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Drip Drip Drip - Wikileaks
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<blockquote data-quote="rickyb" data-source="post: 4028980" data-attributes="member: 56035"><p><strong>GEOFFREY ROBERTSON:</strong> Well, I mean, let’s start at the beginning. Those assurances are a confidence trick to mislead ignorant journalists. <strong>In Britain, it’s law that you cannot extradite anyone to a country to face the death penalty.</strong> So, having these assurances are neither not to the point. What is sought by America in this warrant that was signed 15 months ago—they’ve been plotting this for quite a while—is that he be sent to America for trial on charges carrying up to 45 years, which, for a man of Assange’s health and age, is in effect a death penalty. So, forget all about the death penalty. Britain will send Assange to America, if its extradition request is upheld by the court.</p><p></p><p>But I must say that <strong>after giving him asylum and giving him the promise of asylum, to hand him over to the police, without giving him any warning or opportunity to go elsewhere, is a cruel and astonishing breach of faith by this rotten Ecuadorean government. It will go down in the annals of human rights as a disgusting act.</strong> But, of course, it was encouraged by Mr. Pence, who visited Ecuador, offered it and gave it loans and so forth. So, there’s blood money in the background.</p><p></p><p><strong>But I think, for Americans who value, as everyone does, your First Amendment, you have this problem, that your government is seeking to imprison an Australian, a non-American—it doesn’t matter, he’s simply not American—on a theory of the First Amendment which would deprive its protection to all foreign journalists working, indeed, for American papers. So, it would be a grave inroad in your own much-vaunted freedom of speech if Assange were to be offered up and sacrificed for so many years. </strong>Chelsea Manning got 35. Assange is accused of conspiring with Chelsea Manning. They are the words on the warrant. So, he would get at least 35 years. And he wouldn’t be pardoned by President Trump, as Manning was pardoned by President Obama. So, that’s, I think, the seriousness of this development today.</p><p></p><p>It was probably inevitable that Ecuador, this crummy little state, would be leant upon by America and yield up Mr. Assange in spite of its promise of asylum. But he will now be imprisoned. He will be entitled to ask for bail. America, no doubt, will object. And it will go through the English courts, who will have to decide whether the treaty, extradition treaty, we have with the United States allows an Englishman or an Australian to be thrown to the wolves in America because of what they have published.<strong> It makes a nonsense of freedom of speech. We have a Human Rights Act with a qualified guarantee of free speech. We have the European Convention.</strong> So, there is a chance that Mr. Assange would be able to show what hypocrites you Americans are, or the Trump administration is, in trying to put him in prison, where they couldn’t put the editor of <em>The New York Times</em>, who published the same material, in prison.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/11/julian_assange_of_wikileaks_arrested_in#transcript" target="_blank">Julian Assange of WikiLeaks Arrested in London; Faces U.S. Charge Related to Chelsea Manning Leaks | Democracy Now!</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rickyb, post: 4028980, member: 56035"] [B]GEOFFREY ROBERTSON:[/B] Well, I mean, let’s start at the beginning. Those assurances are a confidence trick to mislead ignorant journalists. [B]In Britain, it’s law that you cannot extradite anyone to a country to face the death penalty.[/B] So, having these assurances are neither not to the point. What is sought by America in this warrant that was signed 15 months ago—they’ve been plotting this for quite a while—is that he be sent to America for trial on charges carrying up to 45 years, which, for a man of Assange’s health and age, is in effect a death penalty. So, forget all about the death penalty. Britain will send Assange to America, if its extradition request is upheld by the court. But I must say that [B]after giving him asylum and giving him the promise of asylum, to hand him over to the police, without giving him any warning or opportunity to go elsewhere, is a cruel and astonishing breach of faith by this rotten Ecuadorean government. It will go down in the annals of human rights as a disgusting act.[/B] But, of course, it was encouraged by Mr. Pence, who visited Ecuador, offered it and gave it loans and so forth. So, there’s blood money in the background. [B]But I think, for Americans who value, as everyone does, your First Amendment, you have this problem, that your government is seeking to imprison an Australian, a non-American—it doesn’t matter, he’s simply not American—on a theory of the First Amendment which would deprive its protection to all foreign journalists working, indeed, for American papers. So, it would be a grave inroad in your own much-vaunted freedom of speech if Assange were to be offered up and sacrificed for so many years. [/B]Chelsea Manning got 35. Assange is accused of conspiring with Chelsea Manning. They are the words on the warrant. So, he would get at least 35 years. And he wouldn’t be pardoned by President Trump, as Manning was pardoned by President Obama. So, that’s, I think, the seriousness of this development today. It was probably inevitable that Ecuador, this crummy little state, would be leant upon by America and yield up Mr. Assange in spite of its promise of asylum. But he will now be imprisoned. He will be entitled to ask for bail. America, no doubt, will object. And it will go through the English courts, who will have to decide whether the treaty, extradition treaty, we have with the United States allows an Englishman or an Australian to be thrown to the wolves in America because of what they have published.[B] It makes a nonsense of freedom of speech. We have a Human Rights Act with a qualified guarantee of free speech. We have the European Convention.[/B] So, there is a chance that Mr. Assange would be able to show what hypocrites you Americans are, or the Trump administration is, in trying to put him in prison, where they couldn’t put the editor of [I]The New York Times[/I], who published the same material, in prison. [URL="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/11/julian_assange_of_wikileaks_arrested_in#transcript"]Julian Assange of WikiLeaks Arrested in London; Faces U.S. Charge Related to Chelsea Manning Leaks | Democracy Now![/URL] [/QUOTE]
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