Repost of
the text “Ecuador Hints It May Hand Over Julian Assange to Britain and the US” published
here: https://www.globalresearch.ca/ecuador-hints-it-may-hand-over-julian-assange-to-britain-and-the-us/5640357
* * *
“Julian Assange is in immense danger. Remarks made
this week by Ecuador’s foreign minister suggest that her government may be
preparing to renege on the political asylum it granted to the WikiLeaks editor
in 2012 and hand him over to British and then American authorities.
On March 28, under immense
pressure from the governments in the US, Britain and other powers, Ecuador imposed a complete ban on
Assange having any Internet or phone contact with the outside world, and
blocked his friends and supporters
from physically visiting him. For 45 days, he has not been heard from.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister
Maria Fernanda Espinosa stated in a Spanish-language interview on Wednesday
that her government and Britain “have the intention and the interest that this
be resolved.” Moves were underway, she said, to reach a “definite agreement” on
Assange.
If Assange falls into the
hands of the British state, he faces being turned over to the US. Last year, US
Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that putting Assange on trial for
espionage was a “priority.” CIA director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of
state, asserted that WikiLeaks was a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”
In 2010, WikiLeaks
courageously published information leaked by then Private Bradley [now
Chelsea] Manning that exposed war crimes committed by American forces in
Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks also published, in partnership with some of the
world’s major newspapers, tens of thousands of secret diplomatic cables,
exposing the daily anti-democratic intrigues of US imperialism and numerous
other governments.
For that, Assange was
relentlessly persecuted by the Obama administration. By November 2010, it had
convened a secret grand jury and had a warrant issued for his arrest on charges
of espionage—charges that can carry the death sentence. The then Labor Party
government in Australia headed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard threw
Assange, an Australian citizen, to the wolves. It refused to provide him any
defence and declared it would work with the US to have him detained and put on
trial.
On June 19, 2012, under
conditions in which he faced extradition to Sweden to answer questions over
fabricated allegations of sexual assault, and the prospect of rendition to the
United States, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuador’s embassy in London.
Since that time, for nearly
six years, he has been largely confined to a small room with no direct
sunlight. He has been prevented from leaving, even to obtain medical treatment,
by the British government’s insistence it will arrest him for breaching bail as
soon as he sets foot outside the embassy.
The Pursuit of Julian Assange is an
Assault on Freedom and a Mockery of Journalism https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-pursuit-of-julian-assange-is-an-assault-on-freedom-and-a-mockery-of-journalism/32459
Now, for six weeks and three
days, he has been denied even the right to communicate.
Jennifer Robinson, the British-based Australian
lawyer who has represented Assange since 2010, told the London Times in
an interview this month:
“His health situation is
terrible. He’s had a problem with his shoulder for a very long time. It
requires an MRI [magnetic resonance imaging scan], which cannot be done within
the embassy. He’s got dental issues. And then there’s the long-term impact of
not being outside, his visual impairment. He wouldn’t be able to see further
than from here to the end of this hallway.”
The effort to haul Assange
before a US court is inseparable from the broader campaign underway by the
American state and allied governments to impose sweeping censorship on the
Internet. Lurid allegations of “Russian meddling” in the 2016 US election and
denunciations of “fake news” have been used to demand that Google, Facebook and
other conglomerates block users from accessing websites that publish critical
commentary and exposures of the ruling class and its agencies—including
WikiLeaks and the World Socialist Web Site.
WikiLeaks has been absurdly
denounced as “pro-Russia” because it published leaks from the US Democratic
Party National Committee that revealed the anti-democratic intrigues the
party’s leaders carried out to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders
in the 2016 presidential primary elections. It also published leaked speeches
of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that further exposed her intimate
relations with Wall Street banks and companies.
As part of the justification
for Internet censorship, US intelligence agencies allege, without any evidence,
that the information was hacked by Russian operatives and supplied to WikiLeaks
to undermine Clinton and assist Trump—whom Moscow purportedly considered the
“lesser evil.”
In response to the hysterical
allegations, WikiLeaks broke its own tradition of not commenting on its
sources. It publicly denied that Russia was the source of the leaks. That has
not prevented the campaign from continuing, with Assange even being labelled
“the Kremlin’s useful idiot” in pro-Democratic Party circles. WikiLeaks is
blamed for Clinton’s defeat, not the reality, that tens of millions of American
workers were repulsed by her right-wing, pro-war campaign and refused to vote
for her.
Under conditions in which the
Ecuadorian government has capitulated to great power pressure and is
collaborating with British and US agencies to break Julian Assange, there is an
almost universal and reprehensible silence on the part of dozens of
organisations and hundreds of individuals who once claimed to defend him and
WikiLeaks.
The United Nations Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 condemned Assange’s
persecution as “a form of arbitrary detention” and called for his release, has
issued no statement on his current situation.
In Britain, the Labour Party
and its leader Jeremy Corbyn have said nothing on the actions by
Ecuador. Nor have they opposed the determination of the Conservative government
to arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy.
In Australia, the current
Liberal-National government and Labor leadership are just as complicit. The
Greens, which claimed to oppose the persecution of Assange, have not made any
statement in parliament or issued a press release, let alone called for public
protests. Hundreds of editors, journalists, academics, artists and lawyers
across the country who publicly defended WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011 are now
mute.
A parallel situation prevails
across Europe and in the US. The so-called parties of the “left” and the trade
unions are all tacitly endorsing the vicious drive against Assange.
Around the world, the
Stalinist and Pabloite pseudo-left organisations, anxious not to disrupt their
sordid relations with the parties of the political establishment and the trade
union apparatuses, are likewise silent.
The World Socialist
Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International
unconditionally defend Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. If the ruling elite can
haul him before a court, it will hold him up as an example of what happens to
those who speak out against social inequality, militarism, war and police-state
measures. His prosecution would be used to try to intimidate and silence all
dissent.
If Assange is imprisoned or
worse, and WikiLeaks shut down, it will be a serious blow to the democratic
rights of the entire international working class.
Workers and young people
should join with the WSWS and ICFI in demanding and fighting for the immediate
freedom of Julian Assange.
The original source of this article is World Socialist Web Site
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