Assange Will Surrender To UK Police If UN Rules Against Him
https://www.rt.com/news/331222-assange-un-panel-decision/
"The outcome of a UN investigation into the case of Julian Assange is set to be revealed on Friday morning. Assange can potentially walk out a free man if the five-member UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rules that the WikiLeaks founder has been detained in the Ecuadorian embassy illegally.
In a statement by WikiLeaks posted on Twitter, Assange said that, 'should the UN announce tomorrow [Friday] that I have lost my case against the United Kingdom and Sweden, I shall exit the embassy at noon on Friday to accept arrest by British police as there is no meaningful prospect of further appeal.
But Assange stressed, should the UN rule in his favor, he expects 'the immediate return of my passport and the termination of further attempts to arrest me..."
WikiLeaks 'Waiting For Official Confirmation' After BBC Report UN Ruled in Assange's Favor
https://www.rt.com/news/331240-assange-un-panel-decision/
"WikiLeaks said it is 'waiting for official confirmation' after a BBC report claimed a UN panel has ruled the arbitrary detention of Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London is illegal..."
Assange Team Waiting: LIVE
https://www.rt.com/on-air/
WikiLeaks' Assange 'unlawfully detained' in Ecuador embassy, U.N. panel to rule, BBC says (uk.reuters.com)
Julian Assange is being arbitrarily held, UN panel to say (bbc.com)
WikiLeaks Spokesman: UK, Sweden Should Respect UN Panel Rulign On Assange (and vid)
https://www.rt.com/news/331327-assange-un-wikileaks-ruling/
"The UK and Sweden should respect and abide by a UN panel ruling if it establishes that WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange's detention in London is illegal, Kristinn Hrafnsson, the group's spokesman, told RT. He said its 'unthinkable' to undermine the panel's decision.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said through his spokesman that the UN panel decision wouldn't be legally binding and if Assange leaves the Ecuadorian embassy, an arrest warrant will be put into effect..."
#assange
https://twitter.com/hashtag/assange
The only reason the Swedish police ever prosecuted this case was that Assange revealed the secrets of the powerful.
Sickeningly cynical use of statutes here.
The UK government, finding out that Assange needed to leave the refuge of the Embassy, let him know that he could choose between exercising his human right to political asylum and the right to medical treatment. All the charm of serial killers.
Of course if he sought medical treatment then he would soon need more medical treatment ... after spending time in British dungeons (or worse).
Good to check the facts here. The MSM is just pumping out the lies ATM.
UN Panel Rules Julian Assange Arbitrarily Detained, Entitled To Liberty & Compensation (and vid)
https://www.rt.com/news/331371-assange-arbitrarily-detained-un/
"The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) concluded that Mr Julian Assange was arbitrarily detained by the Governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.'
The group concluded that the WikiLeaks founder is entitled to his freedom of movement and to compensation. The opinions of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention are legally binding to the extent they are based on international human rights law..."
We are being reminded ever more often and impressively how might makes right and international law doesn't. There must be a response or the capacity and capability developed to produce one which will reverse this unacceptable status quo situation.
It's great news of course but nothing to get excited about. We've seen the Us weather the storm of being on the wrong side of the law, the wrong side of human rights, and on the wrong side by being the criminals in a war against Iraq. (among 37 other wars of aggression)
And come out of it looking like they're the great protector of humanity and always on the side of right. Assange is still screwed. Blame Putin.
edit: we need to look for the news on the West's MSM. Let us know if you find it?
Freeing Julian Assange: The Final Chapter - by John Pilger
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/35013-focus-freeing-julia...
"One of the epic miscarriages of justice of our time - is unravelling. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention -- the international tribunal that adjudicates and decides whether governments comply with their human rights obligations - has ruled that Julian Assange has been detained unlawfully by Britain and Sweden.
After five years of fighting to clear his name - having been smeared relentlessly yet charged with no crime - Assange is closer to justice and veneration, and perhaps freedom, than at any time since he was arrested and held in London under a European Extradition Warrant, itself now discredited by Parliament.
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama, a professor of constitutional law, lauded whistleblowers as 'part of a healthy democracy [and they] must be protected from reprisal.' Obama, the betrayer, has since prosecuted more whistleblowers than all US presidents combined.
What is certain is that a decent world owes much to Julian Assange. He told us how indecent power behaves in secret, how it lies and manipulates and engages in great acts of violence, sustaining wars that kill and maim and turn millions into the refugees now in the news.
Telling us this truth alone earns Assange his freedom, whereas justice is his right."
'UN Decision Undeniable, Sweden & UK Lost,' Assange Tells Crowds in London (and vid)
https://www.rt.com/news/331435-assange-visctory-sweden-lost/
"How sweet it is!' Assange proclaimed as he stood before the cheering crowds with a copy of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) decisision in his hands.
He said the ruling was 'historical' not only for him and his family but also 'for the independence of the UN system.' The WikiLeaks founder noted the UN had stressed that the panel's decision was 'legally binding', which means attempts to deny the ruling by UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond were just 'words.'
Assange warned that if his 'illegal, immoral detention' continues despite the decision, those responsible for it in the UK and Sweden will face criminal charges. Assange concluded his speech by thanking everybody at the UN, the people and government of Ecuador, [and] all his supporters worldwide..."
dp
In those cases in which Obama acted against whistle blowers, was he compelled by law to do so? I'm suggesting treason or other illegal acts. A question that may be applicable to Bradley Manning or Snowden?
It's absolutely wonderful and a moral victory that is going to be visible to the entire world and hurt the US in it's credibility. But that's about all it will do to the US because they have no obligation to obey or recognize the ruling. Sounding a little more like Nazi Germany more and more every day.
Why is this thread not getting enormous attention?
Thanks for keeping us up to date on this NDPP.
'Assange's Only Crime Is Telling the World How It is Secretly Run' - John Pilger
https://youtu.be/RqzZDJrUit0
Julian Assange's Father, John Shipton
https://youtu.be/gozqqWq9kfs
"Julian's treatement is cruel, sadistic and ignores every appeal to law."
Despite the fact that, at the cost of $13 Million Pounds (so far), the UK government has had the Ecuadorian Embassy under 24-hour surveillance, it seems that they didn't notice someone scaling the wall of the Embassy and trying to break in. They further took 2 hours after the Embassy called to bother to "get around" to investigate.
Bumbling, incompetent Metropolitan Police.
Ecuadorian Embassy: Intruder? Two Hours Later, the Police Arrive.
Of course, this has NOTHING to do with Julian Assange, whistleblower, in sanctuary at the Embassy to protect his life.
At the same time, if someone -- Obama?? Clinton??? -- hired a ninja to scale the walls, silently "retire" Assange and disappear into the night, they clearly didn't get their ninja's worth.
I can't belive he's still in there.
If I had a choice between living in the Equadorian embassy in London, and spending the rest of my life in solitary in a U.S. supermax prison, I know what I'd choose.
What charges has the U.S. DA's office filed on him and where? They can't just throw him in a supermax prison on a whim.
The answer is none and nowhere. I just can't believe he hasn't slipped out of the place over the past year or so.
There is significant evidence that the U.S. government has a secret indictment against Assange, and would demand his extradition as soon he was in Swedish custody. A good place to start is this 2012 Guardian column by Glenn Greenwald.
Well, it's certainly nice that in absentia, his goal seems to be to help President Trump. If he succeeds, he might need a better hiding place from the whole world.
Yes, I agree that Assange's behaviour lately has been contrary to his previously stated principles.
One might argue that he's just a truth-teller, and can only tell those truths he has to tell.
But if I understand correctly, he's got more "truths" to tell about Clinton, but is playing those cards close to his chest until it can most benefit Trump.
Or else what's the needless delay about?
If you were Assange, you would do everything you can to prevent a Clinton presidency. You've seen how Democrats treat whistleblowers. I'm not saying Republicans would treat them better, but Trump isn't a Republican.
So are you, then, saying that Trump would treat him better?
ed'd to add: I don't mean a free back scrub for helping bring down Shillary. I mean, on principle.
Of course he would. Why wouldn't he?
I suppose, if the enemy of his enemy is Trump's friend.
But if Wikileaks ever came in possession of The Donald's private correspondence, do you feel that he would turn the other cheek?
And that is why Assange has no friend in the US. They are quite correctly all afraid of him.
This depends on if "The Donald" has anything left to hide.
What does it say that every mainstream U.S. politician is afraid of Assange?
No kidding. If I had reason to think maybe he's been tapping my phone, I'd be afraid too.
Not because "I have things to hide", but because who among us wants their privacy to be publicity?
We talk of the importance of internet privacy, and personal privacy, and then we cheer someone who violates it.
This is an important point. Of course it comes down to what people are hiding. If the secrect information is something that involves the public interest rather than something the public is interested in (for entertainment). If the secret is compromising others and harming others then people are probably more likely to forgive the privacy violation than if the secret does no harm to the public.
I am uncomfortable with the personal private violations from wikileaks but I really am unsympathetic to governments who have been decieving the public and have had their secrets (not personal or individual) exposed. When you have politicians in power and they are committing tax fraud I am not very sympathetic but I don't feel comfortable with this either.
There is a power to wikileaks that is beyond accountability and if it is not disturbing one might want to ask why.
Who among us are politicians? There is a social understanding that if you enter politics, particularly U.S. Presidential politics, everything you have ever done will be subject to microscopic scrutiny. This is something politicians have to accept as part of the job.
Politicians who are dumb enough to get caught deserve to fear those who would expose them.
As Sean said (and I agree), there is a big difference based on context. Taking pictures of Kate Middleton on vacation from a half mile away is a serious and unethical breach of personal privacy. Exposing collusion between a major political party and a candidiate in what is supposed to be a fair election is laudable.
Hacking is just a legitimate and normal part of that scrutiny now?
You mean Killary, don't you?
It is sad that I forgot "which" set of emails were being referred to by this comment. The DNC emails may not have been a hack.
But with respect to Hillary Clinton's email server, it was Hillary's choice to set up an unsecured private server to try to subvert future FOI requests. There is plenty of evidence that she knew exactly what she was doing and was aware that the data on the server was vulnerable. If she was concerned about that data getting out, she should maybe consider playing by the rules for once in her life like the rest of us plebians.
"Did you ever wipe your server?"
“What? Like with a cloth or something?...I don’t know how it works digitally at all.”
And now we have reports Secretary Clinton had software specifically designed to do just that.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-25/fbi-admits-clinton-used-softwar...
Wikileaks rightly criticized the conduct of those connected to the Panama Papers "leaks" because they were not publicly accessible and therefore those doing the leaks were acting as "gatekeepers", directing public attention where it suited them. I think the criticism hit home because the policy changed but I am not 100% sure about that.
So it's not just "what they're hiding". It's also how the "whistleblower" does/doesn't do their job.
Just as a reminder, the current Obama regime has been the most ruthless, cruel hunter of whistleblowers in the history of the US. That will undoubtedly continue under a 2nd Clinton administration.
Absolutely -- and what are the interests of the whistle blowers and the publishers of the whistleblowers. All important questions.
Wikileaks may be a useful bandaid as a last resort when the public is shut out but it is no substitute for a more open democratic process. And there is no democracy (or choice) without knowledge.
To call Wikileaks "whistleblowers" at this point is a bit disingenous.
If they were all about bringing the truth to the people, and how "information wants to be free" then why are they holding back more Clinton e-mails so that they can be an October surprise?
That's not in the interest of the people, and it's not in the interest of the truth, it's in the interest of Donald Trump. Wikileaks is a player now.
Claim it is wrong if you like and you make a great case for that. Disingenuous though means something else --that the person saying it is being dishonest. I totally disagree.
Disingenuous - not straightforward or candid; giving a false appearance of frankness; "an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine, and hypocritical operator, who...exemplified...the most disagreeable traits of his time"- David Cannadine; "a disingenuous excuse"
Not sure why it is so fashionable here to argue in this way.
Confused supporters of HRC, IMHO.
Dmitri Orlov [whose article I quoted and why I'm currently being denounced ... due to his mocking GLBTQ rights] had a nice blurb on this ...
Let liberal heads explode. See "Furious Sheep" by D. Orlov.
Actually, that Furious Sheep article is sickeningly brilliant. I hate Dmitri Orlov. Who said he could be so clever?
FWIW, I wasn't thinking specifically of you -- seems like almost everyone thinks they're "whistleblowers"
Well, they're holding a whistle, but they're not going to blow it until it can do the most damage to Clinton's campaign (and while the ominous mystery meanwhile does even more).
Edward Snowden released everything to selected journalists. His idea was to let journalists do the leaking as they saw fit, redacting whatever they thought might be irrelevant to whatever stories they were doing.
Something similar happened with the "Panama Papers" as well.
If you leak, you should leak "responsibly" so that innocent parties don't get hurt. That means holding some stuff back.
With computer security researchers they engage in "responsible disclosure". First tell the folks who have a software bug that there's something wrong so that you give them a chance to fix it. Then if they know about it and don't fix it, you release your report on the bug.
Except of course if you're Micro$oft...you let the NSA know of the flaws first so that they get first crack at exploiting them...and then maybe you fix the problems.
That's fine. Nothing wrong with vetting the leaks to ensure that they represent the very minimum of privacy violation.
Except that Assange is already gloating about what he's got hidden in his vest pocket. He knows what it is, and I doubt that it's a bunch of e-mails from some secretary to some aide. It's practically internet marketing, at this point. "Get ready, America! What we release next will amaze you!!"
This isn't about "we have a lot to comb through so we don't really know yet".
I agree with your conclusion -- I just think that most people think theya re whistleblowers and so are not being dishonest. They are just wrong. I do think that genuine whistle blowers have been some of their sources. But I agree their behaviour has been horrible -- making threats. It has bordered on extortion in my view when they have implied that they would back off if policies changed.
Actually, given that known Clinton supporters are openly calling for the murder of Assange, at least one bandit has scaled the wall of the Ecuadorian Embassy, despite 24x7 surveillance for years, to no response from the "very professional" Metropolitan Police of London for 2 hours, and pressure by the jackboot US regime on Ecuador domestically, and so on, to throw the whistelblower to the wolves, if I was Julian Assange I'd be posting exposes of Clinton, and anyone else who threatened me, and putting naked pictures of my ass as a cherry on top just to ridicule that barbarous regime.
If the US could kill him, they would. In such circumstances, anything is fair.
Wikileaks may have indeed inadvertantly included unnecessary private details in their data dumps.
There is an irony in that the original arrangements of Wikileaks with estabishment media, The New York Times and the Guardian for the diplomatic cables were, in part, farmed to those media outlets to provide more eyes to redact material for unnecessary harm in a range of scenarios.
Both the Times and the Guardian turned on Wikileaks and the Guardian's David Leigh "inadvertantly" published the lengthy password to the raw insurance file making the raw dump inevitable.
Lacking further co-opertive arrangements with hostile, state subservient media leaves the limited Wikileaks staff to vet the massive releases of data, which, I'd guess, is virtually impossible without paralizing publishing.
In 2010 Assange said: "We can't sit on material like this for three years with one person to go through the whole lot, line-by-line, to redact. We have to take the best road we can."
Arguments can be made for and against such an approach.
But do not think for a moment the present attack on Wikileaks as reflects a genuine concern for potential privacy victims by the outraged media and AP journo Raphael Satter:
http://wearechange.org/wikileaks-lawyer-files-formal-complaint-ap-falseh...
Since the original title of this thread is Assange's situation, here is my 2 cents.
It's been half a year since the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled in Assanges favour, and it's findings rejected by the UK.
It would have been a Pyrric victory even if accepted by the UK.
De facto house arrest, as a political asylum grantee in the Equadorian Embassy for the rest of his natural life is unlikely--but it would be better than any forseeable alternative. (His "natural life", in any case, may be shortened since the UK has denied any police escorted visits for specialist treatment).
Finally Sweden has agreed to interview Assange over sex crime allegations, despite years of falsely saying that they only do such interviews in Sweden:
http://www.independent.mk/articles/35302/Ecuador+llows+Sweden+to+Intervi...
Even if Sweden after this proposed interview decides not to lay charges (for the second time after the original interview in Sweden found no charges were warranted) Assange's prospects are bleak.
He has said he would continue his asylum in the Equadorian Embassy as he would almost certainly end up in US hands.
His days are numbered, Asylum not likely to be permenant.
One can be sure US pressure on Equador is already intense and with Clinton president, who has shown a special interest in pursuing Assange, it is unikely to be resistable.
I get this, but if nobody's had the time to go through what they've got, how can Assange already gloat about it, and drop teasers?
This is much the same as what the US did in relation to alleged War Criminal Slobodan Miliosovic. The US made sure that Milosovic would not receive medical attention for his heart condition (which they were aware of and followed closely - Wikileaks told us this), while he was languishing in a US-controlled dungeon.
Years later, Milosovic was "exonnerated" of the serious charges. (in a very poorly covered recent story). But he was already long dead, having failed to get the live-saving treatment he needed.
All those who oppose the Empire die. That is the underlying message ... and give the Americans their due. Their murderous policy is solidly consistent.
As we discussed, Milosevic was not in fact "exonerated." See thread on that topic.
If the US did cause his death, however, it undercuts the argument that the ICC is a tool of US imperialism - the ICC prosecutors desperately wanted a conviction and instead, Mr M died without any finding of guilt against him.
--
On topic, maybe there should be a new online petition: Julian Assange and Wikileaks, release all information you have right now!
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