Julian Assange

• HAPPY Birthday to Julian Assange.

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, in his blog, quoted the lead counsel in the prosecution of war criminals after the Second World War, Telford Taylor, to describe the state legal process against Julian Assange: “an unholy masquerade of tyranny disguised as justice”.

As Murray says, it is a phrase that is the perfect encapsulation of the state “legal” process against Assange.

Monday July 3 was Assange’s 52nd birthday.

He published through Wikileaks many classified documents and acted as a whistleblower. He has been in Belmarsh prison since April 2019. The USA want his extradition for revealing the truth about their war crimes and human rights abuses.

His extradition to the USA is opposed by Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and more than 1,800 journalists from over 100 countries have denounced his prosecution.

In my view it is persecution. The charges against Assange go to the heart of press freedom.

If there are any doubters, I urge people to read The Trial of Julian Assange by Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, who is completely independent.

The foreword says quite rightly: “Melzer’s findings are explosive: Assange has faced grave and systematic due process violations, judicial bias, and manipulated evidence. He has been exposed to constant surveillance, defamation and threats, and suffered prolonged psychological torture…”

Again, to quote Craig Murray: “There has never existed any government so evil and repugnant that it has been unable to find lawyers, and particularly judges, to do its bidding.”

Our government’s treatment of this man is shameful. All MPs should be willing to speak out for Julian Assange and stop his extradition to the USA and, indeed, to give him his freedom. The question is, with a few honourable exceptions, why aren’t they?

CHARLES STOLL
Halesowen, West Midlands