The modern detainee in a political sense has to be understood in the abstract. Those who take to feats of hacking, publishing and articulating positions on the issue of institutional secrets have become something of a species, not as rare as they once more, but no less remarkable for that fact. And what a hounded species at that.

Across the globe prisons are now peopled by traditional, and in some instances unconventional journalists, who have found themselves in the possession of classified material. In one specific instance, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks stands tall, albeit in limited space, within the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Unlawful imprisonment and arbitrary detention are treated by black letter lawyers with a crystal clarity that would disturb novelists and lay people; lawyers, in turn, are sometimes disturbed by the inventive ways a novelist, or litterateur type, might interpret detention. The case of Assange, shacked and hemmed in a small space at the mercy of his hosts who did grant him asylum, then citizenship, has never been an easy one to explain to either. Ever murky, and ever nebulous, his background and circumstances inspires polarity rather than accord.

What matters on the record is that Assange has been deemed by the United Nations Working Group in Arbitrary Detention to be living under conditions that amount to arbitrary detention. He is not, as the then foreign secretary of the UK, Philip Hammond claimed in 2016, a fugitive from justice, voluntarily hiding in the Ecuadorean embassy. To claim such volition is tantamount to telling a person overlooking the precipice that he has a choice on whether to step out and encounter it.

The whole issue with his existence revolves, with no small amount of precariousness, on his political publishing activity. He is no mere ordinary fugitive, but a muckracker extraordinaire who must tolerate the hospitality of another state even as he breathes air into a moribund fourth estate. He is the helmsman of a publishing outfit that has blended the nature of journalism with the biting effect of politics, and duly condemned for doing so.

Given such behaviour, it was bound to irk those who have been good enough to accept his tenancy. The tenancy of the political asylum seeker is ever finite, vulnerable to mutability and abridgment.Assanges Ecuadorean hosts have made no secret that they would rather wish him to keep quiet in his not so gilded cage, restraining himself from what they consider undue meddling. To do so entails targeting his lifeblood: communications through the Internet itself, and those treasured discussions he shares with visitors of various standings in the order of celebrity.

On March 27, his hosts decided to cut off internet access to the WikiLeaks publisher-in-chief. Jamming devices were also put in place in case Assange got any other ideas. Till that point, Assange had been busy defending Catalan separatist politician Carles Puigdemont against Germanys detention of him, in the process decrying the European Arrest Warrant, while also questioning the decisions made by several European states to expel Russian diplomats in the wake of the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. It was just that sort of business that irked the new guard in Ecuador, keen on reining in such enthusiastic interventions.

What seems to be at play here is a breaking of spirit, a battle of attrition that may well push Assange into the arms of the British authorities who insist that he will be prosecuted for violating his bail conditions the moment he steps out of the embassy. This, notwithstanding that the original violation touched upon extradition matters to Sweden that have run their course.

Former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa had denounced his countrys recent treatment of Assange. In May, Correa told The Intercepthow preventing Assange from receiving visitors at the embassy constituted a form of torture. Ecuador was no longer maintaining normal sovereign relations with the American government just submission.

Times, and the fashion, has certainly changed at the London embassy. Current President Lenn Moreno announced in May that his country had recently signed an agreement focused on security cooperation [with the US] which implies sharing information, intelligence topics and experiences in the fight against illegal drug trafficking and fighting transnational organized crime.Tectonic plates, and alliances, are shifting, and activist publishers are not de rigueur.

The recent round of lamentations reflect upon the complicity and collusion not just amongst the authorities but within a defanged media establishment keen to make Assange disappear. This quest to silence free speech and neuter a free press, suggests Teodrose Fikre, is a bipartisan campaign and a bilateral initiative.

There has been little or no uproar in media circles over the 6-year period of Assanges Ecuadorean stay, surmises Paul Craig Roberts, because the media itself has changed. The doddering Gray Lady (The New York Timesfor others), had greyed so significantly under the Bush administration it had lost its teeth, allowing Bush to be re-elected without controversy and allowing the government time to legalize the spying on an ex post facto basis.

Both President Donald J. Trump and Russia provide the current twin pillars of journalistic escapism and paranoia. Be it Democrat or Republican in the US, the WikiLeaks figure remains very wanted personifying the bridge that links current political behemoths. For the veteran Australian journalist John Pilger, The fakery of Russia-gate, the collusion of a corrupt media and the shame of a legal system that pursues truth-tellers have not been able to hold back the raw truth of WikiLeaks revelations. Such rawness persists, as does the near fanatical attempt to break the will of a man who has every entitlement to feel that he is losing his mind.

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The Next Step: The Campaign for Julian Assange

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Britain, May 19, 2017.

It has been six years since Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to seek asylum from possible extradition to the United States to face indictment under the US Espionage Act.

At the time, Assange, an Australian national, was wanted by Sweden for questioning over sexual offense allegations. Assange had also broken the terms of his UK bail. Since then, he has become even more controversial, having published US Secretary of State Hillary Clintons emails and internal emails from Democratic Party officials.

While some admire and others despise Assange, no one should be prosecuted under the antiquated Espionage Act for publishing leaked government documents. That 1917 statute was designed to punish people who leaked secrets to a foreign government, not to the media, and allows no defense or mitigation of punishment on the basis that public interest served by some leaks may outweigh any harm to national security.

The US grand jury investigation of Assange under the Espionage Act was apparently based on his publishing the leaks for which Chelsea Manning, a former US army soldier, was convicted. Her sentence was commuted.

The publication of leaksparticularly leaks that show potential government wrongdoing or human rights abuseis a critical function of a free press in a democratic society. The vague and sweeping provisions of the Espionage Act remain ready to be used against other publishers and journalists, whether they be Wikileaks or the New York Times.

Assange has agreed to surrender himself to the British police but only if he were granted assurances against extradition to the US, where he could face life in prison. He also offered to appear in Sweden if Sweden would offer similar assurances.

In 2016, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found Assanges stay in the Ecuadorean embassy, enforced by the alternative of his potential extradition to the US, to be an arbitrary deprivation of liberty. Ecuador, offended by Assanges political comments, this year has denied him internet access and visitors, other than occasional contact with his lawyers. Ecuador denied Human Rights Watch permission to visit him this May. Concern is growing over his access to medical care. His asylum is growing more difficult to distinguish from detention.

The UK has the power to resolve concerns over his isolation, health, and confinement by removing the threat of extradition for publishing newsworthy leaks. It should do so before another year passes.

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UK Should Reject Extraditing Julian Assange to US | Human ...

Assange's immediate health concerns remain a mystery.

A vigil will take place Tuesday evening outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for the health of its longstanding resident Julian Assange.

The vigil will be held between 6 and 8 p.m. local time and will be attended by Susan Manning, mother of Chelsea Manning, along with Peter Tatchell, Vivienne Westwood and Lauri Love.

Tuesday marks six years since WikiLeaks founder Assange first entered the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault charges. The charges have since been dropped, but Assange is still wanted in the UK for skipping bail in 2012. He is concerned that if he leaves the embassy the US may also seek to extradite him on espionage charges.

An international group of lawyers appealed to the UN's Human Rights Council this week regarding concerns that Assange's protracted confinement is having a severe impact on his physical and mental health.

"The UK shows a deliberate disregard for his medical needs by forcing him to choose between his human right to asylum and his human right to medical treatment," said human rights barrister Jennifer Robinson in a statement. "No-one should ever have to make this choice."

Robinson and another representative for Assange didn't immediately respond to a request for further details of his precise health concerns and their urgency.

The UK maintains that Assange's exile is self imposed and in February a judge upheld a warrant for his arrest. Ecuador also isn't thrilled at the prospect of him remaining in the embassy long term. Julian Assange's situation is "not sustainable", said the country's foreign minister in January.

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Vigil for the health of Julian Assange to take place in ...

During World War II Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty was a huge critic of fascism and wound up in prison. In Oct. 1945 he became head of the Church in Hungary and spoke out just as strongly against Communist oppression. He wound up back in prison for eight more years, including long periods of solitary confinement and endured other forms of torture. In 1949 he was sentenced to life in a show trial that generated worldwide condemnation.

Two weeks after the trial began in early 1949, Pope Pius XII (having failed to speak out forcefully against the Third Reich) did summon the courage to condemn what was happening to Mindszenty. Pius excommunicated everyone involved in the Mindszenty trial. Then, addressing a huge crowd on St. Peters Square, he asked, Do you want a Church that remains silent when she should speak a Church that does not condemn the suppression of conscience and does not stand up for the just liberty of the people a Church that locks herself up within the four walls of her temple in unseemly sycophancy ?

When the Hungarian revolution broke out in 1956, Mindszenty was freed, but only for four days. When Soviet tanks rolled back into Budapest, he fled to the U.S. embassy and was given immediate asylum by President Eisenhower.

There the Cardinal stayed cooped up for the next 15 years. Mindszentys mother was permitted to visit him four times a year, and the communist authorities stationed secret police outside the embassy ready to arrest him should he try to leave. Sound familiar?

Where is the voice of conscience to condemn what is happening to Julian Assange, whose only crime is publishing documents exposing the criminal activities and corruption of governments and other Establishment elites? Decades ago, the US and civilized world had nothing but high praise for the courageous Mindszenty. He became a candidate for sainthood.

And Assange? He has been confined in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for six years from June 19, 2012 the victim of a scurrilous slander campaign and British threats to arrest him, should he ever step outside. The US government has been putting extraordinary pressure on Ecuador to end his asylum and top US officials have made it clear that, as soon as they get their hands on him, they will manufacture a reason to put him on trial and put him in prison. All for spreading unwelcome truth around.

A Suppression of Conscience

One might ask, is unseemly sycophancy at work among the media? The silence of what used to be the noble profession of journalism is deafening. John Pilger one of the few journalists to speak out on Julian Assanges behalf, labels journalists who fail to stand in solidarity with Assange in exposing the behavior of the Establishment, Vichy journalists after the Vichy government that served ad enabled the German occupation of France.

Pilger adds:

No investigative journalism in my lifetime can equal the importance of what WikiLeaks has done in calling rapacious power to account. It is as if a one-way moral screen has been pushed back to expose the imperialism of liberal democracies: the commitment to endless warfare When Harold Pinter accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, he referred to a vast tapestry of lies up on which we feed. He asked why the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought of the Soviet Union were well known in the West while Americas imperial crimes never happened even while [they] were happening, they never happened.

WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if?

In an op-ed published several years ago by The Los Angeles Times, two members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Coleen Rowley and Bogdan Dzakovic, pointed out that If WikiLeaks had been up and running before 9/11 frustrated FBI investigators might have chosen to leak information that their superiors bottled up, perhaps averting the terrorism attacks.

There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages. But we worked for ossified bureaucracies incapable of acting quickly and decisively. Lately, the two of us have been wondering how things might have been different if there had been a quick, confidential way to get information out.

Fourth Estate on Life Support

In 2010, while he was still a free man, the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity gave its annual award to Assange. The citation read:

It seems altogether fitting and proper that this years award be presented in London, where Edmund Burke coined the expression Fourth Estate. Comparing the function of the press to that of the three Houses then in Parliament, Burke said: but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate more important far then they all.

The year was 1787 the year the US Constitution was adopted. The First Amendment, approved four years later, aimed at ensuring that the press would be free of government interference. That was then.

With the Fourth Estate now on life support, there is a high premium on the fledgling Fifth Estate, which uses the ether and is not susceptible of government or corporation control. Small wonder that governments with lots to hide feel very threatened.

It has been said: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. WikiLeaks is helping make that possible by publishing documents that do not lie.

Last spring, when we chose WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for this award, Julian said he would accept only on behalf or our sources, without which WikiLeaks contributions are of no significance.

We do not know if Pvt. Bradley Manning gave WikiLeaks the gun-barrel video of July 12, 2007 called Collateral Murder. Whoever did provide that graphic footage, showing the brutality of the celebrated surge in Iraq, was certainly far more a patriot than the mainstream journalist embedded in that same Army unit. He suppressed what happened in Baghdad that day, dismissed it as simply one bad day in a surge that was filled with such days, and then had the temerity to lavish praise on the unit in a book he called The Good Soldiers.

Julian is right to emphasize that the world is deeply indebted to patriotic truth-tellers like the sources who provided the gun-barrel footage and the many documents on Afghanistan and Iraq to WikiLeaks. We hope to have a chance to honor them in person in the future.

Today we honor WikiLeaks, and one of its leaders, Julian Assange, for their ingenuity in creating a new highway by which important documentary evidence can make its way, quickly and confidentially, through the ether and into our in-boxes. Long live the Fifth Estate!

Eventually a compromise was found in 1971 when Pope Paul VI lifted the excommunications and Mindszenty was able to leave the US embassy. Can such a diplomatic solution be found to free Assange? It is looking more and more unlikely with each passing year.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the Presidents Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Reprinted with permission from Consortium News.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. In the Sixties he served as an infantry/intelligence officer and then became a CIA analyst for the next 27 years. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).View all posts by Ray McGovern

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Julian Assange and the Mindszenty Case - Antiwar.com Original

The persecution of Julian Assange must end. Or it will end in tragedy.

The Australian government and prime minister Malcolm Turnbull have an historic opportunity to decide which it will be.

They can remain silent, for which history will be unforgiving. Or they can act in the interests of justice and humanity and bring this remarkable Australian citizen home.

Assange does not ask for special treatment. The government has clear diplomatic and moral obligations to protect Australian citizens abroad from gross injustice: in Julians case, from a gross miscarriage of justice and the extreme danger that await him should he walk out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London unprotected.

We know from the Chelsea Manning case what he can expect if a US extradition warrant is successful a United Nations Special Rapporteur called it torture.

I know Julian Assange well; I regard him as a close friend, a person of extraordinary resilience and courage. I have watched a tsunami of lies and smear engulf him, endlessly, vindictively, perfidiously; and I know why they smear him.

In 2008, a plan to destroy both WikiLeaks and Assange was laid out in a top secret document dated 8 March, 2008. The authors were the Cyber Counter-intelligence Assessments Branch of the US Defence Department. They described in detail how important it was to destroy the feeling of trust that is WikiLeaks centre of gravity.

This would be achieved, they wrote, with threats of exposure [and] criminal prosecution and a unrelenting assault on reputation. The aim was to silence and criminalise WikiLeaks and its editor and publisher. It was as if they planned a war on a single human being and on the very principle of freedom of speech.

Their main weapon would be personal smear. Their shock troops would be enlisted in the media those who are meant to keep the record straight and tell us the truth.

The irony is that no one told these journalists what to do. I call them Vichy journalists after the Vichy government that served and enabled the German occupation of wartime France.

Last October, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Sarah Ferguson interviewed Hillary Clinton, over whom she fawned as the icon for your generation.

This was the same Clinton who threatened to obliterate totally Iran and, who, as US secretary of State in 2011, was one of the instigators of the invasion and destruction of Libya as a modern state, with the loss of 40,000 lives. Like the invasion of Iraq, it was based on lies.

When the Libyan President was murdered publicly and gruesomely with a knife, Clinton was filmed whooping and cheering. Thanks largely to her, Libya became a breeding ground for ISIS and other jihadists.Thanks largely to her, tens of thousands of refugees fled in peril across the Mediterranean, and many drowned.

Leaked emails published by WikiLeaks revealed that Hillary Clintons foundation which she shares with her husband received millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the main backers of ISIS and terrorism across the Middle East.

As Secretary of State, Clinton approved the biggest arms sale ever worth $80 billion to Saudi Arabia, one of her foundations principal benefactors. Today, Saudi Arabia is using these weapons to crush starving and stricken people in a genocidal assault onYemen.

Sarah Ferguson, a highly paid reporter, raised not a word of this with Hillary Clinton sitting in front of her.

Instead, she invited Clinton to describe the damage Julian Assange did personally to you. In response, Clinton defamed Assange, an Australian citizen, as very clearly a tool of Russian intelligence and a nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator.

She offered no evidence nor was asked for any to back her grave allegations.

At no time was Assange offered the right of reply to this shocking interview, which Australias publicly-funded state broadcaster had a duty to give him.

As if that wasnt enough, Fergusons executive producer, Sally Neighour, followed the interview with a vicious re-tweet: Assange is Putins bitch. We all know it!

There are many other examples of Vichy journalism. TheGuardian, reputedly once a great liberal newspaper, conducted a vendetta against Julian Assange. Like a spurned lover, theGuardianaimed its personal, petty, inhuman and craven attacks at a man whose work it once published and profited from.

The former editor of theGuardian,Alan Rusbridger, called the WikiLeaks disclosures, which his newspaper published in 2010, one of the greatest journalistic scoops of the last 30 years. Awards were lavished and celebrated as if Julian Assange did not exist.

WikiLeaks revelations became part of theGuardiansmarketing plan to raise the papers cover price. They made money, often big money, while WikiLeaks and Assange struggled to survive.

With not a penny going to WikiLeaks, a hypedGuardianbook led to a lucrative Hollywood movie deal. The books authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, gratuitously abused Assange as a damaged personality and callous.

They also revealed the secret password Julian had given theGuardianin confidence and which was designed to protect a digital file containing the US embassy cables.

With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, Harding, who had enriched himself on the backs of both Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, stood among the police outside the embassy and gloated on his blog that Scotland Yard may get the last laugh.

The question iswhy.

Julian Assange has committed no crime. He has never been charged with a crime. The Swedish episode was bogus and farcical and he has been vindicated.

Katrin Axelsson and Lisa Longstaff of Women Against Rape summed it up when they wrote, The allegations against [Assange] are a smokescreen behind which a number of governments are trying to clamp down on WikiLeaks for having audaciously revealed to the public their secret planning of wars and occupations with their attendant rape, murder and destruction The authorities care so little about violence against women that they manipulate rape allegations at will.

This truth was lost or buried in a media witch-hunt that disgracefully associated Assange with rape and misogyny. The witch-hunt included voices who described themselves as on the left and as feminist. They willfully ignored the evidence of extreme danger should Assange be extradited to the United States.

According to a document released by Edward Snowden, Assange is on a Manhunt target list. One leaked official memo says: Assange is going to make a nice bride in prison. Screw the terrorist. Hell be eating cat food forever.

In Alexandra, Virginia the suburban home of Americas war-making elite a secret grand jury, a throwback to the middle ages has spent seven years trying to concoct a crime for which Assange can be prosecuted.

This is not easy; the US Constitution protects publishers, journalists and whistleblowers. Assanges crime is to have broken a silence.

No investigative journalism in my lifetime can equal the importance of what WikiLeaks has done in calling rapacious power to account. It is as if a one-way moral screen has been pushed back to expose the imperialism of liberal democracies: the commitment to endless warfare and the division and degradation of unworthy lives: from Grenfell Tower to Gaza.

WhenHarold Pinter accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, he referred to a vast tapestry of lies up on which we feed. He asked why the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought of the Soviet Union were well known in the West while Americas imperial crimes never happened even while [they] were happening, they never happened..

In its revelations of fraudulent wars (Afghanistan, Iraq) and the bald-faced lies of governments (the Chagos Islands), WikiLeaks has allowed us to glimpse how the imperial game is played in the 21st century.Thatis why Assange is in mortal danger.

Seven years ago, in Sydney, I arranged to meet a prominent Liberal Member of the Federal Parliament, Malcolm Turnbull.

I wanted to ask him to deliver a letter from Gareth Peirce, Assanges lawyer, to the government. We talked about his famous victory in the 1980s when, as a young barrister, he had fought the British Governments attempts to suppress free speech and prevent the publication of the bookSpycatcher in its way, a WikiLeaks of the time, for it revealed the crimes of state power.

The prime minister of Australia was then Julia Gillard, a Labor Party politician who had declared WikiLeaks illegal and wanted to cancel Assanges passport until she was told she could not do this: that Assange had committed no crime: that WikiLeaks was a publisher, whose work was protected under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Australia was one of the original signatories.

In abandoning Assange, an Australian citizen, and colluding in his persecution, Prime Minister Gillards outrageous behaviour forced the issue of his recognition, under international law, as a political refugee whose life was at risk. Ecuador invoked the 1951 Convention and granted Assange refuge in its embassy in London.

Gillard has recently been appearing in a gig with Hillary Clinton; they are billed as pioneering feminists.

If there is anything to remember Gillard by, it a warmongering, sycophantic, embarrassing speech she made to the US Congress soon after she demanded the illegal cancellation of Julians passport.

Malcolm Turnbull is now the Prime Minister of Australia. Julian Assanges father has written to Turnbull. It is a moving letter, in which he has appealed to the prime minister to bring his son home. He refers to the real possibility of a tragedy.

I have watched Assanges health deteriorate in his years of confinement without sunlight. He has had a relentless cough, but is not even allowed safe passage to and from a hospital for an X-ray .

Malcolm Turnbull can remain silent. Or he can seize this opportunity and use his governments diplomatic influence to defend the life of an Australian citizen, whose courageous public service is recognised by countless people across the world. He can bring Julian Assange home.

This is an abridged version of an address by John Pilger to a rally in Sydney, Australia, to mark Julian Assanges six years confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Link:
Bring Julian Assange Home - counterpunch.org

Julian Assange met with diplomats from his native Australia on Thursday as the WikiLeaks publisher approaches his sixth year in self-exile at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Mr. Assange was visited at the embassy by two officials from Australias High Commission, the nations diplomatic mission in the U.K., marking what is believed to be the first time Australian officials have met with the WikiLeaks chief since he sought asylum there in June 2012, the U.K.s Press Association first reported Thursday.

Jennifer Robinson, a member of Mr. Assanges legal team, confirmed the meeting to The Washington Times.

Julian Assange is in a very serious situation, Ms. Robinson said in a statement. He remains in the embassy because of the risk of extradition to the U.S. That risk is undeniable after numerous statements by Trump administration officials including the director of the CIA and the U.S. attorney-general.

Given the delicate diplomatic situation we cannot comment further at this time, she said.

The Australian High Commission referred The Washington Times to the nations Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade when reached for comment.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to Mr. Assange through the Australian High Commission in London, a department spokesperson told The Times. Owing to our privacy obligations we will not provide further comment.

Mr. Assange, 46, was born in Townsville, Queensland in 1971, and he wound up abroad during the course of his work with WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy group he helped launch in 2006.

He became the subject of a rape investigation following a trip to Stockholm in 2010, and he subsequently sought asylum from Ecuador in lieu of surrendering to Swedish authorities, citing the likelihood hed be extradited to the U.S. and punished for releasing classified diplomatic and military documents through the WikiLeaks website.

Ecuador granted asylum to Mr. Assange in 2012, and Swedish prosecutors dropped their rape probe in 2017. British police have said they will arrest him if he exits the embassy, however, relegating him to its confines rather than risking apprehension and possible extradition.

The Department of Justice began investigating Mr. Assange during the Obama administration after WikiLeaks began publishing classified State and Defense Department documents. Federal prosecutors have failed so far to unseal any charges against Mr. Assange, but members of President Trumps administration including Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director-turned-secretary of state, and Jeff Sessions, Mr. Trumps attorney general, have advocated prosecuting the WikiLeaks publisher.

Ecuador has since granted citizenship to Mr. Assange, Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa revealed in January, calling the status one more ring of protection.

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Julian Assange, WikiLeaks publisher, receives rare embassy ...

7 June 2018

As a part of the ongoing international campaign to free Julian Assange, Trotskyists in Sri Lanka and India will hold protests in Colombo and near Chennai, in Tamil Nadu, on June 19.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and the World Socialist Web Site are mobilising workers and youth internationally to demand freedom for the WikiLeaks editor. While Ecuador provided Assange asylum at its London embassy six years ago, it is capitulating to political pressure from the US to silence the Australian journalist.

If Assange is forced out of the embassy, he faces the danger of falling into US hands and being tried on espionage charges that carry the death sentence. His only crime has been to expose illegal wars and military intrigues of American imperialism and its allies.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) will hold its rally outside the main Fort Railway Station in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital.

On the same day, Indian supporters of the ICFI will protest at the central bus terminal in Sriperumbudur, a global auto and electronic manufacturing hub about 40 kilometres from Chennai, the capital of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Both campaigns support the demonstration and rally to be held on June 17 in Sydney, organised by the Socialist Equality Party in Australia.

The major powers and their subordinate governments are attempting to block the free and democratic flow of information through Internet and social media. In line with the US-led assault on Assange, Google and Facebook are censoring the World Socialist Web Site and other left-wing and anti-war web sites. The Sri Lankan and Indian governments are also stepping up their efforts to curb access to the Internet and social media.

The defense of Julian Assange is part of the fight to defend freedom of speech and expression and all democratic rights.

We urge workers, students, young people and the oppressed masses to support this campaign and join the demonstrations in Sri Lanka and India.

Sri Lanka protest

Fort Railway Station in central ColomboTuesday June 19, 4.00 p.m.

India protest

Sriperumbudur bus terminalTamil NaduTuesday June 19, 5.00 p.m.

Google is blocking the World Socialist Web Site from search results.

To fight this blacklisting:

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Free Julian Assange rallies called in Sri Lanka and India ...

Pamela Anderson offered a vigorous defense of Julian Assange and Russia Tuesday evening, telling Fox News host Tucker Carlson that she often jokes about U.S-Russia tensions at the Kremlin where she apparently speaks often.

Everyone likes to blame Russia when anything goes wrong in America and Ive spoken at the Kremlin many times and the last time I was there, there was something happening and the first thing they say to me is oh what have we done wrong this time, said Anderson.

America likes to blame them for everything, said the actress, who also called the accusations that Assange and Putin had collaborated to throw the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Trump crazy.

Also Read: 2nd Woman Begs Trump to Pardon Her Husband on Fox News

Anderson explained that she traveled to Russia frequently as part of her work with animal rights and that Putin was very concerned about the issue.

As for the WikiLeaks chief now under house arrest in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London? Anderson said Assange was just a misunderstood soul.

Assange is just an incredible person. If you read anything that his mother says about him thats kind of an interesting source to go to hes always been like this. Since a child, hes been worried about doing the right thing. And I think hes very brave.

Also Read: Christmas Mystery: Did Julian Assange Delete His Own Twitter Account?

Assange Sweden six years ago following rape accusations and has avoided deportation to that country or potentially the United States by hiding out with the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Once lauded by liberals as a free speech advocate exposing government secrets, Assange became a lightning rod for his role in releasing emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

It is known that the RNC was also hacked during the same period, but the files were never released.

You can watch the full Fox News interview here.

Megyn Kelly calls Trump out on womenTrump famously feuded former anchor Kelly after she asked him a tough question at a Republican primary debate about derogatory statements he's made about women. Trump took it personally, judging by his response on Twitter and in interviews. He later famously said Kelly must have had "blood coming out of her wherever" regarding the question. Watch the debate question here.

Kelly to Trump: "Facts matter"Trump kept hammering at Kelly on Twitter and elsewhere. When he called her out for not using the IBT poll when he was leading the Republican primary field, Kelly rebuked him with a tweet showing she did use the poll. "Facts matter," she wrote.

Fox mocksTrumpwith statement on debate skippingpollAfter polled his Twitter followers to see ifhe should drop out of a Fox-hosted Republican primary debate,Fox responded artfully with a sarcastic statement that it had learnedfrom "secret" sources Trump might be treated unfairly as president by foreign leaders.

Bill O'Reilly calls out Trump's tweet with totally wrong stats"The O'Reilly Factor" grilled Trump in a Nov. 2015 interview about his tweet that erroneously said black people killed whites at a rate of 81 percent, while whites kill blacks at a rate of 15 percent.O'Reilly told Trump, "You shouldn't tweet." Trump did not take that advice.

Chris Wallace bucks Trump calling media "enemy of the public"After his press conference in January 2017, Trump continued his attack on media he doesn't like on Twitter. Anchor ChrisWallace wasn't having it on "Fox & Friends." Wallace said Trump's comments "crossed an important line" and said they were dangerous.

Wallace says the media is too easy on TrumpIn an interview with TheWrap, Wallace said he thinks Sunday political shows in particular should be tougher on Trump."I think if anything, the media has treated him too well.By that I mean theyve allowed him to play by different rules." Read the full interview.

O'Reilly tells Trump Putin is "a killer"In a February interview, O'Reilly brought up Trump's apparent refusal to criticize Vladimir Putin, calling the Russian president "a killer." Trump famously responded by saying, "What, you think our country is so innocent?" Watch it here.

Smith wails on Trump's refusal to talk about Russia hacksNobody on Fox hits Trump harder than Shep Smith. "We have a right to know You call us fake news and put us down like children for asking questions on behalf of the American people." Watch it here.

Neil Cavuto tells Trump he's problem, not mainstream mediaResponding to Trump's tweet claiming the mainstream media wants him off social media, Cavuto called out Trump for losing track of his own agenda. "Mr. President, it is not the fake news media that's your problem, it's you," Cavuto said. Watch it here.

Smith blasts Trump administration on Russia: "Lie after lie after lie"Shep Smith was at it again following the news breaking about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer. He took the Trump administration to task for its many lies about meetings with Russia, including Jared Kushner failing to report the meeting on his security clearance forms. "My grandmother used to say, 'What a tangled web we weave when first we try to deceive,'" Smith declared on air, leaving fellow anchor Chris Wallace speechless. Watch it here.

Trumps favorite network has pushed back a few times

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Pamela Anderson Defends Russia and Julian Assange: Ive ...

6/6/2018 10:03 AM PDT

Pamela Anderson says she might pull a Kim Kardashian and askPresident Trumpto pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

We got Pam Wednesday in NYC as reports surfaced that the Prez was prepping to grant clemency to several prisoners. So, with Pam being a huge advocate for her friend Assange, we asked if she'd go to Trump to clear Assange's name in the U.S. -- even though he hasn't been charged with a crime here, yet.

Pam says it would be "the smartest move" -- not sure if she meant her visiting Trump, or Trump pardoning Assange.

Of course, this comes on the heels of Kim Kardashian successfully lobbying POTUS to release Alice Marie Johnson ... so, makes sense Pam could be feeling empowered.

After all, Pam's beengoing to batfor Assange, saying he's a misunderstood soul ... not a criminal hacker. We suspect the President would be more likely to show mercy on a grandmother who got a life sentence for a first time, nonviolent offense.

Still, we're guessing Kim would tell Pam ... never hurts to ask.

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Pamela Anderson Says Trump Should Pardon Julian Assange

4 June 2018

June 6 will mark 10 weeks since the Ecuadorian government blocked all communication by WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange with the outside world, including personal visitors. Assange has been trapped inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, when Quito granted him asylum in the face of a legal witch-hunt by the governments of the United States, Britain and Sweden.

Britain was moving to extradite Assange to Sweden on trumped-up allegations of sexual abuse as the first step in transferring him to the US to face charges of espionage, which carry a possible death sentence. Washington had vowed to punish Assange for having exposed before the world war crimes committed by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as US intrigues against other countries.

In remarks last Wednesday, Ecuadorian President Lenn Moreno attempted to defend the silencing of Assange. He sought to denyunconvincinglythat this action was the outcome of his governments capitulation to pressure and threats by the United States.

Moreno put forward an Orwellian conception of freedom of speech that lines up entirely with the standpoint of American imperialism and every enemy of democratic rights. Renouncing WikiLeaks rightand the right of all journalists and mediato publish information that reveals government and corporate criminality or challenges official propaganda, the Ecuadorian president asserted: There are two types of liberty. The responsible liberty and the liberty in which everyone thinks they can do whatever they want, whenever they want and however they want. That is not liberty. Liberty must be used with a lot of responsibility.

Moreno stated that the WikiLeaks editor had to accept that the conditions of his asylum prevent him speaking out about politics or intervening in the politics of other countries. He threatened that if Assange did not submit to such terms, Ecuador would take a decision to revoke its granting of asylum.

Assanges entire mission in forming WikiLeaks in 2006 was to enable people to use the immense power of the Internet to break through the responsible disinformation and censorship that prevails in the corporate-controlled and state-owned media. All critical and independent journalism, by its very nature, involves speaking out about politics.

Assange is now in grave danger. It is more than two years since a United Nations working group condemned the British government for enforcing Assanges arbitrary detention, calling it a contravention of his fundamental human rights.

His lawyer Jennifer Robinson and supporter Pamela Anderson have publicly warned in recent weeks about the seriousness of his medical condition. For six years, he has been confined in a small building with no access to sunlight or adequate medical treatment. For 10 weeks he has been subjected to the additional psychological pressure of what Moreno declares will be ongoing, indefinite isolation.

A calculated operation is underway to break the WikiLeaks editor. Morenos statements only underscore that the aim is to force him to voluntarily leave the Ecuadorian embassy, to be taken by waiting British police and placed in detention on bail-related charges without any means of contacting the outside world. That would be followed by further months or years of imprisonment while his legal defenders fight American extradition warrants.

The government of Australia, where Assange was born and holds citizenship, bears immense responsibility for the situation. In late 2010, instead of defending an Australian citizen whose rights were under attack, the Labor Party government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard sided with Washington. It labelled WikiLeaks actions illegal and declared it would support the prosecution of Assange for espionage. The current Liberal-National coalition government has not lifted a finger to oppose his ongoing persecution.

The American state and its allies are seeking to destroy WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in order to intimidate every critical and independent media organisation. The aim is to suppress the exposure of the crimes and lies of governments and to silence all those who seek to defend democratic rights and freedom of speech.

The attack on Assange is bound up with the aggressive moves by US and global intelligence agencies, working with social media and Internet companies, to suppress left-wing, anti-war and socialist views online. A pall of censorship is descending over the Internet, the most democratic form of communication in human history.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its publication, the World Socialist Web Site, are urging resistance. We call for the greatest possible international mobilisation in defence of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. This is an essential part of a broader fight to defend Internet freedom, freedom of speech and all social and democratic rights of the working class.

A historical crossroads has been reached. Organisations and individuals will be judged by where they stand in this basic conflict over democratic rights.

The Socialist Equality Party, the Australian section of the ICFI, has called a demonstration in Sydney for 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 17 at the Sydney Town Hall Square. It is being held in conjunction with acclaimed journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, an unwavering defender of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, media freedom and democratic rights.

The demonstration has also been endorsed by prominent civil liberties attorney Julian Burnside and by Terry Hicks, who waged a five-year struggle against the imprisonment of his son, David Hicks, in the hell-hole US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Musician Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, who has for decades spoken out against war and injustice, has sent the WSWS a message of support endorsing action to defend WikiLeaks. On the stage of his concerts in Berlin over the weekend he posted the call: Resist the Attempted Silencing of Julian Assange.

The demonstration in Sydney will press the demand that the Australian government act immediately to secure Assanges unconditional return to Australia, with a guarantee against any American attempt to extradite him to the US.

A vigil demanding freedom for Julian Assange will be taking place in London at the Ecuadorian embassy on Tuesday, June 19. The May government must end its persecution of Assange, drop the bail-related charges against him and allow him to leave the Ecuadorian embassy and the UK. Similar vigils on June 19 are being held in other cities around the world.

In contrast, a whole layer of trade union, Green Party and pseudo-left organisations that voiced support for WikiLeaks and Assange in 2010 and 2011 have repudiated any struggle against his persecution. They have shifted to supporting imperialism.

The working class and the youth, however, are entering into immense struggles, and there is enormous respect among them for Assange and WikiLeaks. The social force that will lead the fight to defend democratic rights is the international working class, as part of a broader struggle to secure its social rights and oppose war, inequality and the capitalist system.

We urge readers of the WSWS to turn to the workplaces, factories, campuses and high schools to fight for maximum support for the demonstrations and vigils demanding freedom for Julian Assange.

James Cogan

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