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#Unity4J
Emergency Public Meeting and Unveiling of Non-Violent Digital Action
Plan
The consequences of such an agreement depend in part on the concessions Ecuador extracts in exchange for withdrawing Assange’s asylum. But as former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told the Intercept in an interview in May, Moreno’s government has returned Ecuador to a highly “subservient” and “submissive” posture toward western governments.
International
media are reporting that WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief may imminently be
handed by Ecuador to UK authorities. (Ref:
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/07/...
over-of-julian-assange-to-the-uk-may-be-imminent/) If such an event
occurs, it presents an immediate threat to Assange’s human rights,
asylum rights, liberty and to press freedoms.
It
would also be in direct contravention to the rulings of the UN
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Inter-American Court of
human rights, both of which have found in his favour.
The
#Unity4J
movement in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is holding an
emergency public meeting to unveil a plan for mass non-violent action
to demand freedom for the journalist and publisher. High profile
supporters of Julian Assange will be in attendance and unveil the new
strategy.
#Unity4J
originated from an unplanned but timely response to injustice when
Julian Assange’s internet access and visitation rights were
abruptly taken away and swiftly grew into high-profile monthly online
vigils endorsed by Chris Hedges, George Galloway, Ray McGovern, Bill
Binney and Daniel Ellsberg among many other noteworthy figures. It is
with that same sense of urgency and duty to take a public stand
against oppression that we are organising this Saturday to resist the
escalated violations of Julian's basic rights.
“Every
time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character
to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability
to defend ourselves and those we love." -Julian Assange
Spread
the word.
Ecuador
Will Imminently Withdraw Asylum for Julian Assange and Hand Him Over
to the UK. What Comes Next?
Glenn
Greenwald
21
July, 2018
ECUADOR’S
PRESIDENT Lenin
Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible
purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global
Disabilities Summit (Moreno
has been using a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998
robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the President’s
trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under
which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange,
in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,
and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to
British authorities.
Moreno’s
itinerary also notably includes a trip to Madrid, where he will meet
with Spanish officials still
seething over Assange’s denunciation
of human rights abuses perpetrated by Spain’s central
government against protesters marching for Catalonia
independence. Almost three months ago, Ecuador blocked
Assange from
accessing the internet, and Assange has not been able to communicate
with the outside world ever since. The primary
factor in
Ecuador’s decision to silence him was Spanish anger over Assange’s
tweets about Catalonia.
Presidential
decree signed on July 17 by Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno,
outlining his trip to London and Madrid
A
source close to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and the President’s
office, unauthorized to speak publicly, has confirmed to the
Intercept that Moreno is close to finalizing, if he has not already
finalized, an agreement to hand over Assange to the UK within the
next several weeks. The withdrawal of asylum and physical ejection of
Assange could come as early as this week. On Friday, RT reported that
Ecuador was preparing to enter into such an agreement.
The consequences of such an agreement depend in part on the concessions Ecuador extracts in exchange for withdrawing Assange’s asylum. But as former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told the Intercept in an interview in May, Moreno’s government has returned Ecuador to a highly “subservient” and “submissive” posture toward western governments.
It
is thus highly unlikely that Moreno – who has shown himself willing
to submit to threats and coercion from the UK, Spain and the U.S. –
will obtain a guarantee that the U.K. not extradite Assange to
the U.S., where top Trump officials have vowed to prosecute Assange
and destroy WikiLeaks.
The
central oddity of Assange’s case – that he has been effectively
imprisoned for eight years despite
never having been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime –
is virtually certain to be prolonged once Ecuador hands him over to
the U.K. Even under the best-case scenario, it appears highly likely
that Assange will continue to be imprisoned by British authorities.
The
only known criminal proceeding Assange currently faces is a pending
2012 arrest warrant for “failure to surrender” – basically a
minor bail violation charge that arose when he obtained asylum from
Ecuador rather than complying with bail conditions by returning to
court for a hearing on his attempt to resist extradition to Sweden.
That
charge carries
a prison term of three
months and a fine, though it is possible that the time Assange
has already spent in prison in the UK could be counted against that
sentence. In 2010, Assange was imprisoned
in Wandsworth Prison,
kept in isolation, for 10 days until he was released on bail; he
was then under house arrest for 550 days at the home of a
supporter.
Assange’s
lawyer, Jen Robinson, told the Intercept that he would argue that all
of that prison time already served should count toward (and thus
completely fulfill) any prison term imposed on the “failure to
surrender” charge, though British prosecutors would almost
certainly contest that claim. Assange would also argue that he
had a reasonable, valid basis for seeking asylum rather than
submitting to UK authorities: namely, well-grounded fear that he
would be extradited to the U.S. for prosecution for the act of
publishing documents.
Beyond
that minor charge, British prosecutors could argue that Assange’s
evading of legal process in the UK was so protracted, intentional and
malicious that it rose beyond mere “failure to surrender” to
“contempt of court,” which carries
a prison term of
up to two years. Just on those charges alone, then, Assange faces a
high risk of detention for another year or even longer in a
British prison.
Currently,
that is the only known criminal proceeding Assange faces. In May,
2017, Swedish prosecutors announced
they were closing their
investigation into the sexual assault allegations due to the
futility of proceeding in light of Assange’s asylum and the time
that has elapsed.
THE
FAR MORE IMPORTANT question
that will determine Assange’s future is what the U.S. Government
intends to do. The Obama administration was eager to prosecute
Assange and WikiLeaks for publishing hundreds of thousands of
classified documents, but ultimately
concluded that
there was no way to do so without either also prosecuting newspapers
such as the New York Times and the Guardian which published the same
documents, or create precedents that would enable the criminal
prosecution of media outlets in the future.
Indeed,
it is technically a crime under U.S. law for anyone – including a
media outlet – to publish certain types of classified information.
Under U.S. law, for instance, it was
a felony for
the Washington Post’s David Ignatius to
report on the contents of
telephone calls, intercepted by the NSA, between then National
Security Adviser nominee Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak, even though such reporting was clearly in the public
interest since it proved Flynn lied when he denied such contacts.
That
the Washington Post and Ignatius – and not merely their sources –
violated U.S. criminal law by revealing the contents of
intercepted communications with a Russian official is made clear by
the text of 18
§ 798 of the U.S. Code,
which provides (emphasis added):
“Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates … or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes … any classified information … obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
But
the U.S. Justice Department has never wanted to indict and prosecute
anyone for the crime of publishing such
material, contenting themselves instead to prosecuting the government
sources who leak it. Their reluctance has been due to two reasons:
first, media outlets would argue that any attempts to criminalize the
mere publication of classified
or stolen documents is barred by the press freedom guarantee of
the First Amendment, a proposition the DOJ has never wanted to test;
second, no DOJ has wanted as part of its legacy the
creation of a precedent that allows the U.S. Government to criminally
prosecute journalists and media outlets for reporting classified
documents.
But
the Trump administration has made clear that they have no such
concerns. Quite the contrary: last April, Trump’s then-CIA Director
Mike Pompeo, now his Secretary of State, delivered
a deranged, rambling, highly threatening broadside against
WikiLeaks. Without citing any evidence, Pompeo decreed that WikiLeaks
is “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state
actors like Russia,” and thus declared: “we have to recognize
that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the
latitude to use free speech values against us.”
The
long-time right-wing Congressman, now one of Trump’s most loyal and
favored cabinet officials, also explicitly rejected any First
Amendment concerns about prosecuting Assange, arguing that while
WikiLeaks “pretended that America’s First Amendment freedoms
shield them from justice . . . they may have believed that, but they
are wrong.”
Pompeo then
issued this bold threat: “To give them the space to crush
us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great
Constitution stands for. It ends now.”
Trump’s
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has similarly vowed not only to
continue and expand the Obama DOJ’s crackdown on sources, but also
to consider
the prosecution of media outlets that
publish classified information. It would be incredibly shrewd
for Sessions to lay the foundation for doing so by prosecuting
Assange first, safe in the knowledge that journalists themselves –
consumed with hatred for Assange due to personal reasons,
professional jealousies, and anger over the role they believed
he played in 2016 in helping Hillary Clinton lose – would
unite behind the
Trump DOJ and in support of its efforts to imprison
Assange.
During
the Obama years, it was a mainstream view among media outlets
that prosecuting Assange would be a serious danger to press freedoms.
Even the Washington Post Editorial Page, which vehemently condemned
WikiLeaks, warned
in 2010 that
any such prosecution would “criminalize the exchange of information
and put at risk” all media outlets. When Pompeo and Sessions last
year issued their threats to prosecute Assange, former Obama DOJ
spokesperson Matthew Miller insisted that no such prosecution could
ever succeed:
For
years, the Obama DOJ searched for evidence that Assange actively
assisted Chelsea Manning or other sources in the hacking or stealing
of documents – in order to prosecute them for more than merely
publishing documents – and found no such evidence. But even that
theory – that a publisher of classified documents can be prosecuted
for assisting a source – would be a severe threat to press
freedom, since journalists frequently work in some form of
collaboration with sources who remove or disclose classified
information. And nobody has ever presented evidence that
WikiLeaks conspired with whomever hacked the DNC and Podesta email
inboxes to effectuate that hacking.
But
there seems little question that, as Sessions surely knows, large
numbers of U.S. journalists – along with many, perhaps most,
Democrats – would actually support the Trump DOJ in prosecuting
Assange for publishing documents. After all, the DNC sued
WikiLeaks in April for
publishing documents –
a serious, obvious threat to press freedom – and few objected.
And
it was Democratic Senators such
as Dianne Feinstein who,
during the Obama years, were urging the prosecution of WikiLeaks,
with the support of numerous
GOP Senators.
There is no doubt that, after 2016, support among both journalists
and Democrats for imprisoning Assange for publishing documents would
be higher than ever.
IF
THE U.S. DID INDICT Assange for alleged crimes
relating to the publication of documents, or if they have already
obtained a sealed indictment, and then uses that indictment to
request that the U.K. extradite him to the U.S. to stand trial, that
alone would ensure that Assange remains in prison in the U.K. for
years to come.
Assange
would, of course, resist any such extradition on the ground that
publishing documents is not a cognizable crime and that the U.S is
seeking his extradition for political charges that, by treaty, cannot
serve as the basis for extradition. But it would take at least a
year, and probably closer to three years, for U.K. courts to
decide these extradition questions. And while all of that lingers,
Assange would almost certainly be in prison, given that it is
inconceivable that a British judge would release Assange on bail
given what happened the last time he was released.
All
of this means that it is highly likely that Assange – under his
best-case scenario –
faces at least another year in prison, and will end up having
spent a decade in prison despite never having been charged with, let
alone convicted of, any crime. He has essentially been punished –
imprisoned – by process.
And while it is often argued that Assange has only himself to blame, it is beyond doubt, given the Grand Jury convened by the Obama DOJ and now the threats of Pompeo and Sessions, that the fear that led Assange to seek asylum in the first place – being extradited to the U.S. and politically persecuted for political crimes – was well-grounded.
Assange,
his lawyers and his supporters always said that he would immediately
board a plane to Stockholm if he were guaranteed that doing so would
not be used to extradite him to the U.S., and for years offered to be
questioned by Swedish investigators inside the embassy in London,
something Swedish prosecutors only did years later. Citing those
facts, a United Nations panel ruled
in 2016 that
the actions of the U.K. government constituted “arbitrary
detention” and a violation of Assange’s fundamental human rights.
But
if, as seems quite likely, the Trump administration finally
announces that it intends to prosecute Assange for publishing
classified U.S. Government documents, we will be faced with the
bizarre spectacle of U.S. journalists – who have spent the last two
years melodramatically expressing grave concern over press
freedom due to insulting tweets from Donald Trump about Wolf Blitzer
and Chuck Todd or his mean treatment of Jim Acosta – possibly
cheering for a precedent that would be the gravest press freedom
threat in decades.
That
precedent would be one that could easily be used to put them in a
prison cell alongside Assange for the new “crime” of publishing
any documents that the U.S. Government has decreed should not be
published. When it comes to press freedom threats, such an indictment
would not be in the same universe as name-calling tweets by Trump
directed at various TV personalities.
When
it came to denouncing due process denials and the use of torture at
Guantanamo, it was not difficult for journalists to set aside their
personal dislike for Al Qaeda sympathizers to denounce the dangers of
those human rights and legal abuses. When it comes to free speech
assaults, journalists are able to set aside their personal contempt
for a person’s opinions to oppose the precedent that the government
can punish people for expressing noxious ideas.
It
should not be this difficult for journalists to set aside their
personal emotions about Assange to recognize the profound dangers –
not just to press freedoms but to themselves – if the U.S.
Government succeeds in keeping Assange imprisoned for years to come,
all due to its attempts to prosecute him for publishing classified or
stolen documents. That seems the highly likely scenario once Ecuador
hands over Assange to the U.K.
Greenwald:
Ecuador President Will Handover Assange to British During London
Visit
21
July, 2018
After
6 six years of arbitrary detention in
the basement of the Ecuadorian Embassy in Belgravia, London,
the world’s longest slow-motion chase may be reaching its climatic
conclusion.
It
appears that Ecuador has caved into US pressure on the issue. When
they first gave asylum to Assange in 2012, his stock was high
among the international liberal intelligensia, and so then
President Rafael
Correa was
able to use this as a public relations brace against western pressure
on the issue. Unfortunately, the 2016 US Election changed all that,
as Assange and Wikileaks were blamed for hurting Hillary Clinton’s
run for the White House. Instead Assange is now shunned by the
Liberal Left and embraced by supporters of Trump and Russia – two
reasons why the current Ecuadorian government appear ready to wash
their hands of Assange’s cause.
Another
sign that the US forces are pushing events is last week’s
announcement that an
Ecuadorian court ordered the arrest of Assange’s main ally
former President Correa – leaving Assange more isolated than
ever.
According
to reports, events could accelerate as soon as this Monday morning.
RT
International reported today…
Ecuadorian
President Lenin Moreno is either about to strike or has already
struck an agreement with British authorities on withdrawing the
asylum protection of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Glenn
Greenwald reports.
Moreno
is visiting the UK as part of his European trip between July 22 and
28. His visit is not said to be an official one, so he is not
expected to meet with any high-ranking UK officials and would instead
participate in the Global Disability Summit on July 24, which is
co-hosted by the UK government.
However,
the Ecuadorian leader is also expected to use his trip to the
British Isles to “finalize
an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection
of Julian Assange,” according
to the Intercept’s co-editor, Glenn Greenwald, who is best known
for a series of reports detailing the US surveillance programs based
on the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Greenwald also supported
and defended Wikileaks, as well as the whistleblowers who provided
materials for the website, for many years.
Moreno
is “close
to finalizing, if he has not already finalized,” the
agreement, Greenwald writes, citing an unnamed “source
close to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and the President’s
office.”Under
this agreement, the WikiLeaks founder could be ejected from the
Ecuadorian Embassy and handed over to the UK authorities “as
early as this week,”Greenwald
says.
Earlier,
RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said, citing her own sources,
that Ecuador is ready to hand Assange over to the UK in “coming
weeks or even days.” According
to Greenwald, such a development could lead to Assange being sent to
jail for at least one more year “under
his best-case scenario,” which
would mean that he would have spent nearly a decade
imprisoned “despite
never having been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime.”
As
Sweden dropped its sexual assault investigation against Assange back
in May 2017, the only criminal proceeding he is now facing in the UK
is a pending 2012 arrest warrant for “failure to surrender.” It
goes back to Assange obtaining asylum from Ecuador and finding refuge
in the Ecuadorian Embassy instead of complying with bail conditions
in the UK.
Such
an offense carries a prison term of three months, Greenwald says,
warning, however, that the UK authorities could potentially elevate
charges against Assange to “contempt of court,” which carries a
prison term of up to two years. Besides, UK authorities are unlikely
to provide a guarantee that the WikiLeaks founder would not be
extradited to the US, which is apparently bent on imprisoning him for
releasing classified documents.
Publication
of classified materials is technically a crime for anyone in the US,
but US Department of Justice officials have been reluctant to
prosecute anyone on such charges so far, due to concerns that such a
case could lead to them being accused of violating press freedom
rights and, thus, the First Amendment.
However,
the Trump administration has seemingly made clear that they have no
such concerns. While he was still in charge of the CIA, Mike Pompeo
once said that while WikiLeaks, “pretended
that America’s First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice .
. . they may have believed that, but they are wrong.”
21st
Century Wire says…
And
there you have it. While this long chapter finally closes, a whole
new international legal drama is now set to unfold – and with so
much at stake and so many players and factions involved – it may
take a further 5 years to resolve.
The
reality is that the US may face some serious legal challenges when
attempting to extradite and ultimately prosecute Assange in the US.
While Swedish charges have been dropped, the law is not on
Washington’s side if they are hoping to bring the Wikileaks founder
in under the heading “espionage”. While
it makes for good
political rhetoric in the US, Assange is technically a publisher and
Wikileaks is a media outlet – and no amount of spin in Washington
can change that. Eventually, a court will have to rule on this
crucial distinction. With this in mind, a strong case can be made in
the British legal system that his situation has become politicized,
including numerous belligerent statements
made already by leading US political figures, including
a statement
madeby current President Trump) and therefore he would in no way
be given a fair trial in the United States. On this point, Assange
could retain some of the best human rights barristers, and will have
a substantial legal fund to fight his case, in which case he may ride
out a short sentence on remand in the UK, but still be somewhat
cornered by US efforts to either apprehend him or restrict his
movement afterwards.
In
addition to this, if eventually pushed into the hands of Washington’s
legal system, Assange may still possess some serious leverage. Aside
from knowledge of any potentially embarrassing undisclosed Snowden
leaks, Julian Assange may also have intimate knowledge of the DNC
Leaks (or DNC ‘hack’ at his detractors commonly refer to it). The
viability of the US establishment’s entire Russiagate narrative
hinges on on how the DNC narrative is perceived by the wider public,
and the US establishment would like very much for any new information
which might alter their current narrative of “Russian hacking” –
to remain out of the public discourse. This piece of information
alone, and whether or not it airs publicly – could potentially be
enough for Assange to bargain his way to freedom if caught on the
other side of the Atlantic.
Even
if he’s turned over this week, this story is far from over.
*WATCH
THIS SPACE*
Ray
McGovern Interviewed by Suzie Dawson in #Unity4J-2.0 Vigil
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