Assange to Ecuador: three questions nobody (on the left) is asking (Weinberg @ WW4Report)

[struggle4progress]

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 17:08

Now that Julian Assange has taken refuge in London's Ecuadoran embassy and is seeking asylum in the Andean nation, we have three questions. The first, predictably, is only being asked on the political right: Is this supposed champion of transparency and freedom of information going to have anything to say about restrictions on press freedoms in Ecuador? Fox News with great glee quotes Human Rights Watch: "Ecuador's laws restrict freedom of expression, and government officials, including <President Rafael> Correa, use these laws against his critics. Those involved in protests marred by violence may be prosecuted on inflated and inappropriate 'terrorism' charges." Fox also notes that Ecuador has an "insult law" in place known as descato, "which historically has criminalized free speech and expression. Under Descato, which is part of the Ecuadorian Criminal Code, any person who 'offends' the president could be sentenced up to two years in prison and up to three months for 'offending' any government official."

The other two questions practically nobody is asking at all—except World War 4 Report. Assange's supporters take it for granted that extradition to Sweden is merely a prelude to extradition to the United States—a patently illogical assumption. For starters, Assange still hasn't been charged with anything in the US. A little premature to be worrying about extradition, we'd say. Additionally, the UK is Washington's closest ally, while Sweden is officially neutral. Can anyone explain to us why Sweden is any more likely to extradite him to the US than Britain? If anything, the reverse is true, as we have argued before. Smells to us like all these deluded "leftists" are rallying around someone who is cynically claiming political persecution to avoid facing rape charges.

Finally, despite the supposed media defamation campaign against Assange, not even the likes of Fox News have noted the evidence of WikiLeaks' collaboration with the Belarus dictatorship, and claims that cables containing intelligence on dissidents were turned over to the security services of strongman Alexander Lukashenko during the harsh wave of repression in 2010. Index on Censorship has been virtually alone among rights watchdogs in pressing WikiLeaks and Assange on this matter, and he has still failed to come clean. When will he do so? ...

http://ww4report.com/node/11201

[xchrom]

1. Oh horseshit. Karl rove works/Ed for established

Political personalities in Sweden - though whole notion that Sweden is neutral re: the US is laughable.

The swedes should actually charge him w/ a crime & conduct their interviews above boards in the UK - as Asange has offered.

Why the run around?

[struggle4progress]

5. Wikileaks, Belarus, and Israel Shamir (Index on Censorship | 05 Feb 2011)

It has been reported that an “accredited” journalist for Wikileaks, Israel Shamir, met with Uladzimri Makei, the Head of the Presidential administration in Belarus. Subsequently, it was reported in the Belarus Telegraf that a state newspaper would be publishing documents about the Belarusian opposition.

Wikileaks has always maintained it takes care to ensure that names of political activists are redacted from cables before publication on its website. Index on Censorship is concerned that some of the Wikileaks cables relating to Belarus that have not appeared on the main Wikileaks website are now in the public domain.

There are various “commercial crimes” in Belarus that make it a criminal offence to run an unregistered organisation. In turn, many NGOs are prohibited from registering their organisations. This places a lot of civil society in Belarus in a legal grey area which can mean political activists, who cannot register, are placed in breach of the law for accepting foreign funding. It is rumoured in Belarus that many of the Wikileaks cables outline foreign support for opposition groups. Our worry is that this information could be used to prosecute some of the political prisoners currently held by the KGB ...

http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2011/02/wikileaks-belarus-and-israel-shamir/

[struggle4progress]

6. Julian Assange and the big picture (Index on Censorship | 03 Mar 11 – 10:07 am)

by John Kampfner

... Index’s association with Assange goes back some time. In 2008 WikiLeaks won the new media prize at our annual awards. We were pleased to host him in a debate in London last September, but his combative demeanour that evening was a surprise. Throughout the past few months we have been at the heart of the tussle. Two of Index’s trustees are Assange’s lawyer, Mark Stephens and his agent, Caroline Michel. Whenever asked, particularly in the US, about reconciling Stephens’s two roles, I have pointed out that Index is a broad church, and that Stephens has been a longstanding battler for free speech.

It has often felt like treading on egg shells. We were asked in December to channel Assange’s defence fund through our bank account. Our chairman, the broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, and I thought it inappropriate for a charity to become involved in the personal allegations against Assange. So we declined.

When urged at the start of January by Assange’s publisher to help him write his memoirs I said I was ready to assist, but only if I had strong editorial input and that no subject was off-limits. This, I was told, was not acceptable. Roughly at the same time our organisation started asking questions about Israel Shamir, a man accused of Holocaust denial and of being a close associate of Belarus’s autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko. Index is one of the founders of the Belarus Committee. Despite repeated but polite requests to WikiLeaks, our team was stonewalled, so we went public with our concerns ...

http://blog.indexoncensorship.org/2011/03/03/julian-assange-and-the-big-picture/

[Bodhi BloodWave]

13. since its to much to type up, i'd offer the suggestion that you look up how things work in Sweden

when it comes to charging something(tho they use another term)

[clang1]

2. blah blah blah

And people are asking... The entire article is lacking in substance just like cheap toilet paper.


The what? the 'World War 4 Report'. ??????

The What : WikiLeaks' collaboration with the Belarus dictatorship, ?????


Looks like crackhead drivel to me. This shit is more far out than FOX news is. The OP seems a one man Wikileaks disinformation campaign.

[struggle4progress]

4. World War 4 Report has been around since the early Bush years, and it has sometimes

been an excellent aggregator

[ljm2002]

14. "...a one man Wikileaks disinformation campaign"...

...ayup, what you said... This is obviously a campaign, that is as plain as day.

But hey, if he's done nothing wrong, Assange has nothing to fear from the U.S. -- right?

If you believe that, you are not paying attention.

[larkrake]

3. Bullshit

[struggle4progress]

7. World Report 2012: Ecuador (Human Rights Watch)

Events of 2011

In a referendum held in May 2011, President Rafael Correa obtained a popular mandate for constitutional reforms that could significantly increase government powers to constrain media ...

Those involved in protests in which there are outbreaks of violence may be prosecuted on inflated and inappropriate terrorism charges. Criminal defamation laws that restrict freedom of expression remain in force and Correa has used them repeatedly against his critics. Some articles of a draft communications law in the legislature since 2009 could open the door to media censorship.

Misuse of Anti-Terror Laws in Dealing with Social Protests

Prosecutors have applied a “terrorism and sabotage” provision of the criminal code in cases involving protests against mining and oil projects and in other incidents that have ended in confrontations with police ...

Freedom of Expression

Ecuador’s Criminal Code still has provisions criminalizing desacato (“lack of respect”), under which anyone who offends a government official may receive a prison sentence up to three months and up to two years for offending the president. In September 2011 the Constitutional Court agreed to consider a challenge to the constitutionality of these provisions submitted by Fundamedios, an Ecuadorian press freedom advocacy group. A new criminal code presented by the government to the National Assembly in October does not include the crime of desacato, but if approved would still mandate prison sentences of up to three years for those who defame public authorities ...

http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-ecuador

[reorg]

12. Yes, some democratically elected politicians do not take lightly to slanders

Last edited Sat Jun 23, 2012, 03:32 AM - Edit history (1)

such as obsessively being labelled "dictator", in a country that has seen more coups than any other in the region.

[struggle4progress]

8. US could extradite Assange from UK- Carr

Thursday, June 21, 2012 » 09:44am

Foreign Minister Bob Carr insists Julian Assange's asylum application to Ecuador has nothing to with the Australian government ...

'If the US were pursuing extradition of Julian Assange they could do it just as easily - according to some experts more easily - from the United Kingdom ... than from Sweden,' he told ABC Radio on Thursday.

The foreign minister says the Australian high commissioner in London had spoken to the Ecuadorian embassy where Mr Assange is staying.

'Throughout this we've given him the sort of consular support that flows to any Australian in trouble in a foreign jurisdiction.'

http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2012/06/21/US_could_extradite_Assange_from_UK-_Carr_763249.html

[reorg]

11. Maybe they could

but seeing him under arrest while being "investigated" for totally unrelated crap may look even better. Also wins time to devise further strategies for persecution such as sting operations.

[xchrom]

9. Julian Assange's Right to Asylum

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/12015-focus-julian-assanges-right-to-asylum

***SNIP

The evidence that the US seeks to prosecute and extradite Assange is substantial. There is no question that the Obama justice department has convened an active grand jury to investigate whether WikiLeaks violated the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. Key senators from President Obama's party, including Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, have publicly called for his prosecution under that statute. A leaked email from the security firm Stratfor – hardly a dispositive source, but still probative – indicated that a sealed indictment has already been obtained against him. Prominent American figures in both parties have demanded Assange's lifelong imprisonment, called him a terrorist, and even advocated his assassination.

For several reasons, Assange has long feared that the US would be able to coerce Sweden into handing him over far more easily than if he were in Britain. For one, smaller countries such as Sweden are generally more susceptible to American pressure and bullying.

For another, that country has a disturbing history of lawlessly handing over suspects to the US. A 2006 UN ruling found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for helping the CIA render two suspected terrorists to Egypt, where they were brutally tortured (both individuals, asylum-seekers in Sweden, were ultimately found to be innocent of any connection to terrorism and received a monetary settlement from the Swedish government).

Perhaps most disturbingly of all, Swedish law permits extreme levels of secrecy in judicial proceedings and oppressive pre-trial conditions, enabling any Swedish-US transactions concerning Assange to be conducted beyond public scrutiny. Ironically, even the US State Department condemned Sweden's "restrictive conditions for prisoners held in pretrial custody", including severe restrictions on their communications with the outside world.

[xchrom]

10. Will Sweden extradite Julian Assange to the US?