{"id":192898,"date":"2019-08-09T07:41:28","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T07:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192898"},"modified":"2019-08-12T06:57:30","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T06:57:30","slug":"new-fears-for-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192898","title":{"rendered":"New Fears for Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Consortium News \u2013 Aug 7, 2019<\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_186563\" style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Assange-arrested.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-186563\" class=\"wp-image-186563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Assange-arrested-1024x614.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"324\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Assange-arrested-1024x614.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Assange-arrested-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Assange-arrested-768x461.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Assange-arrested.jpg 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-186563\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assange arrest. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Legendary journalist John Pilger has been to see Assange in Belmarsh Prison in London and his report is not encouraging.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>J<\/strong>ournalist John Pilger visited imprisoned <em>WikiLeaks<\/em> founder Julian Assange on Tuesday and has raised an alarm about Assange\u2019s \u201cdeteriorated\u201d health.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Pilger said in a Tweet on Wednesday that Assange is \u201cisolated\u201d and treated \u201cworse than a murderer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cI now fear for him,\u201d Pilger wrote.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Do not forget Julian <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Assange?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Assange<\/a>. Or you will lose him. <br \/>I saw him in Belmarsh prison and his health has deteriorated. Treated worse than a murderer, he is isolated, medicated and denied the tools to fight the bogus charges of a US extradition. I now fear for him. Do not forget him.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; John Pilger (@johnpilger) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/johnpilger\/status\/1159101209971761152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 7, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Assange is suffering from an undisclosed ailment and has been confined to the hospital ward at the maximum security prison for several weeks. \u00a0He was arrested on April 11 by British police who were called by the Ecuadorian government into its London embassy in apparent violation of international asylum law. Assange had been granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012. He had been suffering health problems in the embassy but British authorities refused to allow him to leave the embassy for treatment and return without being arrested.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Almost immediately after his eventual arrest the United States unveiled an indictment against him for alleged intrusion into a government computer although the indictment <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/press-release\/file\/1153486\/download\">itself<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>describes normal procedures of investigative journalism: \u00a0encouraging a source to provide more information and working to protect the source\u2019s identity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">On May 23, Assange was <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2019\/may\/23\/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-with-violating-the-espionage-act-in-18-count-indictment\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>charged<\/strong><\/span><\/a> under the U.S. Espionage Act for possession and dissemination of classified information given to him by <em>WikiLeak<\/em>\u2018s source, Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. army intelligence analyst. It was the first time the Espionage Act was used against a journalist for publishing classified information.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Manning, meanwhile, is imprisoned in Alexandria, VA for refusing to testify to a grand jury on Assange\u2019s case. Since Assange has already been twice indicted, it is not clear if a new indictment against him is being prepared. On Wednesday, the judge in Manning\u2019s case <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/shadowproof.com\/2019\/08\/07\/judge-denies-chelsea-manning-insists-fines-not-punishment-denies-hearing\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>denied<\/strong><\/span><\/a> her a hearing and said $1,000-a-day fines against her did not amount to \u201cpunishment.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Assange is now fighting an extradition request from the United States as he\u00a0serves a 50-week sentence in Belmarsh for having skipped bail in an unrelated Swedish investigation into sexual assault allegations, which had been dropped twice before by Swedish authorities, but was <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/13\/world\/europe\/wikileaks-julian-assange.html\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>revived<\/strong><\/span><\/a> after his arrest. Assange had sought asylum in the Ecuador embassy because he feared extradition to the United States, fears that have been borne out by events.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">He faces 175 years in prison in the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2019\/08\/07\/new-fears-for-julian-assange\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Julian Assange shows psychological torture symptoms, says UN expert<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2019\/may\/31\/julian-assange-shows-psychological-torture-symptoms-says-un-expert\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2019\/may\/31\/julian-assange-shows-psychological-torture-symptoms-says-un-expert<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UN\u2019s special rapporteur warned that Assange showed signs of psychological torture in May. Now John Pilger writes that he&#8217;s being treated &#8220;worse than a murderer&#8221;    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":186704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192898"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192901,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192898\/revisions\/192901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/186704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}