Julian Assange extradition order issued by London

Here are a lot of apologists who claim freedom of speech in the US and in general in the western world. So far, looks like there is no freedom of speech at all. Australian journalist who had discovered an ugly face of American policy around the world became a target for US politicians. Now UK court issued an order for extradition of Assange to US, where more than one hundred years of prison can become a reality for him. American "democratic" principles in action.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/20/uk/julian-assange-extradition-order-intl/index.html

 

Obviously it's not a simple freedom of speech issue.

He is wanted in the US on 18 criminal charges after WikiLeaks published thousands of classified files and diplomatic cables in 2010. If convicted, Assange faces up to 175 years in prison.​

It would be interesting to see what Putin would do to anyone who did anything like this to him.

 

It would be interesting to see what tRump would do to anyone who did anything like this to him. Oh wait...........................

 

The U.S. constitution applies only to those who are under the U.S. jurisdiction. Theft of classified information and publishing it to the public is spying. Spying against the U.S. is a serious charge that can result in a death penalty. This has nothing to do with the freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is anyone being able to voice their opinion on a public forum without the fear of repercussions. Publishing sensitive data without the permission of the owner of that data is not freedom of speech.

 

I do not agree with you. Assange is a journalist and US try every means by to shut his mouth and the only reason for that is that he has revealed an unpleasant facts about the US. If that facts showed how US is good, I doubt anyone hunted him. Spying implies work of a person for a specific state and does not result in the publicity of the obtained information. US prohibits to talk about its bad behavior- this is without any doubt a restriction of freedom of speech, IMHO.

 

You're dismissing facts and asserting your opinion as though this should be persuasive.

Fact is, Assange has been used by your government. He was given stolen documents by Russian hackers and he was dumb enough to publish the stuff, breaking laws in the process.

 

You got it wrong right from the beginning of your post - Assange is not a journalist. I googled it and found lots of articles from AP, CNN, and other publications explaining that Assange is not a journalist, so I encourage you to do your own search and pick a publication you trust to explain to you why such claim is wrong.
All assange did is build a database with an ugly interface (website), which serves as a dump site for a lot of sensitive, classified, and, most importantly, stolen data. Propagating stolen data is not much different from reselling stolen car stereo systems - it’s a crime. And if you commit a crime against the U.S. government and it gets pissed off about it, then there aren’t that many safe spaces that you can hide in on this entire planet.
Personally, I’d love to see him do exact same time in prison he spent in that embassy to teach idiots like him a lesson that causing a drama the way he did and hiding somewhere for extended period of time with conditions that border those that could be found in prison won’t save one from the justice and the real incarceration. Snowden will be next - once poo-tin the sh!t-can dies, Russia will trade him in exchange for relief from at least some sanctions. Snowden is young and poo-tin is old, so the outcome for him is pretty much a mathematical certainty.

 

Oh how I hope this bellend finally gets kicked out of the UK.

 

The fact that Assange has been used by Putin is nonsense. The real fact is that by charging with espionage someone who has no non-disclosure obligation, is not a US citizen and is not in the US, the US government is behaving as if they have jurisdiction all over the world to pursue any person who receives and publishes information of government wrongdoing. Sorry, you have no freedom of speech in the US, it is just pufff.

 

A person can commit a crime against an entity in another country while not physically being present in that country.
Why do you think extradition treaties exist? Why do you think a country can catch and prosecute a pirate, even if that pirate never did anything against the prosecuting state? Data knows no borders and distribution of stolen data is a crime. Assange should be happy he didn’t do his crimes against Russia - otherwise he would probably drown in novichok by now, as can be evidenced by the way poo-tin handled such issues in the past.

 

I'm sure the people who had to put up with his smelly ass would agree.

 

I remember hearing how he was smearing **** on the walls at one point. He must have been going absolutely mental cooped up in that embassy building for years on end.

 

The hilarious thing is that if he wasn’t such a drama queen and faced the justice for his actions right away, chances are good that he would be released from prison by now and he would be home enjoying the rest of his life as a free man.

 

Of course, CNN and other American sources call him just a spy, nothing new about that. I found in Wikipedia, that he is a journalist: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ассанж,_Джулиан

Actually, in Encyclopedia Britannica he is called a computer programmer. But he can be also called a scientific journalist: "i.e., providing primary source materials with a minimum of editorial commentary". You are talking about his crimes against US government. I am sorry, but he did not have any non-disclosure obligations. This is the typical situation. When some other countries commit crimes, US serves as a world police. When US commits crimes, then- noone should talk about it. Typical double standards and suppression of freedom of speech.

If you mean Litwinenko or Skripal, they worked for intelligence services in USSR and they've betrayed their motherland. Assange did not betray anyone. That is a big difference. Everyone know that US behave like pirates on the international arena, detaining the people from other countries for only suspition of doing something, like it happened for example with a Russian pilot Yaroshenko in Liberia. The US acted in these cases like a terrorist country. And then it tries to blame other countries in agressive wars etc. Sorry, US is not in that position. Whoever else, but not US. You live in the barbaric country that still uses death penalties in some states.

 

And so far no publicly available information has been released that would justify his extradition to the US.

From all outward appearances, it seems he has been held and is being extradited based on something that should not be illegal.

To summarize the original story, he was originally accused by two women in Sweden of "sexual violation", but he did not want to go to Sweden because he was afraid Sweden would be more likely to extradite him to the US than the UK, since public opinion was very much on his side in the UK at that time.
It was later revealed that the two women were acquaintances, and he had previously been having entirely consensual sex with both of them. And furthermore what the women accused him of doing would probably not be prosecuted as a crime in the UK or most of the US. And they initially were not even seeking for him to be punished, but a feminist prosecutor talked them into it after they went to authorities trying to compel him to take an HIV test after they found out that he had been sleeping with both of them and then they were angry about it.
The UK issued a warrant, and Assange turned himself in to police, and was then granted bail and released, while he tried to fight it out in court hoping to prevent extradition to Sweden. When he realized things in court were not going his way and he would probably be extradited, he panicked.
Assange then stayed in the Ecuadorian embassy, located in the UK, for 7 years, and the UK authorities were unable to go in there to arrest him, until finally pressure was exerted on the country of Ecuador and the President of Ecuador allowed the UK police to go in there and nab Assange. It was a virtual prison for him for 7 years, but he was afraid to leave because the UK wanted to extradite him to Sweden, where he believed he would then be extradited to the US.

Many people (in this very forum) accused him of being "a rapist", at the time, and said it was just paranoia and claimed there was no reason for him to fear extradition.
Both of these claims have now obviously proven to be false.

 

The UK then punished him for 1 year for "skipping bail", even though he had initially turned himself in, and even though the charges in Sweden for which he had been wanted were finally dropped, and the public finally found out what the "sexual violation" accusations were actually about (many parts of which bordered on the absurd and ridiculous). (And even though he had already spent 7 years in a virtual prison, confined by his own will, in terrible fear of stepping foot out the front door. Even though the UK knew exactly where he was that whole time, with London police stationed outside of the building to grab him. Even after that the UK still thought he deserved to be punished with 1 year.)

However, during this prison sentence, the US finally publicly sought extradition (which meant there were indeed criminal charges), so then the UK decided to hold him even longer, while the court case fighting extradition to the US dragged on.

It is a long complicated story and there are many many parts of this story that are unfair.

 

I personally find that view outrageous, as do many free speech advocates.

It seems the US is trying to extend its legal jurisdiction over information in other parts of the world. That is outrageous for TWO different reasons - but exponentially more so when you combine both together.

This information, even though it had originally been illegally leaked from government, was about things the government was doing, things some people believed the public should know about.

This idea that you can lay a legal claim on information, and not only that but for one country to lay a claim on that information in all other parts of the world... well, that's a huge huge stretch. It's bordering on totalitarianism.


(That said, we all agree that those individuals who are given special responsibility of government information and who then leak that information can be prosecuted. They have signed a contract acknowledging that they can be criminally prosecuted if they abuse what has been entrusted to them.)

 

I think this entire story demonstrates the legal problems and issues that are inherent in the process of international extradition.

First they tried to extradite Assange from the UK to Sweden, for a crime that would not have been illegal in the UK (or the US).
Assange did not want to be sent to Sweden because he was deathly afraid once there, Sweden would then extradite him to the US.

(He didn't care about the rape charges at all. As evidenced by the fact that he kept himself in a virtual prison in a room in the Ecuadorean embassy for 7 years trying to avoid extradition, even though in Sweden even a "real" rape would likely only be punished with 4 years, probably a lot less in that case)

Then the unfairness of UK bail laws. If Assange had just immediately fled into the Ecuadorean embassy in the first place, instead of having initially turned himself into police, there would then have been no legal basis to punish him for skipping bail. It makes absolutely no logical sense to be punishing him for skipping bail. Especially after his 7-year-long self-imposed imprisonment, and then the fact that the charges that he had originally been held on bail for had been dropped in Sweden.

Then on top of all this, after this long ordeal, it went on for even longer, with Assange having to stay in prison an additional 2 years just to fight extradition to now another country.
When the US could have initiated an extradition request against him during that entire time.

 

He spent 7 years holed up in a single room in the Ecuadorean embassy, with police constantly guarding the exits ready to grab him. Then, after being arrested, 3 more years being held (mostly in solitary confinement) in the UK.

Not surprisingly, his mental health began to suffer.


If (hypothetically) he had actually raped a woman in Sweden (and if it had been "real rape", which it was totally not), he would probably only have been sentenced to 4 or 5 years. (Sweden has some of the most lenient sentences for rape in the world)

But everyone knows the circumstances surrounding Assange are not really about rape.

A very long explanation about the supposed "rape" accusations faced can be found here:
Assange Accusations in Sweden
It explains how they were mostly BS, and not actually anywhere close to being as serious as real rape. It's no wonder the prosecutor in Sweden eventually decided to drop the charges.

 

related older thread: Assange could be held in prison in the UK for several more years

 

But they have a point to make in an agenda to advance and they're not going to let them pesky facts get in the way

 

Many people will vehemently disagree with you.

Free speech is especially supposed to protect people's right to tell the public about bad things government is doing. If the government is trying to keep those controversial things a secret, you think freedom of the press should not apply?

Assange's Wikileaks would not have dealt with this information if it was not controversial. Many lawmakers in Congress did not even know about these things that were leaked until the news media published it. Publication of some of this information probably led to a change in the political situation in the United States.

 

You're not using proper logic on that one. They can still come up with some twisted justification to charge him with 18 different crimes, even if those alleged "crimes" all only involve freedom of the press.

Criminal charges do not always tell us what the accused person actually did. Lawyers can play twisted legal games.

Some of those charges might even have almost no evidence whatsoever, or the evidence the prosecutor is seeking to use does not justify that charge.
Prosecutors just throw a bunch of charges at defendants all the time, hoping at least one of them will stick. Prosecutors almost never get punished for this.

 

It's interesting. The people who want Assange to spend life in prison are all Pro-War people on the Left, even though supposedly the majority of the Left is Anti-War.

That is what it seems like.

The Anti-War people on the Left seem like they intentionally have their heads stuck in the sand about this fact.

(Okay, some of the members who want Assange to suffer might deny they are actually on "the Left", but every single one of them hates Trump, so there is that for you all to consider)

 

Comments like that have proven wrong in the past.

Remember when people on this forum were accusing him of rape and saying that was the only reason he didn't want to be sent to Sweden, because he didn't want to face justice? That no one should have sympathy for him because he was a rapist. THAT has be pretty much been proven false now.

He has no guarantees that will be the case. There are plenty of indications that what you say may not be the case. Why did the London police spend 3.8m (US $5 million) stationing police outside the embassy around the clock to nab him if he came out?

I don't like to accuse anyone, but it almost seems like people like you are liars and have a good idea exactly what may likely happen.

Maybe I'd take your comments with more sincerity if I knew you had placed a large amount of your own money into security bonds that would only pay you back if Assange got sentenced to less than 4 years in the US.

By the way, I highly respect you as a member in this forum, so I have difficulty understanding why you seem to be out for blood against this person.