He has a case tomorrow.Amnesty issued this statement https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/usa-uk-president-biden-must-d... ProtonMail mobil ile gönderildi
To: Stephan Simanowit Amnesty International press@amnesty.org From: Jim Bell I am an American with great interest in Julian Assange's case, and probably engaged in discussions with him about 1995 (although at the time he was under a pseudonyn) on the Cypherpunks email list. However, I happen to have learned Federal law, although I have never been a lawyer or paralegal: I spent probably 15,000 hours in various law libraries learning many areas of American Federal law. Over the last few years, I realized that Assange has some issues(defenses) that I am not aware were being discussed in the news media. However, I haven't read the actual legal filings from the UK case, so I didn't learn if they have been used. However, I did send some of this material to Barrister Jennifer Robinson, who is Assange's barrister. I didn't get an answer, although I didn't expect to receive one. A very brief description, gone into much greater detail below. 1. In virtually every issue against Assange, there appears to be no "extraterritoriality jurisdiction" present in American Federal law. This means that American courts have ruled that in order to apply American law to crimes committed in areas physically outside America, Congress must have explicitly stated this. This appears to not be the case. I am astonished to have never heard this issue raised in the public discussion of Assange. It is, by far, the most obvious bar to any prosecution of Assange. 2. Even if it were assumed that the American laws which are being used to charge Assange HAD that "extraterritoriality jurisdiction", then Assange would have been "within the jurisdiction of American courts" all during the period of 2009 to the current date, albeit within UK or the foreign embassy. A concept known as a "limitation period" (more commonly known as a "statute of limitation") usually limits the prosecution of most American Federal felonies to 5 years. While the "clock" can be stopped if a person can be described as a 'fugitive', the standard for this is that such a 'fugitive' has intentionally taken himself outside jurisdiction of American courts. But if such courts consider their 'jurisdiction' worldwide, then Assange would have been within that jursdiction whereever he happened to be. So, the 5-year "clock" would presumably have run out about 2016, perhaps earlier. This is also what I consider to be an 'obvious' issue, although it probably wouldn't occur to most lawyers that Assange couldn't be considered a 'fugitive' as long as he remained 'in the jurisdiction' of American Federal courts, if extraterritoriality applied. I would be happy to talk with you further on this matter. Jim Bell On Tuesday, August 10, 2021, 03:10:08 PM PDT, zeynepaydogan <zeynepaydogan@protonmail.com> wrote:
He has a case tomorrow.Amnesty issued this statement
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/usa-uk-president-biden-must-d...
From that:"If extradited to the US, Julian Assange could face trial on 18 charges, 17 of them under the Espionage Act; and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He would also face a real risk of serious human rights violations due to detention conditions that could amount to torture or other ill-treatment, including prolonged solitary confinement. Julian Assange is the first publisher to face charges under the Espionage Act. The US government is expected to challenge the grounds on which it can appeal and may request reconsideration for appeal on the other two grounds, which question the expert profile of one of the expert witnesses and also the assessed risk of Assange committing suicide.
For further information see https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/EUR4544502021ENGLISH.PDF https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/07/the-us-diplomatic-assurances-... For more information or to arrange an interview contact Stefan Simanowit at the court: press@amnesty.org [end of quote] I, Jim Bell, made the following posting almost a year ago, copied from material I'd previously posted and put onto the Cypherpunks email list. =============================================================jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com>To:CypherPunks,Hernâni Marques,Jennifer Robinson,Carl MillerSat, Sep 19, 2020 at 3:32 PMBarrister Robinson; (Julian Assange's representative) It might very much help me help Julian Assange if you could point me to URLs containing the filings of the US Federal Government in the Assange extradition case. I hope you agree that I can be helpful, but it also helps me a lot to have something I can work with: I can't very well spot flaws in their arguments if I do not have copies of their arguments. And I don't know how to get them. See Note 167 of: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/94-166.pdf : "167 18 U.S.C. §3290. Most courts construe section 3290 to require flight with an intent to avoid prosecution or a departure from the place where the offense occurred with the knowledge that an investigation is pending or being conducted, United States v. Florez, 447 F.3d 145, 150-52 (2d Cir. 2006)(citing authority in accord). Thus, a suspect in the case of an federal extraterritorial offense is not likely to be considered a fugitive, if he simply remains in the country were of the offense was committed". I realize that there is an issue of whether Assange remained "in U.K." due to his entry in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. This is the OTHER "extraterritoriality" issue of Assange, but I don't consider it definitive that Assange somehow "fled" the U.K. I have seen articles which suggest that it is merely a legal fiction that a country's embassy is to be considered 'foreign territory' for the purposes of enforcing criminal law. That relatively recent incident in which Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi Araban embassy in Turkey is instructive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi See: https://www.lawfareblog.com/khashoggi-murder-how-mohammed-bin-salman-underes... Also, US v. Florez discussed here: https://cite.case.law/f3d/447/145/ "2. The Contours of Flight Under 18 U.S.C. § 8290 "In construing the flight requirement of § 3290, we begin with Streep v. United States, 160 U.S. 128, 16 S.Ct. 244, 40 L.Ed. 365 (1895), in which the Supreme Court considered the meaning of the phrase, “fleeing from justice” as used in an earlier statute creating an exception to the application of a limitations period. In Streep, the Court stated: "It is unnecessary, for the purposes of the present case, to undertake -to give an exhaustive definition of the[ ] words [“any person fleeing from justice”]; for it is quite clear that any person who takes himself out of the jurisdiction, with the intention of avoiding being brought to justice for a particular of-fence, can have no benefit of the [statute of] limitationfs], at least when prosecuted for that offence in a court of the United States." "Drawing from this language, most courts, including our own, have concluded *151that a person’s mere absence from a jurisdiction is insufficient, by itself, to demonstrate flight under § 3290 (or its statutory predecessor); there must be proof of the person’s intent to avoid arrest or prosecution. As we observed in Jhirad v. Ferrandina, in the context of an extradition proceeding, “the phrase ‘fleeing from justice’ carries a common sense connotation that only those persons shall be denied the benefit of the statute of limitations who have absented themselves from the jurisdiction of the crime with the intent of escaping prosecution.” 486 F.2d 442, 444-45 (2d Cir.1973) (“Jhirad I”) (emphasis added); accord United States v. RiveraVentura, 72 F.3d 277, 283 (2d Cir.1995). Many of our sister circuits agree that such intent is a necessary component of flight. See Ross v. United States Marshal, 168 F.3d at 1194 (10th Cir.1999) (holding that “fleeing from justice” requires proof that “the accused acted with the intent to avoid arrest or prosecution”); United States v. Greever, 134 F.3d at 780 (6th Cir.) (holding that § 3290 requires proof “that the defendant concealed himself with the intent to avoid prosecution”); United States v. Fonseca-Machado, 53 F.3d 1242, 1244 (11th Cir.1995) (holding that “a fugitive from justice ... must be found to have absented himself from the jurisdiction with the intent to avoid prosecution”); United States v. Marshall, 856 F.2d at 900 (7th Cir.) (concluding that “defendant’s intent to avoid arrest or prosecution must be proved in order to trigger the tolling provisions of Section 3290”); United States v. Wazney, 529 F.2d 1287, 1289 (9th Cir.1976) (holding that “intent to avoid prosecution is an essential element of ‘fleeing from justice’ ”); Brouse v. United States, 68 F.2d 294, 295 (1st Cir.1933) (holding that “essential characteristic of fleeing from justice is leaving one’s residence, or usual place of abode or resort, or concealing one’s self, with the intent to avoid punishment”). [end of quote] Presumably, "the jurisdiction" here means the location of the crime if it is committed within a state or territory of the United States, not the foreign location where the defendant was when he ostensibly committed the act which government authorities assert is a crime. My understanding is that the Obama administration's policy was that what Assange did was indistinguishable from the acts of a journalist. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indictment.html Thus, the position was that there was no crime. I am glad to see that you are addressing this issue. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/assange-defence-questions-why-obama-didn... Jim Bell ======================================================== On Saturday, September 19, 2020, 01:08:59 AM PDT, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote: Barrister Robinson: (Julian Assange's representative) Having done some more research work, I have found some relevant material that applies to extraterritoriality of American criminal law. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3097&context=facpub Within the Introduction, is this statement: "With the explosion in cross-border criminality made possible by modem technology and transportation systems, the globalization of commerce and finance, and the Internet, these are issues that courts attempt to answer on a daily basis. But thousands of federal crimes were enacted before these circumstances conspired to make criminality increasingly transnational, and thus the statutes say nothing about their geographical scope. Courts struggle to determine whether to apply federal statutes to trans-border criminal activity because "[t]he case law is so riddled with inconsistencies and exceptions." 2 "[T]he only thing courts and scholars seem to agree on is that the law in this area is a mess."3 " [end of quote] Further, on page 1026, it continues: " The federal courts generally apply two canons of construction to determine the geographic scope of a statute that, on its face, does not address the question (a geoambiguous statute): a presumption against extraterritoriality, which the Supreme Court introduced in its current form in 1991's EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co. (Aramco),7 and the Charming Betsy canon, which the Court often relied upon prior to Aramco. In the Court's last three extraterritoriality cases-Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd.,' Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.,9 and RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Communityo-it emphasized the importance of a strong presumption against extraterritoriality. This presumption has become something approaching a clear statement rule (although the Court disclaims this reality"): "When a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none." 12 The presumption applies "regardless of whether the statute in question regulates conduct, affords relief, or merely confers jurisdiction."13 The presumption against extraterritoriality means that the Court assumes that Congress intends its statutes to apply only to conduct within the territory of the United States unless it says otherwise. This exclusive emphasis on conduct within the territory of a State reflects the subjective territorial principle under the international law of prescriptive jurisdiction. " [end of quote] And see pages 1052-1053: "In 2010, the Court strongly signaled that these antitrust cases are sui generis by insisting on a strong presumption against extraterritoriality in Morrison v. National Australia Bank.1 6 7 The case was a blockbuster because the Court overruled decades of courts of appeals case law by dramatically limiting the scope of the securities fraud laws. The respondent, National Australia Bank (National), a non-U.S. bank whose shares were not traded on any U.S. exchange, purchased respondent HomeSide Lending, a company headquartered in Florida. 168 A few years after this purchase, National had to write down the value of Homeside's assets, causing a drop in National's share price.16 9 Petitioners, Australians who purchased National's stock before the write-downs, sued National, Homeside, and officers of both companies in federal district court for violating sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934170 and SEC Rule lOb-5. 17 1 Petitioners claimed that HomeSide and its officers, with the knowledge of National and its chief executive, manipulated financial models to make the company appear more valuable than it was. 17 2 In short, this was a "foreign-cubed" 173 securities fraud case in that the parties were Australian, the shares were not listed on a U.S. exchange, and the shares were purchased and sold in Australia. The petitioners, however, believed that because the fraudulent conduct took place, at least in part, in the United States, their civil securities fraud suit belonged in a U.S. court. 174 The district court dismissed the case for want of subject-matter jurisdiction, concluding that the fraudulent acts alleged in the United States were, "at most, a link in the chain of an alleged overall securities fraud scheme that culminated abroad."1 75 The Second Circuit affirmed because the fraudulent acts performed in the United States did not "compris[e] the heart of the alleged fraud." 17 6 The Supreme Court reversed, making three critical rulings. First, until Morrison, 7 all the circuits treated extraterritoriality as a question going to the courts' subject-matter jurisdiction in securities and other cases. In Morrison, however, the Supreme Court made clear for the first time that the extraterritoriality question was not jurisdictional; rather it relates only to whether a case can be made on the merits. 178 It explained: the FTAIA's codification of an effects test as applied to export activity may preclude the Court from revisiting its precedents, at least in that context. " [T]o ask what conduct § 10(b) reaches is to ask what conduct § 10(b) prohibits, which is a merits question. Subject-matter jurisdiction, by contrast, "refers to a tribunal's 'power to hear a case."' It presents an issue quite separate from the question whether the allegations the plaintiff makes entitle him to relief. The District Court here had jurisdiction under 15 U.S.C. § 78aa to adjudicate the question whether § 10(b) applies to National's conduct.179 As we shall see in our roadmap discussion in section III.C, this ruling has important procedural implications. 8 0 Second, the Supreme Court, again overruling decades of lower court precedent, held that section 10(b) does not apply beyond the shores of the United States after applying a strong presumption against extraterritoriality. Until Morrison, the circuits had decided whether they had jurisdiction over securities fraud claims that involved transnational elements by applying the so-called "conduct-and-effects" test. This test was derived from international law's understandings of what constituted a "territorial" application of legislation. It presumed that where subjective territoriality (domestic conduct) or objective territoriality (domestic effects) were present, the case was a territorial suit and no issue of statutory extraterritoriality was raised. The test was pioneered by the Second Circuit and adopted by the other circuits. The Court emphatically rejected the Second Circuit's conductand-effects test as fundamentally inconsistent with the presumption against extraterritoriality.s' " [end of quote] The material continues: "Having rejected the circuit courts' test, the Court applied its presumption against extraterritoriality. It examined the language and history of section 10(b) and concluded that there was "no affirmative indication in the Exchange Act that section 10(b) applies extraterritorially" and thus nothing to rebut the presumption.1 8 6 Accordingly, the Court ruled that the securities fraud provisions at issue did not apply extraterritorially. The Morrison Court's third and final holding related to the question of when a given securities fraud case could be deemed extraterritorial, and thus precluded, as opposed to territorial or domestic, in which case it could proceed. Having lost the battle of extraterritoriality, the petitioners attempted to win the war by arguing 179. Id. at 254 (citations omitted). 180. that they sought only domestic application of section 10(b). Petitioners contended that, given that the fraud was hatched in Florida and false statements were made there, the fraud was committed in the United States." "Acknowledging that "it is a rare case of prohibited extraterritorial application that lacks all contact with the territory of the United States," the Court applied a "focus" test, which asks what conduct is the "object[] of the statute's solicitude." 187 This test looks to "those transactions that the statute seeks to 'regulate' and to the "parties to those transactions that the statute seeks to 'protec[t]."'1 88 The Court reasoned that section 10(b) does not "punish deceptive conduct, but only deceptive conduct 'in connection with the purchase or sale of any security registered on a national securities exchange or any security not so registered."'189 Thus, the Court concluded that section 10(b) applies "only [to] transactions in securities listed on domestic exchanges, and domestic transactions in other securities"19 0 and suggested that all other cases constitute improper extraterritorial applications of the statute. In other words, unless there was a domestic securities transaction, the case constitutes a forbidden extraterritorial application of the statute. The site of the fraud is irrelevant to determining whether a claim is territorial or extraterritorial in nature." [end of quote] Jim Bell's comments continue: One issue that needs to be settled, I believe, is: Which Circuit's precedents would be applicable to Julian Assange's case? The American judicial system is based on territorial appeals courts, called "Circuit"s. There are twelve (12) Circuits, numbered "First" through "Eleventh", and the "D.C. Circuit", for the District of Columbia. (There is also a "Federal Circuit" which deals with Patent and other cases, not relevant here.) Generally, when crimes are tried, they occur in the territory of at least one specific Circuit. The District Court in question generally applies the precedents of that Circuit. No part of the alleged crime by Assange appears to have occurred in any specific American Circuit. In some instances, American law specifies that if a crime is not committed within any American territory, it should be tried in the Circuit in which the defendant 'is first brought', or in the District of Columbia. To allow the Federal government the freedom to decide which Circuit's precedent's should apply is a clear example of "forum-shopping", a term which you may be familiar. Forum shopping | | | | Forum shopping Examples include the attraction of foreign litigants to the United States due to its expansive acceptance of per... | | | The material I have cited above, https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3097&context=facpub seems to indicate that the American Supreme Court's word on the subject, in the Morrison v. National Australia Bank, MORRISON v. NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LTD. case, includes that important presumption against extraterritoriality. | | | | MORRISON v. NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LTD. | | | As Morrison states: "It is a “longstanding principle of American law ‘that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.’ ” EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co. , 499 U. S. 244, 248 (1991) (Aramco) (quoting Foley Bros., Inc. v. Filardo , 336 U. S. 281, 285 (1949) ). This principle represents a canon of construction, or a presumption about a statute’s meaning, rather than a limit upon Congress’s power to legislate, see Blackmer v. United States , 284 U. S. 421, 437 (1932) . It rests on the perception that Congress ordinarily legislates with respect to domestic, not foreign matters. Smith v. United States , 507 U. S. 197 , n. 5 (1993). Thus, “unless there is the affirmative intention of the Congress clearly expressed” to give a statute extraterritorial effect, “we must presume it is primarily concerned with domestic conditions.” Aramco , supra , at 248 (internal quotation marks omitted). The canon or presumption applies regardless of whether there is a risk of conflict between the American statute and a foreign law, see Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc. , 509 U. S. 155, 173–174 (1993) . When a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none." | | | | | | | | | | | BLACKMER v. UNITED STATES (two cases). | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sandra Jean SMITH, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Chris SALE, Acting Commissioner, Immigration and Naturalization Service,... | | | [end of quote. Emphasis by bolding and italics, added.] While I do not know how British courts work, I think this Morrison precedent should preclude having any criminal charges made against Julian Assange, except for those which explicitly contain language from the American Congress that extraterritoriality is intended by them. Jim Bell ======================================================================== On Thursday, September 17, 2020, 10:15:22 PM PDT, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote: To: Barrister Jennifer Robinson, https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/jennifer-robinson (Representing Julian Assange) The following material was published on the Cypherpunks Email list. On Thursday, September 17, 2020, 03:27:05 PM PDT, Hernâni Marques <hernani@vecirex.net> wrote:
For 10 years now the USA has been chasing journalist and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. In doing so, they are not shy in violating the rule of law and human rights. [end of quote from previous message on Cypherpunks email list.]
Jim Bell's comment about American Limitations period angle to get Assange released. I've spent about 15,000 hours in a US Federal prison law library, learning MANY kinds of Federal law. (Most 'jailhouse lawyers' just learn criminal law and appeals law.) I learned contract law, tort law, libel law, civil rights law (42 USC 1983, and Bivens Actions), patent law, anti-trust law, My biggest project was a lawsuit I wrote 2002-2003. James Dalton Bell v. District Courts of Tacoma and Seattle. James Dalton Bell, et al v. United States, et al Which, when printed out, spanned 192 pages. | | | | James Dalton Bell, et al v. United States, et al | | | Most people know about 'limitations periods', more commonly known as "statute of limitations". Beyond that time, a Federal crime generally cannot be prosecuted in a Federal court, although there are exceptions. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31253.pdf Most US Federal felonies have a limitations period of 5 years, a very few have a limitations period of 8 years. (A few, directly involving a criminal death have no limitation on prosecution time.) Assange's alleged crimes seem to be claimed to have occurred around 2009 or 2010, and do not involve any alleged deaths. So, unless the limitations period is considered 'tolled', it should be impossible to prosecute Assange in an American Federal Court. And, that being so, it should be impossible to obtain extradition to the United States, either. However, under American law, the limitations period is generally 'tolled' (the 'clock' is stopped) under a few circumstances. One of those is when a defendant is considered a "fugitive". As is stated in https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31253.pdf on pages 10-11: "Fugitives"" A provision exempting fugitives accompanied passage of the first federal statute of limitations.77 The language has changed little since,78 but its meaning remains a topic of debate.79 Most circuits, taking their lead from Streep v. United States, 80 hold that the government must establish that the accused acted with an intent to avoid prosecution.81 Yet two have held that mere absence from the jurisdiction is sufficient.82 Even in the more demanding circuits, however, flight is thought to have occurred when the accused conceals himself within the jurisdiction;83 remains outside the jurisdiction after becoming aware of the possibility of prosecution;84 flees before an investigation begins;85 departs after an investigation has begun but before charges are filed;86 absconds to avoid prosecution on another matter;87 or flees to avoid civil or administrative justice rather than criminal justice.88 " [end of quote] Since Assange clearly did not commit any US Federal crime while he was physically present within the United States (indeed, he may never have been in the United States at all, or at least during any period relevant to this case), it is clear that he did not "flee" from the United States to avoid prosecution. Indeed, he did not "flee" at all. To this, a Federal prosecutor might respond that nevertheless, Assange was 'outside the jurisdiction' of the United States court system, at least for the "most circuits" . The exceptions listed in the paragraph above do not appear to apply, because the alleged crime occurred outside the U.S. Superficially, such a prosecutor would want to invoke the "mere absence" policy of a few circuits. Of course, since the alleged crimes did not occur within ANY of those American circuit-court regions, even that is questionable. See Note 82, which cites circuit cases from the 8th Circuit. And the D.C. Circuit: McGowen v. United States, 105 F.2d 791, 792 (D.C. Cir. 1939) McGowen v. United States, 105 F.2d 791 (D.C. Cir. 1939) From McGowen, citing the Supreme Court: | | | | | | | | | | | McGowen v. United States, 105 F.2d 791 (D.C. Cir. 1939) McGowen v. United States, 105 F.2d 791 (D.C. Cir. 1939) case opinion from the US Court of Appeals for the Distri... | | | "To be a fugitive from justice, in the sense of the act of congress regulating the subject under consideration, it is not necessary that the party charged should have left the state in which the crime is alleged to have been committed, after an indictment found, or for the purpose of avoiding a prosecution anticipated or begun, but simply that having within a state committed that which by its laws constitutes a crime, when he is sought to be subjected to its criminal process to answer for his offence, he has left its jurisdiction, and is found within the territory of another." The Supreme Court first used that language with regard to the extradition law,[2] but afterwards expressly applied it to the statute here involved.[3] Accordingly appellant, when he left the District after committing forgery, was a "person fleeing from justice," regardless of his motive in leaving." [end of quote from McGowen] First, Assange was not "within a state committed [...] a crime", in this case the reference to "state" would include the United States of America. Nor did Assange "[leave] its jurisdiction", since he was not within the United States of America, at all. Assange did not "[leave] the District after committing [a Federal crime". If it is assume that Assange was 'within the jurisdiction' of a U.S. Federal court while nevertheless in U.K., Assange didn't subsequently leave the jurisdiction of a U.S. Federal Court: If the Federal Court asserts that it has jurisdiction in any location in the world regarding such a crime. Further quoting from https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31253.pdf : "Streep declared that it “unnecessary, for the purposes of the present case, to undertake to give an exhaustive definition of these words [fleeing from justice]; for it is quite clear that any person who takes himself out of the jurisdiction, with the intention of avoiding being brought to justice for a particular offense, can have no benefit of the limitation, at least when prosecuted for that offense in a court of the United States,” 160 U.S. at 133. In context, it might be thought unclear whether the Court meant flight with intent was required or merely sufficient." [end of quote from Note 82] This is from the Streep case itself: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/160/128/ "In order to constitute "fleeing from justice" within the meaning of section 1045 of the Revised Statutes, it is not necessary that there should be an intent to avoid the justice of the United States, but it is sufficient that there is an intent to avoid the justice of the state having jurisdiction over the same territory and the same act." [end of quote] Assange is not alleged to have fled the jurisdiction of any American state. He is also not alleged to have fled the jurisdiction of the Federal court system. But there is a further reason to reject the possibility of Assange's prosecution. There is a question: Was Assange actually IN the "jurisdiction of the American Federal Court system while he allegedly committed the acts claimed against him? After all, if we assume that American Federal law is to be applied extraterritorially in this case, then it must be that Assange was "in the jurisdiction" of the Federal Court system despite the fact that he was physically present within the U.K. during that time. And in that case, Assange must continue to be considered to be "in the jurisdiction" of the U.S. Federal Court system during the 5 years after the events alleged in the Indictment occurred, for the purposes of tolling the limitations period. Thus, there is no tolling of the limitations clock, which must have run out in about 2015, and certainly long before today, in 2020. To assert otherwise, the American prosecutors must take the mutually-inconsistent positions that: 1. Assange was 'within the jurisdiction of American Federal criminal law' at the time the alleged crimes were committed. YET 2. Assange was 'NOT within the jurisdiction of American Federal criminal law' at the times subsequent to the time the alleged crimes were committed. I have previously pointed out the following material, which asserts that it is well-established by authority as high as the United States Supreme Court: "In Morrison v. National Australia Bank, 2010, the Supreme Court held that in interpreting a statute, the "presumption against extraterritoriality" is absolute unless the text of the statute explicitly says otherwise." "https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2016/06/us-supreme-court-conti... Even while in the Ecuadorian embassy building, Assange would have been as much 'within the jurisdiction of the United States Federal court system' there, as he presumably was while he was within the United Kingdom. Jim Bell ======================================================== The following is material I posted to the Cypherpunks list last year: On Sunday, May 5, 2019, 10:22:02 AM PDT, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote: This essay, found by doing a google search for ' "assange" "extradition" "extraterritoriality" ' http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MelbJIL/2012/5.html (From 2012) [partial quote follows] "In a speech at Princeton University, Justice Michael Kirby discussed judicial reluctance to enforce assertions of extraterritorial jurisdiction[1] and in so doing, observed that: ‘the natural question is asked: Why my court? Why not theirs?’[2]The question points to the crossroads at which international law and domestic law meet: extraterritoriality. Assertions of extraterritorial jurisdiction are becoming increasingly frequent in the 21st century. Many states claim authority to project law beyond their own territorial borders[3] and, as Alejandro Chehtman observes: ‘extraterritoriality is deeply entrenched in the modern practice of legal punishment’.[4] The extent to which states can assert extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction is a pivotal issue, which sits at the ‘very heart of public international law’.[5]" End of partial quote Note: I haven't attempted to send a copy of the material I wrote, below, to Julian Assange or any attorney representing him. If any of you are in closer contact than I, I request that this material be sent to them. Jim Bell On Monday, April 29, 2019, 5:30:53 PM PDT, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote: From: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1153486/download 15(B) to intentionally access a computer, without authorization and exceeding authorized access, to obtain information from a department and agency of the United States in furtherance of a criminal act in violation of the laws of the United States, that is, a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 641, 793(c), and 793(e). (In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 371, 1030(a)(l), 1030(a)(2), 1030(c)(2)(B)(ii).) [end of partial quote] There is a principle of American law, upheld by the Supreme Court, that a Federal law is only supposed to be considered of "extraterritorial" application (applies outside the boundaries of United States territory) if the Congress specifically intended that application, and was signified by including such language within the law itself.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterritorial_jurisdiction "In Morrison v. National Australia Bank, 2010, the Supreme Court held that in interpreting a statute, the "presumption against extraterritoriality" is absolute unless the text of the statute explicitly says otherwise." "US Supreme Court Continues to Limit Extraterritorial Application of US Laws | Insights | Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP | | | | US Supreme Court Continues to Limit Extraterritorial Application of US L... With 22 offices, more than 1,700 attorneys and 50-plus practice areas, Skadden advises businesses, financial ins... | | | http://www.virginialawreview.org/volumes/content/rjr-nabisco-and-runaway-can...
From that: "The Supreme Court threw out the lawsuit after invoking the presumption against extraterritoriality. That canon of statutory interpretation instructs judges to assume “that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”[8] In applying the presumption in RJR Nabisco, however, a majority of four Justices[9] rejected multiple indications that Congress intended RICO’s private right of action to extend abroad[10] while raising the bar on what Congress must do to make its extraterritorial expectations clear.[11]" [end of quote]
Understanding the presumption against extraterritoriality: https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1170&context=bjil Very interesting: https://www.thefacultylounge.org/2019/04/some-thoughts-on-the-extradition-of...
From that:"THE RULE OF DUAL CRIMINALITY: Even if extradition is sought only under the computer intrusion indictment, it will still need to meet the test of dual criminality, found in Article 2, which provides that "An offense shall be an extraditable offense if the conduct on which the offense is based is punishable under the laws in both States." Although computer hacking is no doubt also a crime in the U.K., there is a further wrinkle of territoriality, because Assange's alleged offense was committed outside the United States. Another section of Article 2 provides:If the offense has been committed outside the territory of the Requesting State, extradition shall be granted in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty if the laws in the Requested State provide for the punishment of such conduct committed outside its territory in similar circumstances. If the laws in the Requested State do not provide for the punishment of such conduct committed outside of its territory in similar circumstances, the executive authority of the Requested State, in its discretion, may grant extradition provided that all other requirements of this Treaty are met." Unlike the U.S., however, Britain apparently takes a strict view of territorial jurisdiction. According to The New York Times, Britain has already denied a U.S. extradition request for computer intrusion, on the grounds that the offense was committed on British soil and would therefore have to be tried in the U.K. [end of quote]
18 U.S.C. 641 does not appear to explicitly have an extraterritoriality reference. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/641 18 U.S.C. 793(c), nor the whole 793, does not appear to explicitly have an extraterritoriality reference. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 18 U.S.C. 371 does not appear to explicitly have an extraterritoriality reference. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371 18 U.S.C. 1030 does not appear to explicitly have an extraterritoriality reference. 18 U.S. Code § 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with computers | | | | | | | | | | | 18 U.S. Code § 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with com... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 18 U.S. Code § 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with com... | | | Jim Bell [end of long quote]
On 11/08/2021 04:31, jim bell wrote:
To: Stephan Simanowit Amnesty International press@amnesty.org
From: Jim Bell
I am an American with great interest in Julian Assange's case, and probably engaged in discussions with him about 1995 (although at the time he was under a pseudonyn) on the Cypherpunks email list.
However, I happen to have learned Federal law, although I have never been a lawyer or paralegal: I spent probably 15,000 hours in various law libraries learning many areas of American Federal law.
Over the last few years, I realized that Assange has some issues(defenses) that I am not aware were being discussed in the news media. However, I haven't read the actual legal filings from the UK case, so I didn't learn if they have been used. However, I did send some of this material to Barrister Jennifer Robinson, who is Assange's barrister. I didn't get an answer, although I didn't expect to receive one.
A very brief description, gone into much greater detail below.
1. In virtually every issue against Assange, there appears to be no "extraterritoriality jurisdiction" present in American Federal law. This means that American courts have ruled that in order to apply American law to crimes committed in areas physically outside America,
However if the effect of a crime committed by person who is outside america is against eg a computer or other thing or person inside america, then in american law that crime was committed within the bounds of the unitedstates, notwithstanding that the criminal was not in america. So issues of extraterritoriality do not apply. Applies also to some US forces when they are abroad, their bases and assets are sometimes regarded as being inside the unitedstates. As an aside, for the purposes of the UK extradition hearing, whether the US courts have jurisdiction is a question of UK law, not US law. It is just possible (though unlikely) that assange might be correctly extradited under UK law then a US court might decide not to continue on US law extraterritoriality grounds. Peter Fairbrother
My guess is that Assange will be extradited.I hope they don't return him to America ProtonMail mobil ile gönderildi -------- Özgün İleti -------- 11 Ağu 2021 16:35, Peter Fairbrother yazdı:
On 11/08/2021 04:31, jim bell wrote:
To: Stephan Simanowit Amnesty International press@amnesty.org
From: Jim Bell
I am an American with great interest in Julian Assange's case, and probably engaged in discussions with him about 1995 (although at the time he was under a pseudonyn) on the Cypherpunks email list.
However, I happen to have learned Federal law, although I have never been a lawyer or paralegal: I spent probably 15,000 hours in various law libraries learning many areas of American Federal law.
Over the last few years, I realized that Assange has some issues(defenses) that I am not aware were being discussed in the news media. However, I haven't read the actual legal filings from the UK case, so I didn't learn if they have been used. However, I did send some of this material to Barrister Jennifer Robinson, who is Assange's barrister. I didn't get an answer, although I didn't expect to receive one.
A very brief description, gone into much greater detail below.
1. In virtually every issue against Assange, there appears to be no "extraterritoriality jurisdiction" present in American Federal law. This means that American courts have ruled that in order to apply American law to crimes committed in areas physically outside America,
However if the effect of a crime committed by person who is outside america is against eg a computer or other thing or person inside america, then in american law that crime was committed within the bounds of the unitedstates, notwithstanding that the criminal was not in america. So issues of extraterritoriality do not apply.
Applies also to some US forces when they are abroad, their bases and assets are sometimes regarded as being inside the unitedstates.
As an aside, for the purposes of the UK extradition hearing, whether the US courts have jurisdiction is a question of UK law, not US law.
It is just possible (though unlikely) that assange might be correctly extradited under UK law then a US court might decide not to continue on US law extraterritoriality grounds.
Peter Fairbrother
On Wednesday, August 11, 2021, 06:41:37 AM PDT, Peter Fairbrother <peter@tsto.co.uk> wrote: On 11/08/2021 04:31, jim bell wrote:
To: Stephan Simanowit Amnesty International press@amnesty.org
From: Jim Bell
I am an American with great interest in Julian Assange's case, and probably engaged in discussions with him about 1995 (although at the
time he was under a pseudonyn) on the Cypherpunks email list.
However, I happen to have learned Federal law, although I have never been a lawyer or paralegal: I spent probably 15,000 hours in various law libraries learning many areas of American Federal law.
Over the last few years, I realized that Assange has some issues(defenses) that I am not aware were being discussed in the news media. However, I haven't read the actual legal filings from the UK case, so I didn't learn if they have been used. However, I did send some of this material to Barrister Jennifer Robinson, who is Assange's barrister. I didn't get an answer, although I didn't expect to receive one.
A very brief description, gone into much greater detail below.
1. In virtually every issue against Assange, there appears to be no "extraterritoriality jurisdiction" present in American Federal law. This means that American courts have ruled that in order to apply American law to crimes committed in areas physically outside America,
However if the effect of a crime committed by person who is outside america is against eg a computer or other thing or person inside america, then in american law that crime was committed within the bounds of the unitedstates, notwithstanding that the criminal was not in america. So issues of extraterritoriality do not apply.
Yes, that's an ARGUMENT, but it isn't clear to me that it's a VALID argument. I haven't had access to the LEXIS law library computer system for nearly a decade. Today, and even 2009, generally Internet users don't know where the computer their inquiries are accessing resides. It would be somewhat grotesque if people automatically became subject to foreign law if they had no idea they were accessing a foreign-located computer. Keep in mind that most American laws involving computers or crimes were written prior to the time when the Internet 'turned on' for most people; I think of the year 1995 as being that approximate point in time.
Applies also to some US forces when they are abroad, their bases andassets are sometimes regarded as being inside the unitedstates. As an aside, for the purposes of the UK extradition hearing, whether the US courts have jurisdiction is a question of UK law, not US law.
Well, I think that UK courts could look to American law to determine if American courts are purported to have jurisdiction. I cited a lot of American court decisions, some indicating that unless the statute itself claimed "extraterritorial jurisdiction" (not necessarily in those literal words), American law has no jurisdiction. I believe most American criminal computer law was and remains old, written long before people thought of accessing foreign computers remotely. That suggests that Congress did not even consider extraterritoriality in writing those laws. "It is just possible (though unlikely) that assange might be correctly extradited under UK law then a US court might decide not to continue on US law extraterritoriality grounds." There is also the issue of "dual criminality", the idea that if an extradition is to occur, a given act must be considered a crime by both the sending nation and the receiving nation. One more issue is that if there is indeed 'dual criminality', then logically some kind of prosecution is appropriate for UK, but we haven't seen that, or even heard about it. Also, remember that I described an argument based on the limitation period ("statute of limitations"), pointing out that if there is indeed extraterritorial jurisdiction, then Assange should have been considered 'within US jurisdiction' from 2009 through 2015, and so the likely 5-year limitations period should have expired 5-6 years ago. I certainly believe a valid argument against extradition is that there is no limitation period valid excluding the time the American government attempted to begin extradition. One of the reasons that I forwarded a copy of my arguments to Jennifer Robinson, Assange's barrister, is to ensure that she was at least exposed to the arguments. I'd certainly be willing to read arguments made, both by American government lawyers, and Assange's lawyers, as well as UK lawyers, to determine if they are considering the matters I see as being valid. Jim Bell
On Sunday, August 22, 2021, 01:51:16 AM PDT, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote: On Wednesday, August 11, 2021, 06:41:37 AM PDT, Peter Fairbrother <peter@tsto.co.uk> wrote: On 11/08/2021 04:31, jim bell wrote:
To: Stephan Simanowit Amnesty International press@amnesty.org
From: Jim Bell
[snip]
1. In virtually every issue against Assange, there appears to be no "extraterritoriality jurisdiction" present in American Federal law. This means that American courts have ruled that in order to apply American law to crimes committed in areas physically outside America,
However if the effect of a crime committed by person who is outside america is against eg a computer or other thing or person inside america, then in american law that crime was committed within the bounds of the unitedstates, notwithstanding that the criminal was not in america. So issues of extraterritoriality do not apply.
Yes, that's an ARGUMENT, but it isn't clear to me that it's a VALID argument. I haven't had access to the LEXIS law library computer system for nearly a decade. Today, and even 2009, generally Internet users don't know where the computer their inquiries are accessing resides. It would be somewhat grotesque if people automatically became subject to foreign law if they had no idea they were accessing a foreign-located computer. Keep in mind that most American laws involving computers or crimes were written prior to the time when the Internet 'turned on' for most people; I think of the year 1995 as being that approximate point in time.
Applies also to some US forces when they are abroad, their bases andassets are sometimes regarded as being inside the unitedstates. As an aside, for the purposes of the UK extradition hearing, whether the US courts have jurisdiction is a question of UK law, not US law.
Well, I think that UK courts could look to American law to determine if American courts are purported to have jurisdiction. I cited a lot of American court decisions, some indicating that unless the statute itself claimed "extraterritorial jurisdiction" (not necessarily in those literal words), American law has no jurisdiction. I believe most American criminal computer law was and remains old, written long before people thought of accessing foreign computers remotely. That suggests that Congress did not even consider extraterritoriality in writing those laws. "It is just possible (though unlikely) that assange might be correctly extradited under UK law then a US court might decide not to continue on US law extraterritoriality grounds." There is also the issue of "dual criminality", the idea that if an extradition is to occur, a given act must be considered a crime by both the sending nation and the receiving nation. One more issue is that if there is indeed 'dual criminality', then logically some kind of prosecution is appropriate for UK, but we haven't seen that, or even heard about it. Also, remember that I described an argument based on the limitation period ("statute of limitations"), pointing out that if there is indeed extraterritorial jurisdiction, then Assange should have been considered 'within US jurisdiction' from 2009 through 2015, and so the likely 5-year limitations period should have expired 5-6 years ago. I certainly believe a valid argument against extradition is that there is no limitation period valid excluding the time the American government attempted to begin extradition. One of the reasons that I forwarded a copy of my arguments to Jennifer Robinson, Assange's barrister, is to ensure that she was at least exposed to the arguments. I'd certainly be willing to read arguments made, both by American government lawyers, and Assange's lawyers, as well as UK lawyers, to determine if they are considering the matters I see as being valid. Jim Bell The URL here has a lot of potentially relevant information: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-1025.pdf Extraterritorial Jurisdiction See Pages 6+7. "Extraterritorial Jurisdiction " "There is one jurisdictional aspect of paragraph 1030(a)(3) that is unclear. Under whatcircumstances, if any, does the paragraph reach hacking initiated or occurring overseas? As ageneral rule, federal laws are presumed to apply within the United States and not overseas.12 Insome instances, Congress explicitly negates the presumption. The treason statute, for example,outlaws the offense whether committed “within the United States or elsewhere.”13 "In other instances, when the criminal statute is silent, the courts will conclude that Congress musthave intended the statute to apply to overseas misconduct because of the nature of the offense andthe circumstances under which it was committed. For example, the Supreme Court concluded thatCongress must have intended the federal statute that prohibited fraud against the federalgovernment to apply to fraud against the United States committed abroad, particularly whenthe offenders were Americans.14 The Court later decided that a federal statute that outlawedconspiracy to violate federal law applied to an overseas conspiracy to smuggle liquor into thiscountry.15 "In the cybercrime context, at least one court determined that paragraph 1030(a)(4), whichprohibits unauthorized computer access to defraud, applied to a hacker in Russia who gainedunauthorized access to “protected computers” in this country.16 The court’s conclusion wasinfluenced by an amendment in which Congress had added computers used in “foreign commerceor communications” to the definition of “protected computers” and by the legislative history ofwhy it did so.17 While the case was pending, Congress further amended the definition of“protected computer” to include “a computer located outside the United States that is used in amanner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States.”18 [end of quote]
On Sunday, 22 August 2021, 06:52:16 pm AEST, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote: "It is just possible (though unlikely) that assange might be correctly extradited under UK law then a US court might decide not to continue on US law extraterritoriality grounds. There is also the issue of "dual criminality", the idea that if an extradition is to occur, a given act must be considered a crime by both the sending nation and the receiving nation. One more issue is that if there is indeed 'dual criminality', then logically some kind of prosecution is appropriate for UK, but we haven't seen that, or even heard about it ..." I think the UK is officially happy to let this crime be prosecuted in the USA with only the proviso of ' cruel and unusual punishment ' holding things up till recently. "... Also, remember that I described an argument based on the limitation period ("statute of limitations"), pointing out that if there is indeed extraterritorial jurisdiction, then Assange should have been considered 'within US jurisdiction' from 2009 through 2015, and so the likely 5-year limitations period should have expired 5-6 years ago. I certainly believe a valid argument against extradition is that there is no limitation period valid excluding the time the American government attempted to begin extradition. One of the reasons that I forwarded a copy of my arguments to Jennifer Robinson, Assange's barrister, is to ensure that she was at least exposed to the arguments. ..." Well she must be an expert in that field of law by now so the fact she hasn't raised this might tell us something. There is also added evidence re some CIA leaks which Camp Assange is acting suspiciously furtive about. Logically any legal technicality that could have been invoked surely would have by now given multi-millionaire Assmange's high-powered legal team. You don't have to be a lawyer - jailhouse or otherwise - to see which way the winds blowing here. Btw - the number of non-American Normies exceeded loopy gringo Americans online in 2005.
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/22/chief-justice-of-england-wales-who-blo... Chief Justice of England & Wales, Who Blocked Lauri Love Extradition, Joins Bench for Assange Hearing https://freedom.press/news/press-freedom-coalition-calls-for-end-to-assange-... https://www.nuj.org.uk/resource/cia-reportedly-plotted-to-kidnap-and-assassi...
Edward Snowden : If we do not stop what is happening now, what is happening to JulianAssange is a crime and he must be freed. If we’re going to free the world and we have to free Assange. Thank you and stay free. https://youtu.be/E_xxGWAxlGc Açık Pzt, Eki 25, 2021 10:26, grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> yazdı:
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/22/chief-justice-of-england-wales-who-blo... Chief Justice of England & Wales, Who Blocked Lauri Love Extradition, Joins Bench for Assange Hearing
https://freedom.press/news/press-freedom-coalition-calls-for-end-to-assange-...
https://www.nuj.org.uk/resource/cia-reportedly-plotted-to-kidnap-and-assassi...
The Most Important Battle For Press Freedom In Our Time https://www.mintpressnews.com/chris-hedges-important-battle-press-freedom-ti... https://www.cadtm.org/Collateral https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/15/julian-assange-indictment-fail... https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/ For the past two days, I have been watching the extradition hearing for Julian Assange via video link from London. The United States is appealing a lower court ruling that denied the US request to extradite Assange not, unfortunately, because in the eyes of the court he is innocent of a crime, but because, as Judge Vanessa Baraitser in January concluded, Assange’s precarious psychological state would deteriorate given the “harsh conditions” of the inhumane US prison system, “causing him to commit suicide.” The United States has charged Assange with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of trying to hack into a government computer, charges that could see him imprisoned for 175 years. Assange, with long white hair, appeared on screen the first day from the video conference room in HM Prison Belmarsh. He was wearing a white shirt with an untied tie around his neck. He looked gaunt and tired. He did not appear in court, the judges explained, because he was receiving a “high dose of medication.” On the second day he was apparently not present in the prison’s video conference room. Assange is being extradited because his organization WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs in October 2010, which documented numerous US war crimes — including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateral murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to US checkpoints. He is also being targeted by US authorities for other leaks, especially those that exposed the hacking tools used by the CIA known as Vault 7, which enables the spy agency to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers and the operating systems of most smart phones, as well as operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux. If Assange is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting, allowing the government to use the Espionage Act to charge any reporter who possesses classified documents, and any whistleblower who leaks classified information. If the appeal by the United States is accepted Assange will be retried in London. The ruling on the appeal is not expected until at least January. Assange’s September 2020 trial painfully exposed how vulnerable he has become after 12 years of detention, including seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He has in the past attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. He suffers from hallucinations and depression, takes antidepressant medication and the antipsychotic quetiapine. After he was observed pacing his cell until he collapsed, punching himself in the face and banging his head against the wall he was transferred for several months to the medical wing of the Belmarsh prison. Prison authorities found “half of a razor blade” hidden under his socks. He has repeatedly called the suicide hotline run by the Samaritans because he thought about killing himself “hundreds of times a day.” James Lewis, the lawyer for the United States, attempted to discredit the detailed and disturbing medical and psychological reports on Assange presented to the court in September 2020, painting him instead as a liar and malingerer. He excoriated the decision of Judge Baraitser to bar extradition, questioned her competence, and breezily dismissed the mountains of evidence that high-security prisoners in the United Sates, like Assange, subjected to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), and held in virtual isolation in supermax prisons, suffer psychological distress. He charged Dr. Michael Kopelman, emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, who examined Assange and testified for the defense, with deception for “concealing” that Assange fathered two children with his fiancée Stella Morris while in refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He said that, should the Australian government request Assange, he could serve his prison time in Australia, his home country, after his appeals had been exhausted, but stopped short of promising that Assange would not be held in isolation or subject to SAMs. The authority repeatedly cited by Lewis to describe the conditions under which Assange will be held and tried in the United States was Gordon Kromberg, the Assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Kromberg is the government’s grand inquisitor in cases of terrorism and national security. He has expressed open contempt for Muslims and Islam and decried what he calls “the Islamization of the American justice system.” He oversaw the 9-year persecution of the Palestinian activist and academic Dr. Sami Al-Arian and at one point refused his request to postpone a court date during the religious holiday of Ramadan. “They can kill each other during Ramadan, they can appear before the grand jury. All they can’t do is eat before sunset,” Kromberg said in a 2006 conversation, according to an affidavit filed by one of Arian’s attorneys, Jack Fernandez. Kromberg criticized Daniel Hale, the former Air Force analyst who recently was sentenced to 45 months in a supermax prison for leaking information about the indiscriminate killings of civilians by drones, saying Hale had not contributed to public debate, but had “endanger[ed] the people doing the fight.” He ordered Chelsea Manning jailed after she refused to testify in front of a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. Manning attempted to commit suicide in March 2020 while being held in the Virginia jail. Having covered the case of Syed Fahad Hashmi, who was arrested in London in 2006, I have a good idea of what waits Assange if he is extradited. Hashmi also was held in Belmarsh and extradited in 2007 to the United States where he spent three years in solitary confinement under SAMs. His “crime” was that an acquaintance who stayed in his apartment with him while he was a graduate student in London had raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks in luggage at the apartment. The acquaintance planned to deliver the items to al-Qaida. But I doubt the government was concerned with waterproof socks being shipped to Pakistan. The reason, I suspect, Hashmi was targeted was because, like the Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian, and like Assange, he was fearless and zealous in his defense of those being bombed, shot, terrorized and killed throughout the Muslim world while he was a student at Brooklyn College. Hashmi was deeply religious, and some of his views, including his praise of the Afghan resistance, were controversial, but he had a right to express these sentiments. More important, he had a right to expect freedom from persecution and imprisonment because of his opinions, just as Assange should have the freedom, like any publisher, to inform the public about the inner workings of power. Facing the possibility of a 70-year sentence in prison and having already spent four years in jail, much of it in solitary confinement, Hashmi accepted a plea bargain on one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. Judge Loretta Preska, who sentenced the hacker Jeremy Hammond and human rights attorney Steven Donziger, gave him the maximum 15-year sentence. Hashmi was held for nine years in Guantanamo-like conditions in the supermax ADX [Administrative Maximum] facility in Florence, Colorado, where Assange, if found guilty in an American court, will almost certainly be imprisoned. Hashmi was released in 2019. The pre-trial detention conditions Hashmi endured were designed to break him. He was electronically monitored 24-hours a day. He could only receive or send mail with his immediate family. He was prohibited from speaking with other prisoners through the walls. He was forbidden from taking part in group prayer. He was permitted one hour of exercise a day, in a solitary cage without fresh air. He has unable to see most of the evidence used to indict him which was classified under the Classified Information Procedures Act, enacted to prevent US intelligence officers under prosecution from threatening to reveal state secrets to manipulate the legal proceedings. The harsh conditions eroded his physical and psychological health. When he appeared in the final court proceeding to accept a guilty plea he was in a near catatonic state, clearly unable to follow the proceedings around him. If the government will go to this length to persecute someone who was alleged to have been involved in sending waterproof socks to al-Qaida, what can we expect the government to do to Assange? A society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice. The battle for Assange’s liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher. It is the most important battle for press freedom of our era. And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating, not only for Assange and his family, but for us. Tyrannies invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality. Those, such as Assange, who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion and violence. The long campaign against Assange and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of inverted totalitarianism, a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations and the security and surveillance state. There is no legal basis to hold Assange in prison. There is no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the US Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Assange and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Assange is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological if not physical disintegration.The architects of imperialism, the masters of war, the corporate-controlled legislative, judicial and executive branches of government and their obsequious courtiers in the media, are guilty of egregious crimes. Say this simple truth and you are banished, as many of us have been, to the margins of the media landscape. Prove this truth, as Assange, Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond and Edward Snowden have by allowing us to peer into the inner workings of power, and you are hunted down and persecuted. Assange’s “crime” is that he exposed the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians. He exposed the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 and 89, at Guantánamo. He exposed that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the UK, spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords, part of the long pattern of illegal surveillance that included the eavesdropping on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. He exposed that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA orchestrated the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing it with a murderous and corrupt military regime. He exposed that George W. Bush, Barack Obama and General David Petraeus prosecuted a war in Iraq that under post-Nuremberg laws is defined as a criminal war of aggression, a war crime, which authorized hundreds of targeted assassinations, including those of US citizens in Yemen. He exposed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb, and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians. He exposed that Goldman Sachs paid Hillary Clinton $657,000 to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe, and that she privately assured corporate leaders she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation and reform. He exposed the internal campaign to discredit and destroy British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by members of his own party. He exposed how the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency permits the wholesale government surveillance of our televisions, computers, smartphones and anti-virus software, allowing the government to record and store our conversations, images and private text messages, even from encrypted apps. He exposed the truth. He exposed it over and over and over until there was no question of the endemic illegality, corruption and mendacity that defines the global ruling elite. And for these truths alone he is guilty.
Digital privacy was a matter of human rights. Assange should not be prosecuted for leaked documents.If he's guilty of other matters, of course he should be tried.but it shouldn't be done to get back at him. ProtonMail mobil ile gönderildi -------- Özgün İleti -------- 11 Ağu 2021 01:09, zeynepaydogan yazdı:
He has a case tomorrow.Amnesty issued this statement
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/usa-uk-president-biden-must-d...
ProtonMail mobil ile gönderildi
My guess is that Assange will be extradited.I hope they don't return him to America ProtonMail mobil ile gönderildi -------- Özgün İleti -------- 11 Ağu 2021 01:09, zeynepaydogan yazdı:
He has a case tomorrow.Amnesty issued this statement
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/usa-uk-president-biden-must-d...
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https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/07/the-us-diplomatic-assurances-... The US diplomatic assurances are inherently unreliable. Julian Assange must be released This month, the Biden Administration offered diplomatic assurances to the British authorities that if they allow the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, the Administration will not imprison him in the most extreme American prison, ADX Florence, and will not subject him to the harsh regime known as “Special Administrative Measures” (SAMs). Il Fatto Quotidiano’s Stefania Maurizi asked Julia Hall for an analysis of these assurances and for comment on the Pegasus scandal, which Amnesty International has greatly contributed to exposing. The investigation on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks was opened by the Obama Administration, but it was Trump who charged him and we now have president Biden. Amnesty International is asking for the charges against Assange to be dropped. Do you believe it is likely that the Biden Administration will drop them? We had some hope early on, when the Biden Administration first took office in January, and we really thought that potentially there could be a review of the case. Biden was the vice president in the Obama Administration, and the Obama Administration clearly chose not to pursue Assange, and so there was some hope at the beginning. Then we saw the appeal. It was really quite disappointing, because we did think that possibly there was an opening there, and for reasons that the Administration has not articulated well so far, they have made the decision to pursue.
The strategy is to keep Assange detained as long as possible. It’s a kind of death by a thousand cuts.
Julia Hall. Amnesty International
At this point, I think the appeal will go through in the United Kingdom, and the disturbing thing about it, in addition to the fact that they are appealing at all, is how long things will take, how this really continues to harm Assange because of his conditions in detention in the UK, especially now with COVID-19. This is part of the strategy to keep him detained as long as possible, it’s a kind of death by a thousand cuts. Can you explain to us why Amnesty International thinks that diplomatic assurances will not work, and therefore opposes the extradition of Julian Assange to the US despite those assurances? The US made it very easy for us to oppose the extradition, because they gave with one hand and took away with the other. They say: we guarantee that he won’t be held in a maximum security facility and he will not be subjected to Special Administrative Measures and he will get healthcare. But if he does something that we don’t like, we reserve the right to not guarantee him, we reserve the right to put him in a maximum security facility, we reserve the right to offer him Special Administrative Measures. Those are not assurances at all. It is not that difficult to look at those assurances and say: these are inherently unreliable, it promises to do something and then reserves the right to break the promise. The judge, Vanessa Baraitser, who denied extradition last January, said: under section 91 of the Extradition Treaty, it would be oppressive to send Julian Assange to a situation in the United States where he may be subjected to conditions of detention that could lead him to self-harm or suicide. So when you look at the assurances and you see that the US government reserves the right to put him in a maximum security facility or to subject him to Special Administrative Measures, based on his conduct, you are not in a state where the prohibition of torture is absolute.
There is a much bigger issue at stake that goes way beyond Assange. The Assange case would affect so many people, should he be sent to the United States and prosecuted
Julia Hall, Amnesty International
The prolonged solitary confinement that exists in maximum security facilities, or if he is subjected to SAMs, are a violation of the ban on torture. The ban on torture cannot be conditioned on anything he does; it’s an absolute ban. No matter what you do, under international laws, you cannot be tortured. It’s really important to remember that the standard in Europe is: is a person at risk of torture or ill treatment? You don’t have to say that he will absolutely be tortured or ill-treated, you have to say: is it a situation where this person would be at risk of torture? The US has built that risk into these assurances. I have been studying this in the context of the US rendition programme for almost two decades. The US has made it easy for other governments to use assurances, but what this really does is undermine the international prohibition on torture. The UK government should not be involved in any further undermining of the global ban on torture, it should be promoting the global ban on torture. It is a much bigger issue that goes way beyond Assange. The Assange case would affect so many people, should he be sent to the United States and prosecuted. Journalists and experts who have followed the case for the last decade believe that what the US and the UK authorities want is for him to either commit suicide or leave the UK prison brain dead. Do you agree with this? I am not a forensic or medical expert on torture, what I can tell you is that international standards will be violated if he is transferred to the US, and we do have very serious concerns about the proceedings. They have been carried out for over two years with Assange in Belmarsh, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in conditions that have exacerbated his mental health conditions. It is clear to us that he should be released on bail, pending the conclusion of the proceedings in the UK. In the absence of the administration dropping the extradition, the court process has to continue, but in the middle of that, he should be released. You cannot have a court judgement saying: this person is at risk, because his mental health condition is so fragile, and then keep him in Belmarsh, which just continues to help degrade his mental health condition. There is action on the US part to drop the charges, but there are immediate actions that the UK can take right now, to alleviate and to mitigate the conditions that actually continue to contribute to his mental health status, which is quite fragile. Before his arrest, Julian Assange and his visitors were spied on inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. This week, Amnesty International greatly contributed to revealing how thousands of journalists, human rights activists and political leaders were potentially targeted by a cyberweapon called Pegasus, marketed by an Israeli company, NSO Group. Do you think it’s time for a global moratorium? Yes, we have called for a moratorium until a strong, effective, meaningful human rights regulatory framework is in place. Stop now, and let’s come together and create a framework where people like human rights defenders, journalists, opposition politicians, lawyers, they will not be targeted by that software and – or, if they are, they have recourse. Our call is strong and direct, it’s not ambiguous. It’s time to make people who defend the use of such tools for anti-terrorism purposes understand that these are weapons: the so-called cyberweapons. I actually think they already know. Governments are buying from this company, they can buy under the guise of only pursuing criminals and alleged terrorists, but it is key to the notion of the state monopoly on power that the state is going to use any new tool that it gets to maintain that power for purposes beyond those for which it was intended. It’s very clear what happens with this spyware. This is a wakeup call, really, to the rest of the world, that simply trusting that the government is going to purchase spyware only to catch the so-called bad guys is not true. It has been exposed through the work we have done as technical partners on this report, and our partners in Paris, Forbidden Stories, have done. This is such an important story and hopefully the public will be educated to roll back surveillance of this type. Twenty years after 9/11, we see that in our Western democracies the war criminals and the torturers are free, whereas Julian Assange is in prison precisely for revealing those crimes. Isn’t it time for public opinion to wake up before it is too late for our democracies? That is precisely what we are trying to do with this report on Pegasus, with the work on Assange. Who is really the perpetrator of the human rights violations, who is violating the humanitarian laws, who is committing war crimes? It is not Julian Assange, it is not dedicated journalists and publishers who put information in the public interest into the public domain. The perpetrators of these crimes are state actors or agents of the state, and that is why Assange is a threat and other publishers who do the same are a threat, because they push way beyond their weight in terms of holding the states accountable, and states don’t like it. Assange is such an important test case, because he is representative of all that, of state power, and if the US extradites him, if the US gets that long arm to reach out and grab a foreign publisher and bring him into the United States, and says he doesn’t have First Amendment rights to do what he does, that precedent can be damaging so far beyond this case, and that is why we are trying to forestall. mailto:zeynepaydogan@protonmail.com
Twenty years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the Afghanistan & Iraq wars has been held accountable, yet a publisher who exposed such crimes could face a lifetime in jail Sent from ProtonMail for iOS Açık Çar, Eki 27, 2021 14:42, zeynepaydogan <zeynepaydogan@protonmail.com> yazdı:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/07/the-us-diplomatic-assurances-...
The US diplomatic assurances are inherently unreliable. Julian Assange must be released
This month, the Biden Administration offered diplomatic assurances to the British authorities that if they allow the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, the Administration will not imprison him in the most extreme American prison, ADX Florence, and will not subject him to the harsh regime known as “Special Administrative Measures” (SAMs).
Il Fatto Quotidiano’s Stefania Maurizi asked Julia Hall for an analysis of these assurances and for comment on the Pegasus scandal, which Amnesty International has greatly contributed to exposing.
The investigation on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks was opened by the Obama Administration, but it was Trump who charged him and we now have president Biden. Amnesty International is asking for the charges against Assange to be dropped. Do you believe it is likely that the Biden Administration will drop them?
We had some hope early on, when the Biden Administration first took office in January, and we really thought that potentially there could be a review of the case. Biden was the vice president in the Obama Administration, and the Obama Administration clearly chose not to pursue Assange, and so there was some hope at the beginning. Then we saw the appeal. It was really quite disappointing, because we did think that possibly there was an opening there, and for reasons that the Administration has not articulated well so far, they have made the decision to pursue.
The strategy is to keep Assange detained as long as possible. It’s a kind of death by a thousand cuts.
Julia Hall. Amnesty International
At this point, I think the appeal will go through in the United Kingdom, and the disturbing thing about it, in addition to the fact that they are appealing at all, is how long things will take, how this really continues to harm Assange because of his conditions in detention in the UK, especially now with COVID-19. This is part of the strategy to keep him detained as long as possible, it’s a kind of death by a thousand cuts.
Can you explain to us why Amnesty International thinks that diplomatic assurances will not work, and therefore opposes the extradition of Julian Assange to the US despite those assurances?
The US made it very easy for us to oppose the extradition, because they gave with one hand and took away with the other. They say: we guarantee that he won’t be held in a maximum security facility and he will not be subjected to Special Administrative Measures and he will get healthcare. But if he does something that we don’t like, we reserve the right to not guarantee him, we reserve the right to put him in a maximum security facility, we reserve the right to offer him Special Administrative Measures. Those are not assurances at all. It is not that difficult to look at those assurances and say: these are inherently unreliable, it promises to do something and then reserves the right to break the promise.
The judge, Vanessa Baraitser, who denied extradition last January, said: under section 91 of the Extradition Treaty, it would be oppressive to send Julian Assange to a situation in the United States where he may be subjected to conditions of detention that could lead him to self-harm or suicide. So when you look at the assurances and you see that the US government reserves the right to put him in a maximum security facility or to subject him to Special Administrative Measures, based on his conduct, you are not in a state where the prohibition of torture is absolute.
There is a much bigger issue at stake that goes way beyond Assange. The Assange case would affect so many people, should he be sent to the United States and prosecuted
Julia Hall, Amnesty International
The prolonged solitary confinement that exists in maximum security facilities, or if he is subjected to SAMs, are a violation of the ban on torture. The ban on torture cannot be conditioned on anything he does; it’s an absolute ban. No matter what you do, under international laws, you cannot be tortured. It’s really important to remember that the standard in Europe is: is a person at risk of torture or ill treatment? You don’t have to say that he will absolutely be tortured or ill-treated, you have to say: is it a situation where this person would be at risk of torture? The US has built that risk into these assurances.
I have been studying this in the context of the US rendition programme for almost two decades. The US has made it easy for other governments to use assurances, but what this really does is undermine the international prohibition on torture. The UK government should not be involved in any further undermining of the global ban on torture, it should be promoting the global ban on torture.
It is a much bigger issue that goes way beyond Assange. The Assange case would affect so many people, should he be sent to the United States and prosecuted.
Journalists and experts who have followed the case for the last decade believe that what the US and the UK authorities want is for him to either commit suicide or leave the UK prison brain dead. Do you agree with this?
I am not a forensic or medical expert on torture, what I can tell you is that international standards will be violated if he is transferred to the US, and we do have very serious concerns about the proceedings. They have been carried out for over two years with Assange in Belmarsh, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in conditions that have exacerbated his mental health conditions.
It is clear to us that he should be released on bail, pending the conclusion of the proceedings in the UK. In the absence of the administration dropping the extradition, the court process has to continue, but in the middle of that, he should be released. You cannot have a court judgement saying: this person is at risk, because his mental health condition is so fragile, and then keep him in Belmarsh, which just continues to help degrade his mental health condition.
There is action on the US part to drop the charges, but there are immediate actions that the UK can take right now, to alleviate and to mitigate the conditions that actually continue to contribute to his mental health status, which is quite fragile.
Before his arrest, Julian Assange and his visitors were spied on inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. This week, Amnesty International greatly contributed to revealing how thousands of journalists, human rights activists and political leaders were potentially targeted by a cyberweapon called Pegasus, marketed by an Israeli company, NSO Group. Do you think it’s time for a global moratorium?
Yes, we have called for a moratorium until a strong, effective, meaningful human rights regulatory framework is in place. Stop now, and let’s come together and create a framework where people like human rights defenders, journalists, opposition politicians, lawyers, they will not be targeted by that software and – or, if they are, they have recourse. Our call is strong and direct, it’s not ambiguous.
It’s time to make people who defend the use of such tools for anti-terrorism purposes understand that these are weapons: the so-called cyberweapons.
I actually think they already know. Governments are buying from this company, they can buy under the guise of only pursuing criminals and alleged terrorists, but it is key to the notion of the state monopoly on power that the state is going to use any new tool that it gets to maintain that power for purposes beyond those for which it was intended. It’s very clear what happens with this spyware. This is a wakeup call, really, to the rest of the world, that simply trusting that the government is going to purchase spyware only to catch the so-called bad guys is not true. It has been exposed through the work we have done as technical partners on this report, and our partners in Paris, Forbidden Stories, have done. This is such an important story and hopefully the public will be educated to roll back surveillance of this type.
Twenty years after 9/11, we see that in our Western democracies the war criminals and the torturers are free, whereas Julian Assange is in prison precisely for revealing those crimes. Isn’t it time for public opinion to wake up before it is too late for our democracies?
That is precisely what we are trying to do with this report on Pegasus, with the work on Assange. Who is really the perpetrator of the human rights violations, who is violating the humanitarian laws, who is committing war crimes? It is not Julian Assange, it is not dedicated journalists and publishers who put information in the public interest into the public domain.
The perpetrators of these crimes are state actors or agents of the state, and that is why Assange is a threat and other publishers who do the same are a threat, because they push way beyond their weight in terms of holding the states accountable, and states don’t like it. Assange is such an important test case, because he is representative of all that, of state power, and if the US extradites him, if the US gets that long arm to reach out and grab a foreign publisher and bring him into the United States, and says he doesn’t have First Amendment rights to do what he does, that precedent can be damaging so far beyond this case, and that is why we are trying to forestall.
mailto:zeynepaydogan@protonmail.com
Amnesty's Simon Crowther on why the #AssangeCase is so important for freedom of expression: "(extraditing) would set a chilling precedent on journalists around the world, and has implications far beyond Julian Assange" https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1453386063171444744?s=21 Sent from ProtonMail for iOS Açık Çar, Eki 27, 2021 17:02, zeynepaydogan <zeynepaydogan@protonmail.com> yazdı:
Twenty years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the Afghanistan & Iraq wars has been held accountable, yet a publisher who exposed such crimes could face a lifetime in jail
Sent from ProtonMail for iOS
Açık Çar, Eki 27, 2021 14:42, zeynepaydogan <zeynepaydogan@protonmail.com> yazdı:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/07/the-us-diplomatic-assurances-...
The US diplomatic assurances are inherently unreliable. Julian Assange must be released
This month, the Biden Administration offered diplomatic assurances to the British authorities that if they allow the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, the Administration will not imprison him in the most extreme American prison, ADX Florence, and will not subject him to the harsh regime known as “Special Administrative Measures” (SAMs).
Il Fatto Quotidiano’s Stefania Maurizi asked Julia Hall for an analysis of these assurances and for comment on the Pegasus scandal, which Amnesty International has greatly contributed to exposing.
The investigation on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks was opened by the Obama Administration, but it was Trump who charged him and we now have president Biden. Amnesty International is asking for the charges against Assange to be dropped. Do you believe it is likely that the Biden Administration will drop them?
We had some hope early on, when the Biden Administration first took office in January, and we really thought that potentially there could be a review of the case. Biden was the vice president in the Obama Administration, and the Obama Administration clearly chose not to pursue Assange, and so there was some hope at the beginning. Then we saw the appeal. It was really quite disappointing, because we did think that possibly there was an opening there, and for reasons that the Administration has not articulated well so far, they have made the decision to pursue.
The strategy is to keep Assange detained as long as possible. It’s a kind of death by a thousand cuts.
Julia Hall. Amnesty International
At this point, I think the appeal will go through in the United Kingdom, and the disturbing thing about it, in addition to the fact that they are appealing at all, is how long things will take, how this really continues to harm Assange because of his conditions in detention in the UK, especially now with COVID-19. This is part of the strategy to keep him detained as long as possible, it’s a kind of death by a thousand cuts.
Can you explain to us why Amnesty International thinks that diplomatic assurances will not work, and therefore opposes the extradition of Julian Assange to the US despite those assurances?
The US made it very easy for us to oppose the extradition, because they gave with one hand and took away with the other. They say: we guarantee that he won’t be held in a maximum security facility and he will not be subjected to Special Administrative Measures and he will get healthcare. But if he does something that we don’t like, we reserve the right to not guarantee him, we reserve the right to put him in a maximum security facility, we reserve the right to offer him Special Administrative Measures. Those are not assurances at all. It is not that difficult to look at those assurances and say: these are inherently unreliable, it promises to do something and then reserves the right to break the promise.
The judge, Vanessa Baraitser, who denied extradition last January, said: under section 91 of the Extradition Treaty, it would be oppressive to send Julian Assange to a situation in the United States where he may be subjected to conditions of detention that could lead him to self-harm or suicide. So when you look at the assurances and you see that the US government reserves the right to put him in a maximum security facility or to subject him to Special Administrative Measures, based on his conduct, you are not in a state where the prohibition of torture is absolute.
There is a much bigger issue at stake that goes way beyond Assange. The Assange case would affect so many people, should he be sent to the United States and prosecuted
Julia Hall, Amnesty International
The prolonged solitary confinement that exists in maximum security facilities, or if he is subjected to SAMs, are a violation of the ban on torture. The ban on torture cannot be conditioned on anything he does; it’s an absolute ban. No matter what you do, under international laws, you cannot be tortured. It’s really important to remember that the standard in Europe is: is a person at risk of torture or ill treatment? You don’t have to say that he will absolutely be tortured or ill-treated, you have to say: is it a situation where this person would be at risk of torture? The US has built that risk into these assurances.
I have been studying this in the context of the US rendition programme for almost two decades. The US has made it easy for other governments to use assurances, but what this really does is undermine the international prohibition on torture. The UK government should not be involved in any further undermining of the global ban on torture, it should be promoting the global ban on torture.
It is a much bigger issue that goes way beyond Assange. The Assange case would affect so many people, should he be sent to the United States and prosecuted.
Journalists and experts who have followed the case for the last decade believe that what the US and the UK authorities want is for him to either commit suicide or leave the UK prison brain dead. Do you agree with this?
I am not a forensic or medical expert on torture, what I can tell you is that international standards will be violated if he is transferred to the US, and we do have very serious concerns about the proceedings. They have been carried out for over two years with Assange in Belmarsh, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in conditions that have exacerbated his mental health conditions.
It is clear to us that he should be released on bail, pending the conclusion of the proceedings in the UK. In the absence of the administration dropping the extradition, the court process has to continue, but in the middle of that, he should be released. You cannot have a court judgement saying: this person is at risk, because his mental health condition is so fragile, and then keep him in Belmarsh, which just continues to help degrade his mental health condition.
There is action on the US part to drop the charges, but there are immediate actions that the UK can take right now, to alleviate and to mitigate the conditions that actually continue to contribute to his mental health status, which is quite fragile.
Before his arrest, Julian Assange and his visitors were spied on inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. This week, Amnesty International greatly contributed to revealing how thousands of journalists, human rights activists and political leaders were potentially targeted by a cyberweapon called Pegasus, marketed by an Israeli company, NSO Group. Do you think it’s time for a global moratorium?
Yes, we have called for a moratorium until a strong, effective, meaningful human rights regulatory framework is in place. Stop now, and let’s come together and create a framework where people like human rights defenders, journalists, opposition politicians, lawyers, they will not be targeted by that software and – or, if they are, they have recourse. Our call is strong and direct, it’s not ambiguous.
It’s time to make people who defend the use of such tools for anti-terrorism purposes understand that these are weapons: the so-called cyberweapons.
I actually think they already know. Governments are buying from this company, they can buy under the guise of only pursuing criminals and alleged terrorists, but it is key to the notion of the state monopoly on power that the state is going to use any new tool that it gets to maintain that power for purposes beyond those for which it was intended. It’s very clear what happens with this spyware. This is a wakeup call, really, to the rest of the world, that simply trusting that the government is going to purchase spyware only to catch the so-called bad guys is not true. It has been exposed through the work we have done as technical partners on this report, and our partners in Paris, Forbidden Stories, have done. This is such an important story and hopefully the public will be educated to roll back surveillance of this type.
Twenty years after 9/11, we see that in our Western democracies the war criminals and the torturers are free, whereas Julian Assange is in prison precisely for revealing those crimes. Isn’t it time for public opinion to wake up before it is too late for our democracies?
That is precisely what we are trying to do with this report on Pegasus, with the work on Assange. Who is really the perpetrator of the human rights violations, who is violating the humanitarian laws, who is committing war crimes? It is not Julian Assange, it is not dedicated journalists and publishers who put information in the public interest into the public domain.
The perpetrators of these crimes are state actors or agents of the state, and that is why Assange is a threat and other publishers who do the same are a threat, because they push way beyond their weight in terms of holding the states accountable, and states don’t like it. Assange is such an important test case, because he is representative of all that, of state power, and if the US extradites him, if the US gets that long arm to reach out and grab a foreign publisher and bring him into the United States, and says he doesn’t have First Amendment rights to do what he does, that precedent can be damaging so far beyond this case, and that is why we are trying to forestall.
mailto:zeynepaydogan@protonmail.com
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