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Freeing Julian Assange: the last chapter
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By John Pilger
johnpilger.com
Sunday, Feb 7, 2016
One of the epic miscarriages of justice of our time is
unravelling. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention -
the international tribunal that adjudicates and decides whether
governments comply with their human rights obligations - has ruled that
Julian Assange has been detained unlawfully by Britain and Sweden.
After
five years of fighting to clear his name - having been smeared
relentlessly yet charged with no crime - Assange is closer to justice
and vindication, and perhaps freedom, than at any time since he was
arrested and held in London under a European Extradition Warrant, itself
now discredited by Parliament.
The UN Working Group bases its
judgements on the European Convention on Human Rights and three other
treaties that are binding on all its signatories. Both Britain and
Sweden participated in the 16-month long UN investigation and submitted
evidence and defended their position before the tribunal. It would fly
contemptuously in the face of international law if they did not comply
with the judgement and allow Assange to leave the refuge granted him by
the Ecuadorean government in its London embassy.
In previous,
celebrated cases ruled upon by the Working Group - Aung Sang Suu Kyi in
Burma, imprisoned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia, detained
Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian in Iran - both Britain and
Sweden have given support to the tribunal. The difference now is that
Assange's persecution and confinement endures in the heart of London.
The
Assange case has never been primarily about allegations of sexual
misconduct in Sweden. The Stockholm Chief Prosecutor, Eva Finne,
dismissed the case, saying, "I don't believe there is any reason to
suspect that he has committed rape" and one of the women involved
accused the police of fabricating evidence and "railroading" her,
protesting she "did not want to accuse JA of anything". A second
prosecutor mysteriously re-opened the case after political intervention,
then stalled it.
The Assange case is rooted across the Atlantic
in Pentagon-dominated Washington, obsessed with pursuing and
prosecuting whistleblowers, especially Assange for having exposed, in
WikiLeaks, US capital crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq: the wholesale
killing of civilians and a contempt for sovereignty and international
law. None of this truth-telling is illegal under the US Constitution.
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama, a professor of
constitutional law, lauded whistleblowers as "part of a healthy
democracy [and they] must be protected from reprisal".
Obama,
the betrayer, has since prosecuted more whistleblowers than all the US
presidents combined. The courageous Chelsea Manning is serving 35 years
in prison, having been tortured during her long pre-trial detention.
The
prospect of a similar fate has hung over Assange like a Damocles sword.
According to documents released by Edward Snowden, Assange is on a
"Manhunt target list". Vice-President Joe Biden has called him a "cyber
terrorist". In Alexandra, Virginia, a secret grand jury has attempted to
concoct a crime for which Assange can be prosecuted in a court. Even
though he is not an American, he is currently being fitted up with an
espionage law dredged up from a century ago when it was used to silence
conscientious objectors during the First World War; the Espionage Act
has provisions of both life imprisonment and the death penalty.
Assange's
ability to defend himself in this Kafkaesque world has been handicapped
by the US declaring his case a state secret. A federal court has
blocked the release of all information about what is known as the
"national security" investigation of WikiLeaks.
The supporting
act in this charade has been played by the second Swedish prosecutor,
Marianne Ny. Until recently, Ny had refused to comply with a routine
European procedure that required her to travel to London to question
Assange and so advance the case that James Catlin, one of Assange's
barristers, called "a laughing stock ... it's as if they make it up as
they go along". Indeed, even before Assange had left Sweden for London
in 2010, Marianne Ny made no attempt to question him. In the years
since, she has never properly explained, even to her own judicial
authorities, why she has not completed the case she so enthusiastically
re-ignited - just as the she has never explained why she has refused to
give Assange a guarantee that he will not be extradited on to the US
under a secret arrangement agreed between Stockholm and Washington. In
2010, the Independent in London revealed that the two governments had
discussed Assange's onward extradition.
Then there is tiny,
brave Ecuador. One of the reasons Ecuador granted Julian Assange
political asylum was that his own government, in Australia, had offered
him none of the help to which he had a legal right and so abandoned him.
Australia's collusion with the United States against its own citizen is
evident in leaked documents; no more faithful vassals has America than
the obeisant politicians of the Antipodes.
Four years ago, in
Sydney, I spent several hours with the Liberal Member of the Federal
Parliament, Malcolm Turnbull. We discussed the threats to Assange and
their wider implications for freedom of speech and justice, and why
Australia was obliged to stand by him. Turnbull is now the Prime
Minister of Australia and, as I write, is attending an international
conference on Syria hosted the Cameron government - about 15 minutes'
cab ride from the room that Julian Assange has occupied for three and a
half years in the small Ecuadorean embassy just along from Harrods. The
Syria connection is relevant if unreported; it was WikiLeaks that
revealed that the United States had long planned to overthrow the Assad
government in Syria. Today, as he meets and greets, Prime Minister
Turnbull has an opportunity to contribute a modicum of purpose and truth
to the conference by speaking up for his unjustly imprisoned
compatriot, for whom he showed such concern when we met. All he need do
is quote the judgement of the UN Working Party on Arbitrary Detention.
Will he reclaim this shred of Australia's reputation in the decent
world?
What is certain is that the decent world owes much to
Julian Assange. He told us how indecent power behaves in secret, how it
lies and manipulates and engages in great acts of violence, sustaining
wars that kill and maim and turn millions into the refugees now in the
news. Telling us this truth alone earns Assange his freedom, whereas
justice is his right.
Source: johnpilger.com
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