The British justice system has finally agreed to let a Spanish judge question WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a witness in a case involving allegations that a Spanish security firm spied on him while he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Judge Jos de la Mata of Spains High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, will interview the cyber-activist via video link on December 20, said judicial sources.

Judge Jos de la Mata will question Assange on December 20

Assange will be transferred from Belmarsh prison in southeast London to Westminster Magistrates Court to answer questions from De la Mata, who is investigating alleged violations of client-attorney privilege between the cyber-activist and his lawyers, and allegations that these conversations were passed on to the CIA.

British civil servants visited Assange in prison last week, asked him whether he agreed to be questioned by De la Mata, and delivered a document listing the events under investigation by the judge, who had issued a European Investigation Order (EIO) in September requesting assistance from British authorities.

This list of events under investigation, which EL PAS has seen, notes that David Morales, owner of the Spanish security firm UC Global, SL invaded the privacy of Assange and his lawyers by placing microphones inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London without consent from the affected parties. It also states that the information thus collected was distributed to other people and institutions, including authorities from Ecuador and agents from the United States.

It has not been easy to secure the UKs permission to question the Australian cyber-activist

It has not been easy to secure the UKs permission to question the Australian cyber-activist. The Spanish judge sent London the EIO on September 25, requesting authorization to interview Assange as part of an investigation into Morales and his company for breach of privacy, violation of client-attorney privilege and illegal arms possession.

Documents and video footage revealed in July by EL PAS show that UC Global, SL spied on Assanges conversations with his lawyers at meetings where they were designing his defense strategy to avoid extradition to the US. Morales allegedly delivered these and other conversations to US intelligence services.

The British justice system, acting through the United Kingdom Central Authority (UKCA), the agency in charge of processing EIOs, initially blocked De la Matas request. This body questioned the Spanish judges powers to investigate the case in the UK, and demanded more clarity and information than the judge had provided.

This position created unease in judicial circles, and was viewed as resistance to an investigation that could hinder Assanges extradition to the US. The WikiLeaks founders hearing is scheduled for February.

Several Spanish judges consulted by this newspaper said that EIO requests are generally granted on an automatic basis. With an EIO, a legal authority from a EU member state can ask a legal authority from another EU country for assistance in obtaining evidence or means of evidence, including witness statements.

The US justice system is accusing Assange of 18 crimes that add up to 175 years in prison in connection with WikiLeaks publication of classified material on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

English version by Susana Urra.

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Spanish judge to question Julian Assange over Ecuador embassy spying claims - EL PAIS

On June 12, 1987, the greatest president in the history of the United States of America (according to US opinion polls), Ronald Reagan, challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Twenty-nine months later, November 9, 1989, the communist party leaderships of the DDR and Soviet Union, complied and opened the wall.

I call upon the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, to do the same at Belmarsh Prison where political prisoners, such as Julian Assange, are held to languish up to eternity. I call upon President Donald Trump to rescind the extradition order, and to release Chelsea Manning.

Realizing that these state war criminals will not do so, I urge Brits to vote into power a decent labor-unionist, anti-war politician, Jeremy Corbyn, who would (I believe) release this brave human being as he would also stop allying Britain with US wars of aggression. Regardless of where we stand on the political spectrum, we must at least vote for some sanity. I am a socialist revolutionary and never vote for The Establishment, but I would vote for Corbyn precisely because he opposes aggressive wars and incarcerating truth-tellers. Those two concerns must be the litmus test for any electoral strategy and voting. Ill let leftists living in the US to decide what they will do about the 2020 election campaign.

I also call upon every self-identifying old-time liberal, progressive, leftist, conservative for human rights, activist for human rights, activist and journalist for a free press and free speech to ACT against this legalized murder of the worlds most important publisher of information that reveals war crimes of any and all governments and government crimes against human rights.

Protest and resist, including with civil disobedience where you can, especially where Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are held captives as political prisoners. Once turned away, return the next day. Learn from thebrave demonstrators in Ecuador(home of US assassin-partner President Lenin Moreno) where they resist higher costs of living and police murderers. As you protest, sing along withDavid Rovics newest song, Behind These Prison Walls

Behind these prison walls, in solitary confinementIn a land of rolling hills and royalty and other such refinementIs someone who is a hero to whistleblowers everywhereWho helped them tell the world of the crimes of Tony Blair

Behind these prison walls you will find a mortal manThe reason why we know what happened in AfghanistanWhen the soldiers of the empire whose sun set long beforeWere torturing civilians in their terror war

Behind these prison walls is a part of WikileaksAn eloquent orator, but you wont hear him speakLocked away in silence, one who knows too wellHow those in power act when theres another war to sell

Behind these prison walls is one who stands accusedOf exactly what offenses, the US has refused to sayA person being tortured, as we stand here nowFor revealing the war crimes - why, when, where, how

Behind these prison walls, our very right to be informedOf what the hell is going on is the teacup in this stormWith knowledge there is power, so the solution by the CrownA 24-hour-a-day, indefinite lockdown.

What they say:

Lenin Moreno:Ecuador President terminated the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr. Assange in 2012 [because he and/or his organization Wikileaks] leaked Vatican documentstherefore involved in interfering in internal affairs of other states.

Rafael Correa:Ecuador former president described Moreno as the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian history after Assange was arrested, and then Moreno gave the US Assanges material.

Jeremy Corbyn:The extradition of Julian Assange to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan should be opposed by the British government.

Hillary Clinton:Cant we just drone this guy? she asked US State Department brass at a November 2010 meeting.

Donald Trump:I love Wikileaks.

Bernie Sanders:It is a disturbing attack on the First Amendment for the Trump administration to decide who is, or who is not a reporter for the purposes of a criminal prosecution.

Tulsi Gabbard:The fact that the Trump administration has chosen to ignore how important it is that we uphold our freedomsand go after him, it has a very chilling effect on both journalists and publishersand also on every one of us as Americansa warning callsaying, Look what happened to this guy.We have got to address why [Snowden] did things the way that he did them, she said. You hear the same thing from Chelsea Manning, how there is not an actual channel for whistleblowers like them to bring forward information that exposes egregious abuses of our constitutional rights and liberties, period.

John Pilger:To the chagrin of many in authority and the media,WikiLeaks has torn down the facadebehind which rapacious western power and journalism collude. This was an enduring taboo; the BBC could claim impartiality and expect people to believe it. Today, war by media is increasingly understood by the public, as is the trial by media of WikiLeaks founder, and editor Julian Assange.

Doctors:More than 60 doctors have written an open lettersaying thatJulian Assanges health hasdeteriorated so much that the WikiLeaks founders life is in danger inside a British jail.

The medical experts wrote to British Home Secretary Priti Patel saying they had concerns about Mr. Assanges fitness to go through theextradition hearings set for next February. Assange requires urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of healthWere such urgent assessment and treatment not to take place, we have real concerns, on the evidence currently available, that Mr. Assange could die in prison. The medical situation is thereby urgent. There is no time to lose.

New Zealand independent journalist Suzi Dawson recently told broadcaster Jimmy Dore ten reasons why the whole world, sans the 1% with its war machines and CIA Mafia, should view Assange and Snowden [and I add Chelsea Manning] as heroes for finding and telling us the truth about the warmongers. For her tenacious findings she is also now in Moscow seeking asylum, a victim of The Establishment seeking to stop her work.

Top Ten Edward Snowden Rev a13-minute interview withSuzie Dawsonon the Jimmy Dore show:

1) Wikileaks has been keeping the historical record intact, and is actually combating the digital loss as web pages and websites are constantly being taken down from the internet by the powers that be. In this current paradigm theyre actually scrubbing entire websites and domains at every opportunity. Theyre trying to erase information from our living history

2) Wikileaks enables victims of persecution to have admissible evidence to fight their cases in court. 40,000 cases around the world have had Wikileaks documents submitted as court evidence.

3) Theyve maintained a 100% accuracy record over ten years of publishing.

4) Wikileaks is still publishing despite the full force of the Empire being used against them. Intelligence agencies, financial service providers, hostile media and law fare, and of course now Julian Assanges solitary confinement, we still see Wikileaks releases being published.

5) It established a digital library of over 10 million documents, containing pristine datasetsCurrent news stories can be further informed by doing a key word search to see what Wikileaks archives contain about topics or persons or places that may be relevant to that news story.

6) Wikileaks has established a whole new way of doing journalism [including] the first anonymous drop boxes a similar technology is being used by media outlets across the globe.

7) Wikileaks has become the vanguard of press freedomthat is incredibly important because as they are pushing those boundaries further and further out, it allows independent media and citizen media to fill that space in between. We can go further and do more significant things because Wikileaks is out there taking the heat for us.

8) Wikileaks has published leaks on every country in the world without geopolitical bias.

9) Wikileaks leaves no source behind, and not only do they go above and beyond to support their sources, theyve actually established other organizations to support other at-risk journalists and whistleblowers, such as the Courage Foundation, and we now have proven that Julian Assange was involved in the establishment of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

10) Julian saved the life of Edward Snowden, who is renowned as the greatest whistleblower of our generation, and was brought to you by Wikileaks. Julian Assange should be getting a Nobel Prize, not being persecuted.

Sweden Drops Extradition Request to Please the US

Last week, Sweden dropped its extradition request with the sole purpose of asking Assange what happened when he had sex with two Swedish women. There never were charges of rape as mass media persist in fraudulently repeating. (Note: Assange had already been interrogated by Swedish police and released. He knew if he went to Sweden again, once the issue was brought up yet again, he would be turned over to the US for possible life imprisonment.)

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer stated in an official letter to the Swedish government that the investigation was the primary factor that triggered, enabled and encouraged the subsequent campaign of sustained and concerted public mobbing and judicial persecution against Mr. Assange in various countries, the cumulative effects of which can only described as psychological torture.

Oscar Grenfell informed us of that letter, and added, The complete discrediting of the Swedish investigation, which played such a linchpin role in the US-led vendetta, exposes the utterly lawless character of the entire operation against Assange, adding, Despite never coming close to the issuing of criminal charges, the Swedish investigation was used to embroil Assange in the legal system and was the chief mechanism for enforcing his arbitrary detention.

It was Britains backing for Swedens unprecedented request that Assange be extradited merely to answer questions that forced him to seek political asylum in Ecuadors London embassy in 2012. TheSwedish case provided the bogus rationalefor Britains siege of the embassy and its threats that it would arrest Assange if he set foot outside the building.

Assange is charged under the1917 Espionage Act, a long-ignored (until the Obama administration) Red Scare-era law signed by President Woodrow Wilson which was designed to punish US citizens or resident spies or supporters for US war enemies, namely Germany. Assange is neither a spy, citizen or resident of the US, albeit the current charges can result in his imprisonment for 175 years.

The United Nations has consistentlycondemned the actions of the U.S., Britain and the Swedish governments, and called for Assanges immediate release.

When Assange was imprisoned for 50 weeks for failure to appear in a British court, June 2012, UNs Melzer visited Assange with two doctors. They confirmed that Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively [more] severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological tortureThe collective persecution of Julian Assange must end here and now!.

Melzer recently added, In my view,this case has never been about Mr. Assanges guilt or innocence, but about making him pay the price for exposing serious governmental misconduct, including alleged war crimes and corruption.

Professor Melzer condemned the relentless abuse of Assange and concerted efforts to extradite him to the U.S. under the fraudulent Espionage Act. Assange, in an indictment that for a long time was sealed and kept secret, is charged with 17 violations of the Espionage Act for leaking 750,000 confidential military and diplomatic documents (evidence of war crimes and acts of terrorism), including revealing important information about U.S. complicity in the war on Yemen, where at least 80,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed.

Human rights lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and one of Assanges barristers, stated:

It is the first time in US history the Espionage Act is being used against a journalist and publisher and, asThe New York TimesandWashington Posthave made clear (and as we have warned since 2010), his indictment criminalizes journalistic practices used by those newspapers to report in the public interest.

Inside the Embassy,Assange was spied onand all his communications, including with his lawyers, were being intercepted by a Spanish security company hired by the C.I.A. There apparently was also a C.I.A. plan to kidnap Assange. In a normal court in a civilized country, the government case would have been thrown out on constitutional and legal grounds, but that was not the case in this instance.

The company Robinson refers to is UC Global with headquarters in Cdiz, Spain. It was originally hired by Senain, the former Ecuadorian intelligence service. UC Global owner, David Morales, installed a video streaming service direct to US and the CIA. Later the Ecuadorian firm, Promsecurity, surveilled Assange.

Chelsea Manning imprisonment is double jeopardy

Since March the eastern district court in Virginia has incarcerated Chelsea Manning for refusing to testify yet again about her relationship with Wikileaks and journalist-publisher Julian Assange. With the exception of one week, Chelsea has been confined in jail, often in solitary. She faces up to one year more, at least, and fines of $1000 per daya total of half a million dollars by time of her possible release.

Although Chelsea is constitutionally protected from double jeopardyfrom being charged twice for the same crimeher right to silence has effectively been stripped away by the duplicity of the grand jury totalitarian procedure. She already testified during her court martial about her relationship with Wikileaks and Julian Assange, for which she served seven hard years in a military prison, often in isolation and under torture, as defined by United Nations experts on what torture means.

Chelsea explained her decision thusly:

I will not comply with this, or any other grand jury. Imprisoning me for my refusal to answer questions only subjects me to additional punishment for my repeatedly-stated ethical objections to the grand jury system.

The grand jurys questions pertained to disclosures from nine years ago, and took place six years after an in-depth computer forensics case, in which I testified for almost a full day about these events. I stand by my previous public testimony.

I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been historically used to entrap and persecute activists for protected political speech.

We are in one anothers hand. Take your hands, brothers and sisters, and raise your fits of passionate solidarity: fight for the lives of our brave imprisoned and tortured brother and sister.

Free Assange! Free Manning!

As I write this commentary, Denmark national Radio/TVs leading editor Lotte Stensgaard, admitted that a November 19 story it ran about Swedens dropping rape charges against Assange was a mistake, which she regrets and has corrected. I hope that readers will also challenge the perpetual mistakes (lies) that the mass media in Denmark, the UK and the US continually perpetrate to confuse us, and to prevent us from taking action against the corrupt Establishment.

Ten years and ten million documents exposed, including Collateral Murder.Thisis what it is really all about.

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Mr. Johnson, Tear Down This Wall! - CounterPunch

This year, for a brief moment in the history of Australian journalism, every significant news organisation in this country put its competitive instincts and its differences to one side and united as one voice to stand against an unacceptable step down the road to authoritarianism. Authoritarianism unchecked can lead to fascism. Fortunately in this country were a long way from that yet, but a study of history amply demonstrates how fascism begins. Freedom is usually eroded gradually. It might happen over years, even decades. Its loss is not necessarily felt day by day, but we will certainly know when its gone.

So far the Morrison government has resisted the industrys appeal for fundamental protections of a free and robust press to be enshrined in legislation at the very least not placing journalists above the law but enshrining in a practical and meaningful way their special place as a crucial pillar of democracy.

Perhaps the government is intending to wait us out, waiting for the issue to go away in the hope that most people in this country are so consumed by bread and butter issues, so consumed by their own lives and personal struggles and challenges, that they wont care enough, when the chips are down, to support something as abstract as the spirit of democracy or the spirit of freedom because you cant cash in the spirit of something at the bank, as you might a tax cut.

So far the Coalition has resisted the industrys appeal for fundamental protections of a free and robust press

That is why we have to remain resolved to keep this campaign going, and not let it go, even after a few months, because those of us who have witnessed and experienced and reported on repression in other countries, some of them not too far from our own shores, understand the solid reality of democracy as well as the strength or weakness of its spirit. Some of our colleagues have paid the ultimate price for exposing abuses of democracy, and lost their lives.

Australias foreign minister, Marise Payne, recently chastised China on its human rights record, observing that countries that respect and promote their citizens rights at home tend also to be better international citizens.

I would add to that: countries that dont respect and promote their citizens rights at home are living in glass houses and have diminished their right to be taken seriously when they try to preach to neighbours from a high moral ground they have surrendered.

This also comes at a time when the spirit of freedom of information laws, if not the letter, is being abused and there are more allegations of corruption being investigated officially than ever before.

Theres another inconsistency that needs to be called out. This government is fond of saying, as it did in seeking to distance itself from the decisions by Australian federal police to raid the ABC and the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst that it cant interfere in police operational matters. Yet, in seeking to assuage the concerns of media companies and journalists after the raids, the attorney general, Christian Porter, promised that he would actually be prepared to become involved in the process to the extent of insisting on the director of public prosecutions getting his personal consent before seeking to prosecute a journalist.

Sorry Mr Porter, that is not reassuring. The judgements you might bring to bear will not be independent of the governments own self-interest, and we all know that self-interest of any stripe, political or otherwise, can be a powerful deterrent from doing the right thing. That is not understanding the spirit or the concept of free speech, nor materially guaranteeing free speech or a free press.

But we have to practice what we preach. Our work across the breadth of all media and all communities should speak for our integrity from the smallest story to the biggest. Individually and collectively. And if it doesnt that should make us uncomfortable, in the very least. Because if we are going to stand on our dignity and defend press freedom as a fundamental pillar of democracy, then we have to be sure that our actions are defensible, that we do what we say we do. And at the heart of the Walkley Foundations work is the protection and promotion of integrity in journalism.

There is one other issue I want to acknowledge tonight. In 2011 Walkley judges awarded a Walkley to Wikileaks, with Julian Assange as its editor, for its outstanding contribution to journalism. The judgement was not lightly made that Assange was acting as a journalist, applying new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup. Those inconvenient truths were published far and wide in the mainstream media. As we sit here tonight, Julian Assange is moldering in a British prison awaiting extradition to the United States, where he may pay for their severe embarrassment with a life in prison. Again, this government could demonstrate its commitment to a free press by using its significant influence with its closest ally to gain his return to Australia.

Another challenge our industry faces is the trend towards the polarisation of our craft the attempts by some to paint us as either of the left or of the right which has to be resisted, because I firmly believe that for the vast bulk of us, that is not how we practise our trade. We do not arrive in the nurseries of journalism as budding ideologues of left or right, nor do the vast bulk of us become that way as we develop.

I absolutely reject the Roger Ailes view of the world, that if youre not on the right then you must be on the left.

For journalists to call out the powerful of any political colour for their abuses of power is not about ideology. It is simply journalists doing their job, practising their craft.

Adele Ferguson was not reflecting some personal ideological hatred of capitalism when she called out corrupt behaviour within our banking and financial sector, forcing a royal commission on a reluctant government. And nor were the whistleblowers who helped her being ideological. They saw a wrong and followed their conscience with great courage to reveal it, paying a heavy personal price in the process.

There was nothing ideological about Chris Masters determination to bring into the light of day serious and deeply disturbing allegations of war crimes by elite Australian military forces in Afghanistan, first in his book and then with Nick McKenzie in further sustained investigative reporting. It was strong, compelling journalism of integrity.

When Hedley Thomas gripped the world with his Teachers Pet podcast, forced the re-opening of the Lynette Dawson case, leading to the arrest of her husband, was he driven by ideology? Of course not.

Or when Anne Connolly forced another royal commission, into aged care, with her exposes of the sickening abuses within that industry?

Joanne McCarthy wasnt under instruction from some secret socialist cell or driven by a hatred of Christianity when she exposed the pattern of endemic sexual abuse and attempted cover-ups perpetrated from within the Catholic church in the Hunter region.

Kate McClymont wasnt acting as a servant of either the conservative right or the Labor left when she doggedly and courageously exposed the entrenched corrupt practices of Eddie Obeid.

Abuse of power is abuse of power, no matter who the abuser is. Corruption in this country is corruption, no matter who the corrupt are, no matter what their politics.

This is a time of serious challenge for our craft across a broad front, at a time when democratic societies like ours are losing their trust in institutions pretty much across the board. The integrity reflected in the work were about to celebrate tonight is our bulwark against that erosion of trust and a reminder not only to the citizens of this country, but importantly to ourselves, of what were capable of, and of what we aspire to be.

Thank you.

Kerry OBrien is a journalist, former editor and host of The 7.30 Report and Four Corners on the ABC, and chair of the Walkley Foundation. This is an edited version of his opening speech for the Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism in Sydney on Thursday

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This government must be held to account on press freedom. It's not to be taken lightly - The Guardian