FOCUS: The Stitching-Up of Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg

30 December 19

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30 December 19

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FOCUS: The Stitching-Up of Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg

Keith Davis, The Australian Independent Media Network
Davis writes: "While we sit on our arses and fiddle with our fingers a brave son of Australia is about to be thrown to the wolves."

t would pay us well to read, and reflect upon, the following transcript between the President of the United States, his National Security Adviser, and his Attorney General.

The background to the transcript is that a journalist had just published an article in The New York Times. The article was the first installment of seven thousand pages of highly classified documents that exposed the decision-making process that had led the United States into an interminably long and destructive war.

Earlier, on the same day that the transcript was recorded, June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the First Amendment, ruled 6-3 that the Times had the right to publish the stolen documents.

The journalist who published the article stated that “It was just an exquisite moment of vindication for the freedom of the press in this country and how important it is.”

The President, on that very same day ordered his Attorney General to discredit the source of the documents, a man who had just been indicted by a federal grand jury under the questionable strictures of the Espionage Act of 1917. Sound familiar?

The redactions in the transcript are mine.

President: Don’t you agree that we have to pursue the … (redacted) case?

Attorney General: No question about it. No question about it. This is the one sanction we have, is to get at the individuals …

President: Let’s get the son of a bitch into jail.

National Security Advisor: We’ve got to get him, we’ve got to get him …

President: Don’t worry about his trial. Just get everything out. Try him in the press. Try him in the press. Everything, … (redacted), that there is on the investigation, get it out, leak it out. We want to destroy him in the press. Is that clear?

Attorney General: Yes.

So even though the highest Court in America ruled that the release of the documents was both lawful, and in the public interest, the President and his administration sought to go after, jail, and demolish those who were involved in the leaking of the documents.

And so Julian Assange sits rotting in a British jail while a case is concocted against him. And so our Australian Government sits on its arse and does not have the fortitude to confront Trump and his administration, and so the majority of our Quiet Australians (those perennial supplicants at the altar of the Big Lie) sit on their arses, while a brave son of Australia is thrown to the wolves.

There are some here in Australia who have had the courage to speak up, but far too many more of either political persuasion have not had the moral courage to speak up.

I don’t know what books Julian Assange has access to in his jail cell, but if he has access to the one I have just read, I don’t doubt that he would be reflecting upon the depth of betrayal, and the rankness of the betrayal, that has been sent his way by his own people, his own Australian people. Let alone what his thoughts also might be about the Americans at the highest level of power who are going for his jugular.

We all like to think that the ability of those in power to suppress truth and to threaten the journalists who publish that truth is diminished by a long societal memory of previously exposed scandals, and by the very vigilance of an informed and concerned populace. Well, that is simply not so. We live in an era where truth is far more strongly suppressed than it ever was, where the populace is apathetic and supportive of political populism, and where the journalists who expose that suppression of truth are pursued with the full force of the State.

Those of you with a knowledge of history might well ask what parallel is there between the cases of Daniel Ellsberg and Julian Assange, between the release of The Pentagon Papers and the Wikileaks Documents? For that is the question that I have unfolded above for you to think about. The transcript quoted above was recorded in 1971 and Daniel Ellsberg was the target. The transcripts concerning Julian Assange are being recorded right now.

I think you are intelligent enough to work out the multiple parallels between both cases for yourselves.

The transcript participants (recorded on June 30, 1971): President Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, John Mitchell.
The transcript and other relevant information quoted from the book: The Vietnam War – An Intimate History, by Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns, 2018.
The documents: The Pentagon Papers.
One source/author of the documents (target of the transcript): Daniel Ellsberg. 

Here in Australia some of our journalists and others are currently being pursued by the full force of a middle-ranking state because of the disclosure of secrets that our government wished to keep quiet about – think East Timor and Afghanistan. Internationally, one of our journalists, for that is what he is, is being pursued by the full force of the American State because he published material, damning material, that the American State wished to keep quiet.

The stitch-up of Julian Assange is well underway. But it will be many decades before the transcript of the tapes of White House manoeuvring to indict him are released for public reading.

We, the people of Australia, need to step in right now and stop the tapes. We need to bring Julian Assange home to freedom.

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CC News Letter 29 Dec- New WikiLeaks documents expose doctoring of chemical weapons report to justify 2018 US attack on Syria

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

Kindly support honest journalism to survive. https://countercurrents.org/subscription/

If you think the contents of this news letter are critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/.

In Solidarity

Binu Mathew

Editor

Countercurrents.org

New WikiLeaks documents expose doctoring of chemical weapons report to justify 2018 US attack on Syria

by Niles Niemuth

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/new-wikileaks-documents-expose-doctoring-of-chemical-weapons-report-to-justify-2018-us-attack-on-syria

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.

New WikiLeaks documents expose doctoring of chemical weapons report to justify 2018 US attack on Syria

in World — by Niles Niemuth — December 29, 2019

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

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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…”

Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

in Human Rights — by Mike Head — December 29, 2019

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

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Divide And Rule: The Indian Story of 2019

by Shariq Us Sabah

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/divide-and-rule-the-indian-story-of-2019

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

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/indian-australians-hold-protest-against-caa-nrc

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

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/caa-tit-for-tat

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

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/in-solidarity-with-shaheen-bagh-from-another-winter-from-another-protest

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

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/the-poetry-of-protest-anti-caa-nrc-npr-stir-in-azad-maidan

A video on the protest held in Azad Maidan, Mumbai against CAA & NRC

Your Government Wants Revenge From You

by Subhash Gatade

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/your-government-wants-revenge-from-you

Uttar Pradesh is dealing with CAA as it dealt with crime: encounters.

Scapegoats for Jamal Khashoggi

by Dr Binoy Kampmark

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/scapegoats-for-jamal-khashoggi

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

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/china-is-light-years-ahead-of-india

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

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/why-kashmirs-political-uncertainty-will-persist-in-2020-and-beyond

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.

CC News Letter 21 Dec- I Will Give My Blood:Chandrasekhar Azad

Dear Friend,

Chandrasekhar Azad Ravan was arrested late last night. Before that he gave a historic speech on the steps of Delhi Jama Masjid. It must be read by all.

Kindly support honest journalism to survive. https://countercurrents.org/subscription/

If you think the contents of this news letter are critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/.

In Solidarity

Binu Mathew

Editor

Countercurrents.org

I Will Give My Blood:Chandrasekhar Azad

by Chandrasekhar Azad Ravan

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/i-will-give-my-bloodchandrasekhar-azad

Historic speech given by Chandrasekhar Azad on the steps of Delhi Jama Masjid

I Will Give My Blood:Chandrasekhar Azad

in India — by Chandrasekhar Azad Ravan — December 21, 2019

Historic speech given by Chandrasekhar Azad on the steps of Delhi Jama Masjid

“Jai Bhim! This is a bigger fight. CAA and NRC will break this country and we are standing with this nation. This fight is not just of the Muslims, this is a fight for everyone, and we will not let it weaken. I’m surrendering to the government, but I say this, the government will have to repeal this Act. I request my friends and comrades, don’t let this revolution weaken, make it grow. Because we are the biggest democracy in the world and that should never weaken.

Our unity is our strength. Protest peacefully, do not give them an opportunity to use their guns and lathis. With non-violence, we will be able to defeat the enemy. I firmly say this to my fellow Indians, come out onto the streets, this is not just a matter of religion or faith, it is a matter of the entire nation.

There seems to be a conspiracy to destroy our country. There seem to be preparations to take away the rights of Dalits, Adivasis and the oppressed, the meaning of their votes, reservation, government benefits, savings. I understood their game, I was fighting but… He who’s sitting there, Amit Shah, I want to tell him that if he wants Chandrasekhar at any cost, then I will go to him myself. But remember this, Ambedkarites do not back down. I’m Babasaheb’s son, I will give my life but I will not go back on my word that if the sweat of our Muslim brothers fall, I will give my blood. For that I’m ready to sacrifice anything. Thank you my friends. Keep this revolution alive after I go to jail. Jai Bhim!”

Chandrasekhar Azad Ravan is Bhim Army chief

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Modi’s veiled attack on dress as identity reveals his stark bigotry

by Ananda Maitreya

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/modis-veiled-attack-on-dress-as-identity-reveals-his-stark-bigotry

By alluding to the clothes/dresses of certain protesters, India’s Prime Minister sunk to a new low (or could he?) in his bigotry and petty-mindedness. No one was fooled regarding his reference to the clothes and clothes-wearers he pointed to. The incidents – and the fire/violence – that he was hinting at had begun at Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi, and yes, many of the marchers and protesters were Muslims. But to zero-in only on Muslims, to equate the Jamia protests only as Muslim protests is to demonstrate a very blinkered view of things.

India: Swelling Waves of Mass Protests: Reject NAA / NRC /NPR!

by Sukla Sen

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/india-swelling-waves-of-mass-protests-reject-naa-nrc-npr

No less than the UN Chief himself has put on record his concern over the “fundamentally discriminatory” nature of the Act concerned and the violence and

state repression that followed

Protest Against CAA Held In The Hague

by Press Release

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/protest-against-caa-held-in-the-hague

In solidarity with the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

When it comes to Our Morality, the Past is Always Easier than the Present

by Romi Mahajan

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/when-it-comes-to-our-morality-the-past-is-always-easier-than-the-present

In India, self-proclaimed “patriots” rightly shudder when they think of the draconian laws and murderous behavior of the British, as they ruled India, robbed the people of their wealth, and presided over death and penury at a scale the world had not seen before; they celebrate however when these very laws and behavior are enacted by their current Government over groups of people who they consider untermenschen.  “It is different this time around,” is the refrain.  The song, however, remains the same.

When it comes to Our Morality, the Past is Always Easier than the Present

in World — by Romi Mahajan — December 21, 2019

Decisions about what actions we might have taken in the past appear straightforward.  Would we have fought Nazism in its infancy or gone along with the discrimination, mayhem, and violence?  Would we have supported civil rights marchers and freedom riders, ignored them or asked them for gradualism?  Would we have fought for women’s suffrage or suggest they remain second class citizens??  Would we have supported a 40-hour work week or allowed industrialists to willfully abuse employees?  Would we have demanded that Union Carbide spend the money to fix the plant in Bhopal or worry about the “chilling effect” that might have on foreign investment?

We are all righteous in our imaginations.  We would not have been lined up in the streets and offered flowers in adoration to Hitler; no, we’d have protected Jews –and others- and fought for their rights while publicly denouncing Nazism.  And so on.

Just as we confer Sainthood on the courageous of the past, we find our own morality in the past as well.  We do so partially so we don’t have to enact it in the present.  It’s easier to be comfortable than openly and actively moral.  Even for otherwise good people, silence is easier than noise.

But noise we need.  And the present we must manage if we are to have a decent future.

In India, self-proclaimed “patriots” rightly shudder when they think of the draconian laws and murderous behavior of the British, as they ruled India, robbed the people of their wealth, and presided over death and penury at a scale the world had not seen before; they celebrate however when these very laws and behavior are enacted by their current Government over groups of people who they consider untermenschen.  “It is different this time around,” is the refrain.  The song, however, remains the same.

Others feel uncomfortable at the events unfolding but satisfy themselves with soothing thoughts about the “pendulum swinging back.”  Here, one must not look at History purely as a series of atomic events in different points of time.  The causal forces in History are not understood or accounted for in a purely phenomenological fashion.  Not always in history did the pendulum indeed swing back in time but even when it did, it did so as the result of action, protest, insurrection, and revolution.  It did not come back on its own- it never does.

Some good Germans watched as their Republic eroded, piece by piece, and kept thinking that the pendulum would swing back.  What we got in this process was Nazism and World-War Two.  Many otherwise well-meaning white Americans asked civil rights organizations to slow down, to embrace a benign gradualism.   As we’ve been reminded, they asked African –Americans to put a timeline on their own freedom and dignity.  What we got from this abdication was lynchings, redlines and assassinations.

As we sit back and wonder, in awe, how ordinary people could let demagoguery metastasize into violence, mayhem, and mind-bending destruction so many times in history, we avoid the mirror.  The mirror yields our image in the present.

So we have a choice about the world we will have.  We have a choice about what generations hence will think of us.  We have a choice to stop using the ease of invoking the past to sully the present and the future.

Indeed, it is not different this time.

Romi Mahajan in an Author, Marketer, Investor, and Activist

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Medical Opinion, Torture and

Julian Assange

by Dr Binoy Kampmark

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/medical-opinion-torture-and-julian-assange

On November 27 this year, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, delivered an address to the German Bundestag outlining his approach to understanding the mental health of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.  These comprised two parts, the initial stage covering his diplomatic asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy, the second dealing with his formal detention in the United Kingdom at the hands of the UK legal and judicial system.  The conclusion was a recapitulation of previous findings: that Assange has been subjected to a prolonged, state-sponsored effort in torture, nothing less than a targeting of his being.

Medical Opinion, Torture and Julian Assange

in World — by Dr Binoy Kampmark — December 21, 2019

On November 27 this year, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, delivered an address to the German Bundestag outlining his approach to understanding the mental health of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.  These comprised two parts, the initial stage covering his diplomatic asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy, the second dealing with his formal detention in the United Kingdom at the hands of the UK legal and judicial system.  The conclusion was a recapitulation of previous findings: that Assange has been subjected to a prolonged, state-sponsored effort in torture, nothing less than a targeting of his being.

Melzer’s address is an expansive portrait of incremental inter-state torment that led to Assange’s confinement “in a highly controlled environment within the Ecuadorean embassy for more than six years.”  There was the eventually justified fear that he would be sought by the United States in extradition proceedings.  The Swedish authorities threw in their muddled lot between 2010 and 2019, attempting to nab Assange for rape claims despite “not being able to produce enough evidence for an indictment, and which now, after almost a decade, has been silently closed for the third time based on precisely that recognition.”

Then came the British contribution, consisting of encouragement to the Swedes by the Crown Prosecution Service that the investigation should not be closed, inspiring them not to get “cold feet”.  (The cold feet eventually came.)  The Ecuadorean contribution completed the four-piece set, with the coming to power of a pro-Washington Lenín Moreno.  Embassy personnel in London were encouraged to make conditions that less pleasant; surveillance operations were conducted on Assange’s guests and meetings.

Melzer, along with a medical team, attended to Assange on May 9, 2019 in Belmarsh, finding a man with “all the symptoms that are typical of persons having been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time.”  There was little doubt, in Melzer’s mind, that symptoms “already measurable physically, neurologically and cognitively”, had been shown.

These calls went unheeded.  Melzer, in early November, accused the UK authorities of showing “outright contempt for Mr Assange’s rights and integrity.”  Despite warnings issued by the rapporteur, “the UK has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention and redress required under international law.”  Melzer’s prognosis was bleak.  “Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life.”

This point has been restated by Dr. Stephen Frost, a chief figure of the dedicated outfit calling itself Doctors for Assange. “We repeat that it is impossible to assess adequately let alone treat Mr Assange in Belmarsh prison and that he must as a matter of urgency be moved to a university teaching hospital.  When will the UK government listen to us?”

The medical degrading of Assange has assumed ever greater importance, suggesting unwavering state complicity.  On November 22, over 65 notable medical doctors sent the UK Home Secretary a note based on Melzer’s November 1 findings and Assange’s state at the October 21 case management hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court.  “It is our opinion that Mr Assange requires urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health.  Any medical treatment indicated should be administered in a properly equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital (tertiary care).”

In a second open letter to the UK Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice dated December 4, the Doctors for Assange collective warned that the UK’s “refusal to take the required measures to protect Mr Assange’s rights, health and dignity appears [to] be reckless at best and deliberate at worst and, in both cases, unlawfully and unnecessarily exposes Mr Assange to potentially irreversible risks.”

The same grounds were reiterated in a December 16 letter to Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, with a curt reminder that she had “an undeniable legal obligation to protect your citizen against the abuse of his fundamental rights, stemming from US efforts to extradite Mr Assange for journalism and publishing that exposed US war crimes.”  In the event that Payne took no action on the matter, “people would want to know what you […] did to prevent his death.”

In the addendum to the open letter, further to reiterating the precarious state of Assange’s health and medical status as a torture victim, the doctors elaborate on the circular cruelty facing the publisher.  An individual deemed “a victim of psychological torture cannot be adequately medically treated while continuing to be held under the very conditions constituting psychological torture, as is currently the case for Julian Assange.”  Appropriate medical treatment was hardly possible through a prison hospital ward.

A lesson in understanding mental torture is also proffered.  “Contrary to popular misconception, the injuries caused by psychological torture are real and extremely serious.  The term psychological torture is not a synonym for mere hardship, suffering or distress.”

At Assange’s case management hearing on December 19, restrictions on medical opinion were again implemented; psychiatrist Marco Chiesa and psychologist David Morgan were prevented from attending.  Both had been signatories to the spray of open letters.  According to Morgan, he had hoped to “provide some observations about Julian Assange’s health, psychologically, and with my colleagues, physically.”  Instead, it transpired that access was denied, according to psychologist Lissa Johnson, “despite members of the public offering to give up seats for them.”

Cold-shouldering expert opinion can be counted as one of the weapons of the state in punishing whistleblowers and publishers.  The State has always made it a bureaucratic imperative to sift the undesirable evidence from the apologetic message.  Accepting Assange’s condition would be tantamount to admission on the part of UK authorities, urged on by the United States, that intolerable, potentially martyring treatment, has been meted out to a publisher.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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CC News Letter 14 Dec - New citizenship law in India ‘fundamentally discriminatory’: UN human rights office

Dear Friend,

A new law in India which expedites citizenship for certain religious minorities has been criticized by the UN human rights office for being “fundamentally discriminatory in nature.”

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In Solidarity

Binu Mathew

Editor

Countercurrents.org

New citizenship law in India ‘fundamentally discriminatory’: UN human rights office

Press Release

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/new-citizenship-law-in-india-fundamentally-discriminatory-un-human-rights-office

A new law in India which expedites citizenship for certain religious minorities has been

criticized by the UN human rights office for being “fundamentally discriminatory in nature.”

New citizenship law in India ‘fundamentally discriminatory’: UN human rights office

in Human Rights — by Press Release — December 14, 2019

A new law in India which expedites citizenship for certain religious minorities has been criticized by the UN human rights office for being “fundamentally discriminatory in nature.”

The amendment to the Citizenship Act gives priority to Hindus, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians resident in India before 2014, but excludes Muslims, including minority sects.

“Although India’s broader naturalization laws remain in place, these amendments will have a discriminatory effect on people’s access to nationality”, Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said on Friday.

India’s Parliament passed the controversial law on Wednesday, which has sparked protests and clashes in several locations.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, Mr. Laurence said it appears to undermine India’s commitment to equality before the law, as enshrined in its Constitution.

He added that last December, India joined the international community in endorsing the Global Compact for Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration, which commits countries to ensure that all measures governing migration are based in human rights.

“All migrants, regardless of their migration status, are entitled to respect, protection and fulfilment of their human rights,” he said.

Furthermore, while protecting persecuted groups is welcome, the UN human rights office said this should happen through a “robust” asylum system based on equality and non-discrimination, and which applies to all people regardless of race, religion, national origin or other status.

“We understand the new law will be reviewed by the Supreme Court of India and hope it will consider carefully the compatibility of the law with India’s international human rights obligations”, said Mr. Laurence.

Meanwhile, international media outlets are reporting that two people were killed and many others injured, in demonstrations held in northern India on Thursday to protest the new measure.

OHCHR has urged the authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly, while all sides should refrain from resorting to violence.

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PushBACk CAB – A Million Person March is the need of the hour for India

by Ananda Maitreya

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/pushback-cab-a-million-person-march-is-the-need-of-the-hour-for-india

Given there is so much that is straight-up oppressive, discriminatory, and in violation of basic rights of people, there have been few mass protests. Of course, there have been protest gatherings for specific issues, there have been isolated and localized demonstrations, and it seems several parts of the country are rising up against the just-passed CAB.

A garland in the wrong hands

by Cynthia Stephen

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/a-garland-in-the-wrong-hands

The divisive nature of the CAB has been seen in six or seven states including Punjab, Kerala, and West Bengal refusing to implement the statute. This has opened up another fault line

Julian Assange denied access to

lawyers and vital evidence in US extradition case

by Thomas Scripps

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/julian-assange-denied-access-to-lawyers-and-vital-evidence-in-us-extradition-case

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared via videolink at Westminster Magistrates Court in London yesterday for a brief administrative hearing. The half-hour proceedings confirm that the fundamental legal rights of the world-famous investigative journalist are being trampled in what amounts to an extraordinary rendition.

Julian Assange denied access to lawyers and vital evidence in US extradition case

in World — by Thomas Scripps — December 14, 2019

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared via videolink at Westminster Magistrates Court in London yesterday for a brief administrative hearing. The half-hour proceedings confirm that the fundamental legal rights of the world-famous investigative journalist are being trampled in what amounts to an extraordinary rendition.

Assange last appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on October 21 and is being held on remand at Belmarsh maximum security prison, pending US extradition hearings due to begin next February. Assange has been charged under the US Espionage Act and faces a 175-year prison term for exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he is transported in a police vehicle to a hearing [Credit: AP Photo/Matt Dunham]

He was in a visibly worse state than at his last court appearance, appearing fidgety, tired and downcast. Witnesses in the public gallery agreed his health seemed to have deteriorated further. Naomi Colvin from Bridges for Freedom later tweeted that Assange was, “Visibly depressed, slumped shoulders. He had his arms crossed with hands inside his sleeves throughout.”

The hearing began with the court clerk reading aloud Assange’s name and date of birth and asking him to confirm these were correct. Next, the clerk asked Assange to confirm he was “a Swedish national.” Assange corrected him that he was an Australian citizen.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser began the hearing by referring to complaints by Assange’s defence lawyer Gareth Peirce that her client’s access to legal counsel is inadequate. Baraitser claimed she had “no desire to stand in the way of any lawyer having proper access to their client. It is clearly in the interest of justice that they do so.”

Her subsequent actions proved this to be a barefaced lie.

Baraitser stated, “What I can do and say is to state in open court that it would be helpful to this extradition process that Mr. Assange’s lawyers have access to their client.” However, she then insisted, as she has done in the past, that she has “no jurisdiction over the prison system” and could exercise “no influence” over the decisions of Belmarsh prison’s governor regarding visiting rights for Assange’s lawyers.

Peirce countered with legal precedent. She noted that a judge presiding over the recent case of another defendant at Belmarsh had requested the governor provide the defendant a legal visit. As Peirce explained, facilities are available in Belmarsh’s healthcare wing for additional legal visits. The “deficiency of what ought to be available” was a result of the governor’s prioritising different uses of that space.

Baraitser was unmoved. She repeated that she had “made a clear statement in open court” that it would be “helpful” for Assange to have sufficient contact with his lawyers: “At this stage that’s all I’m going to do.”

Peirce moved on to the practical impossibilities of carrying out Assange’s defence under these conditions. She explained the defence team had prepared a “summary of issues” which they intended to raise in future proceedings, including some 20-25 witnesses and extensive footnotes in reference to other evidence.

The deadline for the submission of evidence is December 18, and the next case management hearing scheduled for December 19. However, Peirce explained she has not yet been able to discuss the document or underlying evidence with Assange. The next available date for such a meeting at Belmarsh was December 18, with prison authorities giving him less than a day to review the details.

Astoundingly, Baraitser asked, “Do you agree that it is perhaps less important that that information is gone through in detail with your client?”

Peirce replied that the document was “incredibly detailed… essential and integral… some of it is recently acquired evidence, some of it is subject to months of investigation not always in this country, of which [Assange] is unaware because of the blockage in visits.”

“Despite our best efforts, Mr. Assange has not been given what he must be given, and we are doing our utmost to cut through this.”

Baraitser replied that she was “hopeful” that they could “serve at least some of the evidence” and conclude their discussions on December 18.

The videolink was ended without Assange being asked any further questions.

When Baraitser asked if it would be helpful to have Assange appear in court in person on December 19, Peirce responded that she would have to discuss that with her client since it was a “difficult and claustrophobic journey” from Belmarsh. Her response points to the degrading conditions endured by Assange. Prior to his last appearance at court, he was strip searched on arrival and held in a room described by prisoners as the “hot box.”

One day after the scheduled case management hearing on December 19, Assange will be interviewed as a witness to the surveillance of the Ecuadorian embassy by Spanish firm UC Global. A criminal case has been brought against its owner, David Morales, in Spain.

On behalf of the CIA, UC Global spied on conversations held by Assange with his associates, and on privileged discussions with his lawyers and doctors while he was a political asylee in the embassy. The phones, laptops and personal documents of lawyers and journalists were illegally accessed.

This represents a gross violation of the fundamental right to privileged communication with one’s legal counsel and should already have seen the US extradition case thrown out of court.

There is a clear and direct precedent for doing so. When US President Richard Nixon used the Espionage Act to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for releasing the Pentagon Papers exposing criminal wrongdoing in the Vietnam War, the case collapsed after it was revealed the Nixon administration had overseen illegal spying on consultations between the whistleblower and his doctors.

Today, even these most elementary legal principles have been jettisoned by the ruling class. The Ellsberg case and its revelations about the war in Vietnam set the stage for what became known as the “Vietnam syndrome,” broad popular hostility to US military interventions. WikiLeaks achieved much the same with its exposure of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

With their treatment of Assange, the ruling class hopes to establish the reverse precedent: an evisceration of democratic rights and the destruction of anti-war whistleblowers, journalists and publishers to pave the way for new and even more catastrophic conflicts.

Yesterday’s half-hour proceedings took place just hours after the UK general election that delivered a Conservative government. The most right-wing government in modern British history is headed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose “special relationship” with the Trump administration saw him welcome the brutal expulsion of Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy on April 11, writing, “It’s only right that Julian Assange finally faces justice. Credit to @foreignoffice officials who have worked tirelessly to secure this outcome.”

Originally published by WSWS.org

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1964 was a Good Year

by Supratim Barman

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/1964-was-a-good-year

There is no division between people. Spend your Life with a laser-like focus to eradicate the disease of BullShit from Society; and to Live As One, United In The Common Struggle. There is No Other Way.

Future

by Bhuwan Thapaliya

https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/future

As a gust of wind sends

the curtains flapping wildly,

I wonder about our future.

The future is

signaling

us to go back.