All posts tagged: julian assange

All Pretence is Over in Persecution of Assange

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by Craig Murray, February 14, 2018 The “judge” who dismissed Assange’s case yesterday was “Lady Arbuthnot of Edrom”, wife to Tory peer, former Tory junior Defence Minister and government whip Lord James Arbuthnot. Not to mention Chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel. Arbuthnot was naturally Eton educated, the son of Major Sir John Sinclair Wemyss Arbuthnot. Of course Lady Arbuthnot’s children were all sent to Eton too. At the first hearing, I was stunned by reports of completely inappropriate comments by Lady Arbuthnot, including responding to representations about Assange’s health by the comment that medical care is available in Wandsworth prison. As the official charade is that Assange is wanted for nothing but jumping bail, for which a custodial sentence is rare, that callous attempt at gallows humour was redolent of Arbuthnot’s Tory mindset. She also remarked – and repeats it in yesterday’s judgement – that Assange has access to fresh air through the Embassy’s balcony. That is simply untrue. The “balcony” floor is 3 feet by 20 inches and gives no opportunity to …

Weiner Laptop Doc: Assange Warrant Issued 2 Weeks After Swedish Election Leaks Warning

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from Zero Hedge A confidential document found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop reveals that the United States Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden expressed concerns in 2010 that WikiLeaks would release classified US documents related to Sweden ahead of the September 19 Swedish election, tipping the vote towards the Pirate Party. The subject of the cable reads “Wikileaks: The Pirate Party’s White Horse Into Sweden’s Parliament?” On June 29, 2010 a US diplomat met with three members of the Pirate Party – which is described in the cable as a “mixture between communism and libertarianism,” yet whose members are “well-salaried professionals, independent from the party for income.” Two of the “pirates,” according to the report, were active in the “youth branch of the conservative party currently leading government.” The Embassy cable notes the “grim electoral outlook for Pirates” – as confirmed by a Pirate party member interviewed by the US diplomat… “…Unless WikiLeaks Saves the Day…” Two weeks after the cable was sent, an arrest warrant was issued for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on sexual assault allegations – …

Crumbling Monolith Resents an Angry Public

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Nick Cohen’s latest column is headlined: Farage meets Assange in a shameless illiberal alliance, but might more properly be entitled “Why I drink more than I used to, and how it’s all your fault.”

Greenwald: Guardian engaged in ‘journalistic fraud’ in Assange interview rewrite

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Photo Oli Scarff/Getty Images RT reports: Journalist Glenn Greenwald has accused his former employer, The Guardian, of falsifying the words of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a report about the interview he gave to La Repubblica. Assange spoke to the Italian newspaper’s correspondent Stefania Maurizi last week when she visited him in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The interview was in English and a transcript of it is available on La Repubblica’s website. The Guardian’s report on the interview was published Saturday and contains two false statements about what Assange told the Italian newspaper, Greenwald says in a damning piece on The Intercept. The headline said Assange “gives guarded praise” to Donald Trump, while inside the article itself The Guardian cited the WikiLeaks founder as claiming that “there was no need for WikiLeaks to undertake a whistleblowing role in Russia because of the open and competitive debate.” Neither statement accurately represented what Assange actually said in the interview, Greenwald says. His comment on Trump said that the US president-elect was no “DC insider” and was bringing in …

The 2016 ‘October Surprise’ A Second American Revolution?

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Amid claims of silent coup and counter-coup, this years “October Surprise” has yet to fully play out. Neither – with lasts weekends reopening of the ‘Servergate’ saga that has so dogged HRC – will it be concluded by the November 8th polling day. As this can only be viewed as to be by design – prepare for an explosive finale.

Background and Documents on Attempts to Frame Assange as a Pedophile and Russias spy

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from Wikileaks Earlier today the website DailyKos reported on a smear campaign plot to falsely accuse Julian Assange of pedophilia. Here is the description of the plot from Mr Assange’s legal team, the investigative report into the front company and associated correspondence. An unknown entity posing as an internet dating agency prepared an elaborate plot to falsely claim that Julian Assange received US$1M from the Russian government and a second plot to frame him sexually molesting an eight year old girl. The second plot includes the filing of a fabricated criminal complaint in the Bahamas, a court complaint in the UK and laundering part of the attack through the United Nations. The plot happened durring WikiLeaks’ Hillary Clinton related publications, but the plot may have its first genesis in Mr. Assange’s 16 months litigation against the UK in the UN system, which concluded February 5 (Assange won. UK and Sweden lost & US State Dept tried to pressure the WGAD according to its former Chair, Prof. Mads Andenas). Timeline 2016 May, when self-claimed dating agency …

RT and Wikileaks – coordinated effort to silence alt. news sources?

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In a slow-developing situation, the last few days has seen the two of the most high-profile anti-establishment media voices in the UK – Wikileaks and RT – come under some form of covert attack. Over the weekend Wikileaks official twitter account suggested, and then confirmed, that the Ecuadorian Embassy in London had cut Julian Assange’s internet access: Julian Assange’s internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party. We have activated the appropriate contingency plans. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 17, 2016 We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange’s internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speechs. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) 17 October 2016 The sudden social-media silence, in conjunction with some unusual coded tweets sent the night before, fuelled speculation that Assange had been killed, or that Ecuador had caved and handed him over to the Americans. Neither of which appear to be the case. Meanwhile, RTUK have had their UK-based bank accounts frozen by NatWest, a move the Treasury denies any all knowledge of. Whether deliberate or not, the …

Of Hacktivism, Hackers and Leakers: Resetting the Bar of Real World Journalism.

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by Brett Redmayne-Titley In a world of slanted journalism that pervades not only main stream media offerings but also the majority of “progressive” and “alternative” media, it is the hackers and leakers of vital information that are now providing a new and desperately needed return to real journalism. Recent examples of courage and risk in pursuit of full disclosure which counters media distortions of fact, must be followed. Hackers and leakers are- as shown this month- providing the public service mandate once enveloped within the vaunted parchment of the First Amendment- an obligation far too long forgotten. America is the origin of media lies and a willfully ignorant public that believes them. Strangely, most US citizens wallow only in the proffered world of gray journalism- one that wraps the truth and the mind of the reader, instead, in the flag of nationalist colors. Thus stubbornly adhering only to their predisposed personal opinion, one belies demonstrative evidence to the contrary, this malady is shown, at least, in the irrational national adulation for two very flawed current …

VIDEO: John Pilger in conversation with Julian Assange (2011)

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This extended interview was filmed during the making of Pilger’s documentary The War You Don’t See in 2011

Seth Rich murder: The facts so far

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by Kit Last month Seth Rich, a data analyst who worked for the DNC, was shot near his home in Washington DC. He was on the phone to his girlfriend when it happened. Police were called to the scene and discovered the young man’s body at roughly 4.20am. It was reported that Rich was “covered in bruises”, shot “several times” and “at least once in the back”. The New York Daily News reported: …police have found little information to explain his death. At this time, there are no suspects, no motive and no witnesses in Rich’s murder. While initial theories were that the killing was robbery or mugging gone wrong, the Washington Post said: There is no immediate indication that robbery was a motive in the attack…but it has not been ruled out as a possibility.” Rich’s family have also reported that nothing was taken: [Rich’s] hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything.” On August 9th …

Ruffled Petals at the Guardian

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by Bryan Hemming In another principled stand against information it doesn’t like very much the Guardian has made it quite clear that anyone linking to the renegade Off-Guardian site will be banned from commenting. Serve them right, too! According to Britain’s most inventive news outlet, OffG — an alternative ‘blog’ site set up by a bunch of disgruntled, good-for-nothing, rebel-rousers with nothing better to do— has the temerity to publish “statements of fact regarding our [The Guardian’s] journalists’ credibility”. Many will see the ban as a yet another priceless example of the superior newspaper’s brave struggle against an increasingly non-compliant readership. Some people don’t like hearing the truth even when it pokes them in the eye. They know very well who they are. Bearing such admirable pluck in mind we can fully expect to see the ban extended to include another media outlet that has seen fit to show similar disrespect towards one of the UK’s most imaginative news organs, following the unearthing of a brazen assault on the credibility of one of its most …

Freeing Julian Assange: the last chapter

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by John Pilger One of the epic miscarriages of justice of our time is unravelling. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention – the international tribunal that adjudicates and decides whether governments comply with their human rights obligations – has ruled that Julian Assange has been detained unlawfully by Britain and Sweden. After five years of fighting to clear his name – having been smeared relentlessly yet charged with no crime – Assange is closer to justice and vindication, and perhaps freedom, than at any time since he was arrested and held in London under a European Extradition Warrant, itself now discredited by Parliament. The UN Working Group bases its judgements on the European Convention on Human Rights and three other treaties that are binding on all its signatories. Both Britain and Sweden participated in the 16-month long UN investigation and submitted evidence and defended their position before the tribunal. It would fly contemptuously in the face of international law if they did not comply with the judgement and allow Assange to leave the …

The revolutionary act of telling the truth

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by John Pilger George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” These are dark times, in which the propaganda of deceit touches all our lives. It is as if political reality has been privatised and illusion legitimised. The information age is a media age. We have politics by media; censorship by media; war by media; retribution by media; diversion by media – a surreal assembly line of clichés and false assumptions. Wondrous technology has become both our friend and our enemy. Every time we turn on a computer or pick up a digital device – our secular rosary beads – we are subjected to control: to surveillance of our habits and routines, and to lies and manipulation. Edward Bernays, who invented the term, “public relations” as a euphemism for “propaganda”, predicted this more than 80 years ago. He called it, “the invisible government”. He wrote, “Those who manipulate this unseen element of [modern democracy] constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… …

Sweden interviews 44 in London, but not Assange

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Photo Chris Helgren/Reuters by Systematic […] A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Hazel Press news organization has revealed that Sweden has granted 44 requests to interview witnesses or suspects in the UK since 2010, the Press Association reports. This has led supporters of the WikiLeaks founder to claim that Assange has been “singled out,” as he has also agreed to be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors inside the embassy concerning sex allegations in the Scandinavian country. A member of Assange’s legal team, Jen Robinson, says that a number of important questions have been raised, adding that “Julian hasn’t been charged, yet he is being punished.” “First, they refused to take his testimony while he remained in Sweden. Then they refused to hear it in the UK, saying it was illegal to come here. Five years later, after being rebuked by their own courts, they say they’ll consider it,” she told the Press Association. […] Read in full Double standards? Sweden interviews 44 in London, but not Assange at RT News

After three years, the injustice handed out to Julian Assange must end

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by John Pilger via johnpilger.com Julian Assange, founder and editor of WikiLeaks, has now been a refugee in the Ecuadoream embassy in London for three years. The key issue in his extraordinary incarceration is justice. He has been charged with no crime. The first Swedish prosecutor dismissed the misconduct allegations regarding two women in Stockholm in 2010. The second Swedish prosecutor’s actions were and are demonstrably political. Until recently, she refused to come to London to interview Assange. Finally, when the British government almost pleaded with her to come, she agreed. She has now cancelled her trip. It is a farce, but one with grim consequences for Assange should he dare step outside the Ecuadorean embassy. The US criminal investigation against him and WikiLeaks – for the “crime” of exercising a right enshrined in the US constitution, to tell unpalatable truths – is “unprecedented in scale and nature”, according to US documents. For this, he faces much of a lifetime in the hellhole of a US supermax should he leave the protection of Ecuador in …

Assange in ‘Newsweek’: How ‘The Guardian’ Milked Edward Snowden’s Story

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The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man (Guardian/Faber & Faber, 2014) by Luke Harding is a hack job in the purest sense of the term. Pieced together from secondary sources and written with minimal additional research to be the first to market, the book’s thrifty origins are hard to miss. The Guardian is a curiously inward-looking beast. If any other institution tried to market its own experience of its own work nearly as persistently as The Guardian, it would surely be called out for institutional narcissism. But because The Guardian is an embarrassingly central institution within the moribund “left-of-center” wing of the U.K. establishment, everyone holds their tongue. […] Notoriously, as the Moscow bureau chief for The Guardian, Harding used to ply his trade ripping off work by other Moscow-based journalists before his plagiarism was pointed out by The eXile‘s Mark Ames and Yasha Levine, from whom he had misappropriated entire paragraphs without alteration. For this he was awarded “plagiarist of the year” by Private Eye in 2007. But—disciplined by experience—he covers his …