Julian Assange — How Justice is Committing Crimes Against Human Rights
In the broadest and most general sense when one refers to justice one is normally referring to its juridical nature. That is, justice can only be made tangible when the mechanisms and administration of the law is equally applied to all individuals in society, that law cannot be just when it is juridically biased. This article seeks to make demonstrable that the extradition of Julian Assange is not only unlawful and unjust, its administration has been a crime against human rights. For example, on two separate occasions independent agencies for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has found that the U.S., in managing the extradition and prosecution of Assange, has in effect caused his arbitrary, and thus unlawful dentention for more than ten years, most of which have been served in almost complete isolation. More recently, an independent expert for the OHCHR similarly found that this prolonged arbitrary detention has resulted in the “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” of Assange.
According to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, an independent agency for the OHCHR, Assange’s arbitrary detention started in 2010 when he was placed in solitary confinement in a British prison for ten days, followed by 550 days of house arrest at the request of a Swedish prosecutor. At the time, the Swedish prosecutor alleged Assange of sexual misconduct which has been found to be grossly false. According to the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr. Nils Melzer, who is also the Human Rights Chair of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, the Swedish allegations against Assange have not only been a fabrication of the Swedish prosecutor, the prosecutor’s investigation process had been riddled with human rights abuses. In his investigation on these allegations Dr. Melzer found unethical legal practices performed by the Swedish prosecution. Through the tampering of evidence and witness testimony, coercion by the UK Crown Prosecution Service, as well as working with the press in order to tarnish Assange’s character, Dr. Melzer concluded that the Swedish juridical process against Assange as one that is “simply grotesque”.
For Dr. Melzer, “[t]here is only a single explanation for everything […][the Swedish prosecutor] wanted to apprehend [Assange] so they could extradite him to the U.S.” He further noted that the allegations by the Swedish prosecutor is impossibly coincidental. That is, the allegations were preceeded by two of the biggest leaks in U.S. military history, released by Wikileaks, an online publication founded by Assange. The first had been the release of Collateral Murder in April 2010. The classified video shows U.S. soldiers deliberately killing at least a dozen civilians, including two Reuters news employees, in a suburb in New Baghdad. Shortly after, Wikileaks published the Afghan War Diary which exposed the illegal U.S. war in Afghanistan. This second release illustrated in detail the killing of civilians, allies, and enemy forces and how the U.S. military covered it up through its bureaucratic processes. For many like the independent agencies of the UN OHCHR and its experts, Assange’s extradition has been the direct result of these publications of state secrets, exposing war crimes committed by the U.S. However unfortunate, in its quest to extradite Assange the U.S. has made demonstrable how the rule of law and the administration of justice have been applied unjustly. This has been made evident through the Swedish prosecutor’s fabricated allegations against Assange.
Moreover, as the OHCHR’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded in 2015, Assange has been abitrarily detained by Sweden and Britain for the sake of the U.S. In their report, the group found that during house arrest (a result of the Swedish allegations) Assange had sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London due to legitimate concerns that he would be extradited to the U.S. where he “would face serious criminal charges for the peaceful exercise of his freedoms.” Assange had been granted asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 where he had been constantly surveilled by British police until they arrested him in 2019. The Working Group concluded that Assange’s detention had not only been arbitrary, it also subjected him to the deprivation of his liberty. These findings were based on violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Dr. Melzer compares Assange’s asylum to a person being left to rot for seven years in a room.
Julian Assange has been held in HMP Belmarsh in London since his arrest in 2019. Belmarsh is a maximum-security prison where Assange has been placed in near isolation for violating his bail conditions during house arrest at the time of the Swedish fabricated allegations.
When one takes a closer look at both the UDHR and ICCPR the injustices committed by the Swedish, American, and British juridical processes becomes clear. For instance, article 9 of the UDHR states, “[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” Again, this has been evidently shown through the Swedish prosecutor’s tampering of evidence. Furthermore, article 10 of the UDHR notes, “[e]veryone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.” Article 10 is particularly interesting when one pays closer scrutiny to Assange’s arrest from the Ecuadorian Embassy. As Dr. Melzer recounts, on the day of Assange’s arrest by British authorities he had been placed before a British judge who convicted him for bail violations then sent to Belmarsh, all on the same day. Dr. Melzer had noted, “Assange only had 15 minutes to prepare with his lawyer. The trial itself also lasted just 15 minutes.” From this it becomes obvious that the British juridical process is in clear violation of human rights and that of article 10.
Assange’s never-ending detention and isolation for more than a decade have left him psychologically devastated. With little to no communication with the outside world his psychological condition have manifested to physical ones. For instance, the judge overseeing his case in Belmarsh had noted that, “Assange [is] finding it hard to control his thoughts of self-harm and suicide.” The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) made similar findings after visiting Assange (an Australian national) in Belmarsh. While Assange’s lawyers acknowledge his “shockingly poor conditions” they do not describe his condition as suicidal or that his mind has been completely shut off, conditions that both the judge and DFAT had noted. Instead, his lawyers had observed that Assange, a highly intelligent individual “is struggling not only to cope but to articulate what he wishes to articulate”. His conditions of course, however severe, are the result of his isolation and arbitrary detention for over a decade. His internet had been cut off since his asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy, his isolation had prevented him from simple enjoyments like sunlight, and his constant surveillance has prevented him from freely communicating with his lawyers, family, loved ones, and friends. Coupled with his pre-extradition detention in Belmarsh where visits with lawyers, medical experts, and family have been few and far in-between, it becomes easy to conclude that Assange’s conditions are indeed shocking.
While the UN independent agencies have not called the juridical processes involved as committing crimes against human, civil, and political rights, they are nonetheless implied. A quick look at article 7 of the ICCPR reiterates this point, it says, “[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment […]”. Article 10 further notes that, “[a]ll persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.” These juridical contradictions against basic human rights have been reinforced in Dr. Melzer’s findings in his December 2020 report on torture. Dr. Melzer refers to the prosecution of Assange as political persecution, one that has denied Assange of his basic right to “defend himself and to be treated in a humane manner.” Dr. Melzer concludes that the case against Assange “is a huge scandal and represents the failure of Western rule of law.”
The juridical process in the extradition of Assange, from the Swedish prosecution to its police, to the British Crown Prosecution Service and its judges, surveillance authorities and prison systems, to the Ecuadorian Embassy’s revocation of Assange’s Ecuadorian citizenship without due process, to the coercion of the U.S. in its extradition, makes demonstrable the injustices committed by these judicial bodies and each institutions involved. When the practice of justice becomes unjust, injustice becomes the norm like the war crimes which Assange had exposed through his publication which have never been tried or investigated. Western rule of law has been a shinning example of justice yet how can that be so when the case of Julian Assange illustrates the exact opposite?
The apparently infallible beacon that is the juridical system of the west has been made demonstrably false through the case of Assange. Western law having been reverted to its classical and even medieval roots where punishment and torture were standard means of conviction is, of course, reversible. The juridical systems involved can certainly reclaim its status as the shinning light of justice in an increasingly dark world. In order to do so, however, it has to reverse its medieval legal practices and crimes against Julian Assange.
