UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has authorized the extradition to the United States of Australian whistleblower Julian Assange, who has been held in London’s maximum-security Belmarsh prison since April 2019 and has been court-harassed by US governments in the United States, Sweden and Britain since 2010. Washington wants that he will face trial on 17 charges of espionage and one of alleged cybercrime.
And this despite dozens of international organizations denouncing the abuses, arbitrariness and violations of fundamental rights in the trial of the founder of WikiLeaks – including the United Nations rapporteurs on torture and Amnesty International – and despite calls from various world figures for Assange to be released, it says in a statement from Patel’s office that the extradition “shall not be oppressive, unfair or an abuse of procedure” and that “nor has it been determined to be inconsistent with her human rights, including her right to a fair trial and freedom of expression.”
The hypocrisy and falsehood of these statements is illustrated in light of the revelations of the illegal espionage carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency against Assange, in the course of which it wiretapped conversations between him and his lawyers in order to weaken the defendant’s legal defense strategies. On the other hand, it cannot be overlooked that in 2019, more than fifty doctors from Sweden, Australia and the United Kingdom, in a public statement addressed to Patel, expressed their concern about the serious physical and mental deterioration of the whistleblower as a result of the exceptional severity of his detention.
Putting aside the aberrations of the prosecution against the founder of WikiLeaks, the UK government’s willingness to extradite Assange to the United States Department of Justice, and the stubbornness of this country’s rulers to fabricate imaginary crimes – because there is no charge of being a spy by someone, who served no power but worked to inform international public opinion – it is clear that the maneuvers between Washington and London to complete the judicial farce send an unmistakable warning message to the entire world journalistic fraternity: the public power of this Nations does not tolerate being exposed in their criminal activities, in their corruption and indecency and will take revenge on those who dare to expose them. In addition, the finding unreasonably restricts the company’s right to information.
The paradox is illustrated in the case of the video entitled Collateral Murder, which recorded the killing of 12 civilians – including two Reuters journalists – in July 2007 in Baghdad occupied by US troops: the helicopter footage shows the moment when the group of pedestrians was machine-gunned by the crew, who a few seconds later launched another attack on an Iraqi family who came to the rescue of the wounded. The material, intellectual and political perpetrators of this crime have never been held accountable, but those who let the world know about this fact – former US soldier Chelsea Manning and Assange himself – have since faced relentless judicial harassment, the Australians now leading to approval his extradition to the United States.
Regarding Mexico, it should not be forgotten that Julian Assange rendered an outstanding service of transparency and information, sending this newspaper thousands of diplomatic cables received from the US embassy and consulates in our country where it was recording. sent to the State Department, albeit unintentionally, the disintegration of Felipe Calderón’s government and his revolting submission to Washington in the context of the Mérida Initiative. The relevant information published on these pages over the course of 2011 and 2012 allowed us to reflect on some of the abysses into which the institutions were led during this period.
Finally, WikiLeaks has announced that the whistleblower’s defense will challenge Patel’s decision. It is to be hoped that there will be more sanity and decency in the British judiciary than in the London government and that Assange will be released as soon as possible. That would be the only good ending to this episode, which is as alarming as it is embarrassing. (The trip)