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Julian Assange wins right to appeal extradition to US, remains in UK prison for now

Published

8 months ago

9 minute read

Julian Assange, Embassy Of Ecuador on May 19, 2017 in London, England.

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

On Monday Julian Assange won the right to appeal his extradition to the United States, where he would face espionage charges, on the grounds that he could not be guaranteed a defense under the First Amendment.

In a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice to decide his fate, imprisoned journalist Julian Assange has won the right to appeal his extradition to the United States.

The May 20 ruling means his transfer to the U.S. to face charges under the Espionage Act is delayed. He was granted the right to appeal, in his absence, on the grounds that he could not be guaranteed a defense under the First Amendment in the United States.

The move came despite assurances from U.S. lawyers and could see Assange face months more imprisonment whilst an appeal is prepared.

Leave to appeal welcomed

Assange’s lawyers have questioned assurances that he will not face the death penalty if extradited to the U.S. to face 18 charges claiming his publications through WikiLeaks damaged U.S. national security and endangered the lives of U.S. agents.

No agent has been harmed as a result of Assange’s disclosures.

The U.K.’s National Union of Journalists welcomed the move.

READ: Julian Assange’s show trial could determine the future of press freedom in the West

At this crucial juncture, this judgment serves as a positive step forward for Assange and for every journalist seeking to reveal truths through their reporting… We welcome today’s judgment and hope it is the first step in victory for Assange.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, appealed for Assange’s immediate release:

President Biden should do the right thing now and clear the way for Assange’s release.

Five years and counting

“The U.K. and U.S. are happy to talk about political prisoners abroad,” said Stella Assange, in a moving video account of Assange’s ordeal published on the morning of the hearing. “But they have created a political prisoner of their own.”

She points out that whilst war criminals such as former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair are free and very prosperous, Assange has been denied the right to appear at his own trials since 2021. What is more, she says, “Julian did nothing wrong. He exposed war crimes.”

She explained why he was imprisoned – as a punishment for revealing war crimes through his organization, WikiLeaks.

Julian is in prison because WikiLeaks is a publisher which specializes in the secrets that states keep the most hidden.

She went on:

Julian revealed war crimes committed by the superpower, the United States. That superpower has punished him.

She argues that the case extends the right of states to suppress press freedom beyond its own borders. This, she says, provides a precedent for critics of any regime worldwide to be targeted and silenced in the same way.

Stella Assange, a human rights lawyer, says evidence held by WikiLeaks shows that 30 former intelligence agents have said there was a plot to assassinate Assange by the CIA.

The plot was revealed in October 2021 and documented in a piece from the same month by Patrick Cockburn titled “The CIA plot to kidnap or kill Julian Assange in London is a story that is being mistakenly ignored.”

The beginning of the end?

The current head of WikiLeaks, the outlet formerly headed by Assange, branded the court’s decision as a win, according to Consortium News.

‘This was a watershed moment in this very long battle,’ said WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn at an event following the hearing. ‘Today marked the beginning of the end of the persecution. The signaling from the courts here in London was clear to the U.S. government: We don’t believe your guarantees, we don’t believe in your assurances.’

Keeping Assange ‘caged’

Yet independent journalist Glenn Greenwald saw a darker motive in the long, drawn-out process of Assange’s continuing confinement.

His post on X (formerly Twitter) referred to the initial removal of Assange from the London Embassy of Ecuador, in which he had taken refuge in 2012.

Following accusations now withdrawn, an arrest warrant had been issued for Assange in 2010. His retreat into the Ecuadorian embassy saw him confined there for seven years.

However, 24 hours after WikiLeaks published details of high-level corruption in Ecuador, he was handed over to British police on April 11, 2019. He has been in custody or prison ever since.

Greenwald added:

The real purpose of pressuring Ecuador to remove its asylum protection for Assange, and now Biden’s relentless extradition demands, is not to bring Assange to the US for trial – the [White House] does not want that – but to keep Assange caged and destroyed.

The United Nations has long condemned his treatment, saying the British government was “arbitrarily detaining” him without charge.

Responding to one X user who said the courts were simply “kicking the can” by postponing a judgement, Greenwald replied again:

Yes, but Assange quite reasonably views extradition to the US as the worst of all options, because if that happens, he will be disappeared into a dungeon, tried in E. Virginia with national security judges who convict everyone, and then will die in a US cage.

Appeals and hope for release

With this grim fate in mind, the Defend Assange Campaign released the following appeal for his immediate release on X:

Julian Assange will remain isolated, in a cell in the UK’s harshest prison for the foreseeable future, following today’s granting of an appeal by the UK high court[.]

For over 13 years detained in one form or another – it is time to bring this charade to an end…

Hopes that President Biden, seeking to reconcile his tarnished image with younger voters, would drop the charges against Assange seem to be fading.

What remains in this box is not hope, as with that of Pandora, but a man who dared expose the crimes of the rulers to the ruled.

His treatment is an example to us all, and it is one which speaks a dark truth about those who remain in power.

Former U.K. ambassador Craig Murray, a longtime supporter of Assange, spoke outside the courtroom following the news:

“We haven’t got Julian out just yet… But we are on the way… to victory in this battle,” he said.

Murray, who recalled the 12 years he has spent in supporting Assange, gave the crowd a resoundingly confident message:

And we are seeing at last an acknowledgement of the crucial importance of freedom of speech, freedom of information, and of the public’s right to know.

And those are the grounds on which we will win this case.

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President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance visibly rolled their eyes as the Episcopal bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, lectured them on being kind to transgender people and immigrants at Tuesday’s National Prayer Service.

Budde requested that the newly sworn-in president and vice president “have mercy” on gay, lesbian and transgender people as well as illegal immigrants who are allegedly “scared” by the new administration. The new leaders did not appear amused by her lecture, with Vance repeatedly shooting looks to his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance.

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now,” Budde said. “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, who work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors, they are faithful members of churches and our mosques, synagogues and temples.”

WATCH: 

Trump and Vance attended the National Prayer Service along with Usha, First Lady Melania Trump and their families at the Washington National Cathedral. The interfaith service was held to “offer prayers of thanksgiving for our democracy” at the beginning of the new administration, according to a statement from the National Cathedral.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

WEF ranks ‘disinformation’ as greater threat to world stability than ‘armed conflict’

Published on January 21, 2025

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From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe

Misinformation and disinformation, along with societal polarization, are catalysts that amplify all other global risks, including armed conflict and climate change, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).

On Wednesday, the WEF published its annual Global Risks Report with very few changes from last year’s edition.

For the second year in a row, the number one global risk over the next two years is misinformation and disinformation, which have cascading effects on other leading risks, according to the WEF “Global Risks Report 2025”:

Similar to last year, Misinformation and disinformation and Societal polarization remain key current risks […] The high rankings of these two risks is not surprising considering the accelerating spread of false or misleading information, which amplifies the other leading risks we face, from State-based armed conflict to Extreme weather events

According to the Global Risks 2025 report, polarization “continues to fan the flames of misinformation and disinformation, which, for the second year running, is the top-ranked short- to medium-term concern across all risk categories.”

“Efforts to combat this risk are coming up against a formidable opponent in Generative AI-created false or misleading content that can be produced and distributed at scale,” which was the same assessment given in the 2024 report.

Apart from inflation and economic downturn, there isn’t much of a difference in global risks between 2024 and 2025.

Compare the top 10 short-term and long-term global risks from 2024 with those for 2025 in the images below.

WEF Top 10 Global Risks 2025

WEF Top 10 Global Risks 2024

Rising use of digital platforms and a growing volume of AI-generated content are making divisive misinformation and disinformation more ubiquitous. — WEF Global Risks Report 2025

The Global Risks Report 2025 says that misinformation, coupled with algorithmic bias, leads to a situation where you and I should accept giving up some of our privacy for convenience, which subsequently makes it easier for us to be monitored and controlled:

Despite the dangers related to false or misleading content, and the associated risks of algorithmic bias, citizens need to strike a balance between privacy on one hand and increased online personalization and convenience on the other hand.

While data governance and regulation vary worldwide, it is becoming easier for citizens to be monitored, enabling governments, technology companies and threat actors to reach deeper into people’s lives.

Those with access to rising computing power and the ability to leverage sophisticated AI/GenAI models could, if they choose to, exploit further the vulnerabilities provided by citizens’ online footprints.

What else can we blame on misinformation?

I know! Climate change:

The accelerating spread of false or misleading information […] amplifies the other leading risks we face, from State-based armed conflict to Extreme weather events.

WEF Global Risks 2025

While the term “climate change” is mentioned several times in the Global Risks Report 2025, it does not appear anywhere in the actual list of 33 global risks.

Instead of using the term “climate change,” the full list of global risks uses several climate-adjacent terms, such as:

  • Extreme weather events
  • Pollution
  • Critical change to Earth systems
  • Natural resource shortages
  • Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse
  • Involuntary migration or displacement

The unelected globalists are now lumping terms like the ones above to push their climate policies and agendas, and they even go so far as to claim that misinformation amplifies extreme weather events, which actually might be true, just not in the way they imagined:

For example, on Tuesday WEF president and CEO Børge Brende blamed the California fires, which we may consider to be examples of extreme weather events or biodiversity loss, to climate change while not addressing how the state cut funding to fight fires, how the Los Angeles fire chief said the city failed her agency, or the role of arsonists.

By blaming the fires on just climate change while ignoring the rest, could Brende himself be engaging in disinformation?

Climate change is also an underlying driver of several other risks that rank high. For example, Involuntary migration or displacement is a leading concern. — WEF Global Risks Report 2025

The WEF Global Risks Report 2025 lumps many global risks together with the belief that they are all interconnected.

For example, it says that misinformation and polarization amplify armed conflict, extreme weather events, involuntary migration or displacement, and all the risks in-between.

It’s the same tactic the unelected globalists use when they conflate misinformation and disinformation with hate speech, so they can use one as an excuse to go after the other.

For the WEF and partners, global problems require global solutions with global governance through public-private partnerships – the merger of corporation and state, which is also known as fascism or corporatism.

In the end, the global risks report is just a survey, and the risks may or may not materialize.

In January 2023, the WEF announced the results of a survey of cyber leaders that said a “catastrophic cyber event” was likely to occur within the next two years.

Here we are exactly two years later and that never happened.

For the unelected globalists, misinformation and disinformation are words they throw out to try to crush narratives that don’t align with their own, and they will use any threat, whether real or perceived, to advance their agendas and policies.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.

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