Good news the extradition of Julian Assange has been refused. Extradition would be an attack on press freedom. It is alarming the judge has accepted US Government arguments threatening freedom of speech and to publish. Assange should be released.
Jeremy Corbyn
U.K. Judge Blocks Assange’s Extradition to U.S., Citing Mental Health
U.S. officials want the WikiLeaks founder to face charges of violating the Espionage Act. But a judge in London ruled that he was at extreme risk of suicide.
Elian Peltier and LONDON — A British judge ruled on Monday that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States to face trial on charges of violating the Espionage Act, saying he would be at extreme risk of suicide.
The decision in the high-profile case grants Mr. Assange a major victory against the U.S. authorities who charged him over his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rights groups and advocates applauded the ruling, but many expressed concern about the its rationale. The judge focused on Mr. Assange’s mental health issues, but rejected the defense argument that the charges were an attack on press freedom and were politically motivated.
Continue reading www.nytimes.com
Mexico: AMLO Offers Political Asylum to Julian Assange
Jan. 4, 2021
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) Monday offered political asylum to Australian journalist Julian Assange after Britain’s Crime Court refused to extradite him to the U.S.
“Our Foreign Affairs Ministry will ask the U.K. government to release Assange so that Mexico can offer him political asylum,” AMLO said.
“The court’s verdict is a triumph of justice. Assange is a journalist who complied with his duty,” he stressed.
The proposal took place shortly after Britain Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied the extradition of Assange, 49, accused by the U.S. of espionage and computer intrusion.
Continue reading www.telesurenglish.net
Assange wins. The cost: Press freedom is crushed, and dissent labeled mental illness
By Jonathan Cook
January 04, 2020
The unexpected decision by Judge Vanessa Baraitser to deny a US demand to extradite Julian Assange, foiling efforts to send him to a US super-max jail for the rest of his life, is a welcome legal victory, but one swamped by larger lessons that should disturb us deeply.
Those who campaigned so vigorously to keep Assange’s case in the spotlight, even as the US and UK corporate media worked so strenuously to keep it in darkness, are the heroes of the day. They made the price too steep for Baraitser or the British establishment to agree to lock Assange away indefinitely in the US for exposing its war crimes and its crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But we must not downplay the price being demanded of us for this victory.
Continue reading www.informationclearinghouse.info
Appeal to Archbishop of Canterbury for Liberation of Julian Assange
Dec. 1, 2019
Α letter signed by 60 intellectuals from 15 countries was delivered to Lambeth Palace calling on His Grace, Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, to use his moral influence to end the unjustified imprisonment of Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison.
Signatories include, among others, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, film-maker Oliver Stone, human rights defender Francis Boyle, former chair of the Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Dick Marty, the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, the popular German Bundestag member Sahra Wagenknecht, the ex-editor of Le Monde Diplomatique Alain Gresh, William R. Polk, descendent of the 11th President of the United States and former President of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs, Manolis Glezos, named by Charles de Gaulle “the first Resistant in Europe”
Continue reading www.defenddemocracy.press
