Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno earlier said Julian Assange must eventually leave the country’s London embassy – at the time indicating it would be through dialogue.
According to an Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling, asylum granted to anyone is irrevocable under international law. Nations are obliged to uphold asylum rights, including the right of safe passage to the country granting it.
Rule of law principles never stand in the way of US actions and aims.
Assange’s asylum is gravely threatened, ongoing since August 2012. Extradition to America is virtually certain if it’s illegally revoked.
A sealed indictment awaits him, revealed in mid-November. Obama declared him an enemy of the state. So did Trump regime hardliners – wanting him prosecuted for the crime of truth-telling, investigative journalism the way it’s supposed to be.
Whistleblowing, other forms of dissent, and truth-telling on vital issues are the highest forms of patriotism. Washington criminalized speech, media, and academic freedom when exposing major wrongdoing it wants suppressed.
Chelsea Manning, Assange and others like them deserve universal praise and support, including from world community leaders, international courts, and ordinary people everywhere.
Illegally revoking Assange’s asylum ahead of arresting and extraditing him to America could happen any time.
Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and former AG Jeff Sessions’ claims about Assange greatly harming US national security were fabricated.
So was falsely calling him “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” Pompeo’s earlier remark, adding:
“(W)e can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us” – a flagrant constitutional violation against anyone if enforced.
WikiLeaks publishes material believed to be true, supplied by reliable sources, unidentified for their protection. It’s not an intelligence operation. Nor it it connected to Russia or any other country.
All of the above is widely known – yet ignored by US hardliners and major media, failing to defend Assange’s fundamental rights under international and US constitutional law.
The latest on his status is further cause for concern. Moreno sacked his UK envoy Carlos Abad without explanation. Nor is it known who’s replacing him – WikiLeaks tweeting:
“Ecuador’s president has signed a decree terminating the ambassador to the United Kingdom, Carlos Abad. All diplomats known to Assange have now been terminated…transferred away from the embassy.”
Abad was involved in talks with Theresa May officials on resolving Assange’s situation, achieving nothing. One of his attorneys, Carlos Poveda, believes Ecuador and Britain may have agreed on a deal to extradite him to America.
Things seem inexorably heading in this direction. A tweet to WikiLeaks said
“Moreno has replaced judges and election officials. Anyone still loyal to former President @MashiRafael Correa must be purged. This is a silent pro-US coup.”
Another tweet called surrounding Assange with strangers “psychological torture,” removing people he trusts.
The latest shoe to drop was preventing his lawyers from entering Ecuador’s London embassy, according to WikiLeaks tweeting:
“BREAKING: Ecuador’s government has refused Julian Assange’s lawyers (UK lawyer @suigenerisjen & Spanish lawyer Aitor Martínez) access to him this weekend (although the embassy is manned 24/7) to prepare for his US court hearing on Tuesday.”
“The hearing is…in the national security court complex at Alexandria, Virginia.” It’s to “remove the secrecy order on the US charges against him.”
Chelsea Manning was brutally tortured and otherwise abused from 2010 – 2017 in confinement.
Wrongfully convicted in July 2013 for violations of the long ago outdated (1917) Espionage Act, Obama commuted her 35-year sentence before leaving office on January 18, 2017.
Similar harsh treatment she endured for years awaits Assange if extradited to America – including virtually certain longterm imprisonment.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
