Clinical psychologist Lissa Johnson: They are trying to break Assange “physically and psychologically”
by Oscar Grenfell - WSWS
28 August 2019
Australian clinical psychologist Lissa Johnson has been an outspoken defender of Julian Assange, writing extensively on the grave implications of his persecution for democratic rights and freedom of speech.
Johnson explained to the WSWS that she “writes about the psychology of politics and social issues.” She has a background in media studies and sociology, and a PhD in the psychology of manipulating reality-perception.
Earlier this year, Johnson wrote an extensive five-part investigative series titled “The Psychology of Getting Julian Assange,” published on the New Matilda website. Johnson provided the following responses to a series of questions from the World Socialist Web Site earlier this week.
WSWS: John Shipton and John Pilger have recently detailed the punitive conditions of Assange’s detention in Belmarsh Prison. Could you speak about the way in which his isolation, and the denial of his right to access computers/legal documents is aimed at stymieing his defence against the US extradition request and increasing the psychological pressures upon him?
Lissa Johnson: If anyone takes a moment to imagine what it must be like to face the prospect of 175 years in a US prison, having already been subjected to nearly a decade of arbitrary detention and judicial harassment, knowing that you have no chance of a fair trial in the US, having been smeared in the media and branded a “terrorist” and enemy of the state, then that gives you an inkling of what Julian Assange was dealing with even before being placed under lockdown in Belmarsh prison. If you add to that having read hundreds of documents from Guantanamo Bay and knowing, in intimate detail, what the United States does to those it brands terrorists and enemies of the state, then Julian Assange’s reality becomes even clearer.
Johnson addressing a Sydney protest called by the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition
Now, with the full force of the US national security state bearing down on him, Julian Assange has been stripped of his most basic abilities to protect himself. He is denied even the ability to view the documents in his case, in order to inspect and understand the evidence against him. He is denied regular contact with his lawyers, and access to a computer. In other words, he is forced, day and night, do nothing but wait, helplessly, for whatever wrath the US government intends to unleash upon him.
This is beyond barbarically psychologically cruel. Emotionally, it is akin to holding someone bound and gagged in the basement while their assailant stands outside sharpening their knives.
It is also a violation of Julian Assange’s human right to adequately prepare his defence.
As if all of this weren’t enough, Julian Assange is also being deprived of one of the most fundamental human psychological needs, which is human contact. Even without the threat of US extradition, the kind of isolation that Julian is suffering is deeply damaging to human beings. We are social animals and need social connection.
For that reason, prolonged solitary confinement of more than 15 days has been defined by the United Nations as torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Beyond 15 days, solitary confinement is considered “prolonged” because some of the adverse psychological effects can become permanent.
As well as causing a wide range of serious psychological disturbances and physical health problems, the reduced stimulation of solitary confinement can cause decreased brain activity, which may become irreversible after just seven days. Concentration and memory impairments can also occur, and can persist after solitary confinement ends.
The implication is that subjecting Julian Assange to social isolation is not only cruel and inhuman, it may well be damaging his cognitive capacity to engage in his own defence and fight his cause going forward.
Inflicting conditions with the potential to weaken and destroy one of the great minds of our time in this way, thereby turning him into an easy target, is reprehensible.
WSWS: As a clinical psychologist, can you comment on the treatment that Assange should be receiving?
LJ: Julian Assange is suffering because he is being abused. The intervention required to ameliorate his deterioration is to cease his abuse.
As Julian Assange is being abused on multiple levels, there are multiple layers of abuse that need to be addressed, and addressed urgently. Not only are his legal and human rights being abused, but his civil rights, his political rights and his democratic rights. All of these rights need to be restored, some of them immediately.
A simple and imperative starting point would be to grant him access to social contact, including regular visitors of his choosing, both personal and professional, including legal and health professionals and friends, family and colleagues. This would alleviate the isolation that will inevitably seriously adversely affect both his physical and mental health, now and into the future.
An equally simple and immediate intervention would be respecting his human right to prepare his defence. This would involve granting him access to lawyers, documents, the internet and a computer. That would at least reduce the sense of helplessness he must be experiencing, and restore some sense of efficacy, control and agency, which are psychologically essential factors in coping with threat and danger.
Assange illegally arrested by British police on April 11
More broadly, it is appalling that Julian Assange is in a maximum security prison, stripped of his human and legal rights, on the transparently disingenuous pretext of a defunct bail infringement. It is the most minor matter at the best of times, and nonsensical in Julian’s case, as the relevant investigation was closed at the time of sentencing, and the associated arrest warrant has never even been re-issued. This concocted pretext for a maximum security lockdown is, in reality, serving as a vehicle by which to break Julian Assange, both psychologically and physically.
Accordingly, the psychological treatment of choice would be to respect the edicts of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, who have both instructed relevant authorities to grant Julian Assange his freedom, ensure his safety from US extradition, cease abusing, harassing, threatening and defaming him, and offer him compensation and redress.
WSWS: Could you speak about the significance of UN rapporteur Nils Melzer’s finding in May that Assange has been the victim of “psychological torture”?
LJ: Nils Melzer’s finding is of the utmost significance, as is the fact that the four states he named as perpetrators signalled their intention in June to ignore his reports, and continue torturing Julian Assange.
In his findings and public statements, Nils Melzer has joined the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in alerting the world that Julian Assange is being detained not for any wrongdoing, but because the US is persecuting him for publishing.
Professor Melzer has further spelled out that in order to deliver Julian Assange into US hands, where Julian faces espionage charges for journalism, the governments, judiciaries and media of the US, UK, Sweden, and more recently Ecuador, have joined forces to mob, judicially harass, defame, humiliate, threaten and intimidate Julian Assange. This has been achieved by abusing due legal and democratic process, abrogating the rule of law and waging trial by media, for nearly a decade.
Nils Melzer’s findings effectively put all of us on notice that Julian Assange is the victim of an unprecedented act of state-sanctioned collective violence. This reality is critically significant for citizens of all nations involved, because collective violence is a group activity.
Put briefly, collective violence only takes place if citizens are willing to obey the perpetrating authorities, and stand passively by while the abuse unfolds. Conversely, human rights can only be expected to be upheld when citizens demand it of their governments, particularly in the face of human rights abuse.
Given the four perpetrating states’ non-response to Nils Melzer’s findings, we all stand warned that Julian Assange’s life, health and safety are in our hands. Julian Assange will only receive the freedom and respect for democratic and human rights that he deserves if we demand it of our governments.
Nils Melzer’s reports are also significant in that he has articulated very clearly that, should we fail to stand up for Julian Assange, our own rights may well be next in line. Professor Melzer rightly warns that if we remain silent, we are in serious danger of ushering “unrestrained tyranny” in through the “back door of our own complacency.”
WSWS: You have previously written about the way in which the persecution of Assange has drawn upon methods of psychological warfare employed by the intelligence agencies. Could you elaborate?
LJ: In counterintelligence, which has been deployed against WikiLeaks since 2008 according to leaked documents, a key tactic is to exploit adversary vulnerabilities. A maxim in psychological operations is also that an adversary is more hurt by desertion than by slaughter.
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