The Guardian’s abject failure to speak out
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JVL
JVL Introduction
A massive assault on freedom of speech is underway as Julian Assange is hung out to dry as an example to all that it is safer to stick to what the corporates want you to report.
You’d think liberal newspapers like the Guardian and the New York Times would be rushing to his defence.
Instead they are allowing journalism that exposes unwanted truths to be redefined as “espionage”. Colluding with the US government has got them off the hook.
Here Jonathan Cook exposes and explains the shameful role of the liberal media.
This article was originally published by Jonathan Cook Blog on Tue 22 Sep 2020. Read the original here.
The US is using the Guardian to justify jailing Assange for life. Why is the paper so silent?
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There is a scandal and a crisis in British journalism. For the past three weeks or so a crucial extradition hearing has been taking place in the Central Criminal Court in London. You won’t know about it if you rely for your news on the established newspapers, the BBC or ITV or Channel 4.
The case revolves around Julian Assange, of Wikileaks; and the government of the United States of America, which wishes to extradite this pioneering journalist and revealer of the truth and put him into a horrible prison until he dies.
Apparently there are about ten journalists regularly attending the court and taking notes, but as far as we know only one of them is publishing serious accounts of the ridiculous and disgraceful procedures. The vast majority of the public are unaware the proceedings are even taking place.
This is a case about free speech, exposure of wicked secrets, and the ability of journalists to operate in society. Yet journalists themselves are turning their backs on it. It almost seems as if they hope Assange will be taken away, removed from public view.
The only journalist who is doing this is Craig Murray, formerly the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, whose blog probably has a small readership, and who himself is in jeopardy of prison because of his fearless exposure of establishment corruption and lying. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk
The Assange “trial” is comparable to that of Dreyfus, with our “free” press betraying both the word itself and their readers and viewers. Our judiciary is being corrupted and our judicial system poisoned at the behest of Trump and as a result we are sliding towards fascism.
We are both retired. Jacob was a journalist and union leader on the pre-Murdoch Times for 20 years and then the deputy general secretary of the National Union of Journalists from 1980 to 1997. Bernie was a senior journalist on the Birmingham Post, Guardian and Independent, then editor of the NUJ newspaper “Journalist”, then an organiser, negotiator and case worker for the NUJ, then general secretary of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain from 2000 to 2016.
Jacob Ecclestone
Bernie Corbett
Thank you Jonathan. Excellent article as always. I just want to add that I believe some of the astonishing lack of support for Assange is due to the false rape allegation. In my experience, there is a substantial part of the left who still do not understand that the false rape allegation muddied the waters from the start. I read a plausible explanation from Assange himself a long time ago but now cannot find it. But a crucial part of the explanation involves an understanding of Swedish law, that counts the non-wearing of a condom as rape. Here is an account of these events, ironically from the Guardian nine years ago,
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden
As someone with a close relative raped at gunpoint by two men nearly fifty years ago, I am hardly likely to minimise rape. Many people still cling to the argument that “there is no smoke without fire”, and I think it is worth pointing out, that , for all the marvellous detail in Jonathan’s article, the sad fact remains that the rape allegation may be what prevents otherwise decent people from seeing that Assange is innocent of all charges.
What I particularly enjoyed about his piece was Cook’s searing indictment of the spinelessness of The Guardian and its alleged journalists, Luke Harding and David Leigh, with regard to the Assange affaire. The real clincher is Aaron Maté’s gimlet-eyed demolition job of a smirking and condescending Harding on the Real News Channel in 2017. From the start Harding can see he’s in danger of being skewered by Maté’s simple – but polite – requests for some PROOF of the Putin/Assange/Trump link and risibly tries every trick in the book to get himself off the hook, distract and change the subject, until he finally loses his rag in the last few minutes – and cuts the video link. It’s a must-watch. Of course, since then, Both Maté and Max Blumenthal on Real News and Push Back have comprehensively demolished the whole ‘Russiagate’ hoax, without having to bother themselves any further with Harding’s threadbare stenography. Cook and Maté are the real journalists. Thank God there are still some left.
Susan, Yes, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Julian was set up…… I mean for a start, one of the women – the one that invited him over to Sweden to give a speech AND offered him her apartment to stay at (whilst she went away to visit her parents for a few days) – sent a text to a friend the day after it allegedly happened, telling the friend that she was at a party with some of the best people on the planet (including Julian), or words to that effect.
Right, I knew that Craig Murray had covered the tweet in one of his many, many articles in relation to the plight of Julian, and I just went on to his blog and did a search (re ‘julian assange’) and found it. So here’s a link to the article, and what she actually says in her tweet is: ‘Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing! #fb’, and she tweets this to a friend AFTER (the day after I think) the alleged sexual assault happened:
Why I am Convinced that Anna Ardin is a Liar
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/
As I say, there are numerous articles on his blog that Craig has written over the years in relation to Julian, along with Julian’s full defence statement to the Swedish prosecutor. Craig’s search engine is down the page a bit on the right-hand side, and if you type in >julian assange< it will bring up all the related articles, albeit in full. So given that Craig has written extensively about the ongoing extradition hearing, you'll need to do a 'rapid' scroll to get down to the other articles, otherwise it will take forever!
PS Now I have absolutely no idea about Julian’s love-life, but I’d be very surprised if he didn’t have more than a few liaisons over the years AND prior to his trip to Sweden, and yet I have never-EVER heard of any woman claiming that Julian sexually assaulted her, and yet – in the space of a few days after going to Sweden……. Hmm!
Oh, right, and then there’s the ‘ripped condom’ which doesn’t have a trace of Julian’s DNA on it! But this apparently didn’t have any significance whatsoever as far as the prosecutor was concerned!
PS Now, needless to say, IF it had been just one woman (in Sweden) who had made a claim of sexual assault against Julian, well, it would have just been HIS word against hers, but if there were TWO women making such claims, well then, there’s absolutely no doubt about it, is there, Julian MUST be guilty! And these are two women that supposedly didn’t know each-other prior to the event where Julian gave his talk, but then suddenly became aquainted and, as such, the woman who had initially slept with Julian accompanies the OTHER woman to a police station when SHE wants to ascertain if someone – ie Julian – can be made to have a test because she was concerned about the possibility of having contracted HIV.
Now I don’t recall what Julian said in relation to this in his defence statement, if anything, but it seems HIGHLY unlikely to me that Julian would refuse to have a test if the woman in question was very concerned about having contracted HIV (and yet the other woman, who claimed that Julian ripped the condom, WASN’T!), but why would you think to actually go to a police station anyway, and not just phone and make a general inquiry as to whether someone can be made to take a test in such circumstances OR phone a clinic and inquire. OR check on the internet!
I could say much about the whole episode, but how very fortuitous for the PTB that it all played out the way it did, and ALSO that the second woman should just happen to text someone saying that she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange” but that “the police were keen on getting their hands on him”.
Was it a Blind, as they call it in the trade? I have little doubt that it WAS, and for the obvious reason! As I say, it ALL seems Oh-SO pat!
It wouldn’t surprise me if, had the two journalists gunned down by that US helicopter in Iraq, been not Reuters employees, but Guardian ones, that that ghastly example of the Fourth Estate would still be quite happy to allow Julian Assange to , “ Take the Rap“, with scarcely a mention in any of its evil pages of why the US government is anxious to bang him up for 175 years.
“The real clincher is Aaron Maté’s gimlet-eyed demolition job of a smirking and condescending Harding on the Real News Channel in 2017. From the start Harding can see he’s in danger of being skewered by Maté’s simple – but polite – requests for some PROOF of the Putin/Assange/Trump link and risibly tries every trick in the book to get himself off the hook, distract and change the subject, until he finally loses his rag in the last few minutes – and cuts the video link. It’s a must-watch” – Steve Tiller (above).
This seems to refer to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ikf1uZli4g
There is some reason to believe that Luke Harding works for British intelligence:
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Luke_Harding
I remember reading an account by Julian of his visit to Sweden which makes clear that he was unwittingly ‘set up’ for an allegation of rape.
Trump strikes me as a bit of an empty vessel who seemed to flip flop on this topic. I’d be interested to know who encouraged him to pursue Assange for espionage. Are they still at work here? Its nothing less than a straightforward attack on journalism as a whole and I say whoever they are they need to be called out. Forgive my ignorance if this is old news.