[D66] UN rapporteur condemns Britain’s criminal role in the torture of Julian Assange

[A.OUT]

https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=24631


On 10-01-2020 10:27, A.OUT wrote:
> wsws.org:
> 
> UN rapporteur Nils Melzer condemns Britain’s criminal role in the 
> torture of Julian Assange
> By Oscar Grenfell
> 10 January 2020
> 
> United Nations official Nils Melzer has publicly released a powerful 
> letter he addressed to the British government on October 29, documenting 
> the criminal culpability of the country’s authorities, including its 
> political leadership, in what he condemned last year as the 
> “psychological torture” of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
> 
> Melzer’s letter, published online on December 31, was a response to 
> earlier correspondence from the British authorities, in which they 
> blithely dismissed his finding that Assange was subject to ongoing 
> psychological torture. This resulted in part from his almost seven-years 
> of effective detention in Ecuador’s London embassy, enforced by British 
> threats to arrest him if he set foot outside the building, and his 
> imprisonment since April 2019 in the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison.
> 
> Melzer had addressed a series of queries to the British government over 
> the conditions of Assange’s incarceration, including why he was being 
> held in conditions of virtual solitary confinement and denied the 
> necessary means to prepare his defence for US extradition hearings in 
> February.
> 
> The British government had blandly declared its opposition to torture, 
> while claiming that it was upholding Assange’s legal rights. It answered 
> none of Melzer’s specific questions and dismissed his call for the 
> WikiLeaks founder to be released from prison, despite warnings from 
> medical professionals that his health has deteriorated to the point that 
> his life is at risk.
> 
> In his latest document, Melzer stressed the scientific rigor of the 
> assessment that Assange had been tortured, which was based on a 
> four-hour consultation in Belmarsh Prison involving the UN rapporteur 
> and two medical experts. The diagnosis stemmed from medically-verifiable 
> evidence and conformed to “The Istanbul Protocol”—the international 
> standard for identifying the symptoms of torture.
> 
> Melzer pointed to the implications of Britain’s rejection of these 
> findings, stating that “the conduct of Your Excellency’s Government in 
> the present case severely undermines the credibility of the UK’s 
> commitment to the prohibition of torture and illtreatment, as well as to 
> the rule of law more generally.”
> 
> Melzer bluntly wrote: “The official findings of my mandate, supported by 
> two experienced medical experts specialized in the examination of 
> torture victims, unquestionably provide ‘reasonable ground to believe’ 
> that British officials have contributed to Mr. Assange’s psychological 
> torture or ill-treatment, whether through perpetration, or through 
> attempt, complicity or other forms of participation.
> 
> “Under Art. 12 of the Convention against Torture, British authorities do 
> not have the political discretion to simply reject these findings, but 
> have a clear and non-derogable treaty obligation to conduct a prompt and 
> impartial investigation into these allegations and, if confirmed, to 
> prosecute the perpetrators and provide redress and rehabilitation to Mr. 
> Assange.”
> 
> The UN rapporteur documented that Britain had similarly stymied his 
> calls for a judicial investigation into its involvement in the US-led 
> torture programs associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—which 
> WikiLeaks and Assange have done so much to expose. This, he noted, 
> “gives the impression of a broader policy of impunity, which would be 
> incompatible with the UK’s legal obligations and would seriously 
> undermine the credibility of its commitment to human rights and the rule 
> of law.”
> 
> Melzer’s detailed letter outlined Britain’s involvement in the attempted 
> frame-up of Assange on sexual misconduct allegations by Sweden, its 
> collaboration with the US attempts to conduct what can only be described 
> as an extraordinary rendition operation against the WikiLeaks founder 
> and its persistent denial of his rights to due process over the past 12 
> months.
> 
> The UN official’s conclusion demonstrates that Assange is being 
> subjected to a lawless attempt to silence him and to destroy WikiLeaks. 
> Melzer wrote: “I am of the considered opinion that recurring and serious 
> violations of Mr. Assange’s due process rights by UK authorities have 
> rendered both his criminal conviction and sentencing for bail violation 
> and the US extradition proceedings inherently arbitrary, to the point 
> even of rendering any legal remedies a pointless formality devoid of 
> prospect.”
> 
> Melzer demanded the abandonment of the extradition proceedings, 
> Assange’s freedom and a criminal investigation into those responsible 
> for his persecution.
> 
> Melzer also drew attention to reports that Assange’s health has 
> continued to deteriorate. Last year, dozens of eminent doctors wrote 
> twice to the British authorities, as well as to the Australian 
> government, voicing their fears that Assange could die in prison. Their 
> calls for him to be moved to a university teaching hospital and provided 
> with urgent medical treatment have been ignored.
> 
> The latest testimony concerning Assange’s health situation was provided 
> by British journalist Vaughan Smith, who tweeted that Assange had called 
> his family on New Year’s 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.”
> 
> Meanwhile, disturbing new indications have emerged of the conditions at 
> Belmarsh, a facility designed to hold those convicted of the most 
> serious crimes, including murder and terrorism offenses.
> 
> On Wednesday, RT reported that Liridon Saliuka, a 29-year-old prisoner 
> at Belmarsh, was found dead in his cell on January 2. According to RT’s 
> sources, the death was the third fatality in less than a year at the 
> prison. The British authorities claim that Saliuka was a victim of 
> self-inflicted wounds, but this has been disputed by his family.
> 
> RT wrote: “Saliuka’s family claim there have been delays to the 
> postmortem. His sister, Dita, revealed that her brother was involved in 
> a car crash two years ago that left him requiring major reconstructive 
> surgery. He was given metal plates that made it hard for him to walk or 
> stand for long periods of time. A report by a surgeon, commissioned by 
> his defense lawyer, had determined that he should be considered as 
> ‘permanently disabled.’ However, his family say he had recently been 
> transferred from a special cell to a standard one.”
> 
> A 2009 report by the Chief Inspector of British Prisons noted an 
> “extremely high” amount of force used against prisoners at Belmarsh. A 
> number of detainees reported they had been intimidated, threatened or 
> assaulted by staff. The inspector’s 2018 report said many recommended 
> “improvements” at the facility had not been “embedded” and in some areas 
> “we judged outcomes to have been poorer than last time.”
> 
> That Assange, a journalist on remand, is being held in such a facility, 
> demonstrates that the British state, no less than its American 
> counterpart, is seeking nothing less than his physical and psychological 
> destruction. While doing everything they can to facilitate Assange’s 
> extradition to the US, the British are seeking to replicate, on their 
> own soil, the conditions that he would confront in a CIA prison in America.
> 
> The extraordinary assault on Assange’s democratic rights is a stark 
> symptom of a broader turn to authoritarianism, directed against the 
> working class and the growing emergence of mass social and political 
> opposition. This underscores the necessity for all defenders of civil 
> liberties to do everything possible to prevent Assange’s extradition to 
> the US and secure his freedom.
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