.
    - evgen 6y ago
      No pressure is buildilng because no one cares. Other than an extreme fringe of the chattering class subset of the digerati, nobody cares about the fate of Julian Assange. As soon as he ran to the embassy he was guilty in the eyes of the mass public and became nothing more than a sideshow for two column inches on page 6 of the Sunday paper. Your vague references to some coming revolution are probably the most laughable part of all of this.
      - cryptica 6y ago
        >> Your vague references to some coming revolution are probably the most laughable part of all of this. There is so much cognitive dissonance in our society that the levels of mental illness are going through the roof. It's 100% certain that there will be a revolution in the next decade.
  - dpwm 6y ago
    There may be other reasons why people are not following this: > Due to Covid distancing measures, the court made five spaces available to members of the public, in a gallery with a total of 36 seats. Communications from the court repeatedly stated that these would be allocated on a first come, first serve basis - however this was not respected in practice. For nearly three weeks of proceedings, three seats were held back for unspecified “VIPs” for the first hour and a half each morning, and the first half an hour each afternoon, meaning that often only two members of the public (including NGO observers) were present in the courtroom. After RSF learned that the VIPs were in fact diplomats who were unaware these seats were being held for them, diplomatic intervention with the court finally resulted in all five seats being made fully available to the public from 24 September. One of the few organisations that might have sought to report on this – the Guardian – published the book which allegedly first released the encryption key to the underacted diplomatic cables. [0] https://rsf.org/en/news/usuk-julian-assanges-extradition-hearing-marred-barriers-open-justice https://rsf.org/en/news/usuk-julian-assanges-extradition-hea...
- kstenerud 6y ago
  American culture is very strong in its distrust of governments and authorities of any kind, and always has been. That was one of the first things I noticed while living there. But the Assange case won't move the needle at all. Of the few people who actually know of the case, almost none will learn what actually happened because they won't look deep enough to see past the many, many red herrings. To the vast majority, he'll just be an egotistical journalist-wannabe rapist with no regard for the safety of others, and not someone to be missed or cared about. Truth doesn't matter when it comes to writing history, or protecting the powerful.
afwe 6y ago
Well, if the UN says it, then it must be true.
- nisuni 6y ago
  Independently of who said what, look at the facts and make up your mind.
  - yostrovs 6y ago
    Lots of decent, innocent people were tortured and killed because of Assange. My mind is made up.
    - marvin 6y ago
      There is zero evidence for that, in spite of the US government putting a large team of investigators to work trying to find an example of just this.
      - yostrovs 6y ago
        There's zero evidence of torture and murder inside Chinese political prison facilities. Offenders simply disappear. Probably to all inclusive resorts since there's no evidence otherwise.
      - yostrovs 6y ago
        https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/afghan-leaks-expose-the-identities-of-informants-fd7lpq9lp79 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/afghan-leaks-expose-the-i...
    - toyg 6y ago
      [citation needed] Whereas we don’t need a citation for the “lots of decent, innocent people” killed by trigger-happy US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, thanks to Assange that’s a historical fact.
      - 6y ago
marcusjt 6y ago
This is from September 9th
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
The US is trying to lock Assange away for 175 years for publishing documents that exposed American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and revealed the often sordid workings of American diplomacy. Assange is clearly a political prisoner. The shameful thing is how little protest there's been from the established news media. Most people are unaware this trial is even occurring, and if they are, most liberal Americans think Assange somehow deserves it for having published DNC and Podesta emails that put Clinton in a negative light.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  You answered your own question there. > The shameful thing is how little protest there's been from the established news media. > having published DNC and Podesta emails that put Clinton in a negative light. The media establishment doesn’t like it when you make them look bad. Surprise, surprise, they don’t care about Assange.
  - worldsayshi 6y ago
    And then there's the dropped rape case that should have no relevance to this but likely manages to confuse the narrative around Assange.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      They also tried to spread the rumor that he is a pedophile.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Correct, and more to that, why would the press care? Did Assange expect anything else from the way he acted? You keep burning bridges you'll end up alone in an Island. Seems like Julian is having a case of LeopardsAteMyFace Manning and Assange do deserve protection from whistleblowing. Then Assange decided to take sides and kept digging a hole for himself.
    - 6y ago
Traster 6y ago
> 17 out of the 18 charges that Julian Assange has been indicted for are for espionage. Espionage is the quintessential, textbook example of a political offence Could someone explain this to me? It seems to me ridiculous to claim espionage is a textbook example of a political offence.
- onli 6y ago
  Espionage is often used like that. It's the charge North Korea, China and Iran use to imprison European or US-tourists and journalists.
- dpwm 6y ago
  Espionage is a crime against the state. Just like treason or terrorism, the very definition of the crime and its interpretation is by the entity that claims to have been wronged. Crimes against the state are widely abused by despots for silencing political dissidents.
- shoo 6y ago
  > political crime or political offence is an offence involving overt acts or omissions, which prejudice the interests of the state, its government, or the political system > States will define as political crimes any behaviour perceived as a threat, real or imagined, to the state's survival, including both violent and non-violent oppositional crimes. A consequence of such criminalisation may be that a range of human rights, civil rights, and freedoms are curtailed, and conduct which would not normally be considered criminal per se (in other words, that is not antisocial according to those who engage in it) is criminalised at the convenience of the group holding power. > At one extreme, crimes such as treason, sedition, and terrorism are political because they represent a direct challenge to the government in power. Espionage is usually considered a political crime. But offenders do not have to aim to overthrow the government or to depose its leaders to be acting in a way perceived as "political". A state may perceive it threatening if individuals advocate change to the established order, or argue the need for reform of long-established policies, or engage in acts signifying some degree of disloyalty, e.g. by burning the nation's flag in public. > Because a political offender may be fighting against a tyrannical government, treaties have usually specified that a person cannot be extradited for a political offense. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_crime https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_crime
dpwm 6y ago
Some readers may be interested in Craig Murray's coverage of the extradition "hearing" [0]. The hearing, to be decided by a judge, has apparently been set up to conclude that Julian Assange is to be extradited to the US. The UK and the US appear to be willing to discard years of diplomatic sophistries – such as the "rule of law" – for this to happen. This should be troubling to citizens of those countries, because they are openly adopting the tools of the despot. It's notable that despite being "open court," access to the Assange hearing appears to have been deliberately restricted, despite being paritally online [1]. Notably, generally-respected international NGOs like Amnesty International[2] and Reporters without Borders [3] have raised concern about this. From Craig Murray's coverage, it looks like restricting access was precisely because this hearing was prejudiced. [0] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-the-assange-hearing-day-6/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-... [1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-18/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-... [2] https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur45/3076/2020/en/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur45/3076/2020/en/ [3] https://rsf.org/en/news/usuk-julian-assanges-extradition-hearing-marred-barriers-open-justice https://rsf.org/en/news/usuk-julian-assanges-extradition-hea...
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  It's despicable how they make him crawl into a perspex box for this, how they're torturing him and keeping him away from anyone.
aronpye 6y ago
You break the law, you go to prison. Simple. If you don’t like the law, you vote to change it or run for office. You don’t get to sneak up behind it with a knife then cry wolf and subsequently demand protection.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  I'm glad that he told the world the truth about what our governments do. It's called journalism.

154 points by dotcoma 6y ago

The irony of the whole situation is that in trying to prosecute Assange, the US government has lost more public trust from its own actions than it did because of Wikileaks. Nobody trusts the government today. The whole thing is absolutely Kafkaesque and ridiculous.

austincheney 6y ago
This might be true is some echo chamber, but it doesn't seem like almost anybody cares. Is there some kind of survey that says otherwise? Unless you are a huge fan of Assange prior to all this I cannot think of anybody (person, media, or otherwise) that is even following this.
- cryptica 6y ago
  They do care but for now they pretend not to care because they don't think that they can do anything about it. But the pressure is building up. It's going to be released eventually. All at once, violently and in the most unexpected way as history has shown time and time again.
  - evgen 6y ago
    No pressure is buildilng because no one cares. Other than an extreme fringe of the chattering class subset of the digerati, nobody cares about the fate of Julian Assange. As soon as he ran to the embassy he was guilty in the eyes of the mass public and became nothing more than a sideshow for two column inches on page 6 of the Sunday paper. Your vague references to some coming revolution are probably the most laughable part of all of this.
    - cryptica 6y ago
      >> Your vague references to some coming revolution are probably the most laughable part of all of this. There is so much cognitive dissonance in our society that the levels of mental illness are going through the roof. It's 100% certain that there will be a revolution in the next decade.
- dpwm 6y ago
  There may be other reasons why people are not following this: > Due to Covid distancing measures, the court made five spaces available to members of the public, in a gallery with a total of 36 seats. Communications from the court repeatedly stated that these would be allocated on a first come, first serve basis - however this was not respected in practice. For nearly three weeks of proceedings, three seats were held back for unspecified “VIPs” for the first hour and a half each morning, and the first half an hour each afternoon, meaning that often only two members of the public (including NGO observers) were present in the courtroom. After RSF learned that the VIPs were in fact diplomats who were unaware these seats were being held for them, diplomatic intervention with the court finally resulted in all five seats being made fully available to the public from 24 September. One of the few organisations that might have sought to report on this – the Guardian – published the book which allegedly first released the encryption key to the underacted diplomatic cables. [0] https://rsf.org/en/news/usuk-julian-assanges-extradition-hearing-marred-barriers-open-justice https://rsf.org/en/news/usuk-julian-assanges-extradition-hea...
kstenerud 6y ago
American culture is very strong in its distrust of governments and authorities of any kind, and always has been. That was one of the first things I noticed while living there. But the Assange case won't move the needle at all. Of the few people who actually know of the case, almost none will learn what actually happened because they won't look deep enough to see past the many, many red herrings. To the vast majority, he'll just be an egotistical journalist-wannabe rapist with no regard for the safety of others, and not someone to be missed or cared about. Truth doesn't matter when it comes to writing history, or protecting the powerful.

afwe 6y ago

Well, if the UN says it, then it must be true.

nisuni 6y ago
Independently of who said what, look at the facts and make up your mind.
- yostrovs 6y ago
  Lots of decent, innocent people were tortured and killed because of Assange. My mind is made up.
  - marvin 6y ago
    There is zero evidence for that, in spite of the US government putting a large team of investigators to work trying to find an example of just this.
    - yostrovs 6y ago
      There's zero evidence of torture and murder inside Chinese political prison facilities. Offenders simply disappear. Probably to all inclusive resorts since there's no evidence otherwise.
    - yostrovs 6y ago
      https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/afghan-leaks-expose-the-identities-of-informants-fd7lpq9lp79 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/afghan-leaks-expose-the-i...
  - toyg 6y ago
    [citation needed] Whereas we don’t need a citation for the “lots of decent, innocent people” killed by trigger-happy US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, thanks to Assange that’s a historical fact.
    - 6y ago

marcusjt 6y ago

This is from September 9th

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

The US is trying to lock Assange away for 175 years for publishing documents that exposed American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and revealed the often sordid workings of American diplomacy. Assange is clearly a political prisoner. The shameful thing is how little protest there's been from the established news media. Most people are unaware this trial is even occurring, and if they are, most liberal Americans think Assange somehow deserves it for having published DNC and Podesta emails that put Clinton in a negative light.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
You answered your own question there. > The shameful thing is how little protest there's been from the established news media. > having published DNC and Podesta emails that put Clinton in a negative light. The media establishment doesn’t like it when you make them look bad. Surprise, surprise, they don’t care about Assange.
- worldsayshi 6y ago
  And then there's the dropped rape case that should have no relevance to this but likely manages to confuse the narrative around Assange.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    They also tried to spread the rumor that he is a pedophile.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Correct, and more to that, why would the press care? Did Assange expect anything else from the way he acted? You keep burning bridges you'll end up alone in an Island. Seems like Julian is having a case of LeopardsAteMyFace Manning and Assange do deserve protection from whistleblowing. Then Assange decided to take sides and kept digging a hole for himself.
  - 6y ago

Traster 6y ago

> 17 out of the 18 charges that Julian Assange has been indicted for are for espionage. Espionage is the quintessential, textbook example of a political offence Could someone explain this to me? It seems to me ridiculous to claim espionage is a textbook example of a political offence.

onli 6y ago
Espionage is often used like that. It's the charge North Korea, China and Iran use to imprison European or US-tourists and journalists.
dpwm 6y ago
Espionage is a crime against the state. Just like treason or terrorism, the very definition of the crime and its interpretation is by the entity that claims to have been wronged. Crimes against the state are widely abused by despots for silencing political dissidents.
shoo 6y ago
> political crime or political offence is an offence involving overt acts or omissions, which prejudice the interests of the state, its government, or the political system > States will define as political crimes any behaviour perceived as a threat, real or imagined, to the state's survival, including both violent and non-violent oppositional crimes. A consequence of such criminalisation may be that a range of human rights, civil rights, and freedoms are curtailed, and conduct which would not normally be considered criminal per se (in other words, that is not antisocial according to those who engage in it) is criminalised at the convenience of the group holding power. > At one extreme, crimes such as treason, sedition, and terrorism are political because they represent a direct challenge to the government in power. Espionage is usually considered a political crime. But offenders do not have to aim to overthrow the government or to depose its leaders to be acting in a way perceived as "political". A state may perceive it threatening if individuals advocate change to the established order, or argue the need for reform of long-established policies, or engage in acts signifying some degree of disloyalty, e.g. by burning the nation's flag in public. > Because a political offender may be fighting against a tyrannical government, treaties have usually specified that a person cannot be extradited for a political offense. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_crime https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_crime

dpwm 6y ago

Some readers may be interested in Craig Murray's coverage of the extradition "hearing" [0]. The hearing, to be decided by a judge, has apparently been set up to conclude that Julian Assange is to be extradited to the US. The UK and the US appear to be willing to discard years of diplomatic sophistries – such as the "rule of law" – for this to happen. This should be troubling to citizens of those countries, because they are openly adopting the tools of the despot. It's notable that despite being "open court," access to the Assange hearing appears to have been deliberately restricted, despite being paritally online [1]. Notably, generally-respected international NGOs like Amnesty International[2] and Reporters without Borders [3] have raised concern about this. From Craig Murray's coverage, it looks like restricting access was precisely because this hearing was prejudiced. [0] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-the-assange-hearing-day-6/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-... [1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-18/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-... [2] https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur45/3076/2020/en/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur45/3076/2020/en/ [3] https://rsf.org/en/news/usuk-julian-assanges-extradition-hearing-marred-barriers-open-justice https://rsf.org/en/news/usuk-julian-assanges-extradition-hea...

Synaesthesia 6y ago
It's despicable how they make him crawl into a perspex box for this, how they're torturing him and keeping him away from anyone.

aronpye 6y ago

You break the law, you go to prison. Simple. If you don’t like the law, you vote to change it or run for office. You don’t get to sneak up behind it with a knife then cry wolf and subsequently demand protection.

Synaesthesia 6y ago
I'm glad that he told the world the truth about what our governments do. It's called journalism.