Episode 15 of CN Live! is devoted to imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Join our guests Patrick Henningsen, Nozomi Hayase and Lissa Johnson, plus a special message to CN Live! from John Pilger.
You can watch it streamed here:
Volume 29, Number 356— Saturday, December 21, 2024
Edward Abbey once wrote that “sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”
It eats at me that I can’t do anything concrete about helping Julian other than sending donations and writing letters to my disinterested government. I’m 74 but still strong and would enthusiastically charge HM Prison Belmarsh.
Just sent a small donation.
Thank you, CN.
Thank you, CN live.
Outstanding episode.
I too suspect that Assange will not get out of this alive.
Sorry to say, but maybe part of the reason MediaCorps isn’t more visibly concerned about Assange’s treatment is because they’ve calculated or been reassured that they won’t be treated that way. In fact, isn’t there a planned commissariat out there somewhere in the bowels of neo-conville just waiting for the right moment to be squeezed out that would put Big Media & Big Tech among those to decide what is acceptable political thought?
Glad to hear it when Joe said that Assange is being punished, even before being convicted, with no charges proven. That same thought had just occurred to me. It seems to go hand-in-hand with MajorMedia getting into the act of what used to be among the most disreputable tactics of supermarket check-out rags: foment public opinion in a way that encourages a pronouncement of guilt instead of presumed innocence. Uh, Russiagate anyone? That seems like a biggie toward the apparent goal wherein new forms of prolonged emotional and mental torture and suffering become widely accepted.
So let’s not forget to name some execs & their lawyer-enablers who opened depravity’s door to such “dark-side” behavior. Cheney & Addington for starters. And yoo-hoo, Yoo! I see you.
You’re right. The corporate media has no fear of the government because they are the chief proponents of the propaganda being spewed upon us. They certainly aren’t journalists and thus don’t give a rat’s ass about the first amendment.
Does anyone understand what Julian’s so-called defence team is doing? Why the silence? Why doesn’t it loudly condemn and appeal against the appalling farce of this latest hearing? It has challenged none of the vindictive rulings handed down by establishment judges in the past six months. It hasn’t even questioned the totally unjustifiable decision to keep Julian in solitary confinement. I despair.
I know, I have wondered this over these past months. Also wondered why Julian himself has to prepare his own defense – isn’t that the *job* of his defense lawyers? And wouldn’t Wikileaks (the others still working there) be able to provide some if not all of his papers? And why haven’t his lawyers insisted on – in court, and not a magistrate’s at that – complete access to everything of Julian’s that the police etc seized from the embassy? Surely by law they have every right to have full access to all of this – discovery?
Why aren’t these lawyers really doing their job – defending to their utmost their client?
Annie, Good Points!
To answer AnneR, it was not the British police who took Julian’s belongings. His computer, telephone, memory sticks and other electronic devices were all taken from the embassy by US agents, reportedly from the so-called US Department of Justice.
Also legal action could be taken on what is explained in the following article:
UK authorities may have just provided the perfect reason why Assange’s extradition should end | The Canary | 23rd October 2019
But maybe Julian’s legal team just doesn’t have the resources? They don’t seem to be getting much help, apparently.
How to support Julian Assange and WikiLeaks:
Take action – Defend WikiLeaks
defend.wikileaks.org/take-action
“The case should be thrown out immediately. Not only is it illegal on the face of the extradition treaty, the US has conducted illegal operations against Assange and his lawyers which are the subject of a major investigation in Spain.”
— WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson
Always good to hear from Patrick Henningsen, one of the most level headed journalists around.
In addition to jmg’s post earlier regarding Ruptly’s capturing video of Julian: I am convinced that the words Julian said through the thick pane of glass were, “Have a good one, have a good one”.
In the video, someone was saying “what a hero”, and there are different opinions on Julian’s answer. Some on Twitter trying to lip read think it was “I’m a human”.
One of my favorite episodes yet… I loved being introduced to the luminous Nozomi Hayase. It is true that we need more courageous and empathetic people in the world and we must surround ourselves with those who are. We must all practice courage and empathy and acknowledge the “shadow” inside us so that we may be honest and fair in our dealings with others and with ourselves. Julien has been made a scapegoat and cast out into the desert to die like the proverbial scapegoat in Biblical times who served to carry the sins of the tribe away. Scapegoating happens in highly toxic, dysfunctional family systems and on the toxic, personality-disordered world stage, as evidenced by his plight. He represents our conscience and he will be a martyr if they allow him to die. With every bit of might, I will do my part to let my voice be heard to help free him. Malignant bureaucrats, judicial cowards, dishonest and murdering intelligence agencies and governments – all you who are destroying him- free him NOW! You will pay a price for your cruelty and ugliness in this life. That’s the way it works. Face your malevolent shadow; good people everywhere demand and expect it!
The Revelations of WikiLeaks — Consortium News Series
1. The Video that Put Assange in US Crosshairs — April 23, 2019
2. The Leak That ‘Exposed the True Afghan War’ — May 9, 2019
3. The Most Extensive Classified Leak in History — May 16, 2019
4. The Haunting Case of a Belgian Child Killer and How WikiLeaks Helped Crack It — July 11, 2019
5. Busting the Myth WikiLeaks Never Published Damaging Material on Russia — September 23, 2019
For an updated list with links to the articles, the Google search is:
“The Revelations of WikiLeaks” site:consortiumnews.com
There is a vigil in New York on Thursdays, at 4 PM in front of the New York Times building at 40th Street and 8th Avenue.
The complicity of the media that has benefited from the Pentagon Papers and Wikileaks yet now keeps silent as Assange is tortured by the US, the UK, and the silence of those with voices, is a sign of the internal rot in the mass media, once our glory but now our shame.
Let us not forget, nor spread the fog: the torture of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange is the visible evidence of what our once-great nation has become. Add these names to every post you send out: – Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange-
and this link:
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/25/watch-ep-15-of-cn-live-special-on-julian-assange/
Good comment but I have to wonder just when it was that our nation was great. Was it during slavery, or when we were committing genocide against native people, or during the lynchings of Jim Crow or maybe when we were killing 1/5th of the population of Korea? Was it when we invaded Vietnam and were siccing dogs on people for demanding to be treated like people, or when we made sure to gut unions, whose members died by the thousands demanding things like an 8 hour work day and a living wage, or when we almost impeached a president for sex with someone who wasn’t his wife, letting him bomb away in Eastern Europe without a peep, or when we tore apart an entire region with bombs based on false evidence that was manufactured at the highest levels? This nation has never been great, and the sooner people realize it, the sooner we can change it.
They don’t want to look better to the public. Quite the opposite. They need to flaunt their power and impunity. The worse they are seen to behave, the better as far as they are concerned, because the more frightening and daunting to journalism. People never get this point. They can’t be shamed. Dystopia is here and they are announcing it.
Thank you very much. I have Tweeted including @realDonaldTrump more than once and will again now. Thank you. Lynn
The slow judicial drawing and quartering of the most predominant and effective ‘data” journalist of our time – at a crucial phase of Internet/news evolution, has to be argued as “example”. He is going to be made an example of. He is BEING made an example of. For us all to watch. Essentially powerless.
The torturous persecution of Mr. Assange, against all legal argument that the prosecution is itself, of criminal manufacture; IS deepstate. Is the very definition of, deepstate. A secretive internationál able to transcend all due process or able to subvert due process into torture, and is beyond morality beyond truth, beyond common law and common decency, to produce this slow killing of an agile and intellectual man
While pretending itself as “the Law,”
Is expression ofthe deepstate in its most malevolent form.
Samantha Power is a neocon. She is not a model of peace making, to say the least.
Can the IRC or some other independent body make an immediate evaluation of Assange? He didn’t have a limp until later on at Belmarsh, nor did he lose his ability to struggle knowing his name or birthdate. People have visited him at Belmarsh when these things had not yet occurred. Therefore, they have occurred while imprisoned and “treated” at Belmarsh (to include the hospital).
These are not normal things to happen in a prison and there needs to be an immediate accounting of what caused these conditions. I would think that he should be allowed an evaluation at a civilian hospital by doctors of his choice. I would definitely do an extensive toxicology screen to show what type of drugs may be in his system.
I don’t know UK procedures, but I believe an outside agency should as the IRC has jurisdiction over them whether they like it or not. Further, the refusal to let them in might embolden some person with a conscience and clout to come forward and protest. They must protest there in person and they should not leave under any circumstances.
This Monday after the court hearing in London, a journalist — running next to the prison van — took what could be the last images of Julian Assange, since the final hearing in February will be held directly at the maximum security prison. This apparently following instructions from US representatives at Monday’s hearing to further isolate Julian from the public.
There are two short videos with these images online. First, Julian seems absent and only partially conscious (video “EXCLUSIVE: Julian Assange recorded inside prison van during transportation”). A few seconds later, Julian looks a little more aware, though still in shock, as in the courtroom (video “*EXCLUSIVE* footage of #Assange in prison van after extradition hearing”).