A Chronicle Of Julian Assange’s Imprisonment

On the behest of the US authorities, the British authorities has detained WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in His Majesty’s Jail Belmarsh for 5 years. 

Assange is without doubt one of the solely journalists to be jailed by a Western nation, making the remedy that he has endured extraordinary. He has spent extra time in jail than most people charged with comparable crimes. 

Since December 2010, Assange has lived beneath some type of arbitrary detention.

He was expelled from Ecuador’s London embassy on April 11, 2019, and British police instantly arrested him. Police transported Assange to Belmarsh, a maximum-security facility usually referred to as “Britain’s Guantanamo.” 

Across the identical time, the U.S. Justice Division unsealed an indictment that alleged that Assange had conspired with U.S. Military whistleblower Chelsea Manning to commit a “pc intrusion.” The next month the DOJ issued one other indictment with 17 further Espionage Act costs. 

2019

On Might 1, Assange was sentenced by a British court docket to 50 weeks in jail as punishment for in search of political asylum from Ecuador whereas Sweden was making an attempt to extradite him. His sentence was longer than the six-month sentence that Jack Shepherd, the “speedboat killer” obtained for “breaching bail.” 

UN Particular Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer visited Assange on Might 9. Two medical specialists, who focus on analyzing potential torture survivors, accompanied Melzer. He reported on Might 31 that “Assange confirmed all [the] signs typical for extended publicity to psychological torture, together with excessive stress, power nervousness and intense psychological trauma.”

A couple of weeks after Melzer’s go to, jail directors moved Assange to the medical ward. A WikiLeaks spokesperson said that their former editor-in-chief’s well being had “continued to deteriorate,” and he had “dramatically misplaced weight.” A protection lawyer indicated that it had change into unattainable to “conduct a standard dialog with him.” 

Australian journalist John Pilger, a good friend and supporter of Assange, shared, “Once I noticed him a few weeks in the past he wasn’t very nicely then. However then he’s been in an embassy in a confined house with out pure mild for nearly seven years.”

“He wants an excessive amount of diagnostic care and rehabilitation. He’s gone by way of a rare bodily and psychological ordeal. And now he’s having to undergo this,” Pilger added. 

Assange accomplished his jail sentence in September, nevertheless, District Choose Vanessa refused to launch him on bail as a result of she believed he would “abscond once more.”  

Former British ambassador Craig Murray attended a listening to at Westminster Magistrates Court docket on October 21, 2019, and shared what he witnessed.

“I used to be badly shocked by simply how a lot weight my good friend has misplaced, by the velocity his hair has receded and by the looks of untimely and vastly accelerated growing old. He has a pronounced limp I’ve by no means seen earlier than. Since his arrest he has misplaced over 15 kg [33 pounds] in weight.”

Murray continued, “When requested to offer his title and date of beginning, he struggled visibly over a number of seconds to recall each.”

“I don’t perceive how this course of is equitable,” Assange declared. “This superpower had 10 years to organize for this case, and I can’t even entry my writings. It is extremely tough, the place I’m, to do something. These folks have limitless sources.”

In keeping with Murray, it was a “actual battle” to handle the court docket. “[H]is voice dropped and he turned more and more confused and incoherent. He spoke of whistleblowers and publishers being labeled enemies of the folks, then spoke about his youngsters’s DNA being stolen and of being spied on in his conferences together with his psychologist. I’m not suggesting in any respect that Julian was mistaken about these factors, however he couldn’t correctly body nor articulate them.” 

“He was plainly not himself, very ailing and it was simply horribly painful to observe. Baraitser confirmed neither sympathy nor the least concern. She tartly noticed that if he couldn’t perceive what had occurred, his legal professionals might clarify it to him, and she or he swept out of court docket,” Murray added.

2020

Assange remained in Belmarsh jail’s medical ward till mid-January. Throughout that point, he lived in circumstances that amounted to solitary confinement. The cruel confinement ended solely after his authorized crew and several other prisoners petitioned directors to maneuver him right into a wing with different prisoners.

In February, the primary of two hearings on the U.S. extradition request had been held. The proceedings targeted on issues of extradition regulation, and Assange’s attorneys complained about alleged abuse after the primary day. 

SBS Australia reported, “The WikiLeaks founder was stripped bare twice, handcuffed 11 occasions and had his authorized case recordsdata confiscated by guards at London’s Belmarsh Jail on Monday, his legal professionals instructed the listening to.”

District Choose Vanessa Baraitser claimed there was nothing that she might do to make sure Assange was handled humanely.

Assange was compelled to noticed proceedings in his personal case from inside a glass field. Jen Robinson, considered one of Assange’s attorneys, stated that he was “unable to go notes in a confidential and safe approach. He’s unable to hunt clarification from his authorized crew and provides directions throughout the course of the proceedings.” 

It was tough for Assange to take part in his protection, and but, Baraitser denied a request to permit him to sit down together with his attorneys within the courtroom. 

Not lengthy after the week-long listening to, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the vast majority of the world. It vastly intensified the hardship of imprisonment.

Vaughan Smith, a good friend who allowed Assange to stay with him beneath home arrest in 2010, wrote on April 9 that Assange was “confined alone in a cell 23 and a half hours day by day. He will get half an hour of train and that’s in a yard crowded with different prisoners. With over 150 Belmarsh jail employees off work self-isolating, the jail is barely functioning.”

“We all know of two COVID-19 deaths in Belmarsh to date, although the [Ministry] of Justice have admitted to just one loss of life. Julian instructed me that there have been extra, and that the virus is ripping by way of the jail,” Smith stated.

On March 25, Assange’s authorized crew went earlier than Baraitser and requested that he be granted bail. There have been widespread requires the discharge of detainees and prisoners so as to halt the unfold of COVID. However Baraitser denied the request. 

Belmarsh didn’t permit guests from March 22 to the final week of August. He was unable to see his associate Stella or his two youngsters, Gabriel and Max.

When Stella visited Julian, he was not allowed to hug his youngsters except he needed to be in solitary confinement for 2 weeks.

“Julian stated it was the primary time he had been given a masks as a result of issues are very totally different behind the doorways,” Stella shared. “[H]e seemed lots thinner. He was sporting a yellow armband to point his degree of prisoner standing, and you would see how skinny his arms had been.”

The U.S. Justice Division issued another indictment in June that added to Julian Assange’s stress by accusing the WikiLeaks founding father of conspiring with “hackers” affiliated with “Nameless,” “LulzSec,” “AntiSec,” and “Gnosis.” Among the new allegations had been sourced to Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson—a serial legal, mendacity sociopath, and convicted pedophile. 

Though the pandemic impacted public and press entry to proceedings, Baraitser went ahead with the second a part of the extradition listening to in September. Assange’s authorized crew known as a number of witnesses to assist problem the extradition request. It lasted a month.

Dr. Quinton Deeley, who works for the Nationwide Well being Service (NHS), performed an Autism Diagnostic Statement Schedule (ADOS) check and interviewed Assange for six hours in July. He was identified with Asperger’s syndrome.

Assange instructed Deeley he feared he could be held in isolation in a U.S. jail. He was afraid of the contemporary indictment. He was additionally involved in regards to the destiny of Joshua Schulte, who was held in harsh confinement circumstances previous to his trial for disclosing the “Vault 7” supplies to WikiLeaks.

If extradited, Deeley decided Assange’s threat of suicide could be excessive beneath the circumstances. He stated Assange “ruminates about potential circumstances at size,” and it causes a “sense of horror.” And, “He would discover it an insufferable ordeal, and I feel his incapability to bear that within the context of [an] acute worsening melancholy would confer excessive threat of suicide.”

A few months later, on November 2, Manoel Santos, a homosexual Brazilian who was dealing with deportation to Brazil, killed himself. He was a prisoner who had change into Assange’s good friend, and his loss of life was extremely devastating for Assange. 

“Julian tells me Manoel was a wonderful tenor,” Stella Assange shared. “He helped Julian learn letters in Portuguese and he was a good friend. He feared deportation to Brazil after 20 years, being homosexual put him in danger the place he was from,” she stated. (Jair Bolsonaro, an anti-gay fascist, was president of Brazil.) 

There was additionally a COVID outbreak in Assange’s jail block in November. “I’m extraordinarily nervous about Julian. Julian’s medical doctors say that he’s weak to the consequences of the virus. Nevertheless it’s not simply COVID,” Stella declared. 

She added, “Every single day that passes is a critical threat to Julian. Belmarsh is a particularly harmful atmosphere the place murders and suicides are commonplace.”

2021

The 12 months at Belmarsh began with a bittersweet victory. District Choose Vanessa Baraitser dominated that extraditing Julian Assange to the US could be “oppressive” for psychological well being causes. 

Though Baraitser refused to uphold sure protections that will defend Assange’s freedom of expression, the decide acknowledged the cruelty of the U.S. jail system, notably what would occur to Assange if he was despatched to a supermax jail.

However two days later, legal professionals from the Crown Prosecution Service argued Assange shouldn’t be granted bail as a result of he helped NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden “flee justice.” Legal professionals additionally singled out Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s asylum offer and insisted that he stay in Belmarsh or else he would go to Mexico’s London embassy to flee prosecution.

The district decide sided with the U.S. authorities. She agreed that the help WikiLeaks offered Snowden demonstrated that Assange would pose a “flight threat.” Baraitser additional argued that the “enormous assist networks” that Assange had would assist him “ought to he once more select to go to floor.” Supporters would make it simpler for the WikiLeaks founder to evade prosecution.

Following President Joe Biden’s election, Stella was cautiously optimistic that his administration would have wish to “venture a dedication to the First Modification.” This might drive the U.S. Justice Division beneath Biden to drop the fees. Nonetheless, the Biden administration wouldn’t relent of their pursuit of the case. 

Contagious variants of COVID unfold all through the world. For eight months, Belmarsh directors would not permit Stella or his two youngsters to go to Julian.  

Stella instructed the information media after her jail go to that British authorities wanted to convey this case to an finish as a result of they had been “driving” Julian to “deep melancholy and into despair.” 

“[Julian] shouldn’t be in jail in any respect, he shouldn’t be prosecuted in any respect, as a result of he did the correct factor: he revealed the reality,” Stella declared. 

His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons made two unannounced visits to Belmarsh in late July 26-27 and early August. A report [PDF] revealed by the inspector discovered that “charges of violence” had spiked regardless of COVID restrictions “limiting the time most prisoners had been out of their cells.”

“The jail had not paid enough consideration to the rising ranges of self-harm and there was not sufficient oversight or care taken of prisoners liable to suicide. Pressing motion wanted to be taken on this space to be sure that these prisoners had been saved protected,” in keeping with the report.

A listening to on the U.S. authorities’s attraction was held earlier than the British Excessive Court docket of Justice on the finish of October. Assange had a “mini-stroke” on the primary day and was unable to observe proceedings. 

On December 10, the Excessive Court docket ruled in favor of the U.S. authorities’s attraction and overturned the decrease court docket determination that had momentarily spared Assange. The judges stated they had been “happy” with diplomatic assurances that had been provided by the U.S. State Division. The court docket had no motive to consider that Assange wouldn’t be handled appropriately in U.S. custody. 

Assange instantly appealed to the UK’s Supreme Court docket to rethink the choice.

“At the moment is worldwide Human Rights Day,” Stella declared. What a disgrace. How cynical to have this determination on this present day, to have the foremost writer [and] journalist of the previous 50 years in a U.Ok jail accused of publishing the reality about battle crimes, about CIA kill groups.”

“Actually, each time we now have a listening to, we all know extra in regards to the abusive nature, the legal nature of this case.”

2022

One other bittersweet second within the case occurred at Belmarsh on March 23. Jail directors ended their opposition and allowed Julian and Stella to marry one another in a pared-down marriage ceremony ceremony. 

Stella proclaimed, “This isn’t a jail marriage ceremony, it’s a declaration of affection and resilience regardless of the jail partitions, regardless of the political persecution, regardless of the arbitrary detention, regardless of the hurt and harassment inflicted on Julian and our household. Their torment solely makes our love develop stronger.”

Nonetheless, the UK’s Ministry of Justice refused to permit journalists Craig Murray and Chris Hedges to attend as witnesses as a result of they repeatedly publish articles in regards to the case. The jail additionally tried to disclaim entry to the couple’s “proposed photographer” and labeled marriage ceremony footage a “safety threat” as a result of the pictures might flow into on social media or within the press.

“I’m satisfied that they worry that individuals will see Julian as a human being. Not a reputation, however an individual,” Stella responded. “Their worry reveals that they need Julian to stay invisible to the general public in any respect prices, even on his marriage ceremony day, and particularly on his marriage ceremony day,” Stella responded.

Nonetheless, as Stella instructed 60 Minutes Australia, the 2 exchanged vows and hugged. “It was like we weren’t in a jail. For a second, the jail partitions disappeared. The guards and the prisoners and the guests had been all saying congratulations, and when Julian got here in as nicely, they began clapping.”

Julian Assange’s attraction to the U.Ok. Supreme Court docket was rejected days earlier than marriage ceremony. The court docket was unwilling to evaluation any of the problems that his authorized crew raised. That meant the extradition request was accredited by the district court docket and despatched to U.Ok. Residence Secretary Priti Patel for approval in June. 

A brand new attraction was filed in July, and as Assange sought an attraction listening to earlier than the Excessive Court docket, his case was thrust into limbo. 

In October, Assange was compelled to isolate within the jail for a number of days after he was infected with COVID. He was locked in his cell for twenty-four hours a day. 

The information was shared a pair days after Stella Assange and supporters shaped a human chain round U.Ok. Parliament in a present of solidarity for the jailed WikiLeaks founder.

2023/2024

Whereas the Australian authorities had persistently declined to advocate for the rights of considered one of their very own residents, Stephen Smith, who was Australia’s excessive commissioner to the UK, visited Julian Assange at Belmarsh. 

“I’m very eager simply to have a dialog with him, test on his well being and wellbeing and hopefully see whether or not common visits is likely to be a function of the connection with Mr Assange going ahead,” Smith told the press, as he entered the jail. 

The go to was a product of campaigning by Assange supporters in Australia. Lastly, the prime minister of Australia—a detailed U.S. ally—was publicly demanding that the case in opposition to Assange finish.

An analogous go to by Reporters With out Borders (RSF) Secretary-Common Christophe Deloire and Director of Operations Rebecca Vincent was blocked by Belmarsh directors on the identical day. RSF was shocked as a result of they’d coordinated with the jail.

“Jail officers instructed the RSF representatives that they’d ‘obtained intelligence’ that they had been journalists, and would due to this fact not be allowed in, per a call of Belmarsh Jail Governor Jenny Louis. The Governor didn’t reply to pressing requests to fulfill Deloire and Vincent or to in any other case intervene to permit their entry,” RSF shared. 

In Might, the primary public letter from Assange since he was confined at Belmarsh was shared. The jailed WikiLeaks founder satirically welcomed King Charles to the British throne and inspired Charles to go to his jail.

“As a political prisoner, held at Your Majesty’s pleasure on behalf of an embarrassed international sovereign, I’m honored to reside inside the partitions of this world class establishment. Actually, your kingdom is aware of no bounds, Assange wrote.

“Throughout your go to, you should have the chance to feast upon the culinary delights ready to your loyal topics on a beneficiant finances of two kilos per day. Savor the blended tuna heads and the ever present reconstituted types which are purportedly constructed from rooster. And fear not, for not like lesser establishments corresponding to Alcatraz or San Quentin, there isn’t a communal eating in a large number corridor. At Belmarsh, prisoners dine alone of their cells, guaranteeing the utmost intimacy with their meal.”

“Enterprise additional into the depths of Belmarsh and you’ll discover probably the most remoted place inside its partitions: Healthcare, or “Hellcare” as its inhabitants lovingly name it,” Assange added. “Right here, you’ll marvel at smart guidelines designed for everybody’s security, such because the prohibition of chess, while allowing the far much less harmful recreation of checkers.”

Assange described the “Belmarsh Finish of Life Suite,” the place prisoners cry, “Brother, I’m going to die in right here,” and the crows nesting on the razor wire together with “the hungry rats that decision Belmarsh residence.”

“In case you come within the spring, you might even catch a glimpse of the ducklings laid by wayward mallards inside the jail grounds. However don’t delay, for the ravenous rats guarantee their lives are fleeting.”

On June 8, the British Excessive Court docket of Justice ruled in opposition to Assange’s request for an attraction. The court docket determination, which inexplicably took almost a 12 months to be issued, was authored by Choose Sir Jonathan Swift and contained little clarification for the denial. 

That compelled Assange’s authorized crew into yet another part of limbo as they re-submitted an abbreviated attraction and waited for the court docket to grant a listening to. 

Journalist Charles Glass visited Assange on December 13. He final met with Assange six years in the past whereas he was nonetheless in Ecuador’s London embassy.

In a report for The Nation, Glass wrote, “His paleness is greatest described as deathly,” and the rationale he appears to be like so unwell is as a result of he has not seen the solar since he was transported to the jail on April 11, 2019. 

“Warders confine him to a cell for 23 out of each 24 hours. His single hour of recreation takes place inside 4 partitions, beneath supervision.”

The meals that’s obtainable at Belmarsh consists of “porridge for breakfast, skinny soup for lunch, and never a lot else for dinner.”

“Belmarsh’s warders shove the meals into the cells for prisoners to eat alone. It’s laborious to make buddies that approach. He has been there longer than every other prisoner aside from an previous man who had served seven years to his 4 and a half,” Glass moreover reported.

The jail opposed Assange’s request for a radio till Glass stepped in to assist strain the jail.

One of many few brilliant spots, nevertheless, is that Assange has been allowed to keep up a library with dozens upon dozens of books in his cell. Actually, when Glass visited, he might now not obtain books as a result of he had 232 books.

On the finish of December and in early January, Assange was ailing. He suffers from osteoporosis and coughing resulted in a damaged rib. If jail authorities allowed him some entry to daylight, the 52-year-old writer might not be so frail.

Assange was nonetheless unwell when an attraction listening to was lastly held in February and didn’t attend the proceedings.

The Excessive Court docket partly ruled in Assange’s favor on March 26, when it acknowledged that Assange had legitimate grounds for an attraction. However the Excessive Court docket stayed the choice and urged the U.S. authorities to submit “assurances” that will assist the federal government keep away from an attraction.

Assange was as soon as once more punished by the authorized course of. He has only a few choices left to forestall extradition to the U.S. for an unprecedented trial on Espionage Act costs.

Across the fifth anniversary, President Joe Biden was requested by a reporter in regards to the Assange case. Biden stated he was “contemplating” Australia’s request to finish the case—no matter meaning for probably the greatest identified political prisoners on the planet.