@AssangeMrs Mrs. Christine Assange Retweeted ITV News
“Weasel words from #Corbyn! NO to UK/US extradition but YES to recycled UK/SWEDEN extradition! He knows full well Swedish (no charge) ‘case’ was a political fit up! Sweden/UK Bilateral Treaty allows fast track rendition to US under Temporary Surrender!”
‘UK Labour leads “rape” smears against Julian Assange demanding Swedish extradition’, Laura Tiernan, 15 April 2019, wsws.org
“Britain’s Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is spearheading a political witch-hunt, smearing WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange as a “rapist” who must be extradited to Sweden. This filthy campaign has been abetted over the weekend by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
More than 100 MPs have signed a cross-party letter to Conservative Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, demanding they “champion action that will ensure that Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden,” where politically-manufactured rape and sexual molestation allegations were made in 2010.” [snip]
“A coordinated state campaign is now underway to shift the political narrative, smearing Assange and diverting public attention from the grave threat to democratic rights posed by US extradition proceedings. This is the purpose served by the bogus Swedish “rape” allegations. Assange’s onward extradition to the US can be fast-tracked under Temporary Surrender treaty arrangements in place between Sweden and the US.
On Thursday, Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecution, Eva-Marie Persson, told Reuters she is reviewing the case against Assange.
The Swedish playbook has been made clear. On Saturday, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry told BBC Radio 4 she was “disgusted” US extradition proceedings had been allowed to “eclipse” sexual assault allegations made by the two Swedish women against Assange.
“I think that what should happen is that he should be extradited to Sweden and then the Americans can make a further application to have him extradited from Sweden,” she suggested.
Gender politics is being deployed for nakedly pro-imperialist objectives. On Saturday, the Guardian’s front page headline insisted, “Give priority to Assange rape victim, Javid urged” with a prominent news article headlined, “Failure to extradite Assange to Sweden would endorse ‘rape culture’, say women’s groups.”
Tierrnan then narrates the history of the bogus rape charges in Sweden, including the fact that after having been dropped, the case was reopened after 2010 for political reasons. She writes that as Home Secretary Sajid Javid had made a formal statement on Assange’s arrest in Parliament Corbyn left the room, leaving PM Abbott to speak for their party with this statement: “It is whistleblowing into illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale that has put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the US administration. She notes that WikiLeaks lauded it, as did I, bringing the video. But apparently Abbott had later Tweeted: “Assange skipping bail in UK, or any rape charge that may be brought by Swedish authorities shouldn’t be ignored”, nor had she signaled that a future Labour government would block Assange’s extradition to the US. More True Colors showing.
She then brings in the interview on ITV, including this bombast: ‘There can be no hiding place from those kind of accusations’, as well as Christine Assange’s reaction, then come quotes from 2015 showing that he knows full well what those charges are all about.
“He knows that Assange has been targeted for courageously exposing war crimes and state conspiracies against the public, but refuses to challenge the Blairites on anything, instead echoing their threats against Assange.
Political conclusions must be drawn. Had Corbyn issued a call this week for mass demonstrations in defence of Assange, tens of thousands would have been mobilised and the Blairites and their supporters would have been exposed as an isolated cabal. It is not primarily the Blairites that Corbyn fears. His overriding concern is to prevent the independent intervention of the working class. It is to this social force that all defenders of Julian Assange and democratic rights must urgently turn.”
Don’t you love the scent of hypocrisy in the morning?
Christine’s Twitter account features a lot of solidarity actions like this one:
https://twitter.com/kayesem/status/1117103355069980673
And this blood-curdling exposé of Belmarsh Gitmo by Elizabeth Vos:
https://twitter.com/AssangeMrs/status/1117721184122970112
But let’s review:
So far I haven’t been able to discover if Julian’s gotten medical attention, nor whether or not his attorneys have been able to see him in Belmarsh Gitmo.
(cross-posted at caucus99percent.com)
davidly
Greyson Smythe
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café babylon 
Kevin Gosztola:
An FBI affidavit dated December 21, 2017, in the case against WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange was unsealed. It further confirms US government has targeted Assange for his role in publishing information.
More here.
thanks, this is a key outtake, imo:
“Brown recounted the following exchange on March 7, 2010, involving Guantanamo detainee assessment reports:
…Manning asked Assange, “how valuable are JTF GTMO detention memos containing summaries, background info, capture info, etc?” Assange replied, “time period?” Manning answered, “2007-2008.” Assange responded “quite valuable to the lawyers of these guys who are trying to get them out, where those memos suggest their innocence/bad procedure…also valuable to merge into the general history. politically gitmo is mostly over though.”
According to Brown, Manning made the decision after this discussion to release the detainee assessments to WikiLeaks. However, at no point in this alleged exchange did Assange specifically ask for the reports to be provided nor did he say WikiLeaks would publish the documents. All Assange allegedly confirmed is that the documents were in the public interest.
Manning was already contemplating whether to release the assessments on Guantanamo detainees because she was concerned about her role in the Iraqi federal police’s detention and abuse of individuals responsible for “printing anti-Iraqi literature.” She provided materials related to this work to WikiLeaks on March 4, 2010, but the organization chose not to publish the information.”
and i’d been trying to recall if this memory was so: that manning had offered the files to both the wapo and ny slimes , they’d turned her down…and she’d then offered them to wikileaks.
oscar grenfell’s coverage added a key point about the timeline i’ve always suspected was the true reason T , sessions and pompeo were crazy to get him into gitmo:
“The timeline presented by Brown, also provides new evidence of the motives behind the stepped-up US pursuit of Assange.
She began working with the “counter-espionage squad” targeting Assange in February 2017, the same month WikiLeaks announced that it was preparing to release a massive trove of documents from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), dubbed Vault 7.
The documents, published over March 2017, were the most extensive exposure of the criminal methods of the CIA in more than 30 years.
They detailed the activities of a secretive division within the agency, tasked with hacking computers all over the world. The documents demonstrated that the division had developed techniques to hack into computer systems and leave “tell-tale” markers, attributing the attacks to other countries, including Russia and Iran.
Vault 7 revealed that the agency was spying on people through smart televisions and other household devices. The CIA was also seeking to develop capabilities to remotely take control of the computer systems in modern cars. Such abilities could be used in assassination operations.”
Corbyn anxious after zionist attack. Is it “pragmatism” which shepherds him to play safe or awareness of info-war-play? This war-play also targets the “independent intervention of the working class”. Who will corral the growing disgust, comrade?
May you live in interesting times …
i will say that wikileaks on twitter sure don’t know about this shitty reversal. one commenter over yonder speculated that someone may have offered him a bullet in the head. rubbish, always what those defending obomba said.
but given this is labour’s reversal, they can kiss my grits *if* they’re putting pragmatism over principle. who can trust such a leader, and yes, i’m also pinging sell-out alexis tsipras.
nope, don’t have an hour, esp. for max and creepy norton. i’ll add these shorties:
Ah. What to make of your inscrutable issues with “Sourpuss”, “Ben”, & “Creepy Norton”? Maybe a pattern will tell.
Anyway, good interview. Get a Youtube subtitle downloader. A minute download will save you fifty (depending on your reading speed).
ah; i’d thought you’d switched off from: ‘hedges is a serious man’ schtick. but aside from his ‘the cancer in occupy’ (some broken windows by likely agents provocateurs), his seminal dismissals of the ‘useless movements during the 60’s (at which time he says he was ‘a foreign journalist’ yada yada…he’s now on the side of the angels and virtues signals his estimable deeds…and he needs a bleeping editor, but i reckon he thinks we’re waiting for more words from the voice of god…come down on high thru him.
maxie i knew back at tpm, when he was ballasting the fascist empire, and yeah, he’s trying hard to redeem himself, but still…quite a show-boater to me. but then w/ a father like his, i do get why he needs to live his own hero journey. similarly, norton had batted for the empire, but he’s also hard to listen to and look at.
no idea what this is: a Youtube subtitle downloader, but never mind.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/google2srt/
thanks, but as i understand it, that’s for subtitles, not transcripts.
No results found for “chris hedges” “useless movements”.
Hedges:
And the state used instigators in real time … it is said that some groups had more cointelpro agents than true believers.
Hedges makes a good case that such anarchists, instead of putting fear in the “1%”, make them happy.
He do look the crank … but at least “Ben” is trying to look less icky. Have mercy, comrade.
he also claimed that the Occupies were shut down precisely because they *were* non-violent, which is sure crap revisionist history. the fusion centers decided when to shut them down en masse.zucotti park? vermin, rape, and disease. burn the kitchens! burn the libraries! wonder if hedges reached his conclusions by being in oaktown, or online? i will admit ‘move-in day’ was a travesty, led from behind by professors, but that was post-hedges rant. that rand did serve to mark a magi pause in the movement, though to debate ‘diversity of tactics’.
but listen, i can’t just debate w/ you on this diary, i’ve got other ones brewing, one already here that i unpublished at c99 due to bad timing.
it’s fine if you like ben, i don’t care, but then i can’t abide jimmy dore, lee camp, either.
“Centrists” have been warning of the spreading Evil but they’ve defended it over their real opponents. With total surveillance dominant it’s obvious what strategy they fall in line with. Corbyn must be getting exposed to the info-war-play. So many puppets and Corbyn can’t be immune.
you’re likely entirely correct, x.
this news doesn’t correctly belong on this thread, but from wsws this a.m.
from wsws this morning: ‘US preparing more charges against Julian Assange’
“On Wednesday, CNN reported US federal prosecutors confirmed there is an “ongoing criminal investigation” of Julian Assange, the 47-year-old founder of WikiLeaks. Prosecutors also indicated “affiliates” of Assange are under investigation, this according to another newly unsealed document. According to the CNN report, at least one document related to this investigation has been withheld from the public due to “ongoing activity.”
The revelation, CNN reported, “confirms CNN and other news outlets’ reporting in recent days that WikiLeaks is connected to at least one probe that could result in more criminal charges.”
“But since Assange has been imprisoned in the maximum-security Belmarsh prison, public comments made by leading Democrats and US media officials indicate that charge was not the primary aim of the US investigation.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer tweeted, “Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.” Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel tweeted that Assange “time after time compromised the national security of the United States and our allies by publicly releasing classified government documents and confidential materials related to our 2016 presidential election.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/19/more-a19.html
from ccn on april 17, 2019 ‘Omissions in Assange case and ongoing investigations signal broader charges to come’
“Washington(CNN) Julian Assange faced a single criminal charge when he was pulled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London last week — but, according to a CNN review of court records, prosecutors have already given a roadmap about how they may be continuing to investigate WikiLeaks and suggested that more charges are to come.”
“Three ongoing criminal proceedings suggest that the Justice Department continues to target Assange. Two of these are grand jury efforts to obtain testimony from witnesses — Manning, the Army intelligence agent-turned-leaker who’s central to his case, and, separately, former Roger Stone associate Andrew Miller — who have information about Assange and Wikileaks.
The Justice Department’s rules governing grand juries say they can’t keep investigating after an indictment is filed, unless they are pursuing additional charges. So far, prosecutors have been coy about why they want Assange and Miller to testify, though the two have in common that they each have info about Assange and Wikileaks.
Assange’s indictment was filed more than a year ago, yet a grand jury known to be investigating WikiLeaks continues to sit in the Eastern District of Virginia.”
“On Monday, a federal judge in New York City also noted how a criminal investigation related to yet another alleged WikiLeaks leaker is ongoing.
The case, against former CIA software engineer Joshua Schulte, had originally begun as a child pornography case in August 2017 — the type that’s routinely prosecuted by federal authorities.
But in June 2018, prosecutors added to the charges against Schulte, alleging he illegally gathered classified information from the CIA on his computers with the intent to harm the US. He allegedly sent the info to WikiLeaks — called “Organization-1” in the court record, which posted the documents. It’s known as the “Vault 7” leak.”
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/04/16/politics/julian-assange-us-charges/