ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE
Submitted by Dr. Binoy Kampmark
The only shock about the UK Home Secretary’s decision regarding Julian Assange was that it did not come sooner. In April, Chief Magistrate Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring expressed the view that he was “duty-bound” to send the case to Priti Patel to decide on whether to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 grafted from the US Espionage Act of 1917.
Patel, for her part, was never exercised by the more sordid details of the case. Her approach to matters of justice is one of premature adjudication: the guilty are everywhere, and only multiply. When it came to WikiLeaks, such fine points of law and fact as a shaky indictment based on fabricated evidence, meditations on assassination, and a genuine, diagnosed risk of self-harm, were piffling distractions. The US Department of Justice would not be denied.
“Under the Extradition Act 2003,” a nameless spokesman for the Home Office stated, “the Secretary of State must sign an extradition order if there are no grounds to prohibit the order being made. Extradition requests are only sent to the Home Secretary once a judge decides it can proceed after considering various aspects of the case.”
Evidently, overt politicisation, bad faith, and flimsy reassurances from the US Department Justice on how Assange will be detained, do not constitute sufficient grounds. But the cue came from the courts themselves, which have done a fabulous job of covering the US justice system with tinsel in actually believing assurances that Assange would not be facing special administrative detention measures (SAMs) or permanent captivity in the ADX Florence supermax in Colorado. “In this case, the UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr Assange.”
In such a scatterbrained, and amoral cosmos that marks decision making in the Home Office, no mention has been made of the surveillance operation against the publisher in the Ecuadorian embassy, orchestrated at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency. None, either, of contemplated abduction or assassination, or the frail mental health Assange finds himself.
As late as June 10, a letter from the group Doctors for Assange, comprising 300 doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists, noted that the Home Secretary’s “denial of the cruel, inhuman treatment inflicted by upon Assange was then, and is even more so now, irreconcilable with the reality of the situation”.
In April, an umbrella grouping of nineteen organisations dedicated to press freedom and free speech urged Patel, in reviewing the case, to appreciate that Assange would “highly likely” face isolation or solitary confinement US conditions “despite the US government’s assurances, which would severely exacerbate the risk of suicide”.
The co-chairs of the Courage Foundation’s Assange Defense Committee, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Alice Walker, reflected on the depravity of the order in a statement. “It is a sad day for western democracy. The UK’s decision to extradite Julian Assange to the nation that plotted to assassinate him – the nation that wants to imprison him for 175 years for publishing truthful information in the public interest – is an abomination.” As for the UK, it had “shown its complicity in this farce, by agreeing to extradite a foreigner based on politically motivated charges that collapse under the slightest scrutiny.”
Similar views were expressed by Amnesty International (“a chilling message to journalists the world over”) and Reporters Without Borders (“another failure by the UK to protect journalism and press freedom”). There was even concern from Conservative MP David Davis, who expressed his belief that Assange would not “get a fair trial.” The extradition law was, as matters stood, lopsided in favour of US citizens.
All this is consistent with Patel, who seems to relish the prospect of sending individuals to a place where human rights are marginal jottings on a policy paper. The UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Partnership, as it is euphemistically termed, is her pride and joy, albeit one currently facing strenuous legal opposition.
Under the arrangement, individuals crossing the channel will receive one-way tickets to Rwanda to have their claims processed without a prospect of settling in the UK. The Rwandan government, hostile to contrarians, the rule of law and refugees, will be subsidised for their pain and labours.
To this sadistic streak can be added her admiration for the Espionage Act being used to prosecute Assange. This fact should have disqualified her in any country operating under the rule of law. Even as Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a Conservative no-confidence vote this month, Patel’s National Security Bill passed its second reading in Parliament. The bill articulates an offence of “obtaining or disclosing protected information” that includes “any information… which either is, or could reasonably be expected to be, subject to any type of restrictions of access for protecting the safety and interests of the UK.”
In a polite nod of deference to US law, the proposed law states that an offence is committed when a person “obtains, copies, records or retains protected information, or discloses or provides access to protected information” for a purpose “that they know, or ought reasonably to know, is prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom” and if “the foreign power condition is met”. The requirement there is that the act is “carried out for or on behalf of a foreign power”, including instances where “an indirect relationship” exists.
Assange has 14 days to appeal this insidious rubber stamping of judicially sanctioned brutality. His legal team are hoping to use the High Court as the route to highlight the political dimension of the case and draw attention back to the way the extradition law was read.
If the defence fail, Assange will be sent across the Atlantic, entrusted to officials, some of whom considered murdering him, to be made an example of. It will be the clarion call to regimes across the world that punishing a publisher is something supposed liberal democracies can do as well, and as deviously, as anybody else.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
ugly poo tell should be extradired to uganda,poor uganda what a punishment
She is a disgrace to her Indian origins and a coconut slave of Anglo evil.
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Joint BRICS & SCO special commando forces should conduct an operation over brits Belmarsh prison to extract Julian Assange from jail.
Warrant of arrest should be issued to bojo, priti patel, and the brits judges who enable the atrocity of the rotten empire, arrest them everywhere possible.
Does anyone got surprise with Patel’s decision..? After we all witnessed how the brits operatives stormed the Ecuadorian embassy and kidnapped JA.. After we heard the court reversal of decision not to extradite him.? Evil forces at work.
Moscow needs JA for more revelations to expose US UK NATO hidden atrocities, Russia should publicly announce an offer to swap the 2 brits mercs for JA that would create national chaos..
.. The brits public and brits mercs family would create a loud noise that would press the government to the swap proposal whereby the brits government will be put on the international spotlight showcasing its catalogue of lame decisions expectedly will result into an internal crisis.
The nasty Anglo-Zionists are picking on a decent guy who exposed their war crimes and evil. FREE JULIAN.
Julian Assange knows who killed Seth Rich and who hacked the DNC server. Hope he has a dead man switch or two, I am sure the USA is planning a Epstein hanging for him.
Paul Goldspring ???- this is the guy who sentenced a man who wore a Palestinian T-shirt in Golders Green -like America the UK now has “political judges ” . Where is the outcry from UK Journalists -owned by the 5 US media organisations controlling western media -guess who owns them -behind the scenes ?
He is a British Zionist Jew of the Goldspring family. The worst of the lot.
Thanks Paul ,hard to find his Jewish connections but “Gold ” was a clue.
Or Silver. 30 pieces of silver.
*GoldShower
Yes, the very same khazar jew Goldspring (of course it is Goldsomething, what else). It is amazing that whenever it comes to huge injustice, wars, pillage, banksterism, mass murders, lies, deception, setups, treason, bloody revolutions – there are always people of the very same origin present. Doesn’t that say enough?
Priti Patel is another shallow, UK Government apparatchik with no moral fiber like most of the rest of the UK Government. These are straw men and women lacking any substance and humanity. They can spell the word Democracy but have no idea what it means. Most of them are corrupt and never serve the public interest or the laws they are supposed to uphold. The word Politician, in the Western World, is one of the dirtiest words in the English language. Most of them are totally worthless oxygen thieves!
The limey cunts have never been a democracy but stooges of Rothschild pedos.
Well said.
Pure evil
Assange better plan out redundancies upon redundancies how he can point to his murderers, speak beyond his grave, and continue his legacy.
Shocking!
‘The only shock about the UK Home Secretary’s decision regarding Julian Assange was that it did not come sooner.’
Its obvious that democracy dont work. What we need is a global government of a small elite of financiers who control the whole planet with a global police and global military to carry out all their orders. This will resolve everything.
I wonder if anyone reading this will think this would be a bad idea not realizing that the global government, at least in the Western world has been upon us for at least decades. That small elite of families of banking parasites who orchestrated every single war and conflict for the past few hundred years have been and are controlling the world through their stooges in the Western governments.
Would that be the Causas Belli for the WHO to declare any global emergency that can only be resolved by tyranny etc, Tommy’ :) All of this being subcontracted to the low life ruling classes of the US/UK who report to their masters in Israel?
Florian Geller are you too fall over AntiIsraeli Agenda… they arent real Hebrews you known they are Money Lovers, sons of Mammon God. So, dont put everybody in the same basketcase. Some of us just want to live in peace and advance our culture gradually, evolve our societies, advance our civilization and God’s knowledge while we go in transit over earth’s dimension domain.
This vile Cnt Patel has sucked too many c0cks, you won’t find any moral fabric under her slippery skin.
What ever you say, say nothing. If you live in the West. They will use their laws to silence the truth every time. Gagging orders hate speech any excuse to keep the truth from being told. Assange is being used to scare others into remaining silent. But the proof is out there the paper trails the documents all of it. All the evidence. Hunter Biden won’t spend a single day doing jail time. But Julian Assange has spent years locked up for his part in exposing the truth and lies of Western governments along with their endless crimes and cover ups
Assange exposed criminal behavior and criminal actions in the American government. Now the criminals he exposed will prosecute him for exposing them. There’s for sure something wrong with this picture.
Thus with this indefensible National Security Bill, the UK descends from covert fascism to full-blown overt nazism.
I was thinking that as well pasha ,it gives the police and all the UK security mob the powers to detain-arrest for any reason under “national security ” just like the US Homeland Security. Heinrich Himmler -Reichsfuhrer of the Schutzstaffel would be jealous
When they start saying again, “Ladies and Gentlemen” at online workworks, then I will return, but not until then! Florida is a common sense conservative state where most people have brains! http://Www.desalary.com
this is what anglos mean by rules based order—we order you to follow our racist imperialist rules
Dodgy political practice of UK is known to use a foreign figure or identity to execute the government immoral and unethical decisions to distance the true brits breed from embarrassing situations, like an Indian descent deciding the extradition of Julian Assange. very similar to a big football finals last year between Manchester utd and a foreign team that ended in a draw and has to be decided with penalty shots where the rigged result of the match was lost by the 3 Black players of Man U when all the three missed their goal shots.. Therefore the true brits blood did not lost but the 3 black players… Pathetic.
Assange is just a Player, the info Wikileaks disclosed was provided by Security Agencies who win over Wikileaks leak over MSM Worldwide…. and yes, USA UK act like we read on Wikileaks, we all known (security agencies) since the end of WWI of Big Power Competition using Corporations to compite over Markets worldwide. So, in the end, every single one of us are just puppets to Big Goverments who are compiting against each other over supremacy… we all have nationality, belong to an Army, sing a country himn, and serve a flag… so let play everybody, will see who are the best will win this Poker match over life and earth’s dimension domain.
Ugly coconut whore Patel is just following her Zionist paymasters orders. This cunt of country called the UK is shithole of evil that needs to be wiped off the earth after IsraHell!
Well it’s time for the BRICS SCO and other Russian-led groupings to form a respectable justice system who will be empowered to prosecute the crimes committed by the west and its satellites. A complete overhaul of the entire system is badly needed to demolish everything what the west has created and rigged to favour its sole interest regardless of a given circumstances.
UK finds more “justice” for her mercenaries in Ukraine who kill people and fight under the nazi flag than an internet journalist spreading the truth.