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Whatever you think of Assange, you should know why the US government wants to prosecute him. He published this among other things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8xhH0FkCQg
Context: that's a US gunship firing on Reuters journalists among other civilians including kids.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=A8xhH0FkCQg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Isn’t it bonkers that they want to put him in jail for publishing a thing that is today hosted freely on YouTube?
What if I told you that's not why at all.
It's definitely "why" they want to put him in jail regardless of what anti-journalism charges they hit him with.
I know, it’s about the conspiracy charge, it was a poorly worded musing.
Assange is a bit of a scumbag, but unrelatedly, his efforts for freedom of information should not land him in US torture prisons like many others.
Especially since he isn't a citizen and shouldn't be subject to US laws.
Unfortunately the whole “isn’t a citizen” thing might work against him. IIRC courts have ruled the Bill of Rights applies to citizens, including freedom of the press.
The whole situation is absurd though.
Oh yeah, US courts justifying their continuous rights abuses of foreign detainees is absurd and should be legitimized by no international judgements.
One more reason to not extradite Assange. Let him sit trial for everything else he's allegedly done in countries with humane criminal justice systems, but do not subject him to either Manning's, or worse, as you say, non-citizen's torture in places like Guantanamo Bay.
Freedom of information? He was pretty selective about which bits he released back in 2016. That guy can rot in prison for all I care.
jfc we can't just let the state imprison journalists without pushback because we don't like the particular journalist
I'd say since the first full year of him living in an embassy ended, we can't be justified to call him a scumbag.
Other than that - his sense of humor in the NetBSD fortune files and other traces in the Internet maybe sucks, but he's a better role model than Snowden (whose life is somehow much easier, which is suspicious really).
The Australian government voted on a motion to bring him home. He is a journalist who did nothing wrong.
thats what being a dissident gets you in the us.
may there be mercy on his soul if he even gets extradited.
not even in the US
Luckily political dissidents don’t need to fear for their life/freedom in the west, ow wait.
Btw what is up with those rape charges, or did Sweden conveniently drop them the moment Assange was pulled from that embassy?
"On 12 August 2015, Swedish prosecutors announced that the statute of limitations had expired for three of the allegations against Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy. The investigation into the rape allegation was also dropped by Swedish authorities on 19 May 2017 because of Assange's asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.[5][6] Assange said in these proceedings that he feared he would ultimately be extradited to the United States if he were sent to Sweden.
In May 2019, the Swedish Prosecution Authority reopened the investigation against Assange. The prosecutors expressed the intent to extradite Assange from the United Kingdom after he served his 50-week prison sentence for skipping bail.[7] In June 2019, the Uppsala District Court denied a request to detain Assange, thereby preventing his extradition to Sweden.
As of 19 November 2019 the prosecution dropped the case because "the evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed" although they were confident in the complainant.[8]"
It was a rhetorical question, but yes, April 12: dragged out of embassy, November 19: Sweden drops charges. And soon thereafter America suddenly says they would like to extradite him to the US even though they denied this for years while Assange was in the embassy.
Honestly, I skimmed this title and thought it said he was found in a ditch. I’m surprised he has lasted this long.