Great Britain wants to extradite Julian Assange

Fundamental failure of Western constitutional states. Civil society appalled by government action

by Robert Seidel

(30 December 2021) The inconceivable is about to become true. After more than 10 years of judicial scandals, cover-ups, disappearances, solitary confinement, international collusion among Western governments, the combined US power has succeeded to subject the courageous and committed investigative journalist Julian Assange to an unfair trial in the USA that will disregard all norms of the rule of law. What will be awaiting for him in the USA is known worldwide: not justice, but ill-disguised revenge. Revenge on what?

Revenge on Assange

With Wikileaks Julian Assange exposed war crimes and unlawful government action on a large scale. Through his published documents, abuses and gross violations of international law were made public. He also exposed the arbitrary treatments of smaller states by powerful ones. His publications caused worldwide consternation.

Now an example is to be made of him: anyone who dares to make dirty truths public is to be punished with social death by life imprisonment – even if he has acted with integrity.

An example is to be made

It is worthwhile to briefly recall the preceding events. This is what law professor and UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, does in his 2021 book, “The Case of Julian Assange. History of a Persecution”.

For more than 10 years, Julian Assange has been held in torture-like conditions without a fair trial under the rule of law, currently in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison in the UK.

The Assange case is not taking place in a dictatorship, but in the middle of the free West, or more precisely in states that claim to be 1A top democracies with a model rule of law: Great Britain, Sweden and the USA.

With his publications in Wikileaks, Assange was, until 2010, an icon for a new investigative journalism that relentlessly uncovered great and greatest crimes. On Wikileaks he published secret documents sent to him by whistleblowers.

The atrocious war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq were a horrific revelation. In addition, it became known how US diplomacy acted over the heads of other states. There was great public indignation in the individual countries, but the governments – probably on the US leash – let the alleged offences become time-barred. But not only that.

Torture-like conditions

As Melzer describes in his book, Assange – presumably at the instigation of the USA – was legally challenged in Sweden and the UK. Finally, he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he found makeshift asylum in a tiny room for 7 years. With the change of government in Ecuador – towards a US-friendly government – he was mobbed out of the embassy in 2019. As if in a long-rehearsed play, Assange was taken away from the embassy by the British police. For a petty offence, he was locked up directly in the high-security Belmarsh prison – moreover, in solitary confinement, in contradiction to any international agreements.

There, Nils Melzer, who has since been made aware of the case, visited Assange as UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. Melzer had to raise the alarm about Assange’s state of health, as is his duty. And, what happened? Not a trace of a trial that could meet the most minimal rule of law requirements – and this in the UK! Melzer repeatedly called on the UK, Sweden and the US to comply with international agreements on torture and the rule of law. But so far the opposite has been the case.

State arbitrariness in the West

Because of the actions of the governments of Great Britain, Sweden and the USA, one cannot help but speak of state despotism. The international stage has lost all credibility.

When people talk about human rights today, the representatives of Western governments have to lower their eyes in shame and hope that they will not be called on their conduct. The public is waiting for committed and courageous efforts of their governments to clarify this case: for human rights and against torture. They are waiting for an objective and thorough investigation of the events surrounding Assange’s person in Sweden, the UK and the USA.

The struggle for human rights

What was the case Assange really about? About law? Justice? Hardly. But probably more about this: whoever dares to expose crimes tolerated by governments shall see what will happen to him or her. This is a giant step backwards in the history of mankind, backwards behind the most minimal human rights, back to the times of absolutism.

This cannot be tolerated. Assange must remain in Europe and be brought to a fair trial according to the rule of law.