BRITISH DEVIOUSNESS

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—This charge is premised on a fraudulent and manipulative distortion of reality, and you may be one hundred percent certain of it. Let me explain.You can be absolutely certain that this charge is bogus because it isn’t based on any new information. The facts of the case have not changed, the information hasn’t changed, only the narrative has changed. In 2010 the United States opened a secret grand jury in Virginia to investigate whether Assange and WikiLeaks could be prosecuted for the publication of the Manning leaks, and then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration was conducting “an active, ongoing criminal investigation” into the matter.  The Trump administration has not turned up any new evidence that the Obama administration was unable to find in this active, ongoing criminal investigation (US government surveillance has surely acquired some new tricks since 2010, but time travel isn’t one of them), and indeed it does not claim to have turned up any new evidence.

MINTPRESS NEWS—London Judge Michael Snow has found Assange guilty of breaching his bail at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after Assange appeared in a courtroom packed with supporters. Assange faces a sentence of up to one year for the conviction and has serious charges pending in the United States.Assange’s defense hinges on the fact that he cannot expect a fair trial in British courts as the U.K.’s intends to “secure his delivery” to the United States.The U.S. Justice Department charged WikiLeaks founder Assange with conspiring with Chelsea Manning to break into classified government computers on Thursday after Assange was taken into custody in London in connection with a U.S. extradition request, as well as for breaching U.K. bail conditions in 2012. His lawyer has previously said that Assange planned to fight any U.S. charges against him.

P. GREANVILLE—The cowards—a key element in this tragedy— are the tens of thousands of prominent journos and pundits staffing the West’s so-called “free press”, who knowingly act as the empire’s propaganda ministry and p.r. agents, and who have simply betrayed Assange and the duty of the press to protect journalists who expose the crimes of their goverments. Career and their comfortable asses come first, of course.

WHITNEY WEBB—If we continue to sit back and allow the state-sanctioned torture of Assange to go on, it is likely that we too will remain silent when the same tactics and smears are applied to other independent journalists who dare to defy the oligarchy and its empire. Their goal is to have the public just as isolated and gagged as Assange himself has been.As Assange once warned, our failure to collectively act in the face of such injustice will eventually lead to an inability to defend ourselves and those that are dear to us, as such toxic passivity is a greater threat to “democracy” and humanity’s freedom than any threat of physical violence. Such passivity will allow the “powers that be” to lead the world down an Orwellian path of censorship, totalitarianism and destruction.