Assange Wikileaks: Held for USA after Bail Sentence Ends

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https://twitter.com/defendassange

Julian Assange is in solitary confinement in conditions that obstruct
his ability to prepare his US extradition case. He finished serving a
50-week sentence for seeking & receiving asylum on 22 September 2019
and is now in jail solely on behalf of the Trump administration
Assange, who has been held in solitary confinement in HMP Belmarsh,
will continue to be imprisoned for at least five more months, until
his extradition hearing currently scheduled for February 2020.

UN Special Rapporteur on torture: “In 20 years..I have never seen a
group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate,
demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with
so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law”


https://defend.wikileaks.org/2019/09/23/bail-sentence-ends-uk-now-holding-assange-solely-on-us-behalf/

Bail sentence ends: UK now holding Assange solely on US’ behalf

On 22 September 2019, Julian Assange’s sentence for a bail violation
conviction ended, but he was not released from HMP Belmarsh. Beginning
today, 23 September, the United Kingdom is detaining Julian solely on
behalf of the United States, which requests his extradition and has
charged him with 18 counts carrying 175 years in prison for publishing
information in the public interest.

Before Assange’s lawyers even had the opportunity to file a bail
application, and without giving notice that she would do so, District
Judge Vanessa Baraitser preemptively announced that when his sentence
ended, she would deny bail and continue to detain him.

Judge Baraitser told Assange, who appeared by video-link,

    “You have been produced today because your sentence of
imprisonment is about to come to an end. When that happens your remand
status changes from a serving prisoner to a person facing
extradition.”

This means the UK is now holding Julian only on the basis of the US’
extradition request, and there can be no pretense of UK or Sweden
issues keeping him in prison. As former British ambassador Craig
Murray wrote, now that Assange’s sentence has ended,

    “The sole reason for his incarceration [is now] the publishing of
the Afghan and Iraq war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning, with their
evidence of wrongdoing and multiple war crimes.”

This also means Assange will continue to be imprisoned for at least
five more months, until his extradition hearing currently scheduled
for February 2020. Assange has been held in solitary confinement in
HMP Belmarsh’s health ward, as his health has deteriorated.

After UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer visited Assange in
May (before he was moved to the health ward), he wrote that
Assange—who had spent the previous seven years without sunlight in the
limited space of Ecuador’s Embassy in London—had suffered
psychological torture.

Assange has been so isolated that he can lose track of the date and
the day of the week. On his birthday, 3 July, Julian could hear that
people had congregated outside of Belmarsh, but he couldn’t make out
what they were saying. Assange didn’t know that it was his birthday
and only found out the next day, and then he realized that supporters
had come to wish him a happy birthday.
Assange extradition would set terrifying precedent

Judge Baraitser will also preside over Julian Assange’s extradition
hearing, scheduled for five days in February. In that trial, the
United Kingdom will rule whether or not to send Assange into the hands
of Donald Trump, whose Justice Department has charged him with 17
counts under the 1917 Espionage Act (and 1 count of conspiracy to
commit a computer crime) for publishing documents detailing the US’
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and its diplomatic activity in 2010. The
charges, the first such charges for a journalist in US history,
constitute a grave assault on press freedom around the world.

Furthermore, the proposed extradition poses a serious threat to
European sovereignty. If the UK sends an Australian journalist in
Europe to the United States for the “crime” of publishing truthful
information in the public interest—information which virtually every
major news outlets around the world has since published as well, and
information which the UK Supreme Court has deemed admissible
evidence—it will set a dangerous precedent for the global application
of US state secrecy laws. Such an extradition would effectively grant
permission for the Trump Administration to dictate what can and cannot
be published outside of its borders.

The charges against Assange have been condemned by virtually all press
freedom groups, human rights organisations, major news outlets, and
leading US and EU politicians, in recognition of the glaring threat
they pose to global journalistic freedoms. These unprecedented and
manifestly political charges are the basis of the US’ extradition
request, which is now the sole reason for which the United Kingdom is
imprisoning Assange.