An open request to the Queen of England and Great Britain: If you, our Queen of England and Great Britain and its dominions, have any power left within your authority as Queen, please do exercise such power as is required to right this great injustice summarized below, this blight of such clear and self evident conflicts of interest and of injustice under the auspices of your authority, exercised against Julian Assange. Humbly, Those who seek the upholding of justice and righteousness in this, our shared world … This statement by [Judge Emma Arbuthnot] captures the Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the judicial persecution of Assange. She dismisses as unreasonable Assange’s fears that if he voluntarily left the Ecuadorian Embassy he would be arrested by British police and extradited to the United States because he did not appear in court to express them. And yet, [Judge Emma Arbuthnot] is now presiding over [Julian Assange's] extradition trial. … The Coming Show Trial Of Julian Assange https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-22/coming-show-trial-julian-assange Authored by Chris Hedges via Truthdig, https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-coming-show-trial-of-julian-assange/ ... The judge, Emma Arbuthnot, cut him off, saying “this is not the time to go into this.” Commenting in 2018 when Assange’s lawyers requested that the warrant for his arrest be dropped, Arbuthnot said, “I accept that Mr. Assange had expressed fears of being returned to the United States from a very early stage in the Swedish extradition proceedings but, absent any evidence from Mr. Assange on oath, I do not find that Mr. Assange’s fears were reasonable,” This statement by the judge captures the Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the judicial persecution of Assange. She dismisses as unreasonable Assange’s fears that if he voluntarily left the Ecuadorian Embassy he would be arrested by British police and extradited to the United States because he did not appear in court to express them. And yet, she is now presiding over his extradition trial. This circular logic is not the only disturbing aspect of Judge Arbuthnot’s overseeing of the Assange case. She is married to James Arbuthnot, who sits in the House of Lords, is a British Conservative Party politician, was the minister of state at the Ministry of Defense and for nine years was the chairman of the Defense Select Committee in the House of Commons, a committee that oversees the operation of the Ministry of Defense and the armed forces. Arbuthnot, who was reprimanded while a member of Parliament for diverting public funds to maintain his two homes, is a director at SC Strategy, established by John Scarlett, the former head of the British foreign intelligence service MI6. The politician also is on the advisory board of Thales UK, a huge arms manufacturer whose corrupt business practices, which included massive bribes to heads of state in exchange for arms contracts, were exposed when some of its internal documents were published by WikiLeaks. The judge “has a strong conflict of interest,” Melzer said from Vienna when I interviewed him by video link for my television show, “On Contact.” “Her husband had been exposed by WikiLeaks.” Assange’s lawyers have asked the judge to recuse herself. She has refused. ... On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 04:54:58PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
Extradition order to send Assange to US poses existential threat to all truth seekers – Galloway https://www.rt.com/news/461759-assange-galloway-extradition-uk-us/
Julian Assange’s extradition to the US would be a deathblow for all truth seekers, George Galloway told RT, warning that anyone who fails to support Assange will one day share the same fate as the persecuted Wikileaks co-founder.
Britain’s Home Secretary Sajid Javid revealed on Thursday that he had signed a request for the extradition of Assange to the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act. The order will go before the UK courts on Friday.
Galloway, a former MP who has campaigned tirelessly for Assange’s freedom, quipped that the “dark” episode shows that Theresa May’s “zombie” government was “not content with all the other disasters for which it’s responsible.”
He insisted that Assange’s supporters would “never give up” the fight to stop his extradition to the US and secure his safe release from UK custody.
Failing to support Assange now will have disastrous consequences for journalism and all who profess to hold progressive values, Galloway warned. He expressed particular discontent with those who would have ordinarily protested Assange’s treatment at the hands of the UK authorities, but remained silent because the Wikileaks co-founder was accused of sexual misconduct – what Galloway decried as a politically-motivated smear.
The liberals and the progressives, as they describe themselves, they will one day be a victim of this tyranny themselves, that is unless they eventually give up any pretense of actually being liberals and actually being progressives.
Asked about what would happen if Assange is ultimately extradited, Galloway said that the consequences for allowing such an injustice would be devastating.
“Every truth seeker will go down if Julian goes down.”
Assange faces a litany of charges in the US, including one count of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, the former intelligence analyst and whistleblower, to gain access to the US Pentagon network. The Australian journalist is currently serving a 50-week prison sentence in the UK for jumping bail.
Journalists silent on Assange’s plight are complicit in his torture and imprisonment https://www.rt.com/op-ed/461509-journalists-media-assange-wikileaks/
On Sat, Jul 09, 2016 at 11:38:14AM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
The wheels of "democracy" when it works, when someone with heart, patience, tenacity and a strong sense of justice (a mighty lot to ask, so we can be very grateful for this man of principal) such as George Galloway, is an event worth witnessing, given how rare such events are.
George Galloway you have been vindicated. Thank you for speaking so clearly.
"Mr Blair: This Is For Iraq (Video)" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVNmy5-2va8
(Youtube link also here: http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/mr-blair-iraq/ri15485 )