Breaking Assange; Psychologist Outlines 'The Psychology of Getting Julian Assange'

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.

Free Finally The World's Most Important Political Prisoner

The World’s Most Important Political Prisoner

by Craig Murray

September 15, 2019

We are now just one week away from the end of Julian Assange’s uniquely lengthy imprisonment for bail violation. He will receive parole from the rest of that sentence, but will continue to be imprisoned on remand awaiting his hearing on extradition to the USA – a process which could last several years.

At that point, all the excuses for Assange’s imprisonment which so-called leftists and liberals in the UK have hidden behind will evaporate. There are no charges and no active investigation in Sweden, where the “evidence” disintegrated at the first whiff of critical scrutiny. He is no longer imprisoned for “jumping bail”.

The sole reason for his incarceration will be the publishing of the Afghan and Iraq war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning, with their evidence of wrongdoing and multiple war crimes.

A Plea to Intercede: Assange Implores UN Special Rapporteur "Please, Save My Life!"

Julian Assange asks UN special rapporteur to ‘Please save my life’

by Personal Liberty News Desk 

September 16, 2019

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, resides in cell No. 37 in “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay.” His cell is a single-occupancy cell, “furnished” with a plastic chair, a metal bed and steel toilet. It’s been Assange’s residence for more than 150 days. Last week a British judge ruled he’s to remain there even after he jail sentence is over.

The crime for which Assange is being punished is a bail violation. He’s been sentenced to 40 weeks in prison. The maximum sentence for the crime in Britain is 52 weeks. Typically, British bail violators get no time and a small fine.

Assange, scheduled to be extradited to the U.S. for telling the truth, may not live until the end of his sentence, according to Professor Nils Melzer, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.

According to the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, Assange’s lawyers convinced Melzer to investigate the conditions Assange is living under after preventing “credible evidence” of “ill-treatment.”

Can We Really Remember What 9/11 Meant and Means?

Really remembering 9-11: Recalling the Hundreds of Thousands of Civilian Victims of America’s Endless ‘War on Terror’

by Dave Lindorff - This Can't Be Happening

September 14, 2019

Now that the flags are back waving from the tops of flagpoles across the country, and the maudlin paeans to the close to 3000 lives lost in the airplane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, it’s time we gave a thought to the dead who were ignored. 

Afghan children killed in a US bombing raid 

According to very conservative estimates, as reported by the “Costs of War” project of Brown University’s Watson Institute on International and Public Affairs, nearly 250,000 civilians have been killed during the a8 years since September 2001 in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in wars or attacks that were instigated by the United States.

Those are very conservative figures carefully compiled by organizations like Iraq Body Count, the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies. These numbers are people known to have died in the violence of war, mostly as so-called “collateral damage,” but often deliberately, as when the US bombs a hospital, a wedding or a private housing compound in order to kill some targeted individual considered an “enemy combatant,” unconcerned about the others in the area, often women and children, who are almost certain to die or suffer serious injury as the result of a strike.

The numbers do not include the deaths that also stem from America’s post 9-11wars — things like starvation, deaths from lack of medical care, and especially deaths from diseases like typhus or dysentery caused by lack of access to clean water or adequate sanitation facilities.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Masjid Al-Iman for Kashmir, John Helmer, Janine Bandcroft September 12, 2019

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

September 12, 2019

More than a month after the unilateral annexation of the officially semi-autonomous states of Kashmir and Jammu, members of the Kashmiri diaspora within India and abroad are desperate for news of their families caught behind prime minister Narendra Modi's virtual "Iron Curtain".

Last week, members of Victoria's Masjid Al-Iman mosque and their allies marched to the legislature in solidarity for Kashmiris and to demand the Canadian government investigate human rights abuses allegedly occurring throughout the state. I went down to the legislature to record the demonstration.

Victoria manifesting support for cordoned Kashmir in the first half.


Listen. Hear.

And; the western media has latched on to civic election returns throughout Russia to propel its narrative of Russian president, Vladimir Putin's waning popularity and thus influence. But as with every view of the greater world offered by the corporate and stated presses here, and especially where it comes to the West's bete noire, Russia, the truth of the matter requires more careful information sourcing than they are willing or prepared to provide audiences.

John Helmer is a journalist, former academic, government policy advisor, author, broadcaster and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Some of John’s book titles include: ‘The Deadly Simple Mechanics of Society’, ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’, (with Claudia Wright) ‘The Jackal’s Wedding – American Power, Arab Revolt’, ‘Grand Strategy for Small Countries: Case Studies in Transforming Weakness into Power,’ and his latest is the political memoir, ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’.

John Helmer and getting to know more about Russia in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what's good to get up to in and around our town in the coming week.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Tales of Brutality and Torture from Kashmir

Media Reports Draw Light To 'Brutal Torture' by Indian Army in Kashmir

by The Wire

 

September 10, 2019

International media organisations have released reports which shed light on security forces’ use of violence, often without any reason at all, on Kashmiris in the aftermath of Delhi’s August 5 decision to take away Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.

Relative of arrested at Central Jail, Srinagar. Photo: Mudasir Ahmad 

The reports, most recently by The Associated Press and earlier by BBC, carry accounts by residents who have allegedly come in the face of brutal torture by Indian forces. In several accounts, the victims would allegedly be administered electric shocks whenever they would fall unconscious after a round of relentless beatings. 

 

Photographs accompany the AP and BBC reports, showing harrowing bruises sustained on the legs and backs of men who allegedly came in the way of the Army and paramilitary forces’ beatings. The forces also allegedly subjected residents to degrading and humiliating punishments, destroyed their stocks of food and issued threats to the women, in addition to allegedly arresting thousands of men. 

Setting the Table for Another Greco-Turkish War

SERVILITY OR SELF-DEFENCE: CYPRUS CAN DEFEND AGAINST THE TURKS WITHOUT AMERICAN PROTECTORATE OR RUSSIAN ADVICE

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

September 10, 2019

Russia has been warning Cyprus (lead image, left) for months to beware the risks and consequences of offering its offshore oil and gas to US companies in exchange for promises of a US military protectorate against Turkish invasion. So far the American response (lead image, centre – Secretary of State Michael Pompeo) has been to require Cyprus to block Russian Navy access to its ports; expel Russian capital from its banks; and put a stop to what Washington calls pro-Russian journalism in the Greek-language press. For details of this scheme, read this.

Moscow - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has denounced the Washington plan as an “artificial choice” and also a “gross violation” of Cyprus’s internal affairs. But so far the Russians have joined the Americans in accepting that what the Turks believe to be theirs is theirs, and that what the Cypriots (and Greeks) regard as theirs is negotiable.

For the first time, however, Cypriot and Greek military officers and experts have joined to plan Cypriot military tactics against Turkey’s attempt at taking over the Cyprus offshore seabed and at fresh Turkish troop landings on the island.

Singing for Assange's Freedom

UK: Roger Waters performs at rally in support of Assange in London

via Ruptly

August 2, 2019

Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters performed the song ‘Wish You Were Here’ at a rally in support of Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, outside the UK Home Office in the heart of London on Monday.

“How do we put ourselves in the position of Julian Assange in solitary confinement? Or with that kid in Syria, or Palestine, or Rohingya, blown to bits by these people in this building here [pointing at the office of British Home Secretary Priti Patel]?” asked Waters while speaking to the crowd, before performing.

A banner reading "Don't Extradite Assange" adorned the front of the stage from which Waters performed the famous song from 1995. Before Waters took to the stage, Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, spoke of his last visit to Assange in Belmarsh prison. 

“It had been a year since I’d seen him last. I hugged him and he told me this place he was in, was hell. I instantly understood what he meant,” Gabriel said. Assange, who is currently serving a 50-week jail sentence for breaching his bail conditions, will face a US extradition hearing in February.

Germany Moves on Glyphosate: Life Without Insects No Life At All

Because 'A World Without Insects Is Not Worth Living In,' Germany Announces Plan to Ban Glyphosate

"What we need is more humming and buzzing."

by Andrea Germanos - Common Dreams

September 4, 2019

The German government announced Wednesday it had agreed on a plan to phase out the use of glyphosate—the key chemical in the weedkiller Roundup—with a total ban set to begin by the end of 2023.

"Way to go, Germany!" tweeted the U.S.-based advocacy group Organic Consumers Association.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet agreed to the plan Wednesday. The proposal, reported Bloomberg, also says that the "government intends to oppose any request for the E.U. to renew the license to produce the weedkiller, according to a release by the environment ministry."

Kashmir Comes Home: Throughout India, Oppression, Dispossession, Greed, and Violence

“Everywhere is Kashmir”: Unraveling Weaponized, Corporatized Hindustan in India’s Northeast 

by Sarang Narasimhaiah - CounterPunch

 
September 6, 2019

“In India today,” said an Indigenous activist I recently interviewed in the northeastern Indian state of Jharkhand, “everywhere is Kashmir.”

Photograph Source: Tasnim News Agency – CC BY 4.0

At first glance, this statement seems overblown, perhaps even outrageous. No other part of India is as much of a consolidated internal colony as Kashmir. For that matter, Palestine is one of the only other parts of the world that can match or exceed Kashmir’s horrific past and renewed present of curfews, communication blackouts, transportation blockades, forced disappearances, and military and paramilitary brutality and bloodshed. (India’s ever-closer collaboration with Israel gives these parallels a particularly timely and unsettling significance.) In so many ways, nowhere is Kashmir but Kashmir itself.

And yet, the seeds of Kashmir’s never-ending misery are bearing poisonous fruit all across India. Animated by the interlocking forces of neoliberal capitalism and Hindu nationalism, the Indian state’s insatiable appetite for natural resources, ironclad commitment to elite-led economic growth, and gleeful deployment of grassroots fascist thugs and police, military, and paramilitary forces have fueled a mounting avalanche of tragedies across the country.

Together, these priorities and capacities have caused an ongoing parade of stomach-churning mob lynchings; the harassment, imprisonment, and even assassinations of dissenters like Gladson Dungdung, Stan Swamy, and Gauri Lankesh; and the gagging, obstruction, and expulsion of civil society organizations like the Lawyers Collective and the Navsarjan Trust.

More Than Just a Child Prostitution and Political Blackmail Operation: Deeper Nightmares of the Epstein Network

How the CIA, Mossad and “the Epstein Network” are Exploiting Mass Shootings to Create an Orwellian Nightmare

by Whitney Webb - MintPress News

September 6, 2019

Following another catastrophic mass shooting or crisis event, Orwellian “solutions” are set to be foisted on a frightened American public by the very network connected, not only to Jeffrey Epstein, but to a litany of crimes and a frightening history of plans to crush internal dissent in the United States.

Following the arrest and subsequent death in prison of alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a little-known Israeli tech company began to receive increased publicity, but for all the wrong reasons.

Not long after Epstein’s arrest, and his relationships and finances came under scrutiny, it was revealed that the Israeli company Carbyne911 had received substantial funding from Jeffrey Epstein as well as Epstein’s close associate and former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist and prominent Trump backer Peter Thiel.

[For complete article, please see original at MintPress News.]

Victoria Rallies with Saturday Kashmir March

Kashmir March

by Masjid Al-Iman

September 6, 2019

Listen. Hear.

Silence of the Twitters: Lambing Daniel McAdams

Meditations on Twitter's Silencing of Daniel McAdams

by Caitlin Johnstone - Rogue Journalist

September 5, 2019

Daniel McAdams, the Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, was banned from Twitter last week. Officially, it was because he used the word “retarded” to describe the odious establishment propagandist Sean Hannity after noting the hilarious fact that the Fox News host had been wearing a CIA lapel pin while “challenging the deep state”.

Unofficially, it was because McAdams has been operating for years at the apex of one of the most effective antiwar movements in the United States.

An article from Liberty Conservative News about McAdams’ encounter with the business end of the Twitter censorship hammer reports that the outspoken foreign policy critic received a notification that his account “has been suspended and will not be restored because it was found to be violating Twitter’s Terms of Service, specifically the Twitter Rules against hateful conduct.”

The Protest Papers: Canadian Spies v. Citizens

Secret spy hearings: An illegal attack on democracy

by Caitlyn Vernon - Sierra Club BC

August 2019

Four years ago, I testified at the secret spy hearings about reports that CSIS had spied on Sierra Club BC and others speaking up to oppose Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline and tankers project.

Even to this day, I’m prohibited from telling you what I said in the hearings because of a gag order.

What I can tell you is that speaking up for clean drinking water shouldn’t make us enemies of the state.

Illegal spying on concerned British Columbians trying to defend themselves from the impacts of fossil fuels is an attack on our freedoms and our future.

We won’t stand for it.



Sierra Club BC Campaigns Director,
Caitlyn Vernon

In July, with our lawyers at the BC Civil Liberties Association, we released the Protest Papers, thousands of pages of heavily redacted information that CSIS collected in relation to the Northern Gateway project. SIRC – the CSIS watchdog – says CSIS didn’t spy on us. But with thousands of pages of documents, the evidence seems to contradict their claim.

SIRC also said the information was shared with oil companies, but that this was okay – despite it being unlawful for CSIS to share information with anyone other than the Canadian government and law enforcement.

The Real Price of Site C: Ancient Tufa Seep

Spectacular ancient tufa seep on the chopping block to build Site C dam

by Eoghan Moriarty

5 Nov 2016

Netanyahu's Choice of War: Campaign Strategy Sees Bombing of Four Neighbours, So Far

The War Ahead: Netanyahu’s Elections Gamble Will be Costly for Israel

by Ramzy Baroud  - The Palestine Chronicle

September 4, 2019

On September 1, the Lebanese group Hezbollah, struck an Israeli military base near the border town of Avivim. The Lebanese attack came as an inevitable response to a series of Israeli strikes that targeted four different Arab countries in the matter of two days.

The Lebanese response, accompanied by jubilation throughout Lebanon, shows that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may have overplayed his cards.

However, for Netanyahu it was a worthy gamble, as the Israeli leader is desperate for any new political capital that could shield him against increasingly emboldened contenders in the country’s September 17 general elections.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Boon, Yves Engler, Janine Bandcroft September 5, 2019

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

September 5, 2019

Last week, prime minister Justin Trudeau met in Surrey with BC premier, John Horgan to announce a joint effort that will increase BC Hydro's contribution to fracked gas production.

The former provincial government bet big on the future of hydrocarbons, (as has Trudeau's Liberals) and the NDP has picked right up where Christie Clark's BCLiberals left off.

Listen. Hear.

The announcement came on the very day West Moberly First Nations Chief, Roland Willson vowed the contentious Site C Dam project would not receive their support saying,

"Stopping this dam has always been the right thing to do. It would have taken some courage and some leadership, but it could have saved British Columbia billions of dollars and produced a clear example of reconciliation with First Nations. ...".

And, the West Moberly are not alone in their opposition to the mega-dam.

Ken Boon is a Peace Valley farmer and president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association. Ken and his family have lived at the heart of the resistance to the Site C dam project from the beginning and it’s a fight that’s cost he and his dearly.

Ken Boon in the first half.

And; Tuesday, August 27th 2019 members of Canada's national police force paid a surprise visit to a citizen's house hoping to catch him at home. It was not a criminal matter, the subject had broken no law; so what warranted such attention?

Montreal-based author, journalist, and social justice activist, Yves Engler is well known to authorities. He's made no secret of his effort to make our political leaders accountable to both the laws of this country and international statutes Canada is a party to. But, with almost four years of bad faith governing behind it, and an expected Autumn election looming ahead, it seems the government would prefer not to hear from critics like Monsieur Engler.

Yves Engler and using the RCMP to silence political criticism in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what's good going on in and around our town in the coming week.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Israel's Undeclared War Escalates: Three Countries Bombed in Three Days

‘We are waiting for war’: Lebanese say Israel has gone too far

by Andre Vltchek - OffGuardian

September 2, 2019

After the recent Israeli attacks against Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, the Middle East has found itself in the midst of undeclared war. Almost everyone in Lebanon appears to agree.

“This time Israel went too far. In just two days, it bombed three countries,” I am told by a local UN staffer based in Beirut.

The same day, my local barber was talking like he saw it all, his voice full of sarcasm and determination:

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing tough elections at home, while his wife is on trial for fraud.

“A bit of excitement during the evening news can only help his chances of regaining attention from his electorate. But we here have had enough; we are ready to fight for our countries.”

But ‘fighting for their countries’ could prove lethal, as Netanyahu threatened to attack Lebanon as a whole, if Hezbollah decides to retaliate.

Trudeau Tactics: Stifle Dissent, Sweep Uncomfortable Facts Under the Rug

Canada’s Trudeau Government Uses RCMP Officers To Stifle Dissent

by TRNN

August 30, 2019

How has the Trudeau government reacted to activists’ efforts to draw attention to these abuses or this disregard of human rights? Well, Justin Trudeau’s government appears to have called in the Mounties. Evidence is accumulating that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, are using their powers as law enforcement officials to silence and intimidate activists who are vocally critical of the Trudeau government.

Author/Activist Yves Engler describes RCMP intimidation tactics after he heckled Canada's Transport Minister Marc Garneau

Meet the New Boss of NSIRA

Veteran New Democrat to chair Canada’s new intelligence “watchdog” agency

by Laurent Lafrance - WSWS

28 August 2019  

Canada’s Liberal government has appointed retiring British Columbia New Democratic Party MP Murray Rankin, (left) as chairman of a new “oversight committee” for the country’s spy agencies. Rankin’s appointment underscores that the ostensibly “left” NDP is seen by the ruling elite as a tried and trusted defender of Canadian imperialism.

The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA), which Rankin will now head, was created with the enactment of the Trudeau government’s Bill C-59.

This bill became law earlier this summer, after the Liberals rushed it through parliament prior to the summer recess, claiming its rapid passage was required to combat possible “foreign interference” in the Oct. 21 federal election.

Bill C-59, “An act respecting National Security Matters,” is the Liberals’ supposed “reform” of the Conservatives’ Bill C-51. This anti-democratic piece of legislation was passed by the Tories in 2015, with Liberal support, in the name of “fighting terrorism.”