by John
Pilger
One of the
epic miscarriages of justice of our time is unravelling. The United
Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention - the international
tribunal that adjudicates and decides whether governments comply with
their human rights obligations - has ruled that Julian Assange has
been detained unlawfully by Britain and Sweden.
After five
years of fighting to clear his name - having been smeared
relentlessly yet charged with no crime - Assange is closer to justice
and vindication, and perhaps freedom, than at any time since he was
arrested and held in London under a European Extradition Warrant,
itself now discredited by Parliament.
The UN
Working Group bases its judgements on the European Convention on
Human Rights and three other treaties that are binding on all its
signatories. Both Britain and Sweden participated in the 16-month
long UN investigation and submitted evidence and defended their
position before the tribunal. It would fly contemptuously in the face
of international law if they did not comply with the judgement and
allow Assange to leave the refuge granted him by the Ecuadorean
government in its London embassy.
In previous,
celebrated cases ruled upon by the Working Group - Aung Sang Suu Kyi
in Burma, imprisoned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia,
detained Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian in Iran - both
Britain and Sweden have given support to the tribunal. The difference
now is that Assange's persecution and confinement endures in the
heart of London.
The Assange
case has never been primarily about allegations of sexual misconduct
in Sweden. The Stockholm Chief Prosecutor, Eva Finne, dismissed the
case, saying, "I don't believe there is any reason to suspect
that he has committed rape" and one of the women involved
accused the police of fabricating evidence and "railroading"
her, protesting she "did not want to accuse JA of anything".
A second prosecutor mysteriously re-opened the case after political
intervention, then stalled it.
The Assange
case is rooted across the Atlantic in Pentagon-dominated Washington,
obsessed with pursuing and prosecuting whistleblowers, especially
Assange for having exposed, in WikiLeaks, US capital crimes in
Afghanistan and Iraq: the wholesale killing of civilians and a
contempt for sovereignty and international law. None of this
truth-telling is illegal under the US Constitution. As a presidential
candidate in 2008, Barack Obama, a professor of constitutional law,
lauded whistleblowers as "part of a healthy democracy [and they]
must be protected from reprisal".
Obama, the
betrayer, has since prosecuted more whistleblowers than all the US
presidents combined. The courageous Chelsea Manning is serving 35
years in prison, having been tortured during her long pre-trial
detention.
The prospect
of a similar fate has hung over Assange like a Damocles sword.
According to documents released by Edward Snowden, Assange is on a
"Manhunt target list". Vice-President Joe Biden has called
him a "cyber terrorist". In Alexandra, Virginia, a secret
grand jury has attempted to concoct a crime for which Assange can be
prosecuted in a court. Even though he is not an American, he is
currently being fitted up with an espionage law dredged up from a
century ago when it was used to silence conscientious objectors
during the First World War; the Espionage Act has provisions of both
life imprisonment and the death penalty.
Assange's
ability to defend himself in this Kafkaesque world has been
handicapped by the US declaring his case a state secret. A federal
court has blocked the release of all information about what is known
as the "national security" investigation of WikiLeaks.
The
supporting act in this charade has been played by the second Swedish
prosecutor, Marianne Ny. Until recently, Ny had refused to comply
with a routine European procedure that required her to travel to
London to question Assange and so advance the case that James Catlin,
one of Assange's barristers, called "a laughing stock ... it's
as if they make it up as they go along". Indeed, even before
Assange had left Sweden for London in 2010, Marianne Ny made no
attempt to question him. In the years since, she has never properly
explained, even to her own judicial authorities, why she has not
completed the case she so enthusiastically re-ignited - just as the
she has never explained why she has refused to give Assange a
guarantee that he will not be extradited on to the US under a secret
arrangement agreed between Stockholm and Washington. In 2010, the
Independent in London revealed that the two governments had discussed
Assange's onward extradition.
Then there
is tiny, brave Ecuador. One of the reasons Ecuador granted Julian
Assange political asylum was that his own government, in Australia,
had offered him none of the help to which he had a legal right and so
abandoned him. Australia's collusion with the United States against
its own citizen is evident in leaked documents; no more faithful
vassals has America than the obeisant politicians of the Antipodes.
Four years
ago, in Sydney, I spent several hours with the Liberal Member of the
Federal Parliament, Malcolm Turnbull. We discussed the threats to
Assange and their wider implications for freedom of speech and
justice, and why Australia was obliged to stand by him. Turnbull is
now the Prime Minister of Australia and, as I write, is attending an
international conference on Syria hosted the Cameron government -
about 15 minutes' cab ride from the room that Julian Assange has
occupied for three and a half years in the small Ecuadorean embassy
just along from Harrods. The Syria connection is relevant if
unreported; it was WikiLeaks that revealed that the United States had
long planned to overthrow the Assad government in Syria. Today, as he
meets and greets, Prime Minister Turnbull has an opportunity to
contribute a modicum of purpose and truth to the conference by
speaking up for his unjustly imprisoned compatriot, for whom he
showed such concern when we met. All he need do is quote the
judgement of the UN Working Party on Arbitrary Detention. Will he
reclaim this shred of Australia's reputation in the decent world?
What is
certain is that the decent world owes much to Julian Assange. He told
us how indecent power behaves in secret, how it lies and manipulates
and engages in great acts of violence, sustaining wars that kill and
maim and turn millions into the refugees now in the news. Telling us
this truth alone earns Assange his freedom, whereas justice is his
right.
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