Yesterday’s court order from Britain’s High Court, that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could be extradited to the United States, is a heinous travesty of the law.
The verdict is the result of a 10-year political conspiracy involving the United States, Britain, Australia and Sweden, to persecute a brave journalist who exposed crimes committed by imperialist governments during their murderous invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lord Burnett of Maldon, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and Lord Justice Holroyde upheld an appeal by the US Government, ruling that a lower court, the Magistrate’s Court, should have given the US “the opportunity to offer assurances” about Assange’s treatment. Both judges accept that bail is now granted – from the circumstances under which, they were told in the appeal hearing, plotted the murder, kidnapping, surrender of Assange. [‘rendering’] and poisoned “-” enough to satisfy his “welfare” concerns.
With this ruling, the British judiciary has revealed its function as a compliant instrument of the British state, ready to give its stamp of approval to a dizzying campaign of crime, with devastating anti-democratic implications.
Assange’s lawyers turned US “insurance” into dust during the trial, which was not really the case, and they provided extensive evidence of the CIA’s illegal siege of him, including a highly credible investigation conducted by Yahoo! News and the ongoing criminal investigation in Spain, which documents that his kidnapping and murder was premeditated at the highest levels of government.
The UK High Court referred to this argument before passing the sentence: “A statement of public opinion that calls into question the goodwill of the United States [‘good faith’], of those who do not have the relevant expertise to have such a formation, nothing more than a journalistic opinion drawn from an internet search. “
The judges continued: “The reality is that this court was invited to deny US insurance, either on the grounds that the insurance was not offered in good faith or for some reason, the insurance was unacceptable at face value. This is a serious charge, especially considering the UK and the United States have a long history of cooperation on extradition cases … »
They concluded: “There is no reason why this court should not accept insurance to interpret what they say.”
In other words, the court cares not one bit about Assange’s blatantly neglected legal and democratic rights, but rather about promoting the interests and relations of British and American imperialism. The court has now handed down a court ruling threatening the WikiLeaks founder with life in prison or death for exposing ruling class war crimes and other atrocities, and thus paving the way for a comprehensive attack on freedom of expression.
Assange’s extradition may be imminent. There is no belief that he can appeal to Britain’s highest court, the UK Supreme Court, or to the EU’s highest court, the European Court of Justice. Wheel of handover operation for 10 years [‘rendition’], who has seen Assange arbitrarily arrested, spied on, stolen from, arrested and dragged out of foreign embassies, stripped of his asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship, mentally tortured, subject to retaliation, and years in prison without charge in maximum security prison, they once again moved.
Even if an appeal were to be accepted, the exclusive legal path to freedom would, at best, mean Assange’s continued imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison under the same intolerable conditions he has now suffered for more than two and a half years.
This fate was handed down by the British High Court in conjunction with US President Joe Biden, Assange’s chief prosecutor. [‘persecutor-in-chief’], hosted the “Democracy Summit” where a group of mass murderers were involved, including Rodrigo Duterte from the Philippines and Jair Bolsanaro from Brazil, where a $3.5 million fund for a journalism protection platform was announced – the Journalism Protection Platform – to “provide journalists at risk.” with digital and physical safety training, psychosocial care, legal aid and other forms of assistance”.
In Britain, on the same day, the upper house of parliament, the House of Lords, held a debate on the importance of freedom of expression, not even mentioning Assange.
The abhorrent hypocrisy of the American and British ruling classes will not surprise the broad masses of the population, who view their outcast government with a just and well-deserved contempt. The question they want to ask is not “How did they do this?” but: “How did they get away with it?” and “What must be done to stop them?”
Any answer must be based on a serious political assessment of events to date. To date, the fight for Assange’s freedom has been handed over to a formal campaign centered on administering justice through the courts, and on appeals based on the tired ranks of the labor bureaucracy, and generosity and goodwill. liberals and right-wing libertarians. This perspective has proven to be a disaster.
Former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn and Labor MP from the Socialist Campaign Group have been hailed as key supporters of Assange’s case. But their support, limited to the past two years, has consisted only of worrying tweets, appeals to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and sermons on British justice. Corbyn’s sole boring and bland tweet yesterday came seven hours after the sentencing, in which he whispered: “Julian Assange shouldn’t be extradited for revealing an unpleasant truth”, and only drew attention to their true passivity.
Appropriate hopes and beliefs have been put into the media, which at the 12th hour officially opposed Assange’s extradition. But the truth is that no matter what editorial editorials and feature articles these organizations may publish, no matter where they turn, the sentiment in the newsroom Guardian and New York Time satisfied smile. They spent years paving the way for yesterday’s verdict. They now hoped that Assange, who had threatened to disrupt their comfortable relationship with their respective ruling classes, would finally be forgotten.
It should be noted that Guardian held a verdict report, the most significant and consistent in the history of journalism in half a century, high on their front page just hours before being referred deep down the page, to the “Around the world” section, placed under the subgroup “From the UK ».
Guardian and their turn in favor of symbolic support for Assange came only when his case was safely confined to the judiciary, after years of campaigning with slander designed to isolate him from the decisive factor in securing his freedom. : Mass support for WikiLeaks in the global population.
Attempts to turn Assange into a pariah have been supported in various ways, or left unopposed, by international quasi-leftist organizations. Among them is the British group Counterfire, of which prominent member John Rees now leads the Don’t Extradite Assange group. [‘Ikke utlever Assange’]. The entire orientation of this official campaign is to current or previous participants in the criminal effort against Assange, to a social stratum that provides no basis for democratic rights and the struggle to defend them.
The struggle is caused by the international working class, which is experiencing increasingly open conflict with the capitalist social order on its forced journey to dictatorship and war. A series of major strikes, often in direct conflict with union bureaucratic efforts to impose company-wide contracts on them, marked a dramatic change in the global situation since the campaign to silence Assange began.
The pandemic, the intensive exploitation of the working population to make up for the allocations arranged by the oligarchs on the mountain of corpses, and the thrust towards war with the nuclear powers Russia and China, threatening millions more, prompted an escalating wave of class struggle.
It is to this enormous social force that the campaign to free Assange must be directed. His case should be made a campaign issue for the independent working class political movement which is now being expressed in the formation of basic planning committees around the world. This movement will gather behind it all the progressive social forces, including sections of the middle and professional classes. World Socialist Website and the Socialist Equality Party will continue this struggle.
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