Is it Just for Assange to be Detained for 7 Years Without Charge?
How is it possible in a Western democracy for an Australian (or any nationality) to be detained for 7 years without charge? How is a charge for jumping bail relevant if he is innocent? Given Britain and US are allies can this affect judicial outcomes given perceived threats?
I often wonder how he copes with the pressure and being stuck in the Ecuadorian embassy. He has considerable strength. He has paid a price for WikiLeaks.
I think his house arrest has to become the topic of conversation. He has revealed through the leaks the illegality of governments and the many secrets. He is a whistleblower. He has been demonised which typically happen when a person is seen as a threat rather than justice and democracy being the modus operandi. His situation brings into question the reality of democracy and the Justice system being separated from politics. I also question why have we all co-created such a world where there is so much distrust, spying, deals, corruption etc. Is this the world we truly want for our children? Is this world based on fear and greed going to lead to a sustainable future?
Perhaps Assange is forcing governments to think more deeply about secrecy, intelligence and how they see themselves when secrets are revealed? Does that raise questions of their engaging in behaviours that the public would not support. If so, then they are not representing the public. Democracy should be a check and balance as activities are open to scrutiny. When power gets out of control it becomes dangerous. We can see the potential of that today in a range of leaders who do not understand the importance of sharing power, stewardship of the earth and role modelling values for the next generation. Leadership in my view is not about being a strong man it is about integrity, principled leadership and vision that ensures a better future. This has to include real security – food security, environmental responsibility, economic stability balanced with human rights, ethical and able to inspire great change that will ensure a future. We are in times where this type of leadership must be favoured and allowed to awaken to flourish. Otherwise there may be no secrets to keep. Cooperation and shared responsibility must be encouraged. There has to come a point where all 197 nation states work within the same agreed framework of human rights, ethics, economic participation, environmental mangement so that collectively they can ensure the biosphere is safe and the world’s people are thriving not just surviving. We have to shift this negative mentality to one of positive visioning. The Law of Attraction comes to mind. If you want security focus on education, focus on univeral values, economic equality and so on. Universal values must be at the centre of all decisions. I envisage REAL HOPE in responsibility, empathy, awareness, love, honesty, oneness, peace, enjoyment and service. This is the expanding pie as our values align and we come to realise that infinite possibilities arise out of this alignment with life instead of being run by tradition and fear of not enough or power over.
The intelligence community activities were revealed and the world community has to decide if these actions are truly is in the defence of any nation or does unchecked activities exacerbate insecurity, fear and dominance? That is my question. The Snowden film was very disturbing. The issue of privacy is just undermined or increasingly invalidated as it appears governments are seeking to suppress and control their citizens rather than represent them. This is a key issue.
I don’t personally believe violence or undermining governments maintains world peace. I see it as maintaining power which is a separate focus. Is power real? What if real power is integrating emotional intelligence so that our investigations around the world expand into exploring the real foundations of conflict. Are we able to develop conflict resolution, openness, transparency and ethics in the intelligence community so that information gathering is to prevent violent acts and governance ensures values are reflected in decisions with integrity. How to develop integrity in goverance and checks and balances? WikiLeaks appears to be creating a check and balance on power, governance have to consider accountability. I am not really familiar with WikiLeaks work but my inner feeling suggests this is true of the impact of them revealing secrets. I can understand if a secret revealed harms many people that there are issues to consider there given the Hobbesian world view that has been developed given right wing leaderships. Yet it seems that life always throw up those who counterveil power. It has happened throughout history, all ways. When the shadow side of humanity is revealed it brings light to it. Like a natural homeostasis. One cannot say on the one hand they believe in democracy, freedom of speech and Justice if they seek ways to suppress whistleblowers and look for legal loopholes to justify incarceration of some type. The key question is are secret and clandestine operations in the global community’s interest particularly given the high number of civilians killed in war zones? My feeling is the revealing of truth is critically important. Secrecy is repugnant as J.F. Kennedy stated he was right. It is important to have clashes of viewpoints, to be challenged, to have your views contested honestly, it is a service to the one engaging in activities if they truly believe it is in the publics interest, if that is what they believe.
Even in personal lives secrecy hides so that ideas are uncontested. Secrecy withholds from others as there is shame, guilt, fear, dishonesty, manipulation there. They do not want what they hide revealed, this may change how others see them. That is why some people are secretive. Democracy is about bringing things into the open so they are debated and others have a say. It is to contest so the true reality is seen. Things are seldom what we think until others contribute their views then we expand our view on the problem. We have to keep questioning what is true?
Here is a story about Assange below and the fact that the investigation into rape which was the reason he sought refuge in the Ecuadoriane Embassy, yet he is still not free. Why?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-19/swedish-prosecutors-end-investigation-into-assange-allegations/8542998Julian Assange rape investigation dropped by Swedish prosecutors after seven years
Updated 20 May 2017, 9:48am
Sweden’s top prosecutor says she is dropping an investigation into rape claims against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, bringing to an end a seven-year legal stand-off.
Key points:
- Assange was under investigation for alleged sex crimes from 2010, which he denies
- Prosecutor dropping investigation because all avenues to pursue it have been exhausted
- Assange’s lawyer has described end of seven-year stand-off as “total victory”
The announcement means the WikiLeaks leader no longer faces sex crime allegations in Sweden, although British police say he is still wanted in Britain for jumping bail in 2012.
Assange, 45, took refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London in 2012 to escape extradition to Sweden to answer questions about sex-crime allegations from two women.
The Swedish Prosecutor has now dropped that investigation because all avenues to pursue it have been exhausted.
Addressing supporters and the media on the embassy’s balcony after the announcement, Assange said he was ready to talk to Britain “about what is the best way forward” and with the US Department of Justice, but also defended his right to stay put.
“The road is far from over,” he said after raising a clenched fist in a gesture of victory.
“The war, the proper war, is just commencing.”
Chief Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny said maintaining his European arrest warrant would have required Assange to attend court in Sweden, and extraditing him to the country seems impossible in the near future.
“This is a total victory for Julian Assange. He is now free to leave the embassy when he wants,” Per E Samuelsson, his lawyer in Sweden, told Swedish Radio.
“He is of course happy and relieved. He has been critical that it has lasted that long.”
Detained for 7 years without charge by while my children grew up and my name was slandered. I do not forgive or forget.
Julian Assange 
@JulianAssange
Shortly after the announcement was made, Assange posted an old photo of himself smiling on Twitter and followed it up with a personal message.
“Detained for seven years without charge … while my children grew up and my name was slandered,” he wrote.
“I do not forgive or forget.”
Assange’s mother Christine Assange called on the Australian Government to give her son a new passport so that he can leave Britain.
“His passport’s been confiscated, the Australian Government should immediately issue him another one and demand safe passage for him to take up legal asylum in Ecuador,” she told the ABC.
Announcement ends seven-year legal battle
The allegations stemmed from a 2010 trip Assange made to Stockholm, where two women claimed that in separate instances they had consensual sex with Assange that became non-consensual when he refused to wear a condom.
Assange has vigorously denied the claims, and in a statement acquired by the ABC in December, told prosecutors he had been subjected to “six years of unlawful, politicised detention without charge”.
“I want people to know the truth about how abusive this process has been,” Assange said in releasing the statement.
While Assange has maintained his innocence in the face of the sex crime allegations, he has not left Ecuador’s embassy for five years, except for occasional appearances on the building’s balcony.
He feared that if he was in custody he might ultimately be extradited to the US for his role at the helm of WikiLeaks, which has published tens of thousands of leaked classified US government documents.
“It isn’t a question of believing America is after him, it’s a question of knowledge,” human rights lawyer and legal advisor to Assange, Geoffrey Robertson, told Lateline.
Mr Robertson said the US was likely to indict Assange, and that the Trump administration could use his case as a diversion from the alleged ties to Russia.
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“They think they can divert attention from the present scandal by prosecuting, by demanding the extradition of Julian Assange, and perhaps putting him on trial in America with his collaborators,” he said.
He said the ball was now in Ecuador’s court as to whether or not they continued to provide protection to Assange.
“If the Ecuadorians don’t continue their protection and he comes out, then the Met Police will no doubt arrest him for breaking bail, for which he might get three months, but that pales in comparison to the 45 years maximum under the charges that [US Attorney-General Jeff] Sessions is planning for him and will act as a diversion, I think, from the heat that the President [Donald Trump] is feeling at the moment over his team’s connections with Russia,” he said.
Assange still faces UK arrest
Despite Sweden’s decision to drop a rape investigation, British police say that Julian Assange still faces arrest if he leaves Ecuador’s London embassy.
It is not known if US officials are seeking Assange’s arrest because of a possible sealed indictment.
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VIDEO: Auskar Surbakti speaks to Melinda Taylor, a lawyer for Assange and Wikileaks (The World)
WikiLeaks tweeted after the Swedish announcement: “UK refuses to confirm or deny whether it has already received a US extradition warrant for Julian Assange. Focus now moves to UK.”
Last month, US President Donald Trump said he would support any decision by the Justice Department to charge Assange.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said it would be up to police to decide if Julian Assange should be arrested if he leaves the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Asked if she would support Britain extraditing Assange to the United States, Ms May said the Government “[looks] at extradition requests when we receive them on a case by case basis”.
“Any decision that is taken about UK action in relation to [Assange] were he to leave the Ecuadorian embassy would be an operational matter for the police,” she said.
Christine Assange said the British Government must let him leave the embassy.
“For the UK now to continue to keep him in that embassy, when he’s uncharged and the warrant has expired is now breaching his human rights severely and is almost criminal,” she told the ABC.
The Metropolitan Police force said that there is a British warrant for Assange’s arrest after he jumped bail in 2012, and it “is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the embassy”.
But it adds that Assange is now wanted for a “much less serious offense” than the original sex crimes claims, and police “will provide a level of resourcing which is proportionate to that offense”.
Police kept up round-the-clock guard outside the embassy until last year, when the operation was scaled back.
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ABC/Wires
Topics: sexual-offences, law-crime-and-justice, sweden
First posted 19 May 2017, 7:22pm
http://www.smh.com.au/world/un-rules-in-favour-of-assange-20160204-gmlojw.html
UN rules in favour of Julian Assange
A United Nations human rights panel has concluded that Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained in London in violation of international law.
- Video duration
- 01:32
Assange lawyer expects release
However, the decision, to be published on Friday by the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, is not binding in Britain.
And the Foreign Office said Britain is still legally obliged to extradite Assange to Sweden.
Assange, 44, has said he will use the decision – which is an influential opinion based on international and domestic law – to push for the return of his passport and a guarantee that he is no longer subject to arrest.
But he is unlikely to leave the Ecuadorian embassy and risk arrest until these conditions are met.
British police said “if he leaves the embassy we will make every effort to arrest him”.
Though police last year ended their 24/7 visible guard outside the embassy, they have covert surveillance in case he tries to leave.
Assange says he fears the Sweden extradition would be followed by extradition to the US to face espionage charges over his work with WikiLeaks.
The Geneva-based UN group was due to publish the findings of its investigation on Friday evening, Australian time. It made its decision several weeks ago and informed the countries involved in the case, including Britain and Sweden.
On Thursday the BBC reported the decision was in Assange’s favour. Fairfax Media, publisher of this website, also understands this is the case.
Sweden’s foreign ministry confirmed it to the New York Times. A spokeswoman added “we note that the Working Group’s view differs from that of the Swedish authorities”, and the office of the country’s director of public prosecutions said their stance would not change as a result of the decision.
Earlier on Thursday Assange tweeted that “should the UN announce that I have lost my case … I shall exit the embassy at noon on Friday to accept arrest”.
Assange: I will accept arrest by British police on Friday if UN rules against me. More info: https://justice4assange.com/
WikiLeaks However, if the decision was in his favour “I expect the immediate return of my passport and the termination of further attempts to arrest me”, he said.
On Wednesday Assange’s lawyer Melinda Taylor told Fairfax Media that Assange’s physical departure from the embassy would depend on the British government promising him safe passage to Ecuador.
“[There remains] the risk of potential extradition to the United States, where he is likely to be subjected to persecution or cruel and inhumane treatment due to his whistleblowing activities,” she said.
Assange’s lawyers had argued that their client’s apparent freedom to walk out of the embassy at any time was “completely illusory” because of the prospect of his immediate arrest.
In their legal submission to the Working Group they said Assange had been deprived of “fundamental liberties”, because Britain had denied him the benefit of Ecuador’s grant of asylum in 2012.
“He has no access to fresh air or sunlight, his communications are restricted and often interfered with, he does not have access to adequate medical facilities, he is subjected to a continuous and pervasive form of round-the-clock surveillance, and he resides in a constant state of legal and procedural insecurity,” the submission said.
“If he continues to remain in the Ecuadorian Embassy, he risks irreparably damaging his health. If, however, he leaves at any juncture, he must – against his consent – renounce his fundamental right to asylum, and expose himself to the prospect of unfair proceedings and physical and mental mistreatment in the United States of America.
“The only way for Mr Assange to enjoy his right to asylum is to be in detention. This is not a legally acceptable choice.”
A spokeswoman from Britain’s Foreign Office said they would “not pre-empt any opinions from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention”.
“We have been consistently clear that Mr Assange has never been arbitrarily detained by the UK but is, in fact, voluntarily avoiding lawful arrest by choosing to remain in the Ecuadorean embassy,” she said.
“An allegation of rape is still outstanding and a European Arrest Warrant in place, so the UK continues to have a legal obligation to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden.”
The five members of the UN group who made the decision include one Australian – legal expert Leigh Toomey.
The group has made previous rulings on illegal detention which were followed by their release, such as Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar. However, in 2014 it called for the release of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, who is still in jail.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she had not yet seen the opinion from the UN group.
“I will certainly read the report, I will certainly get a briefing on it and I will certainly seek advice,” she said. “The standing of the report would be a matter for the British government because there is an extradition process under way… (the opinion is) not binding so the British government may well say nothing has changed.”