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Julian Assange

Protests Mark Third Anniversary Of Assange’s Arrest

The third anniversary of the arrest and incarceration of Julian Assange at a maximum-security prison has sparked protests in London and the United States. Tomorrow marks three years since the Wikileaks founder was forcibly dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he had sought asylum over the previous seven years. Vigils were due to be held yesterday at the embassy, Westminster magistrates’ court and Belmarsh prison, where he has been held for the past three years. Mr Assange’s family, friends and supporters are calling for his release and the US to drop its extradition case against him. Protests are also planned today in Washington DC outside the British embassy and the Department of Justice offices.

Conflicts In Priti Patel’s Power Over Assange

Priti Patel sat on the Henry Jackson Society’s (HJS) advisory council from around 2013-16, although the exact dates are unclear as neither the HJS nor Patel responded to Declassified’s requests for clarification. She has also received funds from the HJS, and was paid £2,500 by the group to visit Washington in March 2013 to attend a “security” program in the U.S. Congress. Patel, who became an MP in 2010 and was appointed home secretary in 2019, also hosted an HJS event in parliament soon after she returned from Washington. After the U.K. Supreme Court said this month it was refusing to hear Assange’s appeal of a High Court decision against him, the WikiLeaks founder’s fate now lies in Patel’s hands.

The Marriage Of Julian Assange

London - I am standing at the gates of HM Prison Belmarsh, a high security penitentiary  in southeast London, with Craig Murray, British Ambassador to Uzbekistan until he was fired for exposing CIA black sites and torture centers in that country. Inside the prison, Julian Assange and Stella Moris are being married.  Craig and I were on the list of the six guests invited to the wedding, but prison authorities, in an example of the institutional sadism that characterizes all prisons, denied us entry. Craig, who was to have been one of two witnesses, was informed that he could not enter because he would “endanger the security of the prison.” Craig came down from Edinburgh by train. I flew over from New York. We would at least be at the entrance of the prison with 150 Assange supporters.

Extradition Looms For Assange After Court Refuses To Hear His Appeal

The British judicial system has erected still another barrier to Julian Assange’s freedom. On March 14, the U.K. Supreme Court refused to hear Assange’s appeal of the U.K. High Court’s ruling ordering his extradition to the United States. If extradited to the U.S. for trial, Assange will face 17 charges under the Espionage Act and up to 175 years in prison for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes. With no explanation of its reasoning, the Supreme Court denied Assange “permission to appeal” the High Court’s decision, saying that Assange’s appeal did not “raise an arguable point of law.” The court remanded the case back to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, which is the same court that denied the U.S. extradition request on January 4, 2021. In all likelihood, the magistrates’ court will refer the case to the British Home Office where Home Secretary Priti Patel will review it.

UK Supreme Court Slams Door On Assange Appeal

Without any explanation, the British Supreme Court denied WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “permission to appeal” a decision by the British High Court. The Supreme Court maintained the appeal did not “raise an arguable point of law” and sent the case back to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the district court which initially blocked the United States government’s extradition request on January 4, 2021. By refusing to grant Assange a hearing, the U.S. government effectively won their appeal. Prosecutors convinced the British courts to disregard concerns that he may be subject to treatment in a U.S. jail or prison that would be oppressive to his mental health. "Whether Julian is extradited or not, which is the same as saying whether he lives or dies, is decided through a process of legal avoidance—avoiding to hear arguments that challenge the U.K. courts' deference to unenforceable and caveated claims regarding his treatment made by the United States, the country that plotted to murder him," declared Stella Moris, his partner.

UK Supreme Court Refuses Assange Appeal

Julian Assange, the publisher of WikiLeaks, has been denied his petition to appeal the High Court’s decision to extradite him to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison for publishing U.S. state secrets that revealed evidence of American war crimes. The next possible step for Assange to forestall extradition is to ask the High Court to hear a cross appeal against the lower court’s judgement. Assange’s attorneys on Monday indicated that that would likely be their next step. Assange won in the magistrate’s court in January 2021. That court decided not to extradite Assange based on his mental state and the high probability he would commit suicide if he were sent to harsh prison conditions in the United States. The U.S. appealed that decision to the High Court last December and won.

People’s Movements Across The World Demand Freedom For Julian Assange

On the streets of Brasilia and Accra, Johannesburg and New York City, people’s movements and organizations demanded on February 25 that publisher and political prisoner Julian Assange be released immediately. The call for mobilizations was issued by the International Peoples’ Assembly (IPA) which launched a permanent campaign this month to call for Assange’s immediate release and the rejection of his extradition request.

Assange Affirms The Existence Of Another Kind Of Human Nature

We know what Julian did. We know the great public service he provided. We know that he and WikiLeaks, aided by courageous figures such as Chelsea Manning, gave us the most important journalist coup of our generation, ripping back the veil erected by the ruling political, military, and financial elites to expose their mendacity, their corruption, and their crimes. We know that populations around the world, from Haiti to Tunisia, were empowered by this information to hold these elites accountable. But today I want us to reflect on Julian himself. For Julian, endowed with precocious skills, could easily have been someone else. He could have sold his talents to Silicon Valley, to Wall Street or to intelligence and surveillance agencies, who would have paid handsomely.

The Belmarsh Tribunal Is Demanding Justice For Victims Of War On Terror

It has been ten years since WikiLeaks began publishing the “Guantanamo Files,” documenting the detention and torture of prisoners by the United States government at its prison on Cuba’s occupied east coast. But the architects and administrators of the Guantanamo Bay torture camp today walk free. Instead, the journalists, whistleblowers, and publishers have been sent to prison. Assange has now spent over a thousand days in solitary confinement at Belmarsh as the UK courts debate his extradition to face a 175-year prison sentence in the United States. The Belmarsh Tribunal — which sits today for its third session — turns the tables on the Assange extradition case. On the twentieth anniversary of Guantanamo Bay’s opening, the Progressive International is bringing witnesses from around the world to give testimony to the crimes of the war on terror when no court of law will hear them.

Those Who Violated The Geneva Conventions At Guantánamo Are Free

Twenty years ago, on 11 January 2002, the United States government brought its first ‘detainees’ abducted during the so-called War on Terror to its military prison in Guantánamo Bay. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, ‘We do plan to, for the most part, treat them in a manner that is reasonably consistent with the Geneva Conventions’. For the most part. Evidence began to emerge almost immediately – including from the International Committee of the Red Cross – that the Geneva Conventions were being violated and that many of the prisoners were being tortured. By December 2002, the US media began to report that ‘many held at Guantánamo [were] not likely terrorists’.

Belmarsh Tribunal On US War Crimes And Julian Assange In New York

The Progressive International (PI), in collaboration with several like minded organizations, will organize the second Belmarsh Tribunal in New York on February 25. It announced the decision in a press release on February 14.  The Tribunal seeks to hold the US government accountable for its war crimes in the two decades of the so-called war on terror and also push for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s release. The first Belmarsh Tribunal was organized in London during Assange’s extradition hearings in October last year. It is named after the infamous prison in London where Assange has been kept for almost three years. The upcoming Belmarsh Tribunal in New York coincides with with the date of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by the US in occupied parts of Cuba 20 years ago.

Julian Assange Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize

Journalist and Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, as the movement calling for his unconditional release and against his extradition to the United States grows louder. Assange was nominated by several individuals, including members of parliament and former peace prize winners, responding to calls from Assange’s partner Stella Moris. On January 29, a nomination was filed by German politicians Martin Sonneborn, a member of the European Parliament (MEP), and Sevim Dağdelen, a member of the German Bundestag. In their letter to the Nobel Committee, they explained that the nomination of Assange was “in honor of his unparalleled contributions to the pursuit of peace, and his immense personal sacrifices to promote peace for all.”

On Contact: Assange Can Appeal UK Supreme Court

The British High Court of England and Wales on Monday said it would allow the imprisoned publisher of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, to, in essence, appeal a ruling that would have seen him extradited to the United States where he faces a possible 175 years in prison for the publication of classified documents and videos. The High Court technically refused to allow an appeal to the Supreme Court, but, in a legal loophole, it left it up to that court to determine whether it will grant permission to consider one legal issue. “We certify a single point of law … in what circumstances can an appellate court receive assurances from a requesting state which were not before the court of first instance in extradition proceedings,” the High Court said in an appearance that lasted less than a minute.

Assange Hearing Day

it is customary that the High Court refuses leave to appeal; with the certification of public interest, Julian can now appeal direct to the Supreme Court which will decide whether or not to take the case. The refusal of leave by the High Court is purely a show of deference to the Supreme Court, which decides itself what it will take. The lawyers put this as “the Supreme Court dines a la carte”. Now some of the appeal points which the High Court refused to certify as arguable and of general public interest, were important. One point was that the diplomatic assurances by the United States promised not to engage in certain illegal practices amounting to torture, but made that assurance conditional on Assange’s future behavior.

British High Court Opens Door For Assange To Appeal To Supreme Court

London - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prevailed in his effort to obtain certification from the British High Court of Justice, which would allow him to appeal their prior decision to the Supreme Court. Under the law, the court must determine that the request for an appeal involves a “point of law” that is of “public importance.” Journalist Mohamed Elmaazi, who was in the courtroom to cover the very brief proceedings, reported that the High Court certified the following point of law: “in what circumstances can an appellate court receive [diplomatic] assurances which were not before the court of first instance in extradition proceedings.” Although the High Court maintained it had settled the question, they acknowledged the Supreme Court had not previously considered the question.
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