{"id":24186,"date":"2012-12-24T12:21:50","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T12:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=24186"},"modified":"2012-12-24T12:21:50","modified_gmt":"2012-12-24T12:21:50","slug":"the-ukswedishus-governments-are-complicity-in-mental-torture-of-julian-assange-wikileaks-co-founder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/12\/the-ukswedishus-governments-are-complicity-in-mental-torture-of-julian-assange-wikileaks-co-founder\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK\/Swedish\/US Governments Are Complicity in Mental Torture of Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Co-Founder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press release \u2013 20th<\/sup> December, 2012<\/i><\/p>\n

On Thursday 13th<\/sup> December, 2012, I visited Julian Assange, Editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, in the Ecuadorian embassy, Knightsbridge, London.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is six months now since Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian embassy and was given political asylum.\u00a0 He entered the embassy\u00a0 after the British Courts shamefully refused his appeal against extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning accused of sexual molestation (no criminal charges have been made against him).\u00a0\u00a0 Julian Assange has said,\u00a0 he is willing to answer questions in the UK\u00a0 relating to accusations against him, or alternatively to go to Sweden provided the Swedish government guarantee he will not be extradited to the US where plans are ready for him to be\u00a0 tried for conspiracy to commit espionage.\u00a0 The Swedish Government refuse to give such assurance.\u00a0 Mr. Assange is right to be concerned about the dangers of extradition to USA.\u00a0 American media has reported that the US Justice Department and the Pentagon have been conducting a criminal investigation into \u2018whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange violated criminal laws in the groups release of government documents including possible charges under the espionage act\u2019.\u00a0 Mr. Assange\u2019s only crime is that he embarrassed the USA and\u00a0 powerful governments with WikiLeaks release of thousands of US state department cables and of the video footage from an apache helicopter of a 2007 incident in which the US military appears to have deliberately killed civilians, including two Reuters employees, revealing USA\u2019s Crimes against humanity. For this truth telling he has inherited the wrath of the US government, and has been targeted in a most vindictive way \u2013 as has American soldier,\u00a0 pt. Bradley Manning, currently undergoing a military Court hearing for allegedly leaking classified documents to\u00a0 WikiLeaks. Pt.\u00a0 Bradley Manning has been subjected, according to formal UN\u00a0 investigation, to \u2018cruel and inhuman\u2019 treatment whilst held in solitary confinement in US prison for nine months. The American government has admitted to the torture of Pt. Bradley Manning, one of their own soldiers.<\/p>\n

However, even if the Swedish authorities decide not to charge Julian Assange\u00a0 the USA will probably demand\u00a0 that the British government extradite Assange from Britain to the USA, to face a US Grand Jury indictment.\u00a0 (The US Grand Jury has been sitting for 16 months and it is believed to have reached a verdict to indict Julian Assange and has a sealed indictment ready to unseal at the most beneficial time to the US.\u00a0 The grand Jury is a flawed, unjust legal process, consisting of four Prosecutors but no defence evidence is allowed.\u00a0 There is no judge and a no jury pool is drawn from Alexandria, Virginia, which has the highest percentage of military contractor families in the US.)<\/p>\n

On meeting with Julian Assange I was struck by his intelligent, bright and compassionate mind, and glad to see that in spite of all the abuse of his human rights and persecution he is in good spirits and good health.\u00a0 In spite of the fact that for six months he has been confined indoors with no possibility of even 5 minutes in the fresh air, a basic right for all political prisoners, as if he tries to go outside he will be\u00a0 immediately arrested by the police outside the embassy, and be extradited to Sweden or usa. Unlike most political prisoners he has no idea how long his virtual imprisonment in the embassy, will last, 6 more months or 6 years, whilst this diplomatic standoff continues.\u00a0\u00a0 This is indeed cruel, inhumane and mental torture, of a man, whose only crime was to tell the truth and bring transparency to the illegal acts of the US Government and its allies around the world. (the cost to police this\u00a0 man of peace is \u00a311,000 per day).<\/p>\n

I believe the UK\/SWEDISH\/USA governments are all complicit in this mental torture of Julian Assange,\u00a0 and I appeal to the\u00a0 Australian government, Human rights defenders, brave media,\u00a0 and\u00a0 people who love freedom and truth to break the \u2018silence \u2018 and\u00a0 stand up for the rights of Julian Assange to assurance he will get the change to answer all accusations against him in UK or Sweden and the assurance he will not be extradited to USA where he could meet the same \u2018cruel and inhuman\u2019 treatment as pt. Bradley Manning.\u00a0 The least we can do is raise our voices to\u00a0 protect Julian Assange (and Bradley Manning) who made such brave attempts, at the cost of their own freedom,\u00a0 to try to protect all our freedoms and democracy.<\/p>\n

____________________________<\/p>\n

Mairead Corrigan Maguire is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book <\/i>The Vision of Peace (edited by John Dear, with a foreword by Desmond Tutu and a preface by the Dalai Lama) is available from www.wipfandstock.com<\/a>. She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. See: www.peacepeople.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I appeal to the Australian government, Human rights defenders, brave media, and people who love freedom and truth to break the \u2018silence \u2018 and stand up for the rights of Julian Assange to assurance he will get the change to answer all accusations against him in UK or Sweden and the assurance he will not be extradited to USA where he could meet the same \u2018cruel and inhuman\u2019 treatment as pt. Bradley Manning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nobel-laureates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}