I could not tell the easy, comforting lie. “No”, I told the woman, her traumatised children clinging to her legs, “I can’t say you are safe here; not one of us is safe. The Israelis are genocidal. But in Lebanon so far, I don’t think they have bombed a school”. I was...
Craig Murray on Sy Hersh and the Way We Live Now
It is a clear indicator of the disappearance of freedom from our so-called western democracies, that Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of the Washington Post or New York Times, but has to self-publish...
Ithaka: A Family’s Fight To Free Julian Assange
Away from the Tory Babel over who will be the top “world-leading” sociopath, I spent the last two evenings in the company of decent people. John and Gabriel Shipton, Julian’s father and brother, were in Glasgow and Edinburgh for the screening of...
Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day – Is There an Exit?
It feels like a recurring nightmare. On the sadly misnamed sleeper train once again, down to London and a dash to the Royal Courts of Justice to hear yet another judgment intoned. Julian not in court again and not in good health; Stella battling on but fighting to...
Chomsky, Cockburn and Worthington Forced To Testify Only in Writing in Assange Case
I really do not know how to report Wednesday’s events. Stunning evidence, of extreme quality and interest, was banged out in precis by the lawyers as unnoticed as bags of frozen chips coming off a production line. The court that had listened to Clair Dobbin...
Assange Faces Living Hell of America’s ‘Special Administrative Measures’
Tuesday has been another day on which the testimony focused on the extreme inhumane conditions in which Julian Assange would be kept imprisoned in the USA if extradited. The prosecution’s continued tactic of extraordinary aggression towards witnesses who are...
Locking Assange in Solitary
Today was the worst day for the defense since the start of the trial, as their expert witnesses failed to cope with the sheer aggression of cross-examination by the US Government and found themselves backing away from maintaining propositions they knew to be true. It...
Assange Extradition: Important Witness for the Defense Explains Manning’s Hacks
It is hard to believe, but Judge Baraitser on Friday ruled that there will be no closing speeches in the Assange extradition hearing. She accepted the proposal initially put forward by counsel for the US government, that closing arguments should simply be submitted in...
UK Government Caught Lying Twice at Assange Extradition
During the hearing of medical evidence the last three days, the British government has been caught twice directly telling important lies about events in Belmarsh prison, each lie proven by documentary evidence. The common factor has been the medical records kept by...
Assange Extradition: Prosecutor Attempts To Minimize Horrors of US Prisons
On Wednesday the trap sprang shut, as Judge Baraitser insisted the witnesses must finish next week, and that no time would be permitted for preparation of closing arguments, which must be heard the immediate following Monday. This brought the closest the defense have...