Saturday, June 01, 2019

Julian's Today and All Our Tomorrows

John Pilger speaks out: “Today it’s Julian Assange, tomorrow it could be you”

by WSWS Reporters


31 May 2019

Investigative journalist, broadcaster and film maker John Pilger told the media outside the Westminster Magistrates Court that Julian Assange’s “‘crime’ here, is the crime of good journalism, and every journalist who practices their craft in a conscientious way, and in a truthful way, and who investigates the power that imposes itself on people, be it the government or their vested interests, should be deeply concerned about this.

Because today it’s Julian Assange, tomorrow it could be you. 


John Pilger speaking to the media outside the court

“I am here to show support for a distinguished fellow journalist and someone whose one crime was free journalism. As a journalist myself of many years and actually as a friend of Julian Assange as well, I am here to support that. I think the level of public support for Julian Assange is very high, you should never judge public support by media. That’s a completely false reality, a false impression.
“My understanding is in this country, in the United States, certainly in his home country of Australia, there is enormous public support for Julian Assange. People understand that he has been singled out as an example, of a concerted assault on freethinking, free speech and certainly on free-journalism.

“He couldn’t appear today because he was unwell, he’s in the prison hospital. When I saw him a couple of weeks ago he wasn’t very well then. But then he’s been in an embassy, in a confined space, without natural light for almost seven years. He needs a great deal of diagnostic care and rehabilitation. He’s gone through an extraordinary physical and mental ordeal, and now he has to go through this.

“This is so shameful, so shameful that we are even here today to consider the extradition of a journalist for trying to protect his sources. Or even the extradition of Julian Assange to Sweden to an entirely bogus case when much of it has been suppressed. That’s what is shameful. But that’s what I think many people understand.”

Asked if he had a message for readers of the World Socialist Web Site, Pilger said. “Your website has done some of the best reporting, best analysis [on Assange’s case].

“This is one of the most serious attacks in a society that considers itself to be free. George Orwell says you can have totalitarianism in a free society; it doesn’t have to be totalitarian. And that’s what we are seeing with this kind of ordeal that Julian Assange is going through. It was a totalitarian act. All those who believe in freedom, it doesn’t matter really what political affiliation they have, if they believe in true freedom, should be supporting Julian Assange.”

Giving further details on Assange’s extensive health problems, Pilger added,

“When I saw him, he was unwell; he was having difficulty keeping food down. But he was extraordinarily resilient at the same time. We spoke for a couple of hours. Now I think his conditioned has worsened.
“He couldn’t appear today because he is in the prison hospital. None of this ought to be surprising. He spent seven years in a confined space without natural light. For many years, he had a terrible cough. He hasn’t been able to have the kind of diagnosis that all of us would take for granted, to have an x-ray or whatever, because he was denied free passage out of the embassy.”

Brazilian Students School Bolsonaro on Education "Reforms"

Brazilian Students Stage New Mass Protests Against Bolsonaro’s Education Reform

by TRNN


May 31, 2019

As President Jair Bolsonaro's approval ratings plummet, students make a massive show of force, opposing his plans to drastically cut education budgets.


 

Mike Fox reports from Brazil.

 

Friday, May 31, 2019

UN Special Rapporteur Charges Assange Being Subjected to Psychological Torture

U.N. Special Rapporteur Calls for Julian Assange to Be Freed, Citing “Psychological Torture”

by DemocracyNow!


May 31, 2019

The United Nations special rapporteur on torture is warning that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is suffering from the effects of “psychological torture” due to his ongoing detention and threats of possible extradition to the United States.

The U.N. expert, Nils Melzer, also warned that Assange would likely face a “politicized show trial” if he were to be extradited to the United States.

Melzer writes, “In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution, I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonize and abuse a single individual for such a long time.” 


Julian Assange is currently serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail in 2012 at London’s Belmarsh Prison, after he was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorean Embassy by British police last month. 


Last week, the U.S. Justice Department announced it was charging Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in publishing U.S. classified military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange, who had already been charged on one count of hacking a government computer, now faces up to 170 additional years in prison under the new charges—10 years for each count of violating the Espionage Act. Assange was due to appear by video link before a magistrates’ court on Thursday but failed to appear, reportedly due to health problems. We speak with U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer.


Assange Treatment an Indictment of Western Society

The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society

by Caitlin Johnstone - Rogue Journalist


May 31, 2019

On the eighth of April, shortly before London police forcibly carried WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy, a doctor named Sondra S Crosby wrote a letter to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights requesting that the office look into Assange’s case.

Today, following a scorching rebuke of multiple governments by UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer, mass media outlets around the world are reporting that Julian Assange has been found to be the victim of brutal psychological torture.

Melzer, who by his own admission began his investigation as someone who had “been affected by the same misguided smear campaign as everybody else” regarding Assange, speaks of Assange’s plight with the fresh-eyed ferocity of a man who has not been immersed in a soul-corroding career in establishment politics or mass media. A man has not been indoctrinated into accepting as normal the relentless, malicious character assassinations of the western political/media class against a publisher of inconvenient facts about the powerful. A man who, when looking deeply and objectively into the facts with uncorrupted vision, was able to see clearly just how unforgivably abusive Assange’s treatment has been.

“In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law,” Melzer said. “The collective persecution of Julian Assange must end here and now!”

Melzer condemned attempts to extradite Assange to the US under the Espionage Act, as well as what he called “a relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Mr. Assange, not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, Sweden and, more recently, Ecuador.”

“According to the expert, this included an endless stream of humiliating, debasing and threatening statements in the press and on social media, but also by senior political figures, and even by judicial magistrates involved in proceedings against Assange,” the OHCHR statement reads.

“In the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination,” Melzer said.
“It was obvious that Mr. Assange’s health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years,” said Melzer. “Most importantly, in addition to physical ailments, Mr. Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”

“The evidence is overwhelming and clear,” Melzer said. “Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.”

“I condemn, in the strongest terms, the deliberate, concerted and sustained nature of the abuse inflicted on Mr. Assange and seriously deplore the consistent failure of all involved governments to take measures for the protection of his most fundamental human rights and dignity,” Melzer added.


It is hugely significant that a UN expert has included the massive anti-Assange smear campaign in his assessment of psychological abuse. For far too long this devastating psychological weapon of the powerful has gone fully normalized and unacknowledged for the damage and suffering it causes, and now an authoritative voice has pointed it out and called it into public consciousness for the depraved manipulation that it is. It’s a very interesting development to see western governments and their media stenographers condemned in this way for their participation in such savagery.

Responses to Melzer’s findings have been explosive. Virtually every major media outlet in the English-speaking world has been carrying headlines about this story, from the New York Times to the Washington Post to Fox News to CNN to the Guardian to the BBC to the Herald Sun. An attempt to regain control of the narrative by the accused governments, therefore, was of course quick to follow.

“This is wrong,” tweeted Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt in response to the story. “Assange chose to hide in the embassy and was always free to leave and face justice. The UN Special Rapporteur should allow British courts to make their judgements without his interference or inflammatory accusations.”

Abusers always demand the right to conduct their abuse in private.

Hunt, who’d just returned from hanging out with the Trump administration’s warmongering psychopath John Bolton, received a direct response from Melzer himself.

“With all due respect, Sir: Mr Assange was about as ‘free to leave’ as a someone sitting on a rubber boat in a shark pool,” Melzer tweeted. “As detailed in my formal letter to you, so far, UK courts have not shown the impartiality and objectivity required by the rule of law.”


Australia, another of the governments accused of facilitating Assange’s torture, was also quick to issue an equally feeble response.

“We reject any suggestion by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture that the Australian Government is complicit in psychological torture or has shown a lack of consular support for Mr Assange,” reads a statement by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“The Special Rapporteur has not been in contact with the Australian Government to raise these concerns directly. The Australian Government is a staunch defender of human rights and a strong advocate for humane treatment in the course of judicial processes. We are confident that Mr Assange is being treated appropriately in Belmarsh Prison.”

Assange has in fact grown so ill in Belmarsh Prison that he is reportedly unable to carry out a lucid conversation, and has been losing a drastic amount of weight. His failing health has been an established fact for a year and a half, with doctors warning at the beginning of last year that conditions in the Ecuadorian embassy are placing his physical wellbeing in serious danger, and has the entire time been pathetically ignored by the government of Assange’s home country.

Melzer’s report is an indictment on our entire society. It’s an indictment of the US-centralized western power alliance. It’s an indictment of the politicians, opaque government agencies and plutocrats who lead that alliance. It’s an indictment of the mass media who regurgitate whatever their government tells them to into the minds of a credulous populace. It’s an indictment of everyone who has ever helped spread the smear campaign against Assange, wherever they may have spread it; every remark, every social media comment, every share and retweet. The entire abusive construct has been outed as exactly what it is, from top to bottom.

So things have been severely shaken up. A massive smear campaign spanning all western nations across all political sectors has been pulled into the spotlight of public consciousness, mass media outlets who’ve devoted huge amounts of resources to assassinating Assange’s character have been forced to report a major revelation coming directly from the United Nations, Assange supporters can now officially say with full authority that his persecutors have literally tortured him, and establishment narrative managers are fighting on the back foot.


And right now all I can feel is gratitude. Gratitude toward Dr Crosby for writing to the UN after examining Assange, gratitude toward Nils Melzer for going to visit him in Belmarsh with an open mind and a compassionate heart, and, most importantly, gratitude toward Julian Assange. Gratitude to him for never giving up this fight.

I mean, think about it. Imagine if Assange had just gone to Sweden when he was told to? He would have surely been extradited to the United States years ago, wrongfully prosecuted in an Eastern District of Virginia court proceeding impossibly rigged against him, and by now the world would have all but forgotten him. He could have laid down, he could have given up, he could have died in that embassy in any number of ways. He had so many off-ramps he could have taken from the psychological torture that he has been subjected to since exposing US war crimes in 2010, but he chose to stand and fight instead. He decided that if they wanted his head, they were going to have to work for it.

Because of that decision, because Julian Assange decided to stand his ground and trade blows toe-to-toe with the most powerful empire in the history of human civilization, he forced them to expose themselves. He forced the oppression machine to reveal its true face, by coordinating across national borders to drag him bodily out of the embassy, locking him in a cage, waging a war upon the free press with outrageous espionage charges, and finally being found guilty of torturing a journalist for publishing factual documents about the powerful.

We have all that information now. It can’t be unseen. Because Assange chose to fight, we now have that evidence and we can use it to help wake people up to the true face behind the smiling mask of “liberal democracy” we’ve all been told to believe in since grade school. Even while imprisoned, sick, and barely even able to speak, Julian Assange is still exposing these bastards for what they are.

Don’t let his example go to waste.


________________________

Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.


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"Persecution... Must End Now": UN Special Rapporteur Issues Damning Statement on Ill Treatment of Julian Assange

UN expert says "collective persecution" of Julian Assange must end now

by UN OHCHR


31 May 2019

GENEVA ‑ A UN expert who visited Julian Assange in a London prison says he fears his human rights could be seriously violated if he is extradited to the United States and condemned the deliberate and concerted abuse inflicted for years on the Wikileaks co-founder.


“My most urgent concern is that, in the United States, Mr. Assange would be exposed to a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” said Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture.

“I am particularly alarmed at the recent announcement by the US Department of Justice of 17 new charges against Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act, which currently carry up to 175 years in prison. This may well result in a life sentence without parole, or possibly even the death penalty, if further charges were to be added in the future,” said Melzer, who was also following up on earlier concerns for Assange’s health.

Although Assange is not held in solitary confinement, the Special Rapporteur said he is gravely concerned that the limited frequency and duration of lawyers’ visits and his lack of access to case files and documents make it impossible for him to adequately prepare his defence in any of the complex legal proceedings piling up against him.

“Since 2010, when Wikileaks started publishing evidence of war crimes and torture committed by US forces, we have seen a sustained and concerted effort by several States towards getting Mr. Assange extradited to the United States for prosecution, raising serious concern over the criminalisation of investigative journalism in violation of both the US Constitution and international human rights law,” Melzer said.

“Since then, there has been a relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Mr. Assange, not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, Sweden and, more recently, Ecuador.”

According to the expert, this included an endless stream of humiliating, debasing and threatening statements in the press and on social media, but also by senior political figures, and even by judicial magistrates involved in proceedings against Assange.

“In the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination.”

Melzer was accompanied during his prison visit on 9 May by two medical experts specialised in examining potential victims of torture and other ill-treatment.

The team were able to speak with Assange in confidence and to conduct a thorough medical assessment.

“It was obvious that Mr. Assange’s health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years,” the expert said.
“Most importantly, in addition to physical ailments, Mr. Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.

“The evidence is overwhelming and clear,” the expert said.
“Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.

“I condemn, in the strongest terms, the deliberate, concerted and sustained nature of the abuse inflicted on Mr. Assange and seriously deplore the consistent failure of all involved governments to take measures for the protection of his most fundamental human rights and dignity,” the expert said. 
“By displaying an attitude of complacency at best, and of complicity at worst, these governments have created an atmosphere of impunity encouraging Mr. Assange’s uninhibited vilification and abuse.”

In official letters sent earlier this week, Melzer urged the four involved governments to refrain from further disseminating, instigating or tolerating statements or other activities prejudicial to Assange’s human rights and dignity and to take measures to provide him with appropriate redress and rehabilitation for past harm.

He further appealed to the British Government not to extradite Assange to the United States or to any other State failing to provide reliable guarantees against his onward transfer to the United States.

He also reminded the United Kingdom of its obligation to ensure Assange’s unimpeded access to legal counsel, documentation and adequate preparation commensurate with the complexity of the pending proceedings.

“In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law,” Melzer said. 
“The collective persecution of Julian Assange must end here and now!”

ENDS

Mr Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; is part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

Walking On: Leon Redbone

Passing On: Leon Redbone


May 30, 2019


Thursday, May 30, 2019

Colombian's March to Protect Water and Wild Ecosystems

100,000 March in Colombia to Protect Drinking Water from Mining Company

by Brent Patterson - Rabble.ca

via MiningWatch Canada

May 13, 2019

A massive march of more than 100,000 people took place in the city of Bucaramanga, Colombia on Friday May 10. All of the media coverage of that protest is in Spanish. What happened that day and why?

 

El Espectador reports that the protest march was in opposition to "extractive projects in the ecosystem that supplies water to more than two million people in eastern Colombia."

The name of that ecosystem is the Páramo de Santurbán.

Mayerly López, a member of the Committee for the Defense of Water and the Páramo de Santurbán, is quoted in that news article, explaining that "the water we consume daily is supplied from Santurbán and that is why we invite massively to reject extractive projects in the ecosystem."

The newspaper Vanguardia also notes,


"The Páramo de Santurbán ecosystem has an aquifer richness, so complex, that it has a total of 26 lagoons; In addition to the large amount of liquid that reaches streams and rivers."

And it highlights,

"It's not just water! The Páramo de Santurbán is also home and refuge of 293 species of fauna and 457 varieties of plants."

 

A mobilization to protect drinking water 


A transnational mining company seeks to mine in a fragile ecosystem

The most imminent threat to the ecosystem comes from a mining company called Minesa.

Their website states that Minesa, is a "Colombian gold mining company focused on the development of the Soto Norte project which is located in the department of Santander in north-central Colombia."

It adds,

"We are supported by our shareholder, Mubadala Development Company, an investment and development company owned by the government of Abu Dhabi."

As many readers will know, Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates.

The government's licensing and boundary drawing process


According to Vanguardia, in February “Minesa submitted an environmental licence application to start extracting more than 9 million ounces of gold and other minerals in a sector known as Soto Norte, very close to Santurbán."

Vanguardia also highlights that the Ministry of Environment is "holding meetings with communities about the new delimitation of the páramo.”

That new boundary of the ecosystem will be announced by the government by July 16.

The concern is that the boundaries of the páramo will be redrawn in a way that allows the mining company to mine within the ecosystem, but on paper still be outside of it.

The concern is also that the mining will be so close to the boundary of the páramo that it will still impact the water within the ecosystem.

Municipal and state opposition to the mining project


The march against mining in or near the Páramo de Santurbán had the support of the municipality and the state.

El Tiempo reports, "The Government of Santander and the Mayor of Bucaramanga decreed a civic afternoon on Friday so that citizens could go out freely to defend the Santurbán páramo."

Protests in other cities


Protests also took place in Cúcuta and Bogota.

In advance of the march, Blu Radio reported, "In Bogota, in front of the headquarters of the offices of the National Agency of Environmental Licenses, citizens will develop a sit-in so that this entity does not give license for the exploitation of the gold mines located in that area of Santander."

CCALCP and Peace Brigades International


From the march, the Luis Carlos Perez Lawyers’ Collective (CCALCP) tweeted, "We demand respect for our rights to water; to life in dignified conditions for communities and end consumers; and that environmental authorities take real, effective measures for the protection and conservation of the moors."

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project, which provides protective accompaniment to human rights defenders who are at risk of violence, has stated, "Since 2010, CCALCP has supported causes that defend natural resources, especially water, in Santander department."

Their post highlights,

"The case of Santurban moor is very relevant. The moor is an important natural resource for Colombia and the source of drinking water for many municipalities in the department of Santander and North Santander."

It also adds, "Nevertheless, as in other cases in Colombia, concessions have been granted to multinational companies for exploiting mineral resources, which are causing serious environmental impacts."

Peace Brigades International-Canada is organizing a speaking tour with CCALCP and CREDHOS (the Colombia-based group Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights) this coming November that will visit Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. More on that soon!

Brent Patterson is Executive Director of Peace Brigades International-Canada, a political activist, and a writer.
To read more about grassroots efforts in Colombia to protect the ecosystem and drinking water, please see the rabble blogs Vancouver mining company Eco Oro sues Colombia over protection of Santurbán wetland and Colombian human-rights group CREDHOS opposes fracking, seeks to protect freshwater. You can also watch the MiningWatch Canada video (starting at the 1 hour 27 minute mark) of a recent Skype presentation by the Comité Santurbán to their annual general meeting.
Image: Comité Santurbán/Twitter

See orginal article here: http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2019/05/100000-march-colombia-protect-drinking-water-mining-company

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Assange and the Fight for America's Soul

We Must Defend Assange to Save Democracy from American Despotism 

by Nozomi Hayase - CounterPunch


May 28, 2019   
 
On Thursday, May 23 the Department of Justice made an unprecedented move to file 17 Espionage Act charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This indictment was what Assange and his legal team have been warning about since 2010 and the risk of extradition was the sole reason why Assange sought and was granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012.

Free press defenders condemned this aggressive prosecution of Assange by the Trump administration as “the most significant and terrifying threat to the First Amendment in the 21st century”.

This attack on free press as a pillar of democracy was predicted long ago by a leading figure in America’s early development.

Thomas Jefferson feared that there would come a time when the American system of government would degenerate into a form of “elective despotism”.

Assange echoed this warning from one of America’s founding fathers in his message to his supporters: “I told you so”, which he delivered through his lawyer after he was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy. He was not only aware of this unaccounted power inside this nation, but also through his work with WikiLeaks, he shed light on its shadowy activities, and provided ordinary people means to counter this force that has now become tyrannical.

WikiLeaks by publishing truthful information about the US government, revealing its war crimes, corruption and human rights abuses, came head to head with the Pentagon and the US State Department. Long before Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations, Assange alerted public about mass surveillance, informing people how the Internet “has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism”.

In March 2017, with its Vault 7 publication that detailed the CIA hacking tools that enabled the agency’s excessive power, the whistleblowing site challenged the national security state. Right after this largest leak in CIA history, the US government’s assaults on the free press intensified.

In April, the then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that the arrest of Assange is a priority, threatening to prosecute media outlets publishing classified information. Trump’s Secretary of State and the former CIA director, Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service”, claiming that the organization tries to subvert American values and that it needs to be shut down.

Now, with the Trump administration exercising extraterritorial jurisdiction to bring charges carrying 175 years in prison against a journalist who is not a US citizen, and who has published material from outside of the US, we are seeing the reality of American despotism.

Back then Jefferson warned citizens:

“The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered”.

That time, is now here. WikiLeaks publication of the Global Intelligence Files that exposed the inner workings of geopolitical intelligence platform company Stratfor, contained email discussions on Assange’s arrest. An email from December 2010 said, “Pile on. Move him from country to country to face various charges for the next 25 years. But, seize everything he and his family own, to include every person linked to Wiki.”

After illegally terminating political asylum of the WikiLeaks founder and having the UK police drag him out of the embassy, Ecuador confiscated Assange’s belongings, including legal papers and medical records from his time living in the embassy. On May 20, just days before the US government brought espionage charges against him, Ecuadorian officials handed over Assange’s entire legal defense to the US authorities.

From a high security prison where he is being held in solitary confinement, Assange sent out an urgent message. In a handwritten letter addressed to British independent journalist Gordon Dimmack, he described the difficult conditions he has been placed in:

“A superpower that has been preparing for 9 years, with hundreds of people and untold millions spent on the case. I am defenseless and am counting on you and others of good character to save my life”.

Assange continued, “I am unbroken, albeit literally surrounded by murderers, but, the days where I could read and speak and organize to defend myself, my ideals, and my people are over until I am free! Everyone else must take my place.”

If Trump’s America succeeds in extraditing this foreign journalist to the US, there will be a very dark time ahead. This would not only be the end of journalism, but would lead to a destruction of the very foundation of our civilization—a premise of society governed by the rule of law. Democracy needs ordinary people who stand up and defend their rights against all adversarial forces that try to revoke them.

In the face of Western governments’ coordinated efforts to criminalize journalism and imprison this award-winning journalist, democracy becomes defenseless. Through the silencing of Assange, the heart of democracy suffocates. We now must become his voice, overcome fear with courage and counter lies with truth. We must penetrate distortion with moral clarity.

Jefferson who foresaw the doomed future of American government also said; “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Assange sacrificed his personal liberty so that we could all be free. This freedom that he is still fighting for, alone, inside Belmarsh prison, comes with responsibility. Defending Assange is a duty of everyone who cherishes freedom. We must confront the American empire and take responsibility for this beast that has been unleashed from our own government. We must stop Assange’s extradition to the US to save free press and democracy from American despotism.

Nozomi Hayase, Ph.D., is a writer who has been covering issues of freedom of speech, transparency and decentralized movements. Find her on twitter @nozomimagine
More articles by:Nozomi Hayase

Making the Legal Case for Assange Extradition from Britain

Alan Dershowitz: The First Amendment DOESN'T Distinguish Between Wikileaks & Mainstream Media!

by Going Underground - RT


May 29, 2019

We speak to Alan Dershowitz (Harvard Law Professor and former legal adviser to Julian Assange) about the latest indictment against Julian Assange, the danger it poses to mainstream outlets such as CNN, the New York Times and Washington Post, the silence of most Democrats & Republicans on Assange’s persecution, Donald Trump’s state visit and more. 


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Assange Is Reportedly Gravely Ill

Assange Is Reportedly Gravely Ill, And Hardly Anyone’s Talking About It

by Caitlin Johnstone - Rogue Journalist 


May 31, 2019

Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer Per Samuelson has told the press that “Assange’s health situation on Friday was such that it was not possible to conduct a normal conversation with him.”

This jarring revelation has been reported by a small handful of outlets, but only as an aside in relation to Sweden refusing Samuelson’s request for a postponement of a scheduled hearing regarding Assange’s detention en absentia for a preliminary investigation of rape allegations.

The fact that the imprisoned WikiLeaks founder is so ill that he can’t converse lucidly is itself far more significant than the postponement refusal, yet headlines mentioning Samuelson’s statement focus on the Swedish case, de-emphasizing the startling news from his lawyer.

As of this writing I’ve been able to find very few news outlets reporting on this at all, the most mainstream being a Reuters article with the very tame headline “Swedish court rejects delay of Assange hearing over ill-health: lawyer“. The Sydney Morning Herald also covered the story without even mentioning illness in headline, instead going with “Swedish court rejects effort to delay Assange hearing“.

The much smaller alternative media outlet World Socialist Website has been the only outlet I’ve found so far which reports on Samuelson’s statement in anything resembling its proper scale, publishing a good article titled “Despite Assange’s ill-health, Swedish court rejects delay to hearing” a few hours ago.

This news has been so under-discussed and under-appreciated as of this writing that I didn’t find out about it until hours after the story broke, and I’m very plugged in to both alternative media commentary and WikiLeaks-related news. A report that Julian Assange was so sick he could barely speak all the way back on Friday and we still have no news about how he’s doing now should be hugely significant for everyone who cares about Assange, press freedom, government transparency or peace activism.


Another part of this story which has gone completely uncovered in all English-language media as of this writing is the news that Assange has actually been transferred to the hospital wing of Belmarsh prison. This was reported by the Swedish outlet Upsala Nya Tidning, a newspaper published in the same district court Assange is scheduled to call in to for his hearing. The report was also based on a statement to the press by Per Samuelson.

The article reports the following, per machine translation:

“Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer wants the arrest hearing on Monday in Uppsala to be postponed. According to the lawyer, who has now visited his client in British prison, Assange is admitted to the medical department and was unable to make a call.

“Last Friday, Assange’s Swedish defender, lawyer Per E Samuelson, visited his client in prison. In a letter to Uppsala District Court, the lawyer says that they met for just under two hours. According to the lawyer, Assange’s state of health at the meeting was such that ‘a normal conversation with him was not possible’. Julian Assange is said to have been taken to the prison’s ward, but there is no more detailed information about his state of health.”

This story was picked up from Upsala Nya Tidning by Danish new agency Ritzau and published in the outlet Politiken, with the title (per machine translation) “Weakened Assange hospitalized in London prison: ‘Impossible to have a normal conversation with him'”. These news outlets are to my understanding as reputable as any other mainstream western outlet, yet they remain the only publications I’ve been able to find which are reporting that Assange has been hospitalized.

This is absolutely bizarre.


I’ve emailed Per Samuelson with a request to confirm the news that Assange has been hospitalized. I’ll update this article if I hear back.

For Assange’s supporters, one of the many frustrating things about his imprisonment has been the way he’s been cut off from the usual means which used to be used to inform the public about his well being. It used to be that news reports could be easily confirmed or refuted by people who had consistent access to Assange in some way by sources like the WikiLeaks Twitter account, but the people who operate that account don’t have ready access to him anymore.

Now we’re seeing all sorts of rumors circulating about how Assange is faring in prison, and it gets difficult to sort out fact from fiction. It appears that it would be difficult to find a more reliable source on the state of his health than his own lawyer, however.


It has long been an established fact that Assange was in failing health while trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London; doctors who visited him published an article with the Guardian in January 2018 titled “We examined Julian Assange, and he badly needs care – but he can’t get it”. Renata Avila, an activist and author who has worked with and written about WikiLeaks, tweeted in response to the new revelations,

“He needed urgent assistance after his expulsion from the Embassy. Instead, he was not allowed to receive adequate medical treatment. In the case of Emin Huseynov (1 y @ Swiss Embassy) it took at least a month of treatment to go back to normal. Imagine after 7 years! Brutal.”

We have been watching the slow-motion assassination of Julian Assange. They have been choking him to death by tactical psyops, siege tactics, and wilful neglect as surely as if they placed a noose tied around his neck, not just in Belmarsh Prison but in the embassy as well.

The only difference between his execution and someone on death row is the same as the difference between covert and overt warfare, which makes sense because the intelligence, judicial and military agencies who are carrying out his death sentence operate within the same power structure which carries out war.

First came the smears (propaganda), then came the siege (sanctions), and they staged their coup (dragged him out of the embassy) and now they’ve got him in their clutches and they can do what they want behind closed doors. That’s how you kill a nation while still looking like a nice guy, and that’s how they’re killing Assange.

Shout this from the rooftops. Whether this media blackout is self-imposed or perhaps the result of the malicious use of a D-notice, we have to use everything in our power to get this information into the mainstream, and get people asking questions of the press and their local members about what the Dickens is going on in Belmarsh prison right now. Assange’s life may depend on it.

_____________________

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Dealing Palestine: Culminating a Century of Calumny

Trump’s “Deal of the Century” To Hand Palestine to Israel Along with Whole Set of New Problems

by Miko Peled - MintPress News


April 5, 2019

Though the Deal of the Century will try to eliminate the Palestinian issue for good, what the architects of the “Deal” in their arrogance fail to see is that this so-called “Deal” is nothing more than an irresponsible, impractical and precarious plan that will fall just as soon as it is raised.

As Benjamin Netanyahu returns from Washington to Jerusalem determined to keep his seat as Israel’s prime minister, it is clear that the Final Status issues — those pesky issues between Israel and the Palestinians that Israel never wants to discuss – are being eliminated one by one in a regional scheme that is titled Deal of the Century.

This so-called “Deal” will be the final undoing of Palestinian hopes for justice, self-determination and return.

From the reckless declaration by President Donald Trump that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel, to his more recent proclamation that the United States recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights, it is becoming clear what the Deal of the Century will entail: disregard of the Palestinians and recognition of Israeli rights to all of Palestine.

The purpose of the declaration recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights at this particular moment is twofold: It is an enormous contribution to Netanyahu’s campaign for re-election on April 9, a clear signal that Trump favors Netanyahu; and, what is even more troubling, it is a precursor to what we may soon see happen with Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank.

Four elements


Four elements are likely to dominate the Deal of the Century: Palestinian self-determination; refugees; Jerusalem; and the future of what was formerly known as the West Bank and has been named by Israel Judea and Samaria. We have already been given a preview of what is to come with the first three:

  • Jerusalem, with the Trump declaration of December 6, 2017 recognizing the city as the capital of Israel;
  • Recognition of Palestinian right to self-determination was de-facto reversed when in September 2018, on the 25th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, the Trump administration closed down the PLO mission in Washington;
  • The refugee issue received an almost fatal blow when in August of 2018 the State Department announced that it will no longer provide funds for UNRWA , the United Nations agency created to take care of Palestinian refugees. Even more than financial significance, the $350 million cut to the UNRWA budget was a blow to the very existence of refugee issue. Trump, serving Netanyahu’s agenda, is attempting to eliminate the refugee issue altogether by questioning the right of the Palestinians to aid and by questioning the right of the descendants of the 1948 refugees to refugee status.

The refugees must cease to exist


The Deal of the Century is likely to include an attempt to eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue. In a statement he made in Hebrew to the Israeli cabinet, in July 2018, Netanyahu called the Palestinian refugee issue “fictitious.” He claimed that the sole purpose of UNRWA was to keep the Palestinian refugee issue alive forever and thus to threaten the state of Israel by perpetuating the notion of a right of return. Trump, for his part, is currently claiming that only the people who had actually lived in Mandatory Palestine before the 1948 ethnic cleansing — people who are now 70 years old or older — can be considered refugees; their descendants cannot.

Netanyahu’s problem is that when you ask Palestinians in the diaspora where they are from, they say Yaffa, Haifa, Ramle, and so on. When you ask Israelis where they are from, they say, Poland, Russia, Morocco, Yemen, and so on.

When you ask Jews around the world they say the same thing Israelis do. So, while the grandchildren of the 1948 refugees can tell you the name of the town or village from which their family came, even though the village has been destroyed, no Israelis — or Jewish people, for that matter — can trace their roots back to the ancient kingdom of Judea.

It is important to note and remind both Trump and Netanyahu that, according to international law, even refugees who were not born in Palestine but in the diaspora are refugees and have a right to return. This is because, under international human rights law, neither local integration nor resettlement forecloses the possibility of refugee return to their country of origin. Furthermore, after a large-scale displacement, such as the one that took place in Palestine in 1948, restitution may cover both public and private property.

Not only people


It is not only the return of the people, but it is also the rightful claim to restitution, which will surely be made, that Israel dreads.

The extent of abandoned property that Israel has taken over as a result of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine is enormous. Palestinians were expelled from entire cities including Jaffa, Ramleh, Haifa and all of west Jerusalem. In addition to that, there are vast tracts of agricultural land that were taken. After the population was expelled, profit-making orchards of citrus, olive and other agricultural products were handed over by the newly established state to Jewish agricultural settlements.

Netanyahu and the entire Zionist establishment are aware of all this and they fear the day when they will be held accountable for this theft of property. Restitution of Palestinian property has received little discussion, largely because of Israel’s refusal to engage and pressure by Zionist groups to keep this subject off the table. The Deal of the Century is likely to try to make it disappear for good.

Judea and Samaria is next


Israeli annexation of the West Bank used to be a far-fetched idea. That is no longer the case. The West Bank is now, and has been for many years, “Judea and Samaria.” It has cities and counties; it includes industry and a bureaucracy with its own police force. There is a highway system in place and shopping centers — all built exclusively for Jews. Official annexation of the area to Israel today — much like recognizing Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights — would be merely a formality, albeit one that contravenes international law.

It is realistic to expect that, as part of the Deal of the Century, the U.S. will, before long, recognize Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. This will mean officially creating one state over all of Palestine with exclusive rights for the minority Israeli Jews. While this may seem like a win for Israel, it will also give rise to serious problems for the Zionist state.

Israel controls the lives of 2 million Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship, 2.2 million Palestinians locked up in the Gaza Strip and about 3 million Palestinians in what used to be the West Bank. That is a total of 7 million Palestinians living without rights in a state where about 6 million Israeli Jews have exclusive rights.

Careful what you wish for


Today, perhaps more than ever, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is being dictated by Israel and specifically by Benjamin Netanyahu. It is executed by Jared Kushner through his father-in-law, the president of the United States. Though the Deal of the Century will try to eliminate the Palestinian issue for good, what the architects of the “Deal” in their arrogance fail to see is that this so-called “Deal” is nothing more than an irresponsible, impractical and precarious plan that will fall just as soon as it is raised.

Miko Peled is an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is the author of “The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.” 

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SWARM - The Rand Strategy

SWARM - The Rand Strategy of Desperate US Measures Against Russia

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears


May 31, 2019

Moscow - The US Army’s general staff has paid the RAND think-tank in California to devise a brand new plan of attack against Russia. The plan was released a month ago, on April 24. The new idea is Operation SWARM – that means throwing everything the US can think of at Russia.

SWARM (lead image) isn’t exactly new. He started in 1977 when Spider-Man discovered SWARM was a German scientist who had survived Hitler’s defeat and escaped to South America. He wasn’t doing too well until he was irradiated by a super-collider at RAND.

SWARM moved to the East Coast of the US, and then to Syria. He hasn’t been doing too well against Spider-Man anyplace.

One of the reasons for the new plan is that the Pentagon generals don’t take seriously RAND’s public declaration that it’s “a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous.” The US Army, like RAND, has a narrower view of whose prosperity they aim to help, starting with themselves.

Another of the reasons is that retired State Department official James Dobbins, the lead author of the new attack-Russia plan, needs money to replace his past employment at the State Department and White House where he worked on US wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Equally in need of cash are his co-authors, several of whom are retirees from the intelligence and armed services.

And finally the third reason, as RAND concedes in several charts, is that none of the things the US Government has been throwing at Russia for the past five years has been working as intended, while the risks of BBB have been growing; that’s backfires, boomerangs and bloodshed.

RAND stands for Research ANd Development. It’s a charity, the corporation says on its website, inviting sympathizers to make “a tax-deductible charitable contribution ”. But the new report was not a philanthropy. It was “sponsored by the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Office, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff G-8, Headquarters, Department of the Army.”

Foreground: RAND headquarters in Santa Monica, California.

The full 354-page report can be read here. For those who must work for a living, there’s a brief summary of 12 pages. For the picture version of SWARM, go to Marvel Adventures Number 38 or Ultimate Avengers Number 5.

Since the Army paid for the report, it’s unsurprising that land warfare is a preferred option in the attack plan, especially SWARM.



“The Army should consider investing—and encouraging the other services to invest— more in the handful of capabilities… that could extend Russia. The U.S. Army also might consider spending some of its R&D resources on less mature, more futuristic systems (e.g., swarm unmanned aerial vehicles or remote ground vehicles).
While these measures would likely be insufficient in and of themselves to extend Russia, they would benefit U.S. deterrence efforts and could augment a broader whole-of-government policy.”

By “extend” Russia, RAND means threatening Russian defences to compel the Russian armed forces and the state budget to spend more and more money, diverting resources away from domestic welfare and increasing the likelihood of internal rebellion and regime change. This is a strategy of bleeding Russia; RAND insists it isn’t bloodshed. Instead, it claims the plan of attack comprises,

“nonviolent measures that could exploit Russia’s actual vulnerabilities and anxieties as a way of stressing Russia’s military and economy and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad.
The steps …conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, and causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.”

One of the cheapest of the proposed US Army attack options is multiplying the number of NATO exercises on Russia’s borders. The problem, RAND concedes, is that American troops are unpopular in most of Europe.

“Large-scale operations involving heavy equipment, such as main battle tanks, inevitably involve substantial damage to private and public property and a heightened risk or rate of accidents involving civilians.
These factors could undermine popular local support for NATO and its activities, and Russia would undoubtedly take steps to strengthen this negative perception of the exercises through its propaganda arms and other means of influence in NATO member states.” 

The US Army newspaper Stars & Stripes reported during a US Army 
artillery exercise in Germany in March that “you can shoot behind a 
skyscraper (50 miles) away, exactly on a target, and have no collateral damage…
It’s not like artillery in the former days, where whole areas are destroyed.”

When the RAND team calculated which of its land warfare options stood a high enough likelihood of success to warrant the US and NATO costs and risks, less than half the proposals scored. Half of those, however, were also rated as risking the probability that Russian retaliation would wipe out whatever advantage the generals intended. As the RAND chart illustrates, if the Army develops new types of missiles but deploys them to Europe, it’s near-certain the Russian Army will do the same.

Click on the image to enlarge.
The multi-coloured charts appear in the short form of the RAND report

Even “revolutionary, swarm counter-anti-access and area denial capabilities” flash red on the chart — Russians can swarm too. If it’s Russian SWARM versus American SWARM, RAND warns there’s no firepower advantage for the US; no Pentagon confidence in the outcome.

At sea, RAND is also less than confident in the US Navy’s advantages.

“It is more politically and logistically difficult for the U.S. Navy to operate in the Black Sea than it is for the Russian Navy to do so; it is also more dangerous in the event of a conflict. Therefore, an increased naval presence does not seem a promising competitive strategy.
Improving NATO’s land-based A2AD [anti-access and area denial] capabilities over the Black Sea seem to be a more-promising approach. The effect would be to drive up Russian costs of defending its Crimean facilities and to lower the threat posed to neighboring countries.”

Land-based, in RAND speak, used to mean Turkey, but no longer. It also means Romania, but President Vladimir Putin has explained why that country’s US missile batteries are in the cross-hairs of Russian attack. There is no sign that the RAND strategists and their Pentagon clients have caught up with the new Russian doctrines of Cross-Hairs, the 12-Minute Red Line , and Hostile Intent .

These aren’t the symmetrical risk for risk, tit for tat, which the RAND charts imply. They are the Russian scripts for warning before pre-emptive (repeat pre-emptive) fire. In naval encounters in the Black and Baltic Seas, for example, the Russian script starts with buzzing by air; if that doesn’t deter, then cruise-missile launch can follow without warning. For the time being, Russian maritime forces are ahead on points.

In short, the RAND chart for US naval operations against Russia reports no promising option.

Click on the image to enlarge.

RAND’s attack-Russia plan doesn’t mention that US and NATO operations have triggered the Russian countermoves now flashing red on the charts. However, Dobbins and his staff concede this is what has happened.

RAND attack plan authors (left to right): James Dobbins (State Department); 
Raphael Cohen (Army Intelligence); Paul De Luca (Navy submarine service).

In the outcome, is the US better off? That’s not what the US Army asked RAND to calculate. Still, the report cautions,

“...if the US escalates its attacks, most likely [that would] prompt some Russian counter-escalation. Thus, besides the specific risks associated with each option, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. 
This means that every option must be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia will bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States will, both sides will have to divert national resources from other purposes. Extending Russia for its own sake is not a sufficient basis in most cases to consider the options discussed here.”

Click on the image to enlarge.
Key: HARM = high-speed antiradiation missile

In fact, the RAND attack plan identifies very few options which combine the calculation of high likelihood of success in imposing costs on Russia with the calculation that the risks to the US remain low. Just three in fact. The economic warfare of increasing sanctions isn’t working to purpose; adding more sanctions, the report warns, will run much higher risks to US interests. Worse, if the price of oil stays up, and the European states decide sanctions are not in their interests, RAND is predicting the US economic war against Russia will be defeated.

“The international sanctions have not improved Russian behavior and have furthermore allowed the regime to plausibly blame the West for ordinary citizens’ economic distress. Russia’s economic weaknesses are extensive, but the counterintuitive effect of the sanctions regime exemplifies how weaknesses are not the same thing as vulnerabilities that the United States can leverage to its advantage.”

The one economic warfare measure Dobbins and his staff recommend is expanding US energy production with the idea of driving Russian oil and gas out of their traditional markets in Europe, and cutting Russian export revenues. The rest are military measures – reposition US bombers in closer striking range of Russia; and two swarm tactics — electronic and cyber-war operations and deployment of robot and drone weapons.

The attack plan dismisses US schemes for proxy wars and regime change in Belarus or the Central Asia states at worth chancing.

Click on the image to enlarge.

The report endorses Alexei Navalny but concludes he can’t be weaponized on the US side, not at least among Russians. “It would seem highly inadvisable for Western intelligence agencies to attempt to cooperate directly with anticorruption groups inside Russia, such as Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Such cooperation would undermine the effectiveness of those groups within Russia, as well as put their members at greater risk of imprisonment or death. Instead, Russian-language outlets outside Russia would need to be identified or created.”

Click on the image to enlarge.

So far, there has been no direct reaction to the publication of the RAND attack plan in the Russian press; RAND has been unmentioned in print since 2012. However, this week there was an indirect reply in the obscure website of Information Agency Rex.

“If the United States and other western states feel the slightest weakness of Russia, its unwillingness to [defend itself in] military and political conflicts and its internal political destabilization, they will certainly take full advantage…to weaken or destroy it as much as possible. And this cannot be allowed.”