Assange Extradition: Blatant Judicial Double Standards
The Cynic
The judge who was previously in charge of the Julian Assange extradition case was in the headlines again over another extradition case, this time refusing to extradite a UK couple because they faced a life sentence for murder, with no prospect of release.
Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot ruled that a London couple could not be extradited to India for trial over a double murder because, if convicted, they faced life imprisonment with no prospect of release – she said “an irreducible sentence” and a lack of a review would be “inhuman and degrading”, under the UK Human Rights Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.
Instead, the couple will now be allowed to go free and receive no trial at all, despite accepted prima facie evidence implicating them in a brutal double murder.
By contrast, this same judge, Emma Arbuthnot, foresaw no such problems extraditing Julian Assange to the USA, to face a 175 year prison-sentence. Realistically, Assange would have no prospect of release, in any circumstances.
In USA, sentences of life without parole are frequently imposed, often for quite minor offences, under “three strikes” laws – these prisoners are frequently kept in until they die, with no compassionate release. If these minor offenders have no chance of parole, what chance has Assange? Parole after 1/3 of his sentence – i.e. after 58 years?
Or is the mere existence of a nominal review process, regardless of whether this has any real meaning, enough to satisfy the Human Rights Act? Is this what human rights are about in Britain – a mere box-tick, rather than real protection?
Is the USA a nation that applies the standards of treatment for prisoners required by Human Rights Act and the ECHR? What about the other abuses applied to political prisoners, such as the conditions under which Bradley/Chelsea Manning was held, in solitary confinement, wakened every 20 minutes during the night, as alleged “suicide protection”?
What about other prisoners held for decades in solitary confinement, such as Albert Woodfox in solitary for 40 years? What about the widespread, often systemic, abuse of ordinary prisoners, which has led to protests, huge prisoner–strikes and uprisings?
This is before even considering whether any nation that wants to prosecute a journalist for the political crime of telling the truth has any meaningful system of justice at all, or whether its courts merely hold show-trials.
What does the Human Rights Act require, in terms of treatment of prisoners, in the eyes of Judge Emma Arbuthnot and of British justice in general?
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Crispy obviously has nothing better to do with his time or his life…
Assange is a TRAITOR
He played silly buggers with the empire and now he’s gonna get a good f@#king for it
He should have f@#ked off to Russia, with that other greasy twat, what’s his name???, and then he could have given stacks of daft interviews with Oliver Stone and Putin
crispy, your comment doesn’t tell what is wrong with Assange, Putin or whatever.
sobriety, always advisable addressing a/holes, trolls, shills & shells from the 77th, incoming,
triggers astute & apt amnesia … in the long run, forget it !
Don’t feed the troll, yet …
let him be: a complete prostitute š bread & butter from military intelligence:
pretty basic stuff, our crispy duck, first in line: easy to see,
lol, mother’s pride . . . š
No helping some.
Hmmm, crispy duck with stir fried veges is rather yummy.
However, this Crispy is just another shill for the odious Empire. You’re right Tim: Don’t feed the buggers, it only gives them a boost to their ego.
That’s why I don’t reply to Proyectile (okay, yeah, I did once).
All just symptoms of the moral decay that’s gnawing at the heart of the countries.
Newly with added ‘N’ (YTato) Projectile Louis, a classic example where the odd shot across the New Young Turk & New York Times bows can make for fun, just to watch him act all fat bellied duck like, flying for cover, but fatally struggling to ever get airborne, like a virus in a whirlpool … š
Hiya Tim. Just got back from a street campaign outside a shopping centre to raise awareness about Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning and to hand out leaflets for a rally in Melbourne next Sunday opposing extradition and in support of JA and CM.
The campaign was held in a suburb with a high density of hipsters and upwardly mobile young professionals. Also known as Yuppies. I was just helping out with leaflets, but you can probably guess what happened. Should I repeat the words… Hipsters and Yuppies?
What were you saying about the moral decay of society? The ethical bankruptcy of Neoliberal Western ‘society’, the rampant narcissism and straight out refusal to even want to know by the very large majority who walked past.
As soon as the name Julian Assange was spoken, that was it, they just stared straight ahead, made it very clear they couldn’t give a flying fig about Assange or Manning or anyone else.
But themselves.
To be fair, a small number did take leaflets and were very aware of the situation with Julian, and a few even connected the dots and saw the bigger picture. It was great that at least they got it.
But it was a tough gig, aye. I can’t just sit back and do nothing. Conscience Tim, conscience.
“…that other greasy twat, whatās his name???”
Tom Watson
Small balls specialists, all greased up, with VW sponsorship, sprang to mind.
Cannot think why … š
Anyone for Golf ?
Apart from Trump . . . & Tom Watson.
Knock on wood, hole in one.
What a charade & social cabaret, ask Ricky Gervais.
Two angels, looking over their shoulders discussing an impending & imposing incoming air bound Kobe halo slam dunk, from behind:- “This new guy is really annoying…” š
Troll crasspy, obviously as ignorant and arrogant as any member of the lying nazi party.
Strange how everybody on the planet regardless of nationality, whether they are Australians, Outer Mongolians or Eskimos, apparently has a duty of loyalty to the United Snakes, otherwise they are guilty of “treason” to a country they have never set foot in, and can be kidnapped from anywhere in the world by the Exceptional And Indispensable Folk and freighted off to face secret charges based on secret evidence before a secret Kangaroo court, followed by incarceration and torture for 500 years in one of their gulag dungeons.
Moronic septic tank. How the fuck is Assange a traitor?
This Assange Affair bothers me like the Labour ‘anti-semitism’ smear. I still can’t really grasp how the Labour leadership and Corbyn allowed themselves to be ‘played’ so obviously and openly and why they were so hopeless at defending themselves when confronted with the most outrageous and damaging accusations, lies and filthy smears.
They had years to react and develope a counter strategy and go on the offensive, only they were totally inadequate in their responses, for years. Corbyn himself was close to useless. He didn’t just appear weak. He was weak! He and the leadership seemed totally unwilling to face up to the terribly damaging nature of the anti-semitism smear campaign, why not? Why were Corbyn and his team so useless? So lacking in understanding? So lacking in even the most basic rhetorical skills so vital in modern politics. So slow to respond properly?
Honestly, if they couldn’t even manage this, were they ever really fit to run the country if by some miracle they ever formed a government? Lord knows, that was when the real battle would begin, after the got elected to power! And even now, the words about Assange are probably too little too late, feeble and timid, an excuse for a policy and a proper robust stance.
So many times Corbyn and Labour were given golden opportunities standing in fron of an open goal and failed to score, or even kick the fucking ball in the right direction, and in Corbyn’s case he wasn’t really sure if he even liked playing this kind of game very much to lower himself into kicking the ball at all!
It’s somewhat of a mystery to me how the British left became so totally useless. Is it the times? Is it the result of forty years of Thatcherism/Blairism? The crushing of the organised working class? The middle class turning into cynical prostitutes worried about their pathetic careers, whilst a perculiar British version of fascism emerged and took over the political culture?
I imagine that Corbyn was threatened. Perhaps they sent him video of John Smith having his ‘heart attack’ in the bath, paving the way for the 100% Sabbat Goy stooges, Blair and Brown. Or maybe his cat disappeared. Otherwise his cowardice was unforgivable. And it will only have encouraged those lying thugs to target any and everybody who ‘gets in their way’.
Or robyn the labour formwr foreign minister
Yeah yeah it’s all Corbyns fault!
Never mind the Bairites who got us into all the shit. Or the ‘liberal’ msm who are now just mutated into a single pillar of state.
Or the judiciary. Or the Bishops.
Fucking failed useless lawyer Braverman as AG!
Because Cox didn’t want to go down in history as delivering a political extradition!
Yup it’s still fucking JC’s fault for having sucumbed to a coup and letting a junta in to deliver the ancient City from a level playing field and an end to their centuries old racist imperialist murder and pillage.
Whatever you think of Jezza’s qualities, he ended up cheerleading for the Russiagate and Magnitsky hysteria, the White Helmets, and so much else in a similar vein. And he just threw under the bus decent people like Jackie Walker, Chris Williamson, and so many others. Then ran up the white flag and surrendered to the Board of Deputies, the Mossad Office, and the legions of low life Friends Of Israel, swallowing whole their Ten Commandments criminalising any and all criticism of Zionist racism, atrocities and war crimes.
You have to understand that when JC was accidentally raised to Leadership from ignored backbencher but trenchant anti-war, anti-racist campaigner, he acquired the role of LOYAL Opposition, which required inauguration into the poxy Privy Council, under the rules of which he has to operate. Secretive rules.
Even so he was subjected to gaslighting and mutiple chickencoup attempts and leadership challenges internally and pilloried in the controlled msm.
Every attempt at resisting the Anti Russian, Anti JudaeoPhobic accusation, anti-Syrian or anti-Venezuelan criminality or calling out the White Helmets or even the monetizing child politicising XR atrocities would have been used against him and the Labour ressurgence – you know that – wrestling with these pigs only gets you covered in muck.
He did well not to engage as he will be freer to do now with a presence much enhanced than a lifetime of being a ignored backbencher.
You think it easy to wrestle with the mudslingers – just see how the candidates had to deal with the further accusations of bullying and AS last night – the various FoI candidated being forced to accuse RLB of the same smears already A self selected organisation purporting to support less than 0.5% of the population claiming to hold moral superiority over elected representatives!
Yeah it’s all Corbyns fault …yaddaa yadda
(just incase anyone wants to make accusations – I am saying it loud and clear)
Utter cowardice, or complicity.
Corbyn, for whom I still have some time, adopted the fatal strategy of making concessions to his vicious enemies in the hope that would placate them and let him get on with his progressive programme. Perhaps he now realises that you don’t get rid of blackmailers by giving them what they want – that just encourages them to come back demanding more. Let’s hope the Labour left have learned this lesson, although I see little evidence they have.
For the best political analysis of the entire ‘antisemitism’ fraud, go to Tony Greenstein’s blog.
You CANNOT make concessions to the Zionassties. Just ask the Palestinians. Their ambition, arrogance and demanding nature are all insatiable. They do not regard any others as their equals and deserving of mutual respect.
I often think that liberals and the soft left. The ‘pretends’ typified by the Guardian. Really don’t understand the world very well. In fact their entire ‘culture’, backgrounds and educations, preclude this. The terrible truth is worse than they are merely incompetent and deeply corrupt, or simply careerist cynics. One can actually talk sense to a cynic after all. What’s depressing is that the people at the Guardian actually ‘believe’ in what they write and think, and honestly feel like they are on the side of all that’s proper and good in our society. That they are decent people doing their best under often difficult circumstances. This is the great liberal/left foundational myth or conceit. Underneath it all, we aren’t fascists or nazies. We, and the societies we live in are… different and much stronger and better. It can’t happen here! This is a frighteningly dangerous delusion.
It wasn’t because the Germans were inherently evil or bad that ‘monsters’ took over society and all manner of horrors were let loose. It was because the circumstances changed, because of WW1 and economic and social collapse, and the seemingly solid old order shattered and this allowed ‘monsters’ to gain power in a time that nutured ‘monsters’, in a monterous time.
‘We’ carried out crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq that echoed those of the Nazis to a remarkable degree. Torture, mass-murder of innocent civilians, burying people alive in mass-graves, destroying entire towns, villages and even cities. We turned into vicious barbarians capaple of terrible unspeakable crimes costing the lives of millions of Iraqies. Yet, Tony Blair and others responsible and culpable, still walk freely through our gilded streets. No one was held to account for our ‘mini-holocaust’ in Iraq. If we’d killed six million would that have even made a difference?
And now, in stark contrast, the torture and mistreatment of innocent people and defenceless prisoners has come over from Iraq to London, symbolised and typified by the outrageous treatement and persecution of Julian Assange. The blood-soaked ghostly chickens coming home to roost in our neatly trimmed gardens.
Yet, as in Nazi Germany, (it’s actually worse here) hardly a single journalist within the mainstream media has the courage or will to mention what’s happen, right out there in the open, in broad daylight, in front of our eyes.
And this is why Assange’s fate is so important. Convict him and deport him and it signals the death of journalism in the UK. The death of truth and another leap towards open fascism and further horrors waiting to come home and even worse monsters waiting in the wings, while the liberals remain silent and look the other way, as usual.
Journalism died in the MSM years ago. They’re just rounding up the residual trouble-makers.
Officials in successive Australian government have an unshakable belief in a robust British Justice system. Julie Bishop can attest to this.
Do the Silent Aussies know what garbage they vote for?
Sadly Sober, I think 36 years or so of Neoliberal policies and relentless propaganda has done an absolute hatchet job on the pysche of the majority of Aussies.
Howard was the coup de grace.
The majority don’t give a fruity fig as long as there’s something in it for them.
The majority don’t want to know about things like Yemen or Palestine or Julian Assange or anything else that would make their cocooned lives a bit uncomfortable or, god forbid, challenges their MSM acquired worldview that they got from a Murdoch rag or the Murdochritised ABC.
Richard Le Sarc has a pretty accurate term: ‘self lobotomised and self censored Aussies’
But this is true right across the World now, everyone staring at their phones, almost no one wanting to get involved, or too afraid to even make eye contact.
It’s a deeply sad state of affairs Sober.
A country so lobotomised that, barely days after a fire Holocaust without precedence (but MUCH worse is to come)followed by record hailstorms and huge inundations, both major parties are swearing undying allegiance to COAL mining. You’d really think that they are either so stupid as to be imbeciles, or they just do not care that they will ‘accidentally’, or deliberately, kill all our children and grand-children. And in ‘discussions’ between the presstitutes, the ‘guests’ always include one sub-cretinous,fat, hard Right male or female, spewing lies and idiocies, and actual ecological catastrophe is almost never mentioned. Apparently we must destroy the Great Barrier Reef and tens of thousands of tourism jobs, then the rest of the country, to protect the jobs of a few thousand coal-miners. Who refuse to ‘make lattes for tourists’, that being below their ‘dignity’. They want to do the same job as their fathers, while ensuring that their children will live in Hell. That they could EASILY be re-trained to do non-destructive and ‘dignified’ construction and remediation work, and that their coal-jobs are being rapidly automated and that ‘jobs’ really means ‘profits’ for hyper-obese coal barons, MUST never be, and is never, mentioned, and so we go, brain-dead, bereft of recollection even for ONE MONTH ago, like demented dead souls, happily to Hell.
And that’s what it always comes down to…. Money. Profits. $$$$.
The story Pablo had a week back here about Aussie tourists Bill & Sheila, and their terrified reaction to Pablo discussing what happened with 9/11 just summed it up perfectly for me.
I see that every day Richard.
Amazing how so many quiet Australians keep voting for retards!
So much rubbish about the government, without even mentioning the ‘religious’ fever and fervour that is gripping the ruling elites. But let’s talk about it another day.
howard is an arsehole who should be in jail,(for life), along with blair, bush and others as war criminals.
Sadly Sober, I think 36 or so years of Neoliberalism and rampant propaganda has done a real hatchet job on the pysche of most Aussies.
The majority couldn’t give a fruity fig as long as there’s something in it for them.
The majority don’t want to know about things like Yemen or Palestine or anything that might make their cocooned lives a bit uncomfortable.
Or have their MSM acquired worldview challenged by any alternative views.
Yep, the majority of Aussie voters are brain dead morons getting by on the bile and outright lies of news corpse inspired msm.
Even the ‘independent’ public broadcasters, abc and sbs, have succumbed to the pressures of threatened and actual funding cuts for not ‘toeing the neo-liberal line’.
It’s so bad that I don’t watch the news at all now, preferring to be informed by sites like this and Independent Australia, etc.
Occasionally still go on Independent Australia or Caitlin Johnstone, used to go on New Matilda, and yeah, NM did publish some really brilliant articles by Lissa Johnson regards Julian Assange, but overall, they’re just too mainstream and a bit ‘vanilla’ for me.
This site, and others like The Saker, The Grayzone, Strategic Culture and WSWS, for example, have much more challenging, in depth, and thought provoking articles in my opinion.
ABC and SBS are fully fledged mouthpieces for the Empire and imperialism. Like you, I boycott them.
The ABC rolled over completely for the Right in 1996 when Howard took over. It was never really ‘Left’, but now is just a carbon copy of the Murdoch cancer, with numerous Murdochite vermin in its ranks.
Yep, all true, which is why 98.7% of the time, my TV is off, tho last night SBS broadcast the John Pilger documentary The Dirty War On The NHS, which was absolutely excellent.
And revelatory of the Neoliberal zombies pushing all this – chinless wonders; Tony Blair clones educated at the elite universities.
Only found out about it showing coz WSWS had a story on it yesterday.
A list of all these arseholes who are the enemies of the people and protectors of their ancient banker masters is in order – for sure they have made lists of our names – come the revolution, when we win, the rush to put the bastards first against the wall, should be judicious and based on proven deeds and crimes, eh Cynic?
This is subjective and anecdotal, and just ‘gossip’ I suppose. But a friend on mine, who’s a barrister, told me that the word is, in those circles, that there’s a certain… ‘reluctance’ to proceed with this case among members of the legal profession, because the Assange Affair is so obviously Political in character and… ‘stained.’ Too much of the stink of shit can rub off on too many people, which makes them… wary.
It seems, according to my source, that the case is so political, so vast, so complex,so riddled with huge legal and moral principles and so potentially toxic, that people are looking for ‘excuses’ not to pursue it, and using arguments that they have a massive workload already and find the timescale totally inadequate. It’s a form of delaying tactic, and this is from the prosecution side!
Secondly, another friend mentioned, once again rumours, that the Americans are having difficulty finding UK medical experts who are willing to examine Assange and sign off that he’s in rude health and doesn’t exhibit the signs that he’s been subjected to pyschological torture. This is a problem for them. So they are attempting to find US medical experts willing to examine Assange and give him a clean bill of health! Only that could easily lead to a conflict in court between two sets of medical experts, those from the UK vs those from the US and that leads to another set of problems.
Certainly the tide is slowly turning in Assange’s favour and all isn’t lost by any means. Fewer and fewer people want to be linked to a case that’s looking more and more like, potentially, one of the greatest and most obvious miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
On Ross Kemp’s documentary on Belmarsh a couple of weeks ago even Tommy Robinson, who could apparently see Assange’s cell if he stood in the right spot, said something like his solitary confinement was nothing compared to what they were doing to Assange.
Yaxley-Lemon is a state owned creature. Any mention and coverage of him by msm is perception management.
His role is ‘rabble-rouser’.
“Yaxley-Lemon is a state owned creature. Any mention and coverage of him by msm is perception management.
His role is ārabble-rouserā.”
Thanks for the view from Australia. I’ve noticed you spell “Labour” differently too. Personally, I was quite surprised to see Assange get some impressed respect from a Five Eyes favourite: they must be planning to acquit him (Assange) and are using Mr Jacksley-Lemon to arouse the public to get behind his subsequent assasination by a specially prepared hologram of Holden Caulfield (note the subtle Australian reference, though if you ask me it’s just a courtesy hat tip to their Drongo division, who get all hotted up at any mention of home grown Australiana like the Bee Gees).
Some halfwit with almost zero legal credentials and experience has just been made AG in the UK – which means JA’s chances just went down the drain. It’ll take a braver man to stop the Deep Staters of 5+1 from getting at him.
The actual real criminal prisoners of the Prison got JA out of solitary – they at least have a sense of justice.
Stephen Yaxley Lennon is a NOTHING and his profile is that of a nuevo petty fascist English leader, to be let lose with halfwit patriotic thugs to break heads when we are forced onto the streets and general strikes.
I’ll be seeing the pound shop Mossleyites down the Brick Lanes of the Country to give them what for, the dumb fucks.
The Zionist Mafia even tried to buy the BNP. They offered to fund Nick Griffin if he promised never to criticise Israel and just stir up trouble with moslems to serve their interests. He told them to get lost, so “Robinson” was their Plan B. The Ā£10,000 a month in Zionist money finances his flash cars and designer clothes and freebie trips to Israel and plenty of Israeli flags for him to wave about. The EDL is a wholly owned Zionist subsidiary, right down to its name.
Lennon isn’t in solitary. He has a TV, books, visits, exercise etc. He is removed from the general population because of his disruption. Anyone would do the same. Personally, I’d put the scroat in with Islamists.
“Lennon isnāt in solitary. He has a TV, books, visits, exercise etc.”
Kemp made the same point. Robinson’s point was no in-prison contacts, if that’s what you mean. If you’d been mostly out there on the streets mixing it up 24/7, that would seem to be a fair enough perception to me. And it’s past tense. The Kemp interview was on the day he was released. I use his stage name so as to avoid confusion with Yoko. Prat.
Snort.
What’s good whether those in the legal circles know about moral principles if they are not being able to provide Assange with a laptop? enable family and friends visits? guarantee freedom and fresh air for honest journalism?
Are they ready to prosecute Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot and her ilk? What are they waiting for?
Why no one is able to stop this miscarriage of justice if they know it is miscarriage of justice?
I only wish I had your confidence in professionals. In my experience, it has never been difficult to find someone with ambition, lack of scruples or just plain old attachment to money to do the dirty work. I feel sure doctors would be queuing round the block to sign off poor Julian……for the correct fee.
You may be right. Only my point is, that they are *not* queing round the block to sign off on poor Assange. Going into a court and ‘lying’ and then being subject to detailed cross-examination by the defence team and seeing one’s expert testimony demolished in public, isn’t something most professionals with any integrity want to subject themselves to or be involved in.
What’s so shameful is how unwilling the Guardian is to report properly and honestly about what’s happening to Assange. They’ve actually been given the opportunity on numerous occassions, but have delcined. They’ve adopted the exact stance of the UK and Swedish governments, who choose to ignore their crimes in relation to Assange. Only this is becoming increasingly difficult as the enormity and grotesque nature of what’s happening is slowly revealed.
The Guardian’s Evil treachery, and the diabolical hate-mongering, in particular, of its feminazi Banshees, one of which actually accepted that Assange had smeared his room with his faeces, is that of a sort of coven, a cabal, of those who have sold their souls to the Devil. Day after day, month after month, they, led by real monsters like Harding, Cohen, Freedland et al, reach new depths of perfidy.
Today’s ‘editorial’ re Idlib, a stinking pile of lies and salafist propaganda, is typical. May they all rot in Hell.
Oh! The children! The children!! The poor children!! We must bomb Assad immediately!!! (Cue pearl clutching.)
Strangely enough, half a million dead children in Iraq from 1991-2003 are never a problem.
Neither are 100,000 dead kids in Yemen, or over a million cholera cases.
Or 9 year olds in Gaza and Hebron shot in the head by Zionist thugs with British sniper rifles and dum dum bullets.
Thanks for showing some numbers. Israel shot a few dozen boys for throwing rocks and petrol bombs); KSA caused 1oo,ooo Yemeni kids deaths; the US, UK etc. caused 500,000 dead kids in Iraq.
So why are you spending 99% of your time flogging only Israel?
Exactly. The hypocrisy of these retards takes your breath away. The vast crimes of the Empire are not happening, they never happened, nothing to see, nothing to say.
No tide. The public does not count, anymore, at all. Assange is as good as dead. When Evil psychopaths like that bladder of piss and shit, Pompeo, are calling the shots, no obscenity is impossible.
Funny how āsuicide protectionā wasn’t applied in Jeffery Epstein’s case. Must have been an oversight. I believe I sent you guys an article on how they’re now treating independent journalists as “terrorists” in the land of the free fire zone. It’s getting crazy boys and girls as the New American Century sputters to a close.
“Judicial Double Standards”
This heading is an insult to core British value of triple and quadruple facedness.
Furthermore, why isn’t there more acknowledgement of the sustained British efforts in sponsoring terrorism around the globe?
Actually the UK class law system is remarkably consistent in its service to power, hypocrisy and brutality.
“… these prisoners are frequently kept in until they die,…”
Apply a search engine to look for prison labour. These prisoners are a cheap labour force, producing all manner of things. Since these prisons are privatised, this is either allowed or they can just ignore the international rules which prohibit this kind of slavery in prison.
We used to be punished for lies, and rewarded for truths. Now we are punished for truths, and rewarded for lies. You could not trust the Australian government returning him here.
The 13th Amendment basically institutionalized slavery. Yep that’s the legacy that the “greeeeeeat emancipator” left us.
How right you are. Many British people have died, and many more are suffering the after effects of the American 1970s blood scam, where American prisoners’ blood was taken and sold to the NHS…..replete with attendant goodies like AIDS and HepC.
People can read into this what they want…
Speculative short-sellers won’t defeat China’s preparations amid epidemic
It has everything to do with all the Assange stuff, and indeed measures announced in the UK today to censor the internet.
Slimy hypocrisy at the top of the pecking order?
Who would’ve thought?
This is an excerpt from an article entitled: “Judge Emma Arbuthnot Refuses to Recuse Herself in Show Trial of Julian Assange.” It explains why Judge Arbuthnot is going out of her way to make life extremely difficult for Assange:
“Her husband, James Norwich Arbuthnot, is a Conservative member of the House of Lords. He is intimately connected with the British armed forces and security services, whose criminal operations were exposed by WikiLeaks.
As a Tory MP, Lord Arbuthnot was between 2005 and 2014 the chair of the Defence Select Committee, the body overseeing the Ministry of Defence and Britainās armed forces. His watch covered ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the wars for regime change in Libya and Syria.
He is currently co-chair of the UK advisory board for defence manufacturer Thales and is an advisory board member of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI). Lord Arbuthnot is also a former director at security and intelligence consultancy firm SC Strategy, where he worked for two years alongside co-directors Lord Carlile and Sir John Scarlett.
Carlile is a prominent defender of MI5 who supported the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (nicknamed the Snoopersā Charter) enabling the British state to access internet connection records without a warrant. He argued that Edward Snowdenās exposures of illegal mass state surveillance āamounted to a criminal act.āā He oversaw the implementation of anti-terror legislation and reviewed national security procedures in Northern Ireland.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/11/assa-j11.html
I would like Australians to be aware of the Bring Julian Assange Home Campaign; on the link, it shows the minimal support from elected MPs and Senators for this campaign. Of course there is no Liberal support for fear of offending Pres. Trump. https://www.assangecampaign.org.au/bring-julian-home-campaign/
Some folks are trying Frances.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/12/nswt-f12.html
Have been to several meetings and rallies put on by the Socialist Equality Party, FD, and will be attending the rally on Feb 23rd outside the State Library.
It’s important to try and build momentum on this, coz after Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, who will the bastards come after next?
We need to try and wake more people up to the danger this represents for all of us.
I would be there too Gezzah, but it’s more than a 500k round trip.
Give those fascists hell.
Will yell loudly FD, and need to find my Free Julian Assange T shirt, which is somewhere in one of my suitcases.
Am doing a street campaign with them this Sunday also to raise awareness pre the 23rd Feb rally, cheers.
I missed Phillip Adam’s interview recently with Yanis Varoufakis who visited Assange along with his father. Andrew Wilkie is getting involved. Sadly the red head lady in Foreign Affairs who needs to go on a diet is very cautious with her words re Assange.
Arbuthnot, in my opinion, is a perfect example of the evil psychopaths, hypocrites and ‘judicial’ thugs that infest the UK, and indeed all Western, ruling elites. This is the ‘Rule of Law’ that the terrorist thugs in Hong Kong are rioting for.
Since you drag Hong Kong into this discussion I would like to remind you that the “terrorist thugs” won an overwhelming vote of confidence in recent local elections.
Democracy eh?
How I love you low-lifes who crawl out from under your stones to downvote any expression of support for the Hongkongers desperate to preserve what vestigial freedoms the British Empire left them, or perish the thought, to improve on them.
Another two of them. Put yourselves in their shoes for once, you spineless cretins.
The British Empire-the Empire that killed hundreds of millions around the world, in the pursuit of looting their countries. That ‘British Empire’? Enjoy your Brexit and the thoroughly deserved sinking into the mire that will follow.
A terrorist thug, financed by hard Right compradore billionaires, and by the USA, is a terrorist thug, no matter who ‘votes’ for them.
Most prisoners in the US prison system are there for non-violent drug crimes. There are also many lifers who are incarcerated for non violent drug crimes (under ‘three strikes and you’re out).
Most prisoners in the US find themselves convicted by totally corrupt judges (under the plea bargain system – ie, no jury trial), and are put into equally corrupt prisons run by big corporations who charge the US tax payer a ridiculous amount of money. Ie, like all the war stuff and media propaganda, it’s all just one big corrupt rip-off.
The US has by far more of its citizens in jail than any other nation on Earth. It makes the gulags in the old Soviet Union a breeze by comparison.
For all his faults, Corbyn did bring up the subject of Assange at PMQs today.
Name me one other high profile politician in the US or UK who’s ever done that.
But, Rob-that is the ‘Free World’. What are you-a ChiCommSymp?
The worthless lumpen proletariat, whose lives have no value, are worth a minimum profit of $40,000 a year for the prison industrial complex. And they have to do something with all the black folks, now there are no longer any plantations to put them on. You have to be realistic about it.
Jeremy Corbyn raised Julian’s case in an exchange in the HOC with BoJo today:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/pm-slams-us-uk-extradition-rules-amid-claims-ex-cia-spy-anne-sacoolas-shielded-from-justice/ar-BBZVrc3?ocid=spartandhp
Labour’s response to the torture of Julian Assange mirrors prercisely the same faultlines that emerged throughout the antisemitism smear campaign.
Corbyn at least recognises Assange’s mistreatment is primarily related to imperialism rather than identity politics, but the usual suspects on the right of the party (ie those that ignore the plight of Palestinians as well as war crimes committed by Blair) are at the forefront of inflating discredicted sex allegations, for example authoring a petition insisting Assange should be handed over to Sweden despite the obvious political dimensions to the way the women’s complaint were reframed by the Swedish prosecutor (a self-confessed feminist with negative attitudes towards men).
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/diane-abbott-urges-pm-to-block-julian-assange-extradition
AFAIK these phonies have not initiated similar petitions in cases were there might have been far more serious or violent crimes – so, why the exceptionalism in the treatment of Assange.
For reasons we can only speculate about none of the Labour MPs seemed interested as to why in a case of this magnitude a ‘preliminary investigation’ should last a decade (something virtually inheard of in normal circumstances) or why Sweden did not charge Assange in-absentia, a logical step if there was any weight to the case they had built.
Maybe Corbyn can finally do something about it but I’m not holding my breath.
Harry, you perhaps don’t realise what Corbyn is truly up against.
They (the Establishment) will quite literally kill Corbyn to prevent him taking power.
We don’t live in some chocolate box democracy; quite the opposite.
People like Corbyn understand this.
People like you don’t seem to understand this.
I’m sure that the Zionassties made certain that Corbyn realised that a Kidon squad was training to off him if he should ever dare fight aback against the lying campaign to vilify him as an ‘antisemite’.
We donāt live in a democracy but I think we DO live in a chocolate box i.e. a darkened room where we are fed glutinous brown masses that smell sweet but contain shit.
And you are right about Corbynās chances to change anything. The galling thing is that Corbyn never had a chance even from the start. And I felt gutted by the outcome of the election because I had actually allowed myself to cautiously (ahem) hope! Not a fucking chance in hell! And I know weāve been over this again and again ā but even had Corbyn won, he couldnāt have done a damn thing. And to prove it:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/23/wats-j23.html
Note this bit:
So you see ā to the Blairites, Corbyn was only ever āa bit of funā!
Don’t worry, G., at least Tom Watson and Mann have got their Corbyn-recommended peerages. Just keep tugging your forelock.
I dared hope Corbyn might be different (I can hear BB chuckling to himself as I say this) – not perfect, but infinitely preferable to the bombastic twat currently occupying number 10.
Of all the analysis I have read about the plight of socialism in Britain this exocet from Jonathan Cook delivers the motherload.
“If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change ā desperately needed social, economic and environmental change ā it is not Brexit. It is the constant furore over an āantisemitism crisisā supposedly plaguing the party for the past five years.
The imminent departure of Jeremy Corbyn as leader will not end the damage that has been done to Labour by such claims. Soon Brexit will become a messy fait accompli. But the shadow of Labourās so-called āantisemitism problemā will loom over it darkly for the foreseeable future, making sure that Corbynās successor dare not incur the same steep price for pursuing a radical political programme. The fear of being smeared as an antisemite will lead, as it was meant to do, to political and economic timidity from whoever takes on the mantle of leader. In fact, as we shall examine in detail in a moment, the candidates for the Labour leadership are demonstrating just how cowed they already are.”
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-02-12/antisemitism-threat-labour/
Antisemitism, and by extension Labours role in the Middle East as part of the axis of terror (the US, Britain and Israel) is at the heart of the cancer presently consuming the party.
As I see it Corbyn was already putting out too many fires to come out strongly in favour of Julian Assange – yes, Jeremy made a few token noises but I never had the sense he really got his teeth into the issue, perhaps fearing he would be labelled a ‘rape apologist; by Stella Creasy and Jess ‘professional Mum’ Phillips – noisy right wing agitators who, without understanding the true significance of the case, pettioned Sweden to press charges.
I get that, – can’t be easy when your reputation is being shredded both within and outside of the party.
As a result of these shennanigans I have almost no interest in who succeeds Corbyn because right now it feels like the left’s battle has well and truly been lost. The irony is, of course is that they have lost to a politician epitomising everything that is shallow, fascile and corrupt about Britain’s so-called democracy.
Hope is good, cynicism the position of choice for arrogant cowards – they don’t have to risk anything, and for good measure get to feel superior.
I dared hope too. Not because of Corbyn per se, but because he lit a spark. The Westminster Village had mistaken passive resignation for consent to the unacceptable. Given that glimmer of hope his LP victory held out, millions proved Westminster wrong. In the coming struggles, as capitalism lurches from crisis to crisis and seeks as always to pass the bill onto those least responsible and least able to pay it, there’ll be many such hopes raised and dashed.
I have no answers but know that abandoning hope gets us nowhere, and that they who sneer on the sidelines are not part of any solution. (Btw I too have no interest in who succeeds Corbyn. The best of a bad bunch falls far short of what is needed.)
If he wants to surrender to these people for a quiet life (or to have any life at all), that’s a choice he’s entitled to make. It’s his life. Just don’t expect anyone to treat him as a serious figure any longer. He can go off and spend more time with the turnips on his allotment. Good luck to him.
Just accept the reality that Labour is a complete and utter waste of space, a waste of a man’s rations, a waste of time, effort and energy, and don’t try to pretend otherwise.
Corbyn has free licence now and is positioning for the bigger fight for the soul of the country against the rapacious banker overlords and their praetorian slave masters.
The Groaniads Politics Lives Sparrow couldnāt even allow himself a mention of Wikileaks and Assange in their coverage of pmqās. A survey of the comments btl reveals the same – plenty of deletions, presumably mentioning JA.
Starmers responsibilityas the head of the CPS, when the fake charges were being laid and itās ādonāt you dareā memo to the Swedes when they were going to pull their fake procedings IS a SMOKING GUN. Which alone disqualifies him fron Labour leadership role in my opinion.
Along with the UN rapporteurs report and the Harry Dunn killers made up immunity allows the issue to cut through the MSM miasma.
The otherwise happy clappy sjw’s of the country STILL believe in the lie of JA the rapist. Just as they believe in JC the Judaeophobe! Because their favourite Groaniad/BBC creepy journos repeat the lie!
Robertsons carefully crafted question citing the Syrian Regime got them confused but Bozoās answer was off the cuff and got the response that will be a basis for the Douma OPCW cover up exposure – though the revelation that a senior SNP member is an active supporter of the BellEndScats, CIA/Atlantic Council/FCO front is a bit worrying.
Meanwhile…
Brexit is heading for the Cityās great escape under cover of āFreeportāsā.
It was always the plan A.
No need to talk about brexit bollocks now except to focus on the big lies.
The Tories get to own it all now amd Corbyn should let rip like Moses did to his errant tribe of idolators.
The only fight Jezza will be facing from now on will be against the weeds on his allotment. Get real.
In the current political climate, which is complex and often contradictory, simply handing Assange over to the Americans isn’t going to be easy at all. This process will last for years. If the agrees to his extradition, which isn’t a given; then they’ll be an appeal and another trial. Then, if things go badly, the Supeme Court will be the next stop and they will have to look at important legal principles involved linked to freedom of speech, the right to publish, journalistic practices, not being charged with ‘espionage’ for merely being a journalist, the clearly and obvious political nature of the US charges against Assange, the list goes on and on.
Then, in the unlikely event that the UK Supreme Court finds in favour of the Americans, we’re off to the European Court of Human Rights. The longer this goes on the more people are going to see this process for what it really is and at every stage Assange’s chances of winning increase.
Also the present government has to show a degree of ‘independence’ from the U.S, especially after the Brexit farce, which was spun as the UK ‘taking back control’ of its own affairs. A successful vassal state has to maintain the illusion that it isn’t really a vassal state.
Finally the UK legal establishment loath Trump’s US almost as much as they loath Boris Johnson and shipping Assange off to rot in a Trump dungeon isn’t going to be easy at all. Also senior judges don’t want to seen as legal lackies without cherished independence. Reputation is everything to such people and how ‘history’ will judge them and their actions means an awful lot as well. The ghastly stain of being judged by history to have taken part in an outrageous political showtrial aimed at gagging a innocent man, Assange, isn’t something senior judges want on cvs
Michael
What you say all makes supreme sense … in a rational and moral society. I have to say, though, that I can’t share your confidence.
Perhaps the problem is that they don’t really care about whether JA goes to the US – where there would also be a trial lasting some time? – of if he stays stuck in UK detention, refused bail in case of absconding, while endless exchanges of legal process and argument string it all out for years. The important thing, for them, is to handicap Assange and Wikileaks’ abilities to keep the bastards honest, or rather to force them to be. Meanwhile also all the supporters of JA – who are an equivalent threat to the Imperium, have their time tied up in campaigning for JA rather than pursuing the criminals in his absence.
All of which means GCHQ-1 and JA-0.
Do you think they really care all that much about some farce of a show trial based on secret evidence in a secret kangaroo court?
They will just keep him incarcerated without trial for years.
They’ve done this to hundreds of people in their concentration camps and dungeons for the past 2 decades.
No need for due process or any of that malarkey.
michaelk, get a grip.
How can you hand over someone who is not guilty of any crime?
Just a reminder of just one thing that Wikileaks exposed (this came from Chelsea Manning)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25EWUUBjPMo
The above video, which is quite obviously a military attack against civilians, is known as a ‘double tap strike’; ie, the initial attack is carried out, then they wait for the rescue workers to arrive before carrying out a second strike.
And the presstitutes tell us that we’re the good guys..?!
Then there’s the Sacoolas case….this is a fairly toutine driving offense but the US government has told the UK government to ‘pound sand’ with regard to extradition.
Assange is a dead man, already.
Yes, we live in the best off all possible worlds.
Dr. Pangloss would be quite at home.
Aren’t we lucky to have the Rule of Law and an independent judiciary?
Quite. And I remember how the Grauniad and the Remainers were lauding the judiciary when it was being used to try to stop Brexit. And the many other times when the judiciary has acted in the interests of the Establishment, rather than in the interests of Justice. (e.g. the Jeremy Thorpe trial, poshboy, Eton, Oxford, definitely “one of us”).
Touching that you still think that British judges ought to uphold the law, principles of justice etc etc.
If I were BJ, I would make it absolutely clear to Trump and Pompeo that there is zero chance of even discussing an Assange extradition unless the woman who ran over a British boy then fled falsely claiming diplomatic immunity returns to Britain to face trial. No ifs, buts, maybes or horse trading. That woman faces trial or no Assange.
Even then that should not be the deal. The deal should require Assange to be worthy of extradition, which is far from being the case in my opinion. Furthermore, he must be guaranteed a proper judicial process with no political pressure from known torturers like Pompeo and Haspel etc.
But without the woman potential manslaughteress in the dock, there is simply nothing to discuss.
Do I think that Johnson has the balls to stick it to his masters?
Of course not.
But unless he does, UK justice will be seen around the world for what it is: corrupt, biddable, two faced, unprincipled and subject to all kinds of political interference.
Rhys,
I totally agree with you in all but one minor detail.
I think we are well past that point! š
I think we, and the rest of the world, passed that point in the 17th century. British justice, are you serious?
JudyJ made me laugh so much,
I rushed off to take a thoroughly refreshing shower & sound scrubbing… š
Thankful for small mercies, never strained.
Portia was Just & way better than the AaarghButtknots recusal refusal & utter hypocrisy.
Judge the judge, by their actions, within the Law ? !
We share your due skeptical reserve.
She shames women, like many men, forgetting supreme courts,
of public knowledge over the ‘Grand-Psyop’.
Butt woteva’ happens, in my experience, things have a funny habit of doing a 360Āŗ swivel,
with added inertia & extra impetUS š in currying disfavour . . .
Let us hope the court of public opinion prevails.
Putting myself in Prime Minister Johnson’s shoes I would be reluctant to trust President Trump to uphold his side of any agreement relating to any envisaged swop of Mr Assange and Ms Sacoolas. To my mind both are equally dishonourable and untrustworthy having extensive track records in this regard and they undoubtably recognise this fact in each other.
For that reason I’d be unwilling to place Mr Assange’s security on the line with the suggestion that an agreement might be reached in any such swop as I wouldn’t put it past President Trump to throw Ms Sacoolas under the bus just to get Mr Assange delivered to US custody.
He has to stay wherever he and his advisors feel his safety is maximised.
A country may request another country to extradite a fugitive who has allegedly committed a crime in the requesting country. It’s therefore legitimate enough for Britain to request the return of Mrs Sacoolas. It’s entirely illegitimate for the US to demand the extradition of Assange, who did not flee the US, who committed no crime in the US, and who has never set foot in that country.
To suggest that Assange should be swapped for Sacoolas is outrageous.
We should swap Prince Andrew for her instead. Epstein’s cell is vacant.
Nils Melzer has deconstructed the legal charade that is playing out – he said āIn the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination.ā
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24665
AFAIK this is a near unique situation with at least 3 prejudicial judical systems that have already determined Assange’s ‘guilt’ without giving a second thought to the persecution they are inflicting – and that’s before we factor in the gutless stance of the Australian government or the corrupt Ecuadorian leader, Lenin Moreno, who received a $4.2 billion in IMF loans after Assange was dragged out of their London embassy by the police.
One solution might be to place a few legal actors in solitary for a year, or two to see if a dose of the Assange/Manning treatment affects their attitude to the role they have decided to play?
I know its a tired old trope but the treatment of the Jews in Nazi Germany was ‘legal’, the treatment of black nationalists in South Africa was ‘legal’ the treatment of ‘negros’ in southern US states was ‘legal’ and the treatment of Palestinians in Israel is ‘legal’.
The torture of Assange suggests the British judicial system would like to be a member of the same rotten club – shame on them, and shame on the US prosecutors who must know that the only thing Assange is guilty of is serious journalism.
Needless to say a regime that is responsible for abominations like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib is already far beyond the pale of decent society.
‘We’d like to thank all our bitches’ aka the persecution of Julian Assange for dummies.
The Australian stooge regime is NOT ‘gutless’. It is fully complicit with its Yankee Masters’ bastardy, as ever. The same goes for the infestation of rats called the ALP-Another Liberal Party.
Thank you, Richard – I stand corrected.
You think that “British justice” is an actual thing? How quaint. As if the People’s Revolution had never happened, the Royal family had never been deposed and executed or exiled, the British Empire had not been peacefully liquidated, or . . . oh . . . Oh. Right.
As far as we all know Assange has been a ‘political’ prisoner the day he got asylum in the Bolivian embassy in London. After spending millions of the tax payers money in surveillance at the embassy he was brutally removed by a shameless government and is continuing his imprisonment in really appalling conditions. The judge has got her orders and she’s following them to the T. Talk of independence of the judiciary. Instead of hanging her wig on the peg she’s now caught in a double standard she can’t extricate herself from. I hope her children are following this. Karma is one nasty …
‘Bolivian’ Embassy?
I meant Ecuadorian embassy. With all the mess going on in that hemisphere one easily gets confused. My bad.
A pedant writes: Ecuadorian Embassy.
“The judge has got her orders and sheās following them to the T.”
My guess is it’s 1% “orders” (British phrasing, nod wink) and 99% an impressive show of judgely private enterprise. Who needs to give “orders” when the lackey’s tongue is full gag up her Lordly master’s arse come knock off time?
Typo. For ‘lackey’ read ‘Lady’
Robbo…
Not sure if you are being facetious here but I think you were right the first time! š
“Not sure if you are being facetious here…”
I was being factualcetious there.
Well if we’re talking ‘factualcetious’, me thinks you’ll find that the technical expression to sum things up, these days, is a right royal rimming (with enjoyment? no accounting for taste), apparently, you can’t just make these expressions up,
though they do . . . so, I will.
Aaaarghbuttknots rimming recusal reluctance reflects regression in rights.
Retrospectively.
At least a load of Dutch Judges recused themselves, over Judge Demmink.
Butt, the stench remains the same… Royal Rimming Rights,
with double standards. Leck mich, doch … š
https://ilaelamam.com/2013/10/06/dutch-pedophile-exposer-to-stand-trial-high-ranking-pedophile-still-walking-free/
Under the UK/US Extradition Treaty Article 4.
Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.
Common political crimes include bribery, treason, sedition, espionage, theft, perjury, human rights violations, and whistle blowing.
In criminology, a political crime is an act or omission prejudicial to the interests of the state or government like espionage, sedition and treason. Political crimes generally arise from political disturbances. It includes offenses arising from attack on the political order.
All the above are included in the US indictments against Julian Assange https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1153486/download
They are Political offences and therefore NON EXTRADITABLE.
I’m 100% on board with the Free Julian movement, but just a technical quibble here:
The three-strikes laws are typically limited to felonies, and in most states, they apply only to violent felonies, such as murder, rape, armed robbery or assault.
You’re incorrect. The ‘three strikes rule’ typically sees non-violent drug offenders spending the rest of their days in a hell-hole prison.
This is entirely because the scumbags who presently rule America make money out of it.
Seamus, they change the law on 3 strikes to fit the prison economy. Until even more prisons are built, they are full, so the law gets relaxed a bit for lower-order felonies. As public opinion is massaged, more prisons will be built and 3 strikes might become 2 strikes.
When you think about it, drug dealing is only poor people becoming “entrepreneurs” and helping with population control. However, someone saw an opportunity to fight “a war on drugs” and develop the criminal justice economy into a duck that lays golden eggs forever.
the premise here is that britain has a justice system – it doesn’t
There is a justice system which works to a degree. But yes there are blatant widespread inconsistencies which suggest manipulation. The Assange case is a prime example where political interference is obvious and has brought it into disrepute. This judge will be remembered for such malpractice and being a stooge of the US and UK governments. When events turn she will be blamed and receive justice. This judge should remember what goes around comes around.
Sweden’s heavy handed use of a European Arrest Warrant (gleefully rubber stamped by a British court) was a harbinger of things to come.
As Melzer points out Assange had already made himself available to the Swedish authorities both before and after he left Stolkholm, yet despite a lack of actual charges (charges that could quite easily have been made in-absentia) they pursued a strategy of wanting him for ‘questioning’ knowning full well that this was likely to confer the resputation of ‘rapist’ even before Assange and his legal team had the opportunity to defend himself against such charges: allegations he has always denied and was keen to refute providing it did not increase the risk of him being whisked away to a US gulag.
Needless to say the Guardian played down the risk of extradition, at this stage assigning such fears to paranoia or snide assumptions about Assange suffering from delusions of grandeur.
Instead this shit-trag went into identity politics overdrive, in particular making links between men charged with sex offences who were subsequently found not guilty ie the old trick of creating in the mind of the reader the idea that there was no smoke without fire, even going so far as to suggest the innocent must atone for the crimes committed by those who got away with it.
Is it any wonder ‘progressive liberals’ are increasingly despised?
Sweden is a Rightwing shit-hole, plus feminazi maenads. Could it get any worse?
Arbuthnot will NEVER ‘receive justice’. Promotion is far more likely.
Assange will be kicking himself that he didn’t seek refuge in Hong Kong, seeing as the Empire mobilzed so many to defeat the extradition proposals there.
Extradition from the UK good.
Extradition from Hong Kong bad.
Hong Kong wouldn’t accept Ed Snowden, so why do you believe they would have accepted Julian Assange?
I tajke your point.