[Justice]
Julian Assange’s Extradition Process Is ‘A Charade’
by Gregory Wilpert
Posted November 20, 2019

Julian Assange recently lost a court bid to have his upcoming February 2020 extradition hearing postponed. The hearing about the postponement took place on October 21, and according to observers who were present, he could barely speak in coherent sentences. Reacting to the hearing, UN Human Rights Rapporteur Nils Melzer warned last Friday that Assange continues to show symptoms of psychological torture. Melzer had visited Assange in May when he conducted an extensive review of his physical and psychological condition. In his statement on Friday, Melzer said, “Despite the medical urgency of my first appeal, and the seriousness of the alleged violations, the U.K. has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention, and redress required under international law.”

In addition to the concerns about Assange’s treatment at Belmarsh Prison outside of London, many have also raised concerns about the impartiality of the proceedings against him. Assange was jailed last April when the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he had been given political asylum, allowed the police to arrest him. He then received a 50-week sentence for having skipped jail in 2012. The Trump Administration has since then requested Assange’s extradition on 17 charges of espionage for which he could receive a 170-year prison sentence in the United States. More…

[Justice]
Inside the US Marshals’ Secretive, Deadly Detention Empire
by Seth Freed Wessler
Posted November 8, 2019

On any given day, the Marshals hold more people than Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and more than all the county jails of any state except California and Texas. The Marshals run this vast pretrial detention system without owning or operating any jails. Instead, the agency houses its detainees in about 1,100 jails and private facilities around the country.

Almost two-thirds of these federal pretrial detainees—who have not been convicted of any crimes—are held in local lockups like Tom Green, typically run by sheriffs. The remainder are held in either privately run jails under contract with the Marshals or federal detention centers run by the Bureau of Prisons, mostly in a handful of large cities. More…

The Facts:
The United States has the most people in prison of any nation on the planet.

Reflect On:
How can we reconcile the  belief that the US is “the land of the free” with the fact that the US has the most prisoners? Is it because the US is the most violent and criminal nation? Or is it because of US policies?

[Justice]
Assange in Court
by Craig Murray
Posted November 4, 2019

I was deeply shaken while witnessing yesterday’s events in Westminster Magistrates Court. Every decision was railroaded through over the scarcely heard arguments and objections of Assange’s legal team, by a magistrate who barely pretended to be listening.

Before I get on to the blatant lack of fair process, the first thing I must note was Julian’s condition. I was badly shocked by just how much weight my friend has lost, by the speed his hair has receded and by the appearance of premature and vastly accelerated ageing. He has a pronounced limp I have never seen before. Since his arrest he has lost over 15 kg in weight.

But his physical appearance was not as shocking as his mental deterioration. When asked to give his name and date of birth, he struggled visibly over several seconds to recall both. I will come to the important content of his statement at the end of proceedings in due course, but his difficulty in making it was very evident; it was a real struggle for him to articulate the words and focus his train of thought. More…

[Justice]
Only Cowards And Sadists Support The Persecution Of Assange
by Caitlin Johnstone
Posted November 2, 2019

Former British ambassador Craig Murray has published a very disturbing account of Julian Assange’s court appearance yesterday which I recommend reading in full. There have been many reports published about Assange’s case management hearing, but the combination of Murray’s prior experience with torture victims, his familiarity with British courts, his friendship with Assange, and his lack of reverence for western power structures allowed for a much more penetrating insight into what happened than anyone else has been able to provide so far.

Murray reports that there were no fewer than five representatives of the US government in the Westminster Magistrates Court that day, and that there were seated behind the British prosecutors and essentially giving them orders. The judge, Vanessa Baraitser, reportedly behaved coldly and snarkily towards the defense, smirking and refusing their requests without explanation, while behaving warmly and receptively toward the prosecution. More…

The Facts:
The US Department of Justice just announced 17 more charges against Julian Assange for publishing leaks exposing government wrongdoing.

Reflect On:
Should we be punishing journalists who help the world see who is running the countries they live in? How can the U.S.and U.K. consider themselves advanced nations when they torture people who reveal the truth? Should we be seeing the amount of censorship we are seeing today?

[Justice]
Locked Up: How the Modern Prison-Industrial Complex Puts So Many Americans in Jail
by Creative Commons
Posted October 28, 2019

There’s no two ways about it: The United States of America and its 50 state governments love putting people in prison.

The U.S. has both the highest number of prisoners and the highest per capita incarceration rate in the modern world at 655 adults per 100,000. (It’s worth noting that China’s incarceration statistics are dubious, and they execute far more people than the United States. Indeed, the so-called People’s Republic executes more people annually than the rest of the world combined.) Still, that’s more than 2.2 million Americans in state and federal prisons as well as county jails.

On top of those currently serving time, 4.7 million Americans were on parole in 2016, or about one in 56. These numbers do not include people on probation, which raises the number to one in 35. Nor does it include all of the Americans who have been arrested at one time or another, which is over 70 million – more than the population of France. More…

[Justice]
The Deep State Is Assassinating Julian Assange
by Aaron Kesel
Posted October 26, 2019

Earlier this year, a crazy claim took the internet by storm made by a retired USAF lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski who wrote that they are “treating Assange with the Zombie drug BZ (3-quinuclidinyl benzilate) to kill his brain cells” according to an insider source. Whereas at the time that statement sounded insane, the display in court by Assange may warrant looking at that claim again with a fresh view. This information may be shocking to some, but journalist Danny Casolaro who stood against The Octopus (DEEP STATE) was killed by a toxic poison that was injected into his spine, then his wrists were sliced 12x on each hand. We also know from former CIA employee Mary Embree that the infamous heart attack gun exists and the agency was researching other silent assassination slow kill methods, so that possibility isn’t as crazy as it all may sound.

A source who claims to have seen the WikiLeaks founder described Assange as “out of it and in an zombie like state.” Russian news station RT corroborated this claim, showing Assange in a police transportation van appearing to show a weakened state of health in just his physical appearance. More…

The Facts:
Julian Assange exposed murder committed by the U.S. government. Now the U.S. is actively managing the U.K. case against Assange>

Reflect On:
Consider how none of the perpetrators of the crimes exposed by Assange were ever prosecuted, but those who exposed the crimes were prosecuted. Is that how a free society should be behaving?

[Justice]
Assange Is The Only One To Abide By The Law
by Raúl Ilargi Meijer
Posted October 25, 2019

On October 21 2019, Brexit became an entirely irrelevant issue. Or perhaps we should say it had already become that, but on that date it was exposed for all to see that it was. The parading into a courtroom of Julian Assange in London was all the evidence one could need that the UK government breaks its own laws as well as numerous international laws, with impunity. But that is not how the media reported on it, if it did at all.

And so, the core issue behind Brexit, i.e. who makes Britain’s laws, turned to nothing. If your government breaks its own laws all the time, what does it matter where those laws are made? They are meaningless anyway. Whether they come from Brussels or London make no difference if the government and judicial system don’t abide by them. Those million men marches for a Final Say look totally ridiculous once that reality sinks in. More…

The Facts:
The US and UK regularly break their own laws and then turn around and prosecute those who inform the public of their criminality.

Reflect On:
Consider how governments use the media to divert attention from their criminal activities and have the public focus their attention on those who expose the criminal behaviour.