To make your point even more explicit: The kind of imprisonment that Assange was subjected to is unambiguously torture, and was unambiguously administered for

To make your point even more explicit: The kind of imprisonment that Assange was subjected to is unambiguously torture, and was unambiguously administered for the purpose of revenge. There is no natural "need" for the conditions he was subjected to (e.g. the cost of a larger cell is negligible), and no natural purpose other than to punish. I am deliberately ignoring the question of guilt here, because I don't believe that we should torture _anyone_, regardless of the crime. The fact that we do this is a giant ugly stain on civilisation.