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The Farce of Diplomatic Assurances April 17, 2024: - The United States has now, on the face of it, produced the Diplomatic Note giving the two assurances required by the High Court to allow the extradition of Julian Assange to proceed. The assurance that Julian Assange will be allowed to rely on the First Amendment in his defence is a blatantly weak piece of sophistry. You can read my analysis on the High Court judgment of Assange's right to an appeal here. Let me dispense with the assurance against the death penalty. I am sure it will be accepted by the court. The USA does not need to execute… 
I Stand in Blackburn April 16, 2024: - I shall be standing for election to Parliament as the member for Blackburn. This unexpected turn of events requires an honest declaration. 1) I am standing because of the Genocide in Gaza. 2) I am standing because of the appalling pro-Genocide stance of the Labour Party and Keir Starmer's continued support of arms exports to Israel. 3) I am standing because the Blackburn Independent Councillors and the Workers' Party invited me to. The political class, including both the Labour and Tory parties, has continued to offer wholehearted support for Israel. The Tories are a lost cause, irrelevant in Blackburn and… Free at Last April 15, 2024: - I have today the permission of the surgeon to use my right hand for typing for the first time in over three weeks, provided I am careful not to extend the arm. On Saturday I put my arm in a sleeve and managed to remove my sling while making a speech in Blackburn, which I hope to bring you shortly (it was filmed by Consortium News but there is a job to do on sound synchronisation). The ligaments in my shoulder need another three weeks to heal and may require an operation, but my spirits are lifted enormously by being…
An Urgent Message About Gaza April 2, 2024: - I can't type much with my left hand but I wanted to get this out there. It then took me ten hours to upload with a maximum speed here of 0.5mbps. Still more breaking news now. May do a follow-up tomorrow. [ Transcript now available: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h0C2UQPGZa03_4xcS7kJD5mFyIzOFQaMHrgtQ0i9_v4/edit?usp=sharing ] ------------------------------------------------ Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing. Unlike our adversaries including…
The Assange Hearing Permission Appeal Judgment: Mad and Bad. March 29, 2024: - The latest judgment by the High Court in the Assange case achieved completely the objectives of the UK and US states. Above all, Julian remains in the hell which is Belmarsh maximum security prison. He is now safely there alone and incommunicado, from the authorities' point of view, for at least several more months. Importantly, the United States has managed to keep him detained without securing his actual appearance in Washington. It is crucial to grasp that the CIA, who are very much controlling the process, do not actually want him to appear there until after their attempt to secure… Injured March 28, 2024: - My run of bad luck with health continues. A week ago I fell, dislocated my shoulder and damaged my knee. I am very strapped up and won't have the use of my right arm and hand for a minimum of another week. Am working on a post by auto dictation but it's not easy.
Scotland’s Hate Speech Act and Abuse of Process March 21, 2024: - On 1 April Scotland's notorious Hate Crime Act comes into force. I have explained before why it is so noxious. It has been condemned by every civil liberties body you can think of. Police Scotland have made matters still worse by telling their officers that the measure of whether a Hate Crime has been committed should be whether the person reporting it feels offended or threatened, and that the officer should make no objective judgment as to whether that is reasonable from the facts of the case. But I want to concentrate on one very specific aspect of this legislation.… 
Assange Truth and UN Shenanigans March 16, 2024: - I spent the last week at the UN, trying to ram home some truths about the Assange case as input to the UN's Periodic Review (every 7 years) of the UK's human rights record, in terms of its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I had a very short opportunity to address the UN Committee on Human Rights, which is a body of elected experts. In such a short time frame you have to go with just a couple of points. I am open to criticism of my selection, but I maintain that this was much… A Tour d’Horizon on Swiss Box March 15, 2024: - Assange, Gaza, the manipulation of "anti-semitism", threats to civil liberties, Galloway, the forms of armed resistance available to the colonised: I enjoy the long-form interview as a chance to explore issues in depth. This one was very enjoyable, and we didn't get through half of Antoine's list of topics. I do hope that you can find time at least to dip in to this discussion of what I am doing and thinking at the moment. You can check out the Swiss Box's excellent catalogue here. ------------------------------------------------ Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is…
The Panic Of the Ruling Class March 12, 2024: - I have known George Galloway my entire adult life, although we largely lost touch in the middle bit while I was off diplomating. I know George too well to mistake him for Jesus Christ, but he has been on the right side against appalling wars which the entire political class has cheer-led. His natural gifts of mellifluence and loquacity are unsurpassed, with an added talent for punchy phrase making. He can be fiercely pugnacious in debate and always refuses to let the media set the frame of discussion, which requires an appetite for confrontation that is harder than you might… Healthcare March 11, 2024: - I have a post on the political class's frenetic attempts to criminalise dissent nearly finished, which I hope will be up tonight. But as a lifelong supporter of the NHS, I wanted to share with you this. I went to a village community health centre in Greece, feeling pretty rotten. I had to wait outside for the results of a covid test. Once cleared I was in and saw the doctor immediately, the Greek equivalent of a GP. He did the routine checks then took an ECG, and then took an X ray - none of this with an appointment…
Assange Final Appeal Day 2 – Your Man in the Public Gallery February 29, 2024: - I approached Day 2 with trepidation. It was not so much being accustomed to having hopes dashed, as having lived so long without hope that it was hard to know what to do with it. At 5:30am I stopped work for a while on writing up Day 1 and went out to walk down the Strand to the court. There was a slightly bigger crowd than had been there the day before at the same time, and happily it included the heroic volunteers saving my place. A freezing Easterly wind was bustling down the Strand having come express from Siberia,…
Assange Final Appeal – Your Man in the Public Gallery February 21, 2024: - Reporting on Julian Assange's extradition hearings has become a vocation that has now stretched over five years. From the very first hearing, when Justice Snow called Assange "a narcissist" before Julian had said anything whatsoever other than to confirm his name, to the last, when Judge Swift had simply in 2.5 pages of glib double-spaced A4 dismissed a tightly worded 152-page appeal from some of the best lawyers on earth, it has been a travesty and charade marked by undisguised institutional hostility. We were now on last orders in the last chance saloon, as we waited outside the Royal Courts… 
Rethinking Ukraine: Putin and the Mystery of National Identity February 19, 2024: - The genocide in Gaza - or more precisely the major NATO powers' active and practical support for the genocide in Gaza - has forced me to re-evaluate my views on Ukraine in a manner more sympathetic to the Russian narrative. In particular, I was complacent in my dismissive attitude to the argument that the Western powers would back ethnic cleansing and massacre in the Donbass, by forces including some motivated by Nazi ideology. The same powers who are funding and arming Ukraine are funding and arming a genocide by racial supremacist Israeli forces in Gaza. It is beyond argument that… Life February 16, 2024: - I do apologise for the break in articles. Exacerbating the problems of leading an itinerant life, I have suffered a series of remarkable thefts, including of phone, wallet, money and passport, which have caused me a huge amount of disruption.
State Secrecy and Public Hearings Part One February 7, 2024: - At the Assange extradition hearings in Woolwich Crown Court and the Old Bailey, the public gallery was limited to five and sometimes two. The excuse was Covid. But online access was denied to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and numerous other groups and individuals, including journalists. The mainstream media was anyway complicit in leaving the entire hearing virtually unreported - less than one percent of the coverage given to Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard. The International Court of Justice met at the Hague to consider Israeli genocide, and the entire proceedings were open to anybody in the world with a… 
Quality and Propaganda February 4, 2024: - On 10 October I called out a viral video as fake. It featured pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Sydney, Australia, with a soundtrack of people appearing to chant "Gas the Jews". The video not only went viral online, it was featured worldwide by mainstream media. The New South Wales Prime Minister attacked a parliamentarian for daring to say that the incident was dubious Antoinette Lattouf, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio journalist who investigated the incident and found that it did not happen, received enormous abuse. She was later sacked when she shared online a report on Israeli atrocities in Gaza by Human… 
Has International Law Survived, or Has the Western Political Class Killed It? January 28, 2024: - In finding there is a plausible case against Israel, the International Court of Justice treated with contempt the argument from Israel that the case should be dismissed as it is exercising its right of self-defence. This argument took up over half of Israel's pleadings. Not only did the court find there is a plausible case of genocide, the court only mentioned self-defence once in its interim ruling - and that was merely to note that Israel had claimed it. Para 41: That the ICJ has not affirmed Israel's right to self-defence is perhaps the most important point in this interim… Armed Conflict and the ICJ January 25, 2024: - Tomorrow the International Court of Justice will give its decision on the South African interim request for provisional measures to prevent genocide in Gaza. Many are holding their breath for something that will help. How will this go? You can read my views on some of the arguments in play in my article for Middle East Eye. There is no comment section on MEE, so feel free to discuss that article here. You will recall that my observation of the demeanour of the judges at the Hague left me not too hopeful. They definitely appeared very uncomfortable to be taking…
In Conversation With Stella Assange January 19, 2024: - Stella produced these two videos of us as part of her "in conversation" series. Topics include campaigning for Julian with Generation Z, spying and diplomacy, Margaret Thatcher, and state action against whistleblowers. I love these because they are so relaxed, natural and really not very different to the ordinary conversations we have when not being filmed. They are part of a series and I hope you will subscribe to Stella on Youtube or Substack. ------------------------------------------------ Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going.…
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
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