Free Julian Assange

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Free Julian Assange

2021 May 9, 11:11am 30,096 views 194 comments

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/antony-blinken-continues-to-lecture

How can you feign anger over others’ attacks on a free press when you imprison Assange as punishment for his vital revelations about U.S. officials?

Continuing his world tour doling out righteous lectures to the world, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday proclaimed — in a sermon you have to hear to believe — that few things are more sacred in a democracy than “independent journalism.” ...

That the Biden administration is such a stalwart believer in the sanctity of independent journalism and is devoted to defending it wherever it is threatened would come as a great surprise to many, many people. Among them would be Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks and the person responsible for breaking more major stories about the actions of top U.S. officials than virtually all U.S. journalists employed in the corporate press combined.

Currently, Assange is sitting in a cell in the British high-security Belmarsh prison because the Biden administration is not only trying to extradite him to stand trial on espionage charges for having published documents embarrassing to the U.S. Government and the Democratic Party but also has appealed a British judge's January ruling rejecting that extradition request. The Biden administration is doing all of this, noted The New York Times, despite the fact that “human rights and civil liberties groups had asked the [administration] to abandon the effort to prosecute Mr. Assange, arguing that the case . . . could establish a precedent posing a grave threat to press freedoms” — press freedoms, exactly the value which Blinken just righteously spent the week celebrating and vowing to uphold. ...

It is hardly new for the U.S. to dole out lectures which the rest of the world recognizes as complete farces. In 2015, then-President Obama was prancing around India giving lectures on the importance of human rights, only to cut short his trip to fly to Saudi Arabia, where he met numerous top officials of the U.S. Government to pay homage to Saudi King Abdullah, their long-time close and highly repressive ally whose totalitarian regime Obama did so much to fortify.

This is one of Trump's failings as well. He should have pardoned both Assange and Snowden.

Comments 1 - 27 of 194 Next » Last » Search these comments

Patrick @ 2021 May 9, 11:13am

Even the president of Azerbaijan now has the right to lecture us the hypocrisy of America in going after Assange, an independent journalist who reported things American politicians didn't want reported:

https://patrick.net/post/1339099/2021-05-07-president-of-azerbaijan-rips-an-america

Patrick @ 2021 May 16, 12:45am

3 FortWayneHatesRealtors @ 2021 May 16, 8:57am

I was hoping Trump would pardon him, but he cucked too.

Patrick @ 2021 Jul 3, 9:53am

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/will-right-save-julian-assange/

Whether you like or hate Julian, if we allow telling the truth about government misconduct to become a crime, the powerful will be left completely unchallenged. That’s really what this is about.

Why isn't the left also protesting for his release? Have they become fans of government misconduct?

Maybe they have.

5 FortWayneHatesRealtors @ 2021 Jul 3, 10:44am

Right (Bush) went after Assange. Left Obama continues. There is no left or right here, swamp is in charge here.

And Republicans are cucks, they didn’t stand up for Trump, nor Jan 6, and they won’t fight for anything other than small corporate tax cuts. One track mind there.

Patrick @ 2021 Jul 3, 11:16am

Assange was exposing the deep state uniparty's crimes.

So both sides of the uniparty hate him.

Shaman @ 2021 Jul 3, 11:16am

Patrick says

Have they become fans of government misconduct?

Yes, as long as that conduct is conducted by The Party. It doesn’t matter how evil it is, as long as Party leaders give their blessing. Bunch of brainless twinks.

Bd6r @ 2021 Jul 3, 12:06pm

Fortwaynemobile says

I was hoping Trump would pardon him, but he cucked too.

This suggests that Trump was either a distraction planted by the Uniparty, or a coward.

Patrick @ 2021 Jul 3, 12:43pm

Agreed.

Trump failed in not immediately pardoning Assange.

(Look, a "Trump fanboy" points out a flaw in Trump's actions! Maybe Trump's election really wasn't a "cult of personality" at all, but a logical reaction to corporate-liberal oppression.)

Patrick @ 2021 Jul 18, 11:53pm

https://thewire.in/rights/julian-assange-case-key-witness-lied

Julian Assange Case: Key Witness Admits He Lied, US Media Ignores Exculpatory Revelations
Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson admitted to an Icelandic newspaper that he lied about being asked to hack computers in order to get immunity and misrepresented his ties with the Wikileaks founder.

richwicks @ 2021 Jul 19, 12:34am

Rb6d says

Fortwaynemobile says
I was hoping Trump would pardon him, but he cucked too.

This suggests that Trump was either a distraction planted by the Uniparty, or a coward.

He's got a family to keep alive. Look at what happened to the Kennedy family. Sure, they were mafiosos running rum during prohibition, but they bucked the system a few times, and paid dearly for it.

Our government is really a criminal syndicate and a lot people don't understand that it literally true. That's the actual situation, no exaggeration, but few people can swallow it. A single person can't beat them into check. That's our job. We have to get enough people on board, not just 1 single person.

Keep pointing out the hypocrisy of our government. They are hypocrites, but if we don't point out their hypocrisy, they will push further. We've been negligent in reeling them in.

If this was 30 years ago, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, Andrew McCabe, James Comey - and many others would be in jail, and Jeffrey Epstein and John McAfee wouldn't have "committed suicide". Call out their fucking bullshit. We have a president that is OPENLY selling favors by having his crackhead son sell "art" to "anonymous buyers".

Speak up all you pussies or it's going to get worse and worse.

You have to know the CIA has been running drugs for decades, you know our own government assassinated JFK which is why there are still classified files, you know about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Tuskegee Trials, Operation MKUltra, the Church Committee, you know there wasn't a weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq, you know that the US didn't bomb Libya to prevent a humanitarian crisis. They constantly lie to you and they are lying to you now. We just had a stolen election. A mafia runs this nation, we don't and unless you call them out on it, they'll get worse. Have some fucking balls and point out what they are. Nothing more than a criminal syndicate. There's 10,000 of us to 1 of them, but there's only 10 of us aware enough to recognize what they actually are. If all 10,000 us us recognized what they were, they'd be in prison, or worse.

Knowledge is power, but I find you need to distribute knowledge.

They need to have SOME veneer of legitimacy, sand it down a bit. You know why we have Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other twats? They are just following in the path of Maxine Waters, and Elizabeth Warren - they are just puppets, to give the appearance of representation. Omar and Corez are just this generation's version of "representation", just like decades ago a black woman and an "Indian" were. They are just mascots, spokesmen for our criminal syndicate. This is what Liz Warren actually is:

They are just mascots for a criminal group.

Patrick @ 2021 Jul 19, 9:50am

richwicks says

Our government is really a criminal syndicate

I suspect that Fauci, being Italian and from NYC, is literally connected to the mob and murdering people first with the virus he created in Wuhan, and second with the "vaccine" that killed one of my wife's co-workers.

Murder, Inc.

Onvacation @ 2021 Aug 20, 7:52am

FLASHBACK 'CIRCA 2010': THE TRUTH ABOUT AFGHANISTAN... #FREEASSANGE

Patrick @ 2021 Aug 20, 2:20pm

It was brave of him to say that.

I wish I knew more details about how that money laundering through Afghanistan worked.

Patrick @ 2021 Aug 20, 10:18pm

Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald
15h
There are people who sincerely support withdrawal but also are angry about how Biden did it. Fine.

But a huge sector of institutional DC and the corporate press are pretending to be angry about the "planning" when, in reality, they are angry this war is ending & the US leaving

gabbar @ 2021 Aug 21, 2:33am

Onvacation says

FLASHBACK 'CIRCA 2010': THE TRUTH ABOUT AFGHANISTAN... #FREEASSANGE

Assange has been made an example for other journalists/activists who challenge corruption.

richwicks @ 2021 Aug 21, 2:44am

Patrick says

This is one of Trump's failings as well. He should have pardoned both Assange and Snowden.

I was unable to upvote this post.

We have no idea what kind of pressure that Trump was placed under. He kept personal security among Secret Service - the SS.

I agree, it would have been preferable for him to pardon Assange and Snowden, but it could have resulted in not only his death, but the death of his family. How is JFK's family doing now?

Our government is a mafia, well not really - it's much more ruthless. They don't just kill the person, they kill the children, and grandchildren.

Patrick @ 2021 Sep 24, 11:14pm

Patrick @ 2021 Sep 24, 11:15pm

Patrick @ 2021 Sep 28, 5:20pm

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cia-mike-pompeo-plot-kill-julian-assange-wikileaks/?itm_term=home

09/28/21
•
BIG TECH › VIEWS

The Plot to Kill Julian Assange: Report Reveals CIA Plan to Kidnap, Assassinate WikiLeaks Founder
More than 30 former officials say former CIA Director Mike Pompeo wanted to get even with WikiLeaks following its publication of sensitive CIA hacking tools, which the agency considered “the largest data loss in CIA history.”

HeadSet @ 2021 Sep 28, 7:51pm

Patrick says

More than 30 former officials say former CIA Director Mike Pompeo wanted to get even with WikiLeaks following its publication of sensitive CIA hacking tools,

Does not pass the smell test - AT ALL. Julian Assange did that Wikileaks bit in 2010 when Obama was President, many years before Pompeo was CIA director. Also, in 2016, Wikileaks exposed the confidential Democrat Party emails that showed the Democratic Party favored Hillary over Bernie. If anyone wanted Assange taken out, it was the Dems.

Patrick @ 2021 Oct 19, 1:11pm

https://reclaimthenet.org/rights-groups-request-us-drops-assange-extradition-request/

October 19, 2021
Rights groups request US drops Assange extradition request
A new joint letter.

Two dozen human and civil rights, and press freedom groups have sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to drop the extradition appeal and dismiss the indictment of Julian Assange.

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, continues to be the subject of criminal and extradition proceedings in the US under the the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, note the organizations that signed the letter, Index on Censorship, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Amnesty International USA being among them.

There has been widespread criticism of the charges brought against Assange under the Espionage Act, since they are seen as criminalizing journalistic practices such as reporting about information leaked from governments – one of the hallmarks of free press and democracy.

The request to US authorities to abandon the attempt to extradite and prosecute the Australian whistleblower and journalist, who is held in the UK, is not the first of its kind – the original was made in February. This letter comes after news reports that kidnapping or killing of Assange was on the table in 2017 when the CIA discussed these options – and that was even before he was charged in the US.

Citing Yahoo News and announcing its support for the letter, EFF said that the CIA also had plans to spy on persons associated with WikiLeaks.

The letter states that there is even more urgency to the request now considering the Yahoo News revelations about CIA activities, which the groups said heightened their concerns “about the motivations behind this prosecution, and about the dangerous precedent that is being set.”

The letter reiterates that the different organizations behind it have different views on Assange and WikiLeaks, but agree that the case against him represents “a grave threat” to press freedom in the US and internationally, and if seen through, would create a precedent that would put other journalists and publishers at risk going forward.

The letter also notes that media outlets, both those supportive and critical of Assange and his work, have opposed the charges against him.

The extradition request has been denied by a UK judge once, but the US decided to appeal and a hearing is set to take place next week.