More Thought's on Julian Assange

It's Julian Assange's birthday today, and still after more than a year, languishes in solitary confinement because a foreign country, the US, that he revealed to have committed several war crimes, decides to accuse and indict him for espionage. From a general standpoint, this is unprecedented for a Australian citizen, living in the UK, to be treated by a foreign country in such a manner. In fact, according to UK legislation, a political prisoner cannot be extradited from the country. I maybe missing something legally, but this law should be followed, yet has been totally ignored.

The charges against Assange in a nut shell, revolve around allegedly “hacking” or soliciting others to hack classified information, to then publish this information. There is absolutely no evidence for this. Chelsea Manning, last year was indicted to face a grand jury, and answer questions regarding these allegations. Of course she refused, claiming that the grand jury was illegitimate. For this she was imprisoned for contempt of court, and spent a year in prison, only to be released after a judge disbanded the grand jury, and sadly, only a day after Manning made a suicide attempt.

These latest allegations from the US Justice team, argue of a conspiracy that Wikileaks recruited hackers from around the planet to access classified information. In other words, the organisation recruited known hackers like Anonymous, to infiltrate or hack into U.S. computers. From what little I know of these new allegations, it appears they come from paid FBI informants. And really, who would ever believe a paid informant from the FBI? Anyone who has been following the Assange case, and with half a brain, will realise this is all a set-up, and a dangerous attack on the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

For certain, over the last ten years, Julian Assange has been under attack, a focused character assassination, in order to poke holes in Wikileaks reputation as a publisher. The publisher has been politicised, and put under a barrage of lies, and a brutal smear campaign, depending on which political team you support. When Wikileaks published the Podesta emails, for example, revealing corruption and other unsavoury elements of the Hillary campaign, suddenly the publisher was a “Russian conduit”, ensuring Clinton's loss in the 2016 presidential election. During this time Donald Trump praised Wikileaks, but now, claims he barely knows anything about the publisher, all because to deny Wikileaks is currently politically beneficial.

Personally I was appalled to read and witness arguably top journalists from around the planet piling on to this obvious disinformation campaign. These people, I thought, were intelligent and could see through this propaganda. But no, (he) was either called a Russian agent or the more absurd, “Assange is not a journalist.” At the time this angered me, but now in retrospect, I realise these “journalists” were either stupid or simply protecting their jobs amongst the corporate news establishment. True hacks.

Julian Assange should not be in solitary confinement. At the least, he should be home with family, under lock down like the rest of us, awaiting what legal teams on both sides determine. The reason he's in prison, it is proposed, is that he is a flight risk. For goodness sake, we are experiencing a major pandemic. The man, even if he attempted to fly out of town, wouldn't have a chance in hell. That said, the reason the powers that be are treating him like a terrorist, is to send a message. You publish establishment crimes and secrets, you'll get the same treatment as Assange. We will put you in a hole and forget about you.”

Wikileaks is a publisher like all news outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian and other mainstream news organisations. Ironically, these “news organisations” published their stories direct from Wikileaks, but when push came to shove, like the true- establishment-hacks they are, abandoned him.

Take a step back from partisan politics for a second, and see that the first amendment of the US constitution is at stake, that is *press freedom*, and the public's right to know in a democracy.

All Julian Assange and Wikileaks have done, is to put the feet of power into the fire. For punching-up against the corruption and crimes of Empire, are being smeared, imprisoned and silenced.

Don't be part of the false pile-on of disinformation that the establishment desire. We are in a dire situation where true freedom of the press is under attack. Don't be part of that.

If we win against this propaganda war, Julian Assange, and brave people like Manning and Snowden will be looked on as heroes, protecting our individual rights in a true democratic society.

Fight back.

P.S.

Happy Birthday, Julian Assange.