Julian Assange: Wikileaks founder in last-ditch bid to avoid US extradition
The Wikileaks founder is trying to overturn an extradition order signed in 2022 by then UK home secretary Priti Patel.
Whatever you think of Assange, you should know why the US government wants to prosecute him. He published this among other things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8xhH0FkCQg
Context: that's a US gunship firing on Reuters journalists among other civilians including kids.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=A8xhH0FkCQg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Assange is a bit of a scumbag, but unrelatedly, his efforts for freedom of information should not land him in US torture prisons like many others.
I'd say since the first full year of him living in an embassy ended, we can't be justified to call him a scumbag.
Other than that - his sense of humor in the NetBSD fortune files and other traces in the Internet maybe sucks, but he's a better role model than Snowden (whose life is somehow much easier, which is suspicious really).
The Australian government voted on a motion to bring him home. He is a journalist who did nothing wrong.
Espionage is something wrong. Hiding behind a Russian website to make your posts that threaten us national security?
That definitely a paddlin'. Widdew ol juwian did nuffink eh?
He is a journalist who did nothing wrong.
You mean besides the rape where he hid in Ecuador until the statute of limitations ran out?
Every political opponent of America is a rapist and their hard drive is filled with child porn when they get arrested
There's a pattern here...
It must be the pedophilia that makes them expose America
Luckily political dissidents don’t need to fear for their life/freedom in the west, ow wait.
Btw what is up with those rape charges, or did Sweden conveniently drop them the moment Assange was pulled from that embassy?
"On 12 August 2015, Swedish prosecutors announced that the statute of limitations had expired for three of the allegations against Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy. The investigation into the rape allegation was also dropped by Swedish authorities on 19 May 2017 because of Assange's asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.[5][6] Assange said in these proceedings that he feared he would ultimately be extradited to the United States if he were sent to Sweden.
In May 2019, the Swedish Prosecution Authority reopened the investigation against Assange. The prosecutors expressed the intent to extradite Assange from the United Kingdom after he served his 50-week prison sentence for skipping bail.[7] In June 2019, the Uppsala District Court denied a request to detain Assange, thereby preventing his extradition to Sweden.
As of 19 November 2019 the prosecution dropped the case because "the evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed" although they were confident in the complainant.[8]"
It was a rhetorical question, but yes, April 12: dragged out of embassy, November 19: Sweden drops charges. And soon thereafter America suddenly says they would like to extradite him to the US even though they denied this for years while Assange was in the embassy.
Honestly, I skimmed this title and thought it said he was found in a ditch. I’m surprised he has lasted this long.
Too high profile for the ditch... Right now. He gonna get gulag like navlny until the regime is comfortable to dispose of him
I really wish Assange had been able to escape the US torture regime, like Snowden was able to esaping to Russia. Years and years of suffering all because the Obama regime needed to "make an example" of whistleblowers.
Not even a whistleblower. A foreign journalist doing journalism.
To all the clowns here protecting Assange as a "dissident", I suggest you read up on his conmection to Israel Shamir.
Assange is a huge asshole who doesn't give a shit about journalism or exposing wrongdoing.
He definitely (cherry) picks on the US of A. Does he have to take on everyone to be a True Scotsman?
He ran out the clock for the rape charge against him in Sweden? What a scumbag.
Afaik the charges were just a tool fabricated to be used against him.
He exposed US war crimes and therefore they made him an enemy of the state and want to make an example out of him, to show others that when going against the US you have no rights - they can torture you, imprison you forever, etc.
AFAIK the only reason one would rather fight extradition to the U.S. in the UK than fight extradition to the U.S. in Sweden is because one committed a heinous crime in Sweden.
Afaik the charges were just a tool fabricated to be used against him.
It wouldn't surprise me if the US did something like this, but considering the rampant history of powerful men in media/tech having a penchant of utilizing their power to sexually assault women, and the fact that there have been multiple reports from people working for wikileaks reporting him for sexual harassment..... I dont really doubt that he did sexually assault someone.
Yeah, the statute of limitations ran out. Says a lot about our society if publishing publicly funded data has stricter penalties than raping 3 women. Either way the guy is a shit stain rapist and idgaf what happens to him. I'll save my sympathy for Snowden and Manning who haven't raped anyone.
I give a fuck about what happens to him because he's being punished as a journalist, not as a rapist.
If you think this will stop at journalists who happen to be rapists, you are sorely mistaken. At this point we're basically legalising treatment not that far from Kashoggi for journalists who handle military leaks, even the responsible, non-rapey ones.
He should go to prison if he's guilty of rape, he should definitely not go to prison for Wikileaks.
He has not been sentenced already, I hope you know that. I hope you also know the effort that he and his team made to have the trial been done where he was de-facto prisoner, but also the completely lack of flexibility from those who wanted him to simply step out of the embassy to arrest and extradite him.
The timeline and the events are very well narrated in Stefania Maurizi's book. It's almost gross how much the rape accusations have been used to try to get to him and how poorly both British and Swedish authorities behaved, probably obeying to the US (colonial power much).
