"The left not only faces character assassination from the establishment, as was always the case, but is nowadays manipulated into colluding in its own character assassination" (J.C)
Read more"Today Julian Assange was denied bail despite the judge's verdict not to extradite him to the US. His cruel solitary confinement thus continues." (Y.V)
Read moreIt's not the judge who saved #Assange from extradition, it is each and everyone of you! Throughout all these difficult years it is your support that meant the most to him, his family and that finally brought us to this historic day. Celebrate, but keep fighting!
Read moreWe welcome the fact that Julian Assange will not be sent to the USA, but this does not absolve the UK from having engaged in this politically-motivated process at the behest of the USA and putting media freedom and freedom of expression on trial. (re-tweeted from Amnesty International)
Read moreGood news the extradition of Julian Assange has been refused. Extradition would be an attack on press freedom. It is alarming the judge has accepted US Government arguments threatening freedom of speech and to publish. Assange should be released.
Read moreThe future of @WikiLeaks is the future of global online publishing. If USG can decide what we can read about them, it will be empire consolidation. #Assange´s freedom is our right to know, our right to truth and accountability.
Read more"I told myself I couldn’t deal with such chaos, I started filing my freedom of information request in Sweden, the UK, US and Australia. This case has been going on for 10 years and I have spent the last five years trying to get the documents using the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and litigating my FOIA in four jurisdictions: my lawyers and I are still fighting to get the documents, which shows you the unbearable secrecy around this case. I have seven lawyers, four jurisdictions. I’m telling you this to make you realise how superficial the reporting is even though hundreds of journalists were reporting on it. This is an unbelievable failure of journalism." (S.M)
Read more“I am expecting the worst,” MIT professor and prominent US foreign policy critic Noam Chomsky told Al Jazeera. “I hope I am wrong,” the 92-year-old activist added, calling Assange’s incarceration “unfair, unjust and criminal – but power reigns”
Read more"In the show trials, the defendant stood in the court properly. In the Assange trial, the defendant was caged behind thick glass and had to crawl on his knees to a slit in the glass, overseen by his guard, to make contact with his lawyers. His message, whispered barely audibly through face masks, was then passed by Post-it the length of the court to where his barristers were arguing the case against his extradition to an American hellhole." (J.P)
Read moreAssange and his publication Wikileaks have not murdered anyone. Nevertheless, Assange is treated as a dangerous criminal, because he and his staff have published well over 10 million government/military secret documents showing crimes and corruption of scores of governments, above all how the United States, with its always faithful “United” Kingdom, have committed massive war crimes during their “war on terror”. This three-decade-long war has resulted in the deaths of three to five million humans, and forced between 37 and 58 million to flee their bombed out countries seeking refuge in neighboring countries and in Europe.
Read more"Assange’s well-planned and well-executed character assassination is one of the reasons why his defense has not grown into a wider movement, like Black Lives Matter or Extinction Rebellion. Now that his very survival is at stake, only such a movement can – perhaps – save him. Remember the lyrics (written by Joan Baez to Ennio Morricone’s music) of ‘Here’s To You,’ the title song of the movie ‘Sacco and Vanzetti’: “Here’s to you, Nicola and Bart / Rest forever here in our hearts / The last and final moment is yours / That agony is your triumph”? There were mass gatherings all around the world in defense of Sacco and Vanzetti – and the same is needed now in defense of Assange, although in a different form. If Assange were to die (or disappear in a US prison cell, like the living dead), that agony will be his triumph; he will die in order to live in all of us. This is the message we all must deliver to those who have held him: if you kill a man, you create a myth which will continue to mobilize thousands." (S.Z)
Read more“I am Julian Assange. I am the canary in the cage. If I die down the coal mine from poisonous gas, that’s the signal.”
Read moreI was initially trying to establish some form of “relationship” with Assange. In a way, this relationship became apparent when I saw that so many people were excited to receive his portraits: somehow, I felt that he was becoming part of my “struggle” as an artist, and I was becoming part of his struggle, even though they are very different.
Read more“I’ve been trying to get a yoga book to him for a month now and I come here every week trying to hand it in and it’s been impossible… To me that’s a very extreme method they are using where you’re denying even reading books. I wasn’t able to take in sketchbooks where he could write thoughts or draw and I haven’t been able to take puzzles which might help stimulate the mind. “I first thought that maybe all prisoners were treated like that, where they’re not able to have some sort of dignity and own the space between their ears and have that mental freedom… I can sympathise with people who feel that he’s been treated unfairly...”
Read more"I was just starting a world tour when the Collateral Murder video came out, and I included it in my tour. So I really should be, if he is guilty, so am I. I should be standing in the dark with him. They should be trying to -- well, they wouldn't have to extradite me, I am in New York City. But every single night of the world tour that I did that went on for nearly three years, that video of that Collateral Murder, you know, the young American airman killing those unarmed people, and those two Reuters cameraman in the street. So that it was published in many, many other places and quite rightly and it has actually been of great value, I think, to all of us. I'm certain that you believe in freedom of the press and freedom of speech and believe in the -- well, I'm not sure that everybody that walks in the corridors of power does because if they did, they would not be trying to extradite Julian Assange from London with his kangaroo court." (R.W)
Read moreJulian Assange charged under 17 Espionage Act counts in superseding indictment. United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention expresses concern about Assange proceedings. Sweden reopens investigation into Julian Assange, seeks to extradite. US and Ecuador sign new agreement after Assange expelled, and subsequently Ecuador hands over Assange’s entire legal defense to the United States.
Read moreWikiLeaks uncovers spying operation on Assange. On 11 April 2019, Ecuador illegally revokes asylum and lets British police into the Embassy, and Julian Assange is arrested, as a US extradition request and indictment are unsealed. Days later, FBI Agent’s Affidavit in support of Assange arrest is unsealed.
Read moreEcuador inks $4.2 billion financing deal with IMF. Chelsea Manning reveals subpoena to testify to WikiLeaks grand jury.
Read moreThe Guardian publishes fabricated claim that Paul Manafort visited Assange in the Embassy in 2016. Six US Congressmen publish letter to Sec. Mike Pompeo concerning his 26 November meeting with Foreign Minister of Ecuador, specifically referencing Manafort allegation.
Read moreUS Vice President Mike Pence visits Ecuador, where the case of Julian Assange is raised in a meeting with Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. Before his visit, ten Democratic Senators send a letter to Pence urging him to address the issue “at a time when Wikileaks continues its efforts to undermine democratic processes globally”.
Read moreThe US and Ecuador sign a new military cooperation agreement. The Democratic National Committee files a lawsuit against the Russian government, the Trump campaign, and various individuals it alleges participated in the plot to hack its email servers and disseminate the contents during the 2016 election. The DNC also sues WikiLeaks for its role in publishing the hacked materials, though it does not allege that WikiLeaks participated in the hacking or knew about it in advance; its sole role, according to the DNC’s lawsuit, was publishing the hacked emails. According to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Trevor Timm, writing for The Intercept, the DNC lawsuit poses a serious threat to media freedom in the US.
Read moreThe new government in Ecuador unilaterally imposes new conditions on Julian that prevent him from having visitors and receiving telephone calls and other electronic communications, permitting him only to meet with his lawyers. Numerous public figures issue statements in support of Julian, calling for Ecuador to #ReconnectJulian and end his isolation. At least four open letters from civil society advocates around the world are sent to the Ecuadorian government, calling for an end to Julian’s isolation conditions. More than 87,000 supporters signed a petition launched by Brian Eno and Yanis Varoufakis, hosted by DiEM25. It is later revealed that on 8 March 2018, the “process of moving Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy” began when “the Ecuadorians made their first request to the U.K.: a letter asking for written assurances that the U.K. would not extradite Assange to a country where he could face the death penalty, according to the Ecuadorian Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo.” Ecuador’s move to cut off Julian’s communications occurs one day after a high level US military visit to Ecuador “to discuss security cooperation”.
Read moreFebruary: A UK judge rules that the arrest warrant against Julian should be maintained, meaning that he continues to face arrest if he leaves the Ecuadorian Embassy. The ruling comes a day after it was revealed that Swedish prosecutors attempted to close their investigation in 2013, but British prosecutors dissuaded them from doing so.
Read moreCIA director Mike Pompeo further describes Wikileaks as an “enormous threat” and states that the US is “working to take down” the organisation.
Read moreThe Russia Spy files begin to be released in September 2017, consisting of over 650,000 critical documents relating to Russia under Vladimir Putin, including releases about surveillance contractors in Russia.
Read moreThe Swedish authorities drop their investigation against Julian. However he still faces arrest if he leaves the Embassy building in Knightsbridge, London, for breaching his former bail conditions in the UK when he entered Ecuadorian Embassy.
Read moreCIA Director Mike Pompeo calls WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service” and says “we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.”
Read moreWikiLeaks begins publishing Vault 7, detailing activities and capabilities of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files include details on the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers and operating systems of most smartphones, including products such as Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which can be turned into covert microphones.
Read moreOutgoing US President Barack Obama commutes the prison sentence given to US army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks. Mr Assange says he stands by his offer to agree to be extradited to the US if Mr Obama granted clemency to Manning.
Read moreThe Democratic National Committee Leaks consist of 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the US Democratic National Party leadership, which result in the resignation of five top officials who had stacked the deck against one of the two Democratic candidates, Bernie Sanders, to favour Hillary Clinton.
Read moreEcuador invokes international law in recognising the political persecution of Julian and grants him the status of political refugee, judging his life to be at grave risk. Ecuador’s decision is backed by the Union of South American Nations countries and ALBA.
Read moreThe Syria Files are published, providing an extraordinary insight into the Assad government through over two million emails from 680 Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies and the regime’s international security contracts.
Read moreJulian seeks political asylum at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, days after the Supreme Court rejects the last of his appeals against extradition to Sweden. Julian and supporters argue that his removal to Sweden would be followed by a potential extradition to the US, likely on Espionage Act charges, where he could face the death penalty. On 19 June 2012, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño announces that Julian has applied for political asylum, that his government is considering the request, and that Julian is at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Read moreWikileaks releases the Guantanamo Files, exposing systematic and routine violations of the Geneva Conventions and abuse of 800 prisoners as young as 14 and as old as 89 at Guantanamo Bay.
Read moreJulian is arrested at a London police station on 7 December 2010, following a European arrest warrant from Sweden relating to sexual allegations. He appears in court the same day, saying he intends to fight his extradition to Sweden in order to avoid extradition to the US where he would be prosecuted. Julian is denied bail and remains in custody until 14 December, when he is released on house arrest.
Read moreFollowing the release of the first batch of US diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange are denounced as “terrorists” by several politicians and media commentators. Former US vice-president Joe Biden branded Julian a “high-tech terrorist” while prominent Republican Sarah Palin called him “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands”, urging his immediate capture by any means necessary. Fox News commentators called WikiLeaks a terrorist organisation, asking the US government to move immediately and aggressively against it. In an interview with CBC, Professor Tom Flanagan suggested President Obama have WikiLeaks director Julian Assange assassinated, saying, “Obama should put out a contract and use a drone, or something…”
Read moreThe US vice-president, Joe Biden, today likened the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, to a "hi-tech terrorist", the strongest criticism yet from the Obama administration. Biden claimed that by leaking diplomatic cables Assange had put lives at risk and made it more difficult for the US to conduct its business around the world. His description of Assange shows a level of irritation that contrasts with more sanguine comments from other senior figures in the White House, who said the leak had not done serious damage. Interviewed on NBC's Meet the Press, Biden was asked if the administration could prevent further leaks, as Assange warned last week. "We are looking at that right now. The justice department is taking a look at that," Biden said, without elaborating. Advertisement The justice department is struggling to find legislation with which to prosecute Assange.
Read moreFor the Mother Earth. We claim Togetherness. When nobody wants to talk about the truth time is lost. As much as for Assange, as much as for the Climate. Truth. Assange. Climate. Togetherness.
Read moreWikileaks begins to publish Cablegate, now the Public Library of US Diplomacy, a growing collection of 3,326,538 diplomatic cables from 274 consulates and embassies from 1966 to 2010. PLUSD documents 50 years of US diplomatic relations across the globe, its activities, its component corporations, its allies and its enemies.
Read moreWikiLeaks publishes the Iraq War Logs, exposing numerous cases of torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Iraqi police and soldiers, as well as proof of the US government’s involvement in the deaths and maiming of more than 200,000 people in Iraq. The War Logs showed the true number of civilian deaths in Iraq and is the most detailed record of war to date.
Read moreJulian Assange arrives in Sweden on a speaking trip partly arranged by "Miss A", a member of the Christian Association of Social Democrats. He has not met "Miss A" before but reports suggest they have arranged in advance that he can stay at her apartment while she is out of town for a few days. On 14 August 2010 "Miss A" and Mr Assange attend a seminar by the Social Democrats' Brotherhood Movement on "War and the role of media", at which the Wikileaks founder is the key speaker. The two reportedly have sex that night. on 17 August 2010, Mr Assange reportedly has sex with a woman he met at the seminar on 14 August, identified as "Miss W". Some time between 17 and 20 August, "Miss W" and "Miss A" are in contact and apparently share with a journalist the concerns they have about aspects of their sexual encounters with Mr Assange. On 20 August 2010 The Swedish Prosecutor's Office issues an arrest warrant for Mr Assange based on allegations of rape and molestation. Both women reportedly say that what started as consensual sex became non-consensual. Wikileaks quotes Mr Assange as saying the accusations are "without basis" and that their appearance "at this moment is deeply disturbing". A later message on the Wikileaks Twitter feed says the group has been warned to expect "dirty tricks". On 21 August 2010 The arrest warrant is withdrawn. "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," says one of Stockholm's chief prosecutors, Eva Finne. Prosecutors say the investigation into the molestation allegation will continue, but it is not a serious enough crime for an arrest warrant. The lawyer for the two women, Claes Borgstrom, lodges an appeal against this decision to a special department in the public prosecutions office. On 31 August 2010 Mr Assange is questioned by police in Stockholm and formally told of the allegations against him, according to his lawyer at the time, Leif Silbersky. The activist denies the allegations.
Read moreOn 1 September 2010 Sweden's Director of Prosecution Marianne Ny says she is reopening the rape investigation against Mr Assange. "Considering information available at present, my judgement is that the classification of the crime is rape," she says.
Read moreWikiLeaks releases the Minton Report, exposing a toxic waste dumping incident that affected up to 108,000 people/. The UK media had been suppressed from mention the report or its contents since a secret gag order was issued against the Guardian newspaper on September 11, 2009. The report was commissioned through Waterson & Hicks, a UK law firm, possibly to claim client-attorney privilege should it leak. The company concerned, Trafigura, is a giant multi-national oil and commodity trader. The Minton report assesses an incident involving Trafigura and the Ivory Coast town of Abidjan—possibly most culpable mass contamination incident since Bhopal.
Read moreduring his visit to Sweden, Julian becomes the subject of sexual assault allegations. The case was investigated and the most serious allegation was immediately found to be baseless. However, the case was later re-opened by another prosecutor.
Read moreWikiLeaks publishes the Afghan War Logs, a collection of over 75,000 documents, revealing information on unreported killings of hundreds of civilians by coalition forces, increased Taliban attacks, and involvement by Pakistan and Iran in the insurgency.
Read moreIn an Al Jazeera English interview on April 19, 2010, Julian Assange explained why WikiLeaks titled the video Collateral Murder: And you can see that they also deliberately target Saaed, a wounded man there on the ground, despite their earlier belief that they didn't have the rules of engagement—that the rules of engagement did not permit them to kill Saeed when he was wounded. When he is rescued, suddenly that belief changed. You can see in this particular image he is lying on the ground and the people in the van have been separated, but they still deliberately target him. This is why we called it Collateral Murder. In the first example maybe it's collateral exaggeration or incompetence when they strafe the initial gathering, this is recklessness bordering on murder, but you couldn't say for sure that was murder. But this particular event—this is clearly murder.
Read moreCollateral Murder was released during an April 5 press conference at the National Press Club, and subsequently under a designated website titled Collateral Murder. WikiLeaks stated that the footage shows the "murder of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists". WikiLeaks identified the leak's source as "a number of military whistleblowers".Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, a U.S. Defense official confirmed the authenticity of the leaked audio and video.The military reported that it could not find its copy of the video.
Read moreAssange and others established WikiLeaks in 2006. Assange became a member of the organisation's advisory board and described himself as the editor-in-chief. From 2007 to 2010, Assange travelled continuously on WikiLeaks business, visiting Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.
WikipediaAssange studied programming, mathematics and physics at Central Queensland University (1994) and the University of Melbourne (2003–2006), but did not complete a degree. In 1993, Assange gave technical advice to the Victoria Police Child Exploitation Unit that assisted in prosecutions. In the same year, he was involved in starting one of the first public Internet service providers in Australia, Suburbia Public Access Network. He began programming in 1994, authoring or co-authoring the TCP port scanner Strobe (1995), patches to the open-source database PostgreSQL (1996), the Usenet caching software NNTPCache (1996), the Rubberhose deniable encryption system (1997) (which reflected his growing interest in cryptography), and Surfraw, a command-line interface for web-based search engines (2000). During this period, he also moderated the AUCRYPTO forum,[62] ran Best of Security, a website "giving advice on computer security" that had 5,000 subscribers in 1996,:45 and contributed research to Suelette Dreyfus's Underground (1997), a book about Australian hackers, including the International Subversives. In 1998, he co-founded the company Earthmen Technology.
WikipediaIn September 1991, Assange was discovered hacking into the Melbourne master terminal of Nortel, a Canadian multinational telecommunications corporation. The Australian Federal Police tapped Assange's phone line (he was using a modem), raided his home at the end of October and eventually charged him in 1994 with 31 counts of hacking and related crimes.In December 1996, he pleaded guilty to 24 charges (the others were dropped) and was ordered to pay reparations of A$2,100 and released on a good behaviour bond. He received a lenient penalty due to the absence of malicious or mercenary intent and his disrupted childhood.
WikipediaIn 1987, aged 16, Assange began hacking under the name Mendax, taken from Horace's splendide mendax — nobly untruthful. He and two others, known as "Trax" and "Prime Suspect", formed a hacking group they called "the International Subversives". Assange may have been involved in the WANK (Worms Against Nuclear Killers) hack at NASA in 1989, but this has never been proven.
WikipediaJulian Paul Assange: born 3 July 1971 in Townsville, Queensland, to Christine Ann Hawkins (b.1951), a visual artist and John Shipton, an anti-war activist and builder.
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