Latest on the hearing appears to be this (posted yesterday):
> Julian Assange's extradition hearing at the Old Bailey today will not be going ahead because the husband of one of the US lawyers has come down with Covid-like symptoms.
> Once he gets the result of a test the judge will determine how best to proceed.
Trouble is people aren’t brought up with an understanding of how things should be in a fair and just society. They’re brought up with some mucky mixed up perception that the world is some mashup of Hollywood and what the media says.
There’s no moral compass for society any more.
My personal take is he’s some sort of weird Russian asset and he’s a net negative for our way of life but I still think he deserves the full protection of the law at every single stage. He shouldn’t be sold out and abandoned by society.
It sounds twee but my mother brought me up to care about other people, the less well off and to care about what’s right and justice for all. I think “we’ll theres an awful lot of people in this world who didn’t have my mother. What did they learn?”
What? And there was more of such a compass a century ago when lynchings were much more common for "racial defilements"? Or two centuries ago when slaves were considered bad by the general public for escaping from the brutality of ownership? Or perhaps 600 years ago when witch burning was remarkably common in much of Europe?
Not criticizing your defense of Assange (his treatment really is deplorable, petty and cruel), but This phrase has never been anything less than absurd, and particularly so is to claim it of today's society in comparison to some mythical past morality..
> witch burning was remarkably common in much of Europe
Is that a moral issue, or one of knowledge / technologies?
You can only go on the best information you have, and many theistic beliefs are currently acceptable in the modern world despite being no less plausible than a belief in witches.
A common mistake of modern humans is to presuppose that people from earlier times were somehow less capable of thinking than we are today. No evidence suggests that this was the case. They could be just as rational, they just knew less upon which to base their notions of reason. Even in a 16th century context, it was not hard to see that a lot of supposedly real witch burning was repressive control politics masquerading behind imposed superstitious strictures of morality around women, just taken to murderous degrees.
More basically: if your morality means decisions to justify or reject the torture and killing of another person, then you'd better set some damn high criteria for whether your information is complete enough.
Even medieval humans understood a surprising amount of this. A Book I highly recommend that demonstrates as much: "The Faithful executioner: Life and death, Honor and Shame in the turbulent 16th century" by Joel F. Harrington. It records a lifetime of personal observations through diary entries from a public executioner in the Germanic city of Bamburg during these times. and gives wonderful insights into how well even those charged with the job of killing could reason about the dirty ambiguity of what they were doing.
A "unified sense" of right and wrong was often exactly the problem with many societies in history, because they often fall into absolutism and simplistic notions of morality. I'd call our more nuanced and diverse views of what's moral in today's society an improvement, not the opposite.
If anything, a case like Assange's just 60 years ago would have much more easily been condemned as simple treason and with wide U.S public approval of either a long prison sentence or the death penalty, on the grounds of then much more prevalent and simplistic "patriotic" sentiments in society. Today, there's far more divergent debate on this that is exactly why so many across internet and media defend his actions despite this despicable rigidness from the court.
> I stand by the assertion that 60/70 years ago western society had a more unified sense of what is right and wrong.
That would be 1950-1960. Speaking of America, Montgomery bus boycott started in 1955. Which took a year and started whole civil war movement. President Nixon’s red-baiting campaigns were at exactly that time too.
In Europe, IRA started their border campaign in 1956.
Continental Europe during the post world period until the late 80’s had terrorist bombings, political assassination, dictatorships and plenty of other crap going around, I’m really not sure what level of understanding people have of history these days.
70 years ago was just after Europe decided to murder millions of Jews, Roma, Gays and a bunch of other groups.
Yeah I don’t know, Portugal was a dictatorship until the coup in 1974 which ended the Estado Novo regime and the colonial wars Portugal was waging in Africa, ffs you had European powers conducting outright massacres in Africa in the 70’s still.
And somehow today its feels that everyone thinking that the European Union was formed on Tuesday following the pyramids and its been the bastion of human rights and civilization since.
At least where I live I didn‘t hear anyone say that.
Maybe this is different in the US. It‘s more like our government doesn’t say anything because of US imperialism. And most people don‘t know about him or think this outcome is expected if you dare to mess with the US.
It looks more like pessimism to me. And it‘s to be expected. The US foreign policy was always inhumane. It knows no moral boundaries as long as it serves the economic interest of their corporations. Not that other countries are better in that regard.
Yeah, there are. I know people I generally find reasonable that consider him a traitor, and they're not even American. I think a lot of use have grown up on US culture and propaganda and it permeates our societies to the point of identification with the US, so Assange or Snowden are considered bad guys to a lot of people. It seems to me that it's primarily for pragmatic reasons: "We" profit from crimes, leaking information about those crimes reduces our profit from it, ergo leaking it is treason against us.
I agree. I’m of the opinion that he is a bad person, yet this does not prevent me from saying the USA case against him feels political, nor does it prevent me from listening when the UN condemns the UK’s treatment of him or an international lawyer association condemning the process against him.
You're looking at history through rose colored glasses. Societal justice in the past meant basically "protect those in power, burn everyone else on sight." If you weren't part of the ruling group (be it by race, gender, ideology, etc.) then you had very few protections.
Let me say that Trump is a swaggering, incompetent. Let me also say that I am unsure about how much more I should dislike him on the basis that most of what I know about Trump comes from the media.
Stuff like this demonstrates the media is used to sway public opinion via manufactured narratives; its a bit like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: If I see clear manipulations if the things I know, I should distrust the same publications in those topics of which I am less familiar, or have no secondary source. The smear of sex-crime allegations, and invocation of the Russian/foreign power boogieman are a suspiciously strong part of the "political establishment" modus operandi.
As such, I'm apprehensive to hate someone for such allegations, b/c I don't know how much I'm being led. Sadly, this suspicious, and willing to give a high benefit-of-doubt to a person like Trump will get me branded a mindless supporter by anti-Trump people primed to believe in the "MAGA crowd" stereotype.
We should all suspect the political theatre, and attempt to figure out the script.
It sickens me how little it seems to matter to people in our mainstream discourse whether or not Assange is treated as a human being. After he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy, and officials said he had behaved erratically there and smeared feces on the walls, etc., the public reaction was along the lines of, “Wow, what a weirdo loser”—rather than, “Oh God, what have we done to this person?” It speaks poorly of our society.
Thing is, he damaged himself by choosing to spend nearly a decade in isolation. We haven’t done anything to him other than expect him to submit to due process as a citizen like any other.
That he has driven himself half-mad is indeed tragic, but it’s not societies fault, nor is it sufficient to place him outside the law.
> Thing is, he damaged himself by choosing to spend nearly a decade in isolation.
He always argued that he would not receive fair treatment if he submitted himself to authorities, especially as they would give him no assurance about not handing him over to the US (this is before the US officially started proceedings against him).
> We haven't done anything to him other than expect him to submit to due process as a citizen like any other.
But the International Bar Association say that he is not getting due process. Which rather confirms his original fears. The article here quotes IBAHRI Co-Chair, Anne Ramberg: "With this extradition trial we are witnessing the serious undermining of due process and the rule of law."
Why should I care so much more about his physical and mental maltreatment by the legal system over the other millions experiencing the same everyday? If you asked why public discourse ignores this in general I would understand.
There are, of course, atrocities everywhere all the time. Change generally isn't sparked by routine atrocities rumbling along in the background though, but by people coalescing around specific atrocities that gain high profile for whatever reason (largely random) which serve as an avatar for all the others. So I suspect you have it backwards: the mistreatment of others isn't a reason to dismiss Assange's complaint, but rather to elevate it. Maybe this will be the one that finally catches fire and helps all the others.
>Change generally isn't sparked by routine atrocities rumbling along in the background though, but by people coalescing around specific atrocities that gain high profile
Exactly.
Taylor and Shaver are people worth rioting over. Instead we've got protests because some much less sympathetic people were killed in less inflammatory (though obviously still pretty terrible) circumstances. Not exactly what civil liberties advocates were hoping for but there's no reason not to roll with it because maybe the cops will finally be reigned in a little (hopefully a lot but the government always drags its feet about curtailing its enforcers).
Assange might be an asshole weirdo but if he's what gets us reform then why not take it?
Trust is something that in general, seems to be waning across the board, at least here in the US.
At the same time, trust provides foundations for a stable society. I believe that for people to interact regularly, they need to trust that the others aren't always out to constantly undermine them in their daily interactions. It could be that their representative government is representing some of their ideas, that their legal system treats them as it says it will, that fellow citizens won't throw them under a bus the second they see opportunity, etc. All of that seems to be on the decline.
Instead our society seems to be filled with lies at every front. I hear lies from top government officials, lies from our legal system, lies from businesses, lies from everyone around me--pretty much all in pursuit of personal gain.
The less I can trust my government, politicians, authorities in power, and fellow citizens to be reasonable and work collectively, the less I tend to trust our society overall.
> According to his lawyers, Mr Assange was handcuffed 11 times; stripped naked twice and searched; his case files confiscated after the first day of the hearing; and had his request to sit with his lawyers during the trial, rather than in a dock surrounded by bulletproof glass, denied.
Stripped naked and search is standard custody practice. Criminals hide things and are known to smuggle things in and out of court to prison. And remember, he is techincally a criminal. He broke criminal law when he skipped bail. He is being held in custody, it seems fair for standard policies to apply to him. Why would he be any different?
It is standard for someone to sit in the dock, why would he deserve special treatment. He is able to confer with his lawyers when he needs to from the dock as many other people have done so in the past and will do so in the future.
The only issue I have is them taking his case files, which seems petty. But I suspect there would have been operational reasons, but why those reasons couldn't have been worked around seems odd and again petty.
While I think he doesn't deserve to be sent to the US and should not be. The fact, he is a criminal and is in custody because he can't be trusted does mean he should be treated as such a manner.
Seems like nobody should really be treated that way though, so the fact he's being treated in accordance with others to me is more of an indictment of the system than his specific treatment. People seem to have lost sight of the fact that (a) people are innocent until proven guilty in general and (b) criminals are people too, and all people deserve humane treatment. After all, if you can't treat criminals humanely who are you to condemn them for treating others inhumanely? By all means, remove from society, reform, re-educate, etc, but no reason to treat criminals as anything other than your siblings, parents, etc who did something wrong and need some course correction.
> Seems like nobody should really be treated that way though, so the fact he's being treated in accordance with others to me is more of an indictment of the system than his specific treatment.
Why shouldn't people be stripped searched on the way in and out of prison? How are the prisons meant to ensure the safety of the prisoners? Remember prisoners can and do smuggle weapons and deadly drugs into prisons. One of the best ways of keeping prisons safe is to search prisoners properly upon entry to the prison.
Why shouldn't people who have been proven not trustworthy be held in a dock? Remember, he skipped bail.
Why shouldn't someone who seems to be at danger be protected with bulletproof glass?
> people are innocent until proven guilty in general
He has already been proven guilty of a crime. He is a criminal.
> criminals are people too, and all people deserve humane treatment. After all, if you can't treat criminals humanely who are you to condemn them for treating others inhumanely? By all means, remove from society, reform, re-educate, etc, but no reason to treat criminals as anything other than your siblings, parents, etc who did something wrong and need some course correction.
I personally have been in the UK prison system and have experienced the strip searches and the court handling. Honestly, I never heard a prisoner once complain about strip searches, we understood why they were there. The guards weren't insenstive or treated us inhumanely. We were just told to take our clothes off while they inspected our clothes. And sitting in a dock is not inhumane.
> Why shouldn't people who have been proven not trustworthy be held in a dock? Remember, he skipped bail. Why shouldn't someone who seems to be at danger be protected with bulletproof glass?
Sorry, do you expect him to run out of court and not be stopped by the bailiffs? Do you expect him to cause danger that requires the use of bulletproof glass after already being searched for weapons inside and out?
> He has already been proven guilty of a crime. He is a criminal.
Not this crime? Either way it applies to people who both have and have not been convicted yes?
> Honestly, I never heard a prisoner once complain about strip searches, we understood why they were there.
Oh, well. In that case. I'm sure if they did complain their complains would be given the utmost priority.
> Sorry, do you expect him to run out of court and not be stopped by the bailiffs? Do you expect him to cause danger that requires the use of bulletproof glass after already being searched for weapons inside and out?
Well, the baliffs wouldn't be in position to catch him since they're in the dock. Because that's where the prisoner is. And prisoners do bolt out of courts, they get ane extra sentence but it does happen.
> Do you expect him to cause danger that requires the use of bulletproof glass after already being searched for weapons inside and out?
I said AT danger, not BE A danger. So the bulletproof glass is there to protect HIM.
> Oh, well. In that case. I'm sure if they did complain their complains would be given the utmost priority.
You know people complain to each other, right? They bitch about this and that. Like they would complain about the tea being crap, etc. And complaints were treated fairly, that's why if you complained you got shit from the guards, your mail would take 2 days longer, your requests for a form would take longer, etc.
You seem to be completely disconnected from reality.
* This is a guy who skipped bail and avoided arrest for years. And you're againist him sitting in a dock.
* A guy who realistically, people want to kill and you're againist him being behind bulletproof glass.
* You want people to be dealt with humanely but againist basic things required to keep them safe. All the things you're againist, the only countries that don't have them are corrupt, dangerous places.
> He is able to confer with his lawyers when he needs to from the dock
Is he? Also it was suggested he hadn't received relevant papers in prison, and now isn't allowed them in court either.
His ability to be personally informed are greatly reduced as a result of all of this, which seems beyond "petty", and rather a purposeful attempt to minimise his ability to be involved with the defence.
I don’t know them but a quick scan of courses suggests that they are a serious INGO with a sizeable membership of lawyers and law societies worldwide.
That said, this is from March and recent condemnations/requests/urging on their part seem to come regularly and with regards to issues of justice globally. In the past ten days there are a couple of “IBA urges” and “IBA calls for” announcments on their site. https://www.ibanet.org/Article/
I can't think of a special reason why the UK would have it in for Julian Assange. I presume they are doing this in order to cow towel to their ally the United States. Do they not realize that the United States is likely to undergo a regime change at the beginning of next year? Do they think the new regime in the US will feel the same way about Julian Assange and will put the same kind of pressure on the UK that the Trump administration presumably has? Do they think that they can reverse course and just apologize for the failure of justice if the US changes administrations?
Don't try telling me that the UK government is not a party here and that this is simply a case of a zealous prosecutor and biased judge -- because I'm not fool enough to believe that story.
I'd assume the agencies behind all this might not change. A new government doesn't radically restructure the FBI etc, though it might alter some priorities.
Also, any US gov probably appreciates national serfdom..
> Do they not realize that the United States is likely to undergo a regime change at the beginning of next year?
It's far too early to count on Trump losing the election... In my estimation, there's still over 50% chance he'll be re-elected. All he needs is for some Covid metric to show improvement, and he'll claim that as a win at the key moment. And economically, due to the weaker lockdown measures, the US will come out ahead of many other countries.
The media is (yet again) far too eager to sell you the idea that "he can't possibly win", and as long as people continue to buy that, he (and people like him) will continue to be elected.
It's not very likely the US will come out ahead economically. Countries that had stricter lock downs seeing great economic revivals as case numbers dwindled and lockdowns get progressively more targeted and less intrusive. This can't be done successfully in the US.
To give an extreme example of where countries with stricter lockdowns will be soon, look at China. Their economy is almost already at pre-pandemic levels.
> Do they think the new regime in the US will feel the same way about Julian Assange and will put the same kind of pressure on the UK that the Trump administration presumably has?
The pressure came from the Obama administration, the Trump administration just kept it up. I don't see any reason to believe that Biden would be substantially different.
Trump has floated the idea of pardoning Assange. A Biden presidency would likely be even more against Assange, because of his actions during the 2016 election which generally harmed Clinton.
I see nothing at all about the potential new Democrat government in the U.S that indicates it would in the least bit reduce its stupid, petty, vengeful prosecution efforts against Assange.
A fundamental loyalty to protecting the superiority of the U.S state and its military power/secrets is a firm tenet of both major parties. Obama never budged on Assange, or Snowden and what would make the even less flexible-minded Biden likely to go against the grain?
If anything, Trump winning is Assange's (or Snowden's) best hope, because so long as he has nothing to immediately lose in the form of electoral points, he's exactly the kind of arrogant that would love a grandiose gesture of clemency just to stick it to political rivals and look "edgy". Something similar to what made him push for the talks with N. Korea. (I have a hard time picturing Hillary Clinton having seriously considered such a thing)
I don't see why my older comment would be downvoted. Obama initiated the legal process against Assange and Biden never once stated a lack of support for it. What in the world would make any of you think he'd somehow change that tendency if he won? Trump, for all his mendacity and nonsense, has at least floated the idea forward here and there and has just enough vindictive weirdness to plausibly decide to do such a thing.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
and
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...