Today, 3 July 2016, on the birthday of the greatest truth-teller of our times, it might be appropriate to congratulate and celebrate with Julian Assange (and his friends and his cat).
But is is also appropriate to review the persecution he has endured now for so many years. And no one is more suited to that task than the United Nations, as per their ruling from 4 December 2015.
Their description of the conditions of Julian Assange's persecution unequivocally places the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny in a category solely her own, forever displacing Claes Borgström as the country's (perhaps the world's) most incompetent (and most heinous) jurist ever.
Today Julian Assange celebrates yet another birthday - his 45th - at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. He remains there because the United Kingdom refuse to recognise the 5 February ruling of the United Nations.
The United Kingdom, running lockstep with the United States, prefer to refer to a Swedish court ruling to detain Julian in absentia for the purposes of a questioning the Swedes have refused to undertake over thirty times.
Julian was granted political asylum by Ecuador after it became clear that neither Sweden nor the United Kingdom would do anything to resolve the deadlock, and because it's been the intention of the United Kingdom to send Julian to Sweden, a country which has a special agreement of temporary surrender with the United States, an agreement that supersedes all other agreements and laws.
Guillaume Long of the Foreign Ministry of Ecuador has acknowledged that his country has now received an application for questioning from notorious Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, but the contents of that request are not yet known.
There will be a birthday celebration outside the embassy at 16:00 BST, with birthday cake and refreshments available.
This Sunday, 19 June 2016, will mark four years that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. For the next seven days, a number of events will take place around the world to bring attention to this situation.
A full schedule of events can be found here.
A full schedule of speakers can be found here.
New speakers and events are being added continually.
This is a world event.
Presenting two new grassroots campaigns in support of Julian Assange, both dedicated to resolving the unwillingness of Britain and Sweden to follow the 5 February 2016 ruling of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
#BoycottSweden is a grassroots effort to pressure the Swedish government to break the new stalemate in the Assange case and to obey the ruling of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, using both a blog and an accompanying Twitter account.
Interview with Sarah Hewson 18.09.2014.
Courage, the international organisation dedicated to the protection of truthtellers, today announces the launch of the Known Unknowns Fund to support suspected sources under investigation. The Fund is the first specifically designed to assist individuals who are alleged to have disclosed information of significant public value but do not yet face formal charges. The name of the fund, a play on former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's notorious defence of inadequate sourcing, acknowledges that many who find themselves in this situation will not be in a position to confirm their identity to the public.
Interview with John Simpson of the BBC 18 September 2014.
Speech given on 15th September 2014 Moment of Truth event in New Zealand.
Twenty-five years after the world wide web was created, it is now caught in the greatest controversy of its existence: surveillance.
Featuring interviews with the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and the co-founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, Horizon delves inside the 'dark web'.
On June 19, 2012, the Australian citizen Julian Assange, showed up on the headquarters of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, with the purpose of requesting diplomatic protection of the Ecuadorian State, invoking the norms on political asylum in force. The requester has based his petition on the fear of an eventual political persecution of which he may be a victim in a third State, which can use his extradition to the Swedish Kingdom to obtain in turn the ulterior extradition to such country.
The Government of Ecuador, faithful to the asylum procedure, and attributing the greatest seriousness to this case, has examined and assessed all the aspects implied, particularly the arguments presented by Mr Assange backing up the fear he feels before a situation that this person considers as a threat to his life, personal safety and freedom.
What happens today is another of the official reasons Julian came back to Sweden. Today he's to meet Rick Falkvinge and sign an agreement for WikiLeaks hosting with Pirate Party rack space in the Bahnhof bunker.
Anna comes along as the official WikiLeaks press secretary.
Pirate Party system administrator Richie Olsson also tags along to photograph the event. One of his photographs was long suppressed; it's found below. It shows Anna beaming on the far left.
'Those two weeks were so far the worst in my life. Because I was heartbroken, I was afraid, I was worried, I did not know what lay ahead.'
- Andreas Nygren, today with an NGO helping minors in detention
'I'd very much prefer to be locked up with rats and bad food.'
- Göran, in pretrial detention for 850 days with no access to the outside world
Transcript: Göran sat in pretrial detention for 850 days - criticism of Sweden's record-long detentions is growing
Source: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/392059?programid=4702
Program: In the Name of the Law
Radio channel: Swedish State Radio (sverigesradio.se)
Broadcast date: 6 July 2014
Original language: Swedish
Length: 29:32
[UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION]
THE COURT
Chief judge Lena Egelin
KEEPER OF THE MINUTES
District court law clerk Sanna Ordenius
PARTIES (present unless stated otherwise)
PROSECUTORS
Prosecution director Marianne Ny and chief prosecutor Ingrid Isgren
Development Centre and Southern prosecution office Stockholm resp
SUSPECT
Julian Assange 1971-07-03
Deprivation of liberty: detained in his absence
Unknown address
Not personally present
Per E Samuelson and Thomas Olsson write to SvD.
That a prosecutor can continue a preliminary investigation for four years and not question the suspect violates the demand for expediency. This is a strong reason to rescind the warrant against Julian Assange, write his lawyers.
Our client Julian Assange has been arrested in his absence for almost four years. He's spent the past two years at the Ecuador embassy in London, protected by political asylum. The London police guard the building day and night, but they can't enter the building. We have, time and again, demanded that the prosecutor [Marianne Ny] travel to London to question Assange. She refuses.
We've asked the Stockholm district court to rescind the warrant to break the deadlock. That would force the prosecutor to think differently. The matter will be dealt with in court 16 July.
Courage - LAUNCH PRESS RELEASE - Monday 9th June 2014
http://couragefound.org
@couragefound
Courage - the organisation running Snowden's defence fund - launches in Berlin this Wednesday, 11th June
@greekemmy took this photo only hours ago on the coast of Cornwall. She wished to convey the fact that WikiLeaks is truly everywhere: that no conspirator can be safe if people have the courage to 'blow the whistle' and stand up to abusive power.
Friday 23 May 2014, 05:00 GMT
The National Security Agency has been recording and storing nearly all the domestic (and international) phone calls from two or more target countries as of 2013. Both the Washington Post and The Intercept (based in the US and published by eBay chairman Pierre Omidyar) have censored the name of one of the victim states, which the latter publication refers to as country "X".
Sweden will soon hold the Stockholm Internet Forum to discuss global development and global surveillance. The forum will open on 26 May and will be held in the famed Stadshuset, site of the annual Nobel banquet. The motto of the conference will be 'Internet Freedom for Global Development'.
What: Solidarity Vigil in Support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
When: Thursday 19 June 2014 6-8pm
Where: Ecuadorian Embassy in London, No 3 Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge
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