Independent
UN rights experts on Thursday said the arrest of Wikileaks co-founder
Julian Assange by police in the United Kingdom after the Ecuadorian
Government decided to stop granting him asylum in their London
embassy, exposed him to “the risk of serious human rights
violations” if extradited to the United States.
These
views are consistent with a series of actions and statements by the
UN which has sided with Assange throughout this threat of prosecution
and his nearly seven years as a refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Special
Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, Agnes Callamard, said
“expelling Assange from the Embassy” and allowing his
arrest, it had taken Mr. Assange “one step closer to
extradition.” She added that the UK had now
arbitrarily-detained the controversial anti-secrecy journalist and
campaigner, “possibly endangering his life.”
The UN
independent expert on the right to privacy, Joe Cannataci, issued a
statement following the arrest, saying that “this will not stop
my efforts to assess Mr. Assange’s claims that his privacy has been
violated. All it means is that, instead of visiting Mr Assange and
speaking to him at the Embassy…I intend to visit him and speak to
him wherever he may be detained.”
In a
statement last Friday, Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer,
said he was alarmed by reports that an arrest was imminent, and that
if extradited, Mr. Assange could be exposed to “a real risk of
serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of
expression, his right to a fair trial, and the prohibition of cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Last
December, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, urged the UK
to “abide by its international obligations” and allow Mr.
Assange safe passage out of the embassy. The Working Group concluded
in its opinion No. 54/2015 that Assange was being arbitrarily
deprived of his freedom and demanded that he be released. “Under
international law, pre-trial detention must be only imposed in
limited instanices. Detention during investigations must be even more
limited, especially in the absence of any charge.”
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