This might be a good moment to remind people that Assange has been the victim of a successful smear campaign since the moment a woman did NOT make a rape allegation against him in Sweden.
Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture, actually went over the original proceedings and gave a long format interview on the matter lately. He too took some convincing to even touch the case, that's how effective sexual violence as a smear tactic is.
Which is a damn shame, given that there's plenty of
real sexual violence to go around, and which now once more gets harder to make visible.
Here's the interview:
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...
tl;dr:
Assange was right about everything that has been made falsifiable: secret indictment, spying on his lawyers, extradition to the US, no fair trial, the whole lot. He's showing every mental and physical sign of being tortured. He needs help, and he's being denied the very rights that western society purports to uphold.
EDIT: and that is leaving aside the whole dimension of Sweden, the UK, Equador, and of course the US making (even more of) a precedent out of him. What this means for the free press, and the relationship between freedom (of expression, of information, and in this case of truth, really) vs national "security" (in this case, the national security to not be held accountable for shooting down civilians) should send shivers down everyone's spines.
EDIT 2 To the people downvoting: care to express which part of the above exactly you disagree with? Do you think it's factually incorrect? How about correcting it then? Do you think it's inappropriate? Why so? Off topic?
Here's the interview: https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...
tl;dr:
Assange was right about everything that has been made falsifiable: secret indictment, spying on his lawyers, extradition to the US, no fair trial, the whole lot. He's showing every mental and physical sign of being tortured. He needs help, and he's being denied the very rights that western society purports to uphold.
EDIT: and that is leaving aside the whole dimension of Sweden, the UK, Equador, and of course the US making (even more of) a precedent out of him. What this means for the free press, and the relationship between freedom (of expression, of information, and in this case of truth, really) vs national "security" (in this case, the national security to not be held accountable for shooting down civilians) should send shivers down everyone's spines.
EDIT 2 To the people downvoting: care to express which part of the above exactly you disagree with? Do you think it's factually incorrect? How about correcting it then? Do you think it's inappropriate? Why so? Off topic?