Dear Friend,
A fourth round of leaked internal documents from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was published by WikiLeaks Friday, further exposing the official report on an alleged 2018 chemical weapons attack in Douma—a suburb of Damascus then held by CIA-backed Islamist forces—as having been doctored to justify an attack by the United States, Britain and France against the Syrian government.
On Christmas Eve, WikiLeaks founder and prize-winning journalist Julian Assange phoned a friend to alert the world that his life is in danger inside London’s notorious maximum-security Belmarsh prison. Vaughan Smith, a freelance video news journalist who gave refuge to Assange in 2010 when he was legally fighting against attempts to extradite him to Sweden, tweeted that Assange called his family on Christmas Eve. Smith wrote: “He told my wife and I how he was slowly dying in Belmarsh where, though only on remand, he is kept in solitary confinement for
23 hours a day and is often sedated. His US extradition proceedings start in February…”
Watch a video of a powerful poem on CAA/NRC by the renowned Malayalm poet Anvar Ali
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Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
New WikiLeaks documents expose doctoring of chemical weapons report to justify 2018 US attack on Syria
by Niles Niemuth
A fourth round of leaked internal documents from the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was published by WikiLeaks Friday, further exposing the official report on an alleged 2018 chemical weapons attack in Douma—a suburb of Damascus then held by CIA-backed Islamist forces—as having been doctored to justify an attack by the United States, Britain and France against the Syrian government.
A fourth round of leaked internal documents from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was published by WikiLeaks Friday, further exposing the official report on an alleged 2018 chemical weapons attack in Douma—a suburb of Damascus then held by CIA-backed Islamist forces—as having been doctored to justify an attack by the United States, Britain and France against the Syrian government.
The documents point to a systematic effort to suppress evidence uncovered by investigators that cast significant doubt on the official line pushed by Washington and its imperialist allies that the government of Bashar al-Assad had conclusively carried out a chemical weapons attack which killed as many as 49 people.
The headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), The Hague, Netherlands. (AP Photo – Peter Dejong, File)
Without presenting any evidence to prove that Assad’s military had indeed carried out the alleged attack, purported video of children suffering in its aftermath pushed by the mainstream media was seized on by the US, UK and France to launch an assault on Syrian government targets just one week later. The official OPCW report was published this March, nearly one year after President Donald Trump ordered the series of airstrikes which threatened to spark a wider war with Iran and Russia, Assad’s main allies.
The series of leaks published by the media outlet founded by journalist Julian Assange, currently imprisoned by the British government while awaiting extradition to the US for exposing imperialist war crimes in the Middle East, have exposed the fact that key evidence along with dissent by investigators who were on the ground in Douma was omitted from the final report in order to give the impression that the OPCW had concluded that Assad had carried out a chlorine gas attack on April 7, 2018. The initial round of emails was verified as authentic by Reuters at the end of November.
Just as extraordinary as the leaks themselves is the fact that they have been completely blacked out by the mainstream media in the United States and Europe. Despite the explosive character of the documents that have been published so far, exposing the ostensibly objective and neutral OPCW as a tool of the US and its imperialist allies, there has been no significant coverage in the mainstream media nor any effort by the New York Times, Washington Post or any other major outlet to debunk the documents or their contents.
Last month, Newsweek reporter Tareq Haddad resigned in protest after his editors forcefully rebuffed his efforts to report on the leaks. Given the apparently enforced silence about these now publicly available documents, the question must be asked if the equivalent of a British-style D-notice has been sent by the CIA and the State Department to editorial boards in the US, Europe and elsewhere in an effort to bury any exposure of the lies whipped up in the years-long effort to overthrow Assad.
The latest round of documents includes an email from the head of the OPCW, Sebastien Braha, sent on February 28, 2019, just ahead of the release of the final report on the investigation Douma incident, demanding the removal of any trace of the report produced by veteran OPCW inspector and ballistics expert Ian Henderson from the organization’s internal registry. Henderson’s investigation had concluded that it was more likely that the cylinders which had been identified as the source of chlorine gas had been placed where they were found, rather than being dropped from the air.
“Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive]… And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA,” Braha wrote, referring to Henderson’s report.
The final report omitted any reference to Henderson’s findings, which were not made public until they were leaked to the press and did not include any other dissenting opinions from investigators who had examined evidence in Douma. An investigator from the Fact Finding Mission (FFM) in Syria noted in an email released in a previous tranche released by WikiLeaks that the final report had been so changed that it “no longer reflects the work of the team.”
Other critical details uncovered by investigators, including that only trace amounts of chlorinated organic chemicals had been found by investigators, were omitted from the report, giving the impression that conclusive evidence was uncovered of a chlorine gas attack.
Another email published by WikiLeaks was sent by Sami Barrek, the team leader of the FFM, to Henderson and several others at the end of July 2018. It noted that all but one of the eight investigators who had been on the ground in Douma would be excluded from further discussion on the final report. Jonathan Steele, former senior foreign correspondent for the Guardian, reported in Counterpunch last month that an OPCW whistleblower known as “Alex” relayed an incident that same month in which three unidentified American officials met with dissenting investigators to declare that there was no question that Assad was responsible for the alleged chlorine gas attack in Douma.
The latest leak also includes the minutes from a meeting on June 6, 2018 between a team of OPCW investigators and three toxicologists/clinical pharmacologists and one bioanalytical/toxicological chemist, who were all experts in medical chemical weapons protection. The purpose of the meeting with the four experts was to ask for their advice on the efficacy of exhuming purported victims of the attack to seek evidence of exposure to chlorine gas and to analyze video and photos of alleged victims to determine if their symptoms aligned with exposure to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas.
On the first point the experts agreed that, given the conditions of burial of the alleged victims, the likelihood of finding evidence of chlorine exposure was low, and exhumation would not prove useful. On the second point, and more significantly, according to the minutes, “the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure,” based on the video and photos which they were shown by the investigators.
The chief expert laid out two possibilities for the OPCW team—that there was in fact a real chemical weapons attack or that the event had been a propaganda exercise. The experts were insistent that victims of a chlorine gas attack would not have gathered in piles in the middle of their apartments, as they had been found, instead they would have rushed to close-by exits in search of clean air.
The OPCW team concluded after their meeting with the four experts, “that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified.”
Marc-Machael Blum, then head of the OPCW Laboratory, noted in an email sent on August 28, 2018 after reviewing the minutes, that speculation by the chief expert during the meeting that the Douma incident was staged “was mainly fueled by the fact that the circumstances of death for the victims do not match chlorine rather than corpses arranged for propaganda purposes.”
These observations from the investigators and experts, countering the official narrative, were likewise excluded from the final OPCW report.
Originally published by WSWS.org
Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison
by Mike Head
https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/julian-assange-slowly-dying-and-often-sedated-in-belmarsh-prison
On Christmas Eve, WikiLeaks founder and prize-winning journalist Julian Assange phoned a friend to alert the world that his life is in danger inside London’s notorious maximum-security Belmarsh prison. Vaughan Smith, a freelance video news journalist who gave refuge to Assange in 2010 when he was legally fighting against attempts to extradite him to Sweden, tweeted that Assange called his family on Christmas Eve. Smith wrote: “He told my wife and I
how he was slowly dying in Belmarsh where, though only on remand, he is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and is often sedated. His US extradition proceedings start in February…”
On Christmas Eve, WikiLeaks founder and prize-winning journalist Julian Assange phoned a friend to alert the world that his life is in danger inside London’s notorious maximum-security Belmarsh prison.
Vaughan Smith, a freelance video news journalist who gave refuge to Assange in 2010 when he was legally fighting against attempts to extradite him to Sweden, tweeted that Assange called his family on Christmas Eve. Smith wrote: “He told my wife and I how he was slowly dying in Belmarsh where, though only on remand, he is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and is often sedated. His US extradition proceedings start in February…”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he is transported in a police vehicle to a hearing [Credit: AP Photo/Matt Dunham]
Assange’s phone call highlights the danger that he could die in prison, effectively at the hands of the British government of Boris Johnson, acting in league with the Trump administration and the Australian government, which has refused to intervene on behalf of Assange, an Australian citizen.
By what authority, or on what pretext, Assange is being tranquilised, and kept isolated, remains unknown. Despite growing public outrage, demands for explanations have gone unanswered.
Such mistreatment of a prisoner who is only on remand—not convicted of any offence whatsoever—cannot possibly be explained innocently. It not only defies all known precedents regarding detainees awaiting trial or, in Assange’s case, lengthy extradition proceedings. It also defies urgent medical advice.
Assange’s plea for help underscores the warnings made over the past two months by doctors from around the world, putting the British and Australian governments on notice that Assange’s health is deteriorating so rapidly, he might die in jail.
The WikiLeaks founder, together with whistleblower Chelsea Manning, is being persecuted, possibly to the point of death, for helping to bring to the world the truth about the war crimes, anti-democratic intrigues and mass surveillance conducted globally by the US government and its close allies, notably Britain and Australia.
In 2010, WikiLeaks, acting in partnership with several major corporate media outlets, published hundreds of thousands of secret documents exposing US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, including US-led coup plots and other forms of political interference in country after country. It also released the “Collateral Murder” video showing the gunning down of civilians and journalists in Baghdad in July 2007.
If extradited to the US, Assange faces imprisonment for up to 175 years on openly political charges under the US Espionage Act—charges that represent a frontal attack on free speech and media freedom globally.
Last month more than 60 medical doctors wrote to the UK government urging that Assange be transferred immediately from prison to a university teaching hospital for multi-disciplinary medical assessment and care, including by experts in psychological torture.
The doctors cited UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Professor Nils Melzer, who visited Assange earlier this year with two medical experts. Melzer has written to the British, US and Australian governments stating that Assange is being psychologically tortured and “today we are at a point where he could collapse at any moment.”
In a further letter, more than 100 doctors from around the globe put Australia’s government on notice that Assange’s health is deteriorating rapidly. In an open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, the doctors urged the government to intervene and get him medical treatment before it is too late. “It is an extremely serious matter for an Australian citizen’s survival to be endangered by a foreign government,” the letter said.
The doctors are concerned that the psychological stress Assange has been under, which is akin to psychological torture, is manifesting in physical ailments and he could suffer a stroke, cardiac arrest or other fatal health problem at any time. An addendum to the doctors’ letter, listing the “medical realities” regarding Assange’s case, warned: “The potentially fatal medical consequences of prolonged psychological torture are inherently unpredictable, and could strike at any time…
“We reiterate that it is fundamentally incompatible with basic standards of medical care to attempt to treat a psychological torture victim while holding them in the very conditions assessed as comprising torture, and which led to the onset, persistence and severity of symptoms…
“Accordingly, no doctor, no matter how senior, can offer any legitimate assurances regarding Julian Assange’s survival or medical stability while he continues to be held in Belmarsh prison.”
Such is the mounting demand for Assange’s freedom that the Sydney Daily Telegraph published an interview with Assange’s mother, Christine Assange, on December 22. While voicing her anguish at not being able to speak to her son since he was arrested in April, let alone celebrate Christmas with him, she issued an impassioned plea for public support for the campaign to force the Australian government to ensure her son’s safe return to Australia.
“All I want for Christmas is my son Julian to be home safe with his family, under the protection of his country, to be free from this nine-year unlawful and brutal political persecution and to heal from the human rights abuses and torture which have damaged his mind and body,” she said.
“If he ends up in US hands, there will be a show trial and there will be nothing fair or just about it. He will never see the light of day again. He is accused of engaging in multi-award winning journalism, not hurting anyone.”
More than 1,030 journalists and media workers from every corner of the globe have so far signed an open letter to all the governments complicit in Assange’s torment, demanding his unconditional freedom and an immediate “end to the legal campaign being waged against him for the crime of revealing war crimes.”
The signatories include WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, world-renowned investigative journalist John Pilger, Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who revealed the full criminality of the Vietnam War, World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North and leading WSWS reporters.
Neither the British or Australian governments have replied to the doctors and journalists. The same contemptuous silence has come from the Australian Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese and shadow foreign minister Penny Wong, to whom the doctors’ letter was also addressed. Just as much as the Johnson and Morrison governments, the Labor Party is totally committed to the US-led military alliance and alignment behind Washington’s preparations for new wars.
As the Socialist Equality Party and the WSWS have insisted from the outset, no US, British or Australian government will free Assange unless it is compelled to do so by a mass movement from below. The campaign to build such a movement must now be stepped up urgently.
Originally published in WSWS.org
Divide And Rule: The Indian Story of 2019
by Shariq Us Sabah
The Citizenship amendment act of 2019 is another vicious attempt to change the demographics of India. The Act, along with upcoming National Register of citizens will successfully polarize the electorate and It is aimed to further consolidate the “Us” versus “Them” narrative.
Indian-Australians Hold Protest Against CAA & NRC
by Countercurrents Collective
Indian-Australians in Sydney held a huge protest against the unconstitutional, bigoted and divisive Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens. Speakers called for the repeal of the
CAA and NRC; for an end to police violence; and for the Morrison government to speak out about the human rights abuses occurring under the Modi government. A number of speakers warned that the impact of the Modi regime’s policies that incite violence and discrimination against Muslims are effectively an early stage of genocide
CAA: Tit for Tat
by Dr Aurobindo Ghose
Now the Govts or civil societies of these three neighbouring countries are breaking their silence on India’s big brotherly policies and attitude. Bangladeshi Foreign Minister has most recently reacted to India’s CAB thus : ” We will deport all the Indians residing illegally in Bangladesh.”
In Solidarity with Shaheen Bagh – From another winter, from another protest
by Aviral Anand
The brave protesters at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi have been on
protest since Dec 15 after the brutal attack on Jamia students. They have been sitting in solidarity with the protest of the students and against the various steps that the central government threatens against citizenship criteria, like the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The Poetry of Protest – Anti CAA-NRC-NPR Stir in Azad Maidan
by Vivek Sundara
A video on the protest held in Azad Maidan, Mumbai against CAA & NRC
Your Government Wants Revenge From You
by Subhash Gatade
Uttar Pradesh is dealing with CAA as it dealt with crime: encounters.
Scapegoats for Jamal Khashoggi
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
The hit squad that went about its deadly business with varying degrees of competence
in Istanbul last year is set to be thinned. Five members of the group tasked with strangling and carving up the Saudi journalist and out-of-favour Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate on October 2, 2018 are now facing the generous justice of their employers. As this process takes place, there is gleeful hand washing taking place in the highest quarters of the kingdom.
China is light years ahead of India
by Ramakrishnan
When it comes to technology, we depend on others, be it phones, cars, airplanes. Maybe 20 years ago, China was behind us, but now they are light years ahead of India. We are in a pathetic state.
Why Kashmir’s political uncertainty will persist in 2020 and beyond
by Dr Mumtaz Balkhi
In the 21st century,it is easy to deliver impression for semblance of normalcy but hard to impose
and maintain military occupation of people in highly globalized World.
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