Torturing and Exterminating Assange to terrorize journalists around the globe

31/07/2019

US wants to ‘make an example’ of Assange in jail, UN expert claims

By Nick Miller
July 28, 2019
The United States government has promised that Julian Assange will get a fair trial on espionage charges, rejecting the accusation of a United Nations expert that the administration “intends to make an example of him” with excessive charges and jail time.
It has challenged the assessment of the expert, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer, that Assange would “be exposed to a real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” if he ended up in a US jail.
But Melzer has warned that extradition to the US would severely and dangerously worsen Assange’s already fragile psychological state.
Read more at www.smh.com.au

UN Says Assange Is at Risk of Being Tortured in USA

Jul 29, 2019
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer warned that Julian Assange is at risk of being tortured in case that he is extradited to the United States, where he would be prosecuted for the dissemination of classified government documents, it was reported on Monday.
Such concern was conveyed by the senior UN official in letters sent in May -now made public- to the governments of the United States, Britain, Ecuador and Sweden, after the WikiLeaks founder was visited in jail.
After Melzer visited Assange at the Belmarsh high-security prison in London assisted by two doctors, he said in his report that ‘if Mr. Assange had to be extradited to the United States, he would be exposed to a real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’
Read more at www.plenglish.com

US, Sweden and Britain dismiss UN finding that they tortured Assange

By Oscar Grenfell
29 July 2019
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer last weekend publicly released detailed letters he sent to the governments of the United States, Britain, Sweden and Ecuador in May, documenting their responsibility for the “psychological torture” inflicted upon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a result of a decade-long political persecution.
Melzer also posted the replies he received from the US and Swedish governments, bluntly dismissing his findings. His letters to Britain and Ecuador went unanswered.
The official responses are the latest demonstration of the illegal character of the campaign against Assange. Fundamental precepts of international law are being trampled on in the attempt to extradite him from Britain to the US, where he faces the prospect of life imprisonment, or even execution, for exposing US war crimes, mass surveillance and diplomatic conspiracies.
Read more at www.wsws.org

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Nils Melzer (born 1970) is a Swiss academic, author and practitioner in the field of international law. Since 1 November 2016, Melzer has been serving as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. He is Professor of International Law at the University of Glasgow, and also holds the Human Rights Chair at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in Switzerland, where he has been teaching since 2009, including as the Swiss Chair of International Humanitarian Law (2011–2013). Melzer has previously served for 12 years with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as Delegate, Deputy Head of Delegation and Legal Adviser in various zones of conflict and violence. After leaving the ICRC, Melzer held academic positions as Research Director of the Swiss Competence Centre on Human Rights (University of Zürich), as Senior Fellow and Senior Advisor on Emerging Security Challenges (Geneva Centre for Security Policy) and at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. He has also served as Senior Adviser for Security Policy at the Political Directorate of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Melzer has written several books, including: Targeted Killing in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2008), the ICRC’s Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities (ICRC, 2009) and the ICRC’s Handbook International Humanitarian Law – a Comprehensive Introduction (ICRC, 2016). He is also a co-author of the NATO CCDCOE Tallinn Manual on the International Law applicable to Cyber Warfare (Cambridge, 2013), and of the NATO MCDC Policy Guidance: Autonomy in Defence Systems, (NATO ACT, 2014).