New Events

International

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Can Science Tell Us the Meaning of Life? Mon Dec 23, 2024 19:54 | Dr David Bell
At Christmas time, Dr David Bell reflects on what has true value in this world, the limits of science to tell us what that is and what a baby in a manger might have to say about it.
The post Can Science Tell Us the Meaning of Life? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Non-Crime Hate Incidents Surge in Half of Police Forces Despite Government Crackdown Mon Dec 23, 2024 17:46 | Will Jones
The number of?non-crime hate incidents?recorded by police has surged in half of Britain's forces despite attempts by the previous Government to crack down on the practice, official data show.
The post Non-Crime Hate Incidents Surge in Half of Police Forces Despite Government Crackdown appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Reeves?s Simplistic Thinking Spawned This Budget from Hell Mon Dec 23, 2024 15:44 | David Craig
Simplistic linear thinking by Rachel from Accounts and the Treasury spawned this Budget from hell, says David Craig. A systems thinker would have known it would send the economy into a doom loop of recession and decline.
The post Reeves’s Simplistic Thinking Spawned This Budget from Hell appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link British Drivers Steering Away From New Cars In Their Droves Mon Dec 23, 2024 13:00 | Sallust
British car-buyers are turning away from new vehicles in their droves and keeping their reliable old petrol models going for far longer as Labour's Net Zero war on affordable motors heats up.
The post British Drivers Steering Away From New Cars In Their Droves appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Britain on Brink of Recession After Growth Revised to Zero Following Reeves?s Horror Budget Mon Dec 23, 2024 11:09 | Will Jones
Britain is on the brink of a recession after official figures were revised to show zero growth in the third quarter of the year and living standards fell, with Rachel Reeves's horror Budget blamed.
The post Britain on Brink of Recession After Growth Revised to Zero Following Reeves’s Horror Budget appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Hands off Julian Assange!

category international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis author Monday October 29, 2012 21:05author by Spartacist - ICL Report this post to the editors

Bogus rape claims and imperialist vendetta

Following two years under house arrest in Britain, in mid-June Julian Assange, the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Assange is facing extradition to Sweden on trumped-up allegations of “sexual molestation” and “rape” — which boil down to charges of unprotected sex in what were by all accounts consensual relations — but he rightly fears that this is simply a pretext to facilitate his extradition to the US. By granting him political asylum, Ecuador threw a monkey wrench into the process of handing Assange over to the US imperialists, who are intent on exacting retribution against Assange and WikiLeaks for having lifted the lid, however slightly, on the hideous crimes of US and British imperialism.

In April 2010, WikiLeaks posted a video online which showed a US Apache helicopter gunning down and killing at least twelve civilians in Baghdad in 2007, including two Reuters journalists, while the pilots gloated over the carnage. The release of the video was followed by the publication of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables as well as classified documents recording the murder, torture and rape carried out by the imperialists in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the leaks contained little in the way of revelations, the British and US capitalist rulers were enraged at any light being shed on their machinations. Contrary to Sweden’s “human rights” façade, WikiLeaks drew attention to its militaristic role, not least in Afghanistan where it has maintained a military presence for over ten years.

If sent to the US, Assange could face charges including “espionage”, which carries a potential death penalty. US Army Private Bradley Manning has been in military prison for more than two years in torturous conditions accused of “aiding the enemy” — a capital offence — for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks. If Manning was indeed the source of the information, then he has provided a useful and courageous service on behalf of imperialism’s victims. We say: Free Bradley Manning now! Hands off Julian Assange — let him go to Ecuador!

The British government, caught off guard by Ecuador’s granting asylum to Assange, reacted with fury. Attempting to intimidate tiny Ecuador into handing over their quarry, swarms of cops surrounded the embassy while the Foreign Office threatened to revoke Ecuador’s diplomatic immunity and to storm the building in order to arrest Assange. This arrogant imperialist threat to breach internationally recognised diplomatic protocol comes from the same government which screamed bloody murder against Iran when protesters, furious at British imperialism imposing financial sanctions on that country over its nuclear enrichment programme, briefly took over the British embassy in Teheran last November. Back then, foreign secretary William Hague waxed eloquent on the sanctity of embassies, castigating the Iranian government for a “grave breach of the Vienna convention which requires the protection of diplomats and diplomatic premises under all circumstances” (Guardian, 29 November 2011).

The Iranians certainly have cause for anger — among the WikiLeaks exposures were cables showing that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Arab states have been pressing the US to stage a military attack against Iran’s nuclear programme, showing yet again that Iran needs nukes to deter attack by the US or its Israeli proxy. And while Hague told Ecuador: “The UK does not accept the principle of diplomatic asylum”, the British imperialists have no problem with such asylum when it serves anti-Communist China-bashing. When Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng sought refuge in the US embassy in Beijing in April this year, Hague rushed to lecture the Chinese government on its “abuse of power”, while the European Union urged China to use the “utmost restraint” in dealing with Chen.

“Socialists” aid witch hunt

The rape allegations made against Assange by two women in Sweden are simply not credible. Both women approached Assange at separate times and, by their own accounts, had consensual sex with him. Neither claimed at the time that she had been the victim of a rape or sexual assault. One of the so-called “victims” organised a barbecue for Assange the day after the supposed “assault”. The other went to the police after exchanging emails with the first woman, and then apparently to see if Assange could be forced to take a sexual health test after a condom allegedly broke during sex. Prosecutors in Sweden initially opened, then dropped, then reopened an investigation into the accusations. Assange — who has not been charged with any offence — has repeatedly offered to be interviewed by Swedish authorities either in London or by video link, but the Swedes have steadfastly refused.

The capitalists and their hired scribblers in the media — particularly the so-called “liberal” press — have cynically seized on the rape accusations to smear Assange and to discredit WikiLeaks. “Considering he made his name with the biggest leak of secret government documents in history, you might imagine there would be at least some residual concern for Julian Assange among those trading in the freedom of information business. But the virulence of British media hostility towards the WikiLeaks founder is now unrelenting”, wrote Seumas Milne (Guardian, 21 August). To the British press, Milne noted, Assange “is nothing but a ‘monstrous narcissist’, a bail-jumping ‘sex pest’ and an exhibitionist maniac”. This venom is spewed at someone “who has yet to be charged, let alone convicted, of anything”.

The reformist left have joined in the witch hunt of Assange, treating the rape allegations as good coin, as was seen when the bourgeois press unleashed a vicious backlash against MP George Galloway. He made the unexceptionable statement in an online video broadcast that “even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100% true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don’t constitute rape. At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it.” Salma Yaqoob, a leader of Galloway’s Respect party, condemned his remarks as “deeply disappointing and wrong” and later resigned from Respect.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) also took aim at Galloway, who was their coalition partner in Respect before a split in 2007. In an article in Socialist Worker (1 September) leading SWPer Judith Orr chastised Galloway for his assertion that Assange was guilty of nothing more than “bad sexual etiquette”. Orr objects to Galloway’s statement, saying: “Part of the fight for women’s liberation has been for us to no longer to [sic] be seen as sex objects.” The SWP’s concern for women’s liberation rings hollow, to put it mildly, given its long record of pandering to Islamic reactionaries such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. For sure George Galloway, who also panders to Islamic reaction and opposes abortion, is hardly a champion of women’s rights. But this was not a problem for the SWP when, in order to form the Respect coalition with Galloway in 2004, these opportunists buried the question of women’s oppression (and gay rights) in order to avoid alienating the mosques. Now the SWP cynically invokes women’s rights while in reality providing a cover to the witch hunt against Julian Assange, whom the imperialist rulers have declared a public enemy.

The Socialist Party joined the vendetta against Assange, including in an editorial comment from its Swedish sister group, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna, which opposes Assange’s extradition to the US, but tacitly supports his extradition to Sweden. The article says: “Internationally, the case centres around US imperialism’s need to punish WikiLeaks and no doubt the Swedish state and government would happily assist the US in getting Assange extradited. However, the case is also about serious allegations of rape, which must be investigated” (Socialist, 30 August). The International Socialist Group in Scotland (a split from the SWP) brands Assange a rapist before he has even been charged, let alone convicted. An online piece by Sarah Watson declares: “Assange committed rape and should face trial in Sweden” (internationalsocialist.org.uk, 22 August).

We are opposed to government interference in people’s private, sexual lives, as well as to any categorical criminalisation of a sex act, such as the reactionary “age of consent” laws. As a guiding principle, we advocate the concept of effective consent — that is, mutual understanding and agreement. To conflate consensual sex with rape is to trivialise the brutal crime of rape. The reformist left share a touching faith in the capitalist state, which they entrust to regulate the sexual activity of youth, as well as to “protect” women and children.

The state in Sweden, as in Britain, is certainly not known for its sympathetic treatment of women who have been raped. An article titled “We are Women Against Rape but we do not want Julian Assange extradited”, written by members of Women Against Rape (Guardian, 23 August) expressed a healthy scepticism over the sudden concern for “rape” victims in the Assange case. The article noted:

“When Julian Assange was first arrested, we were struck by the unusual zeal with which he was being pursued for rape allegations.
“It seems even clearer now, that the allegations against him are a smokescreen behind which a number of governments are trying to clamp down on WikiLeaks for having audaciously revealed to the public their secret planning of wars and occupations with their attendant rape, murder and destruction.”

Julian Assange is a bourgeois liberal who vainly seeks to rid the imperialist system of its worst excesses through exposure of its crimes. In trying to take down Assange, WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, the US and British imperialists are sending a message that any exposure or even accurate reporting of the imperialists’ crimes and atrocities will be punished by life in prison, or the death penalty. It is in the interests of the working class and all the oppressed to fight the witch hunt of Assange, which is an attempt to criminalise dissent and to silence opponents of imperialism’s wars and occupations as well as domestic repression carried out in the name of fighting “terrorism”. We Marxists seek to impart the understanding that imperialist war, with all its savagery, is inherent to capitalist class rule. Only when capitalism is destroyed root and branch through workers revolution will humanity finally be rid of such horrors.

Related Link: http://icl-fi.org/english/wh/220/Assange.html
author by Tpublication date Mon Oct 29, 2012 21:59author address author phone Report this post to the editors

For those who haven't see the Collateral Murder video here it is again.

Caption: Video Id: 5rXPrfnU3G0 Type: Youtube Video
Collateral Murder - Short Version


Related Link: http://www.collateralmurder.com/
author by skrypt_kyddiepublication date Mon Oct 29, 2012 23:15author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Get real. Governments don't care that much about womens rights

The woman involved, Anna Ardin, is a CIA anti castro asset. Its well known.

More info here...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/09/14/assange-beseiged/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/12/03/julian-assange-w...live/

And NOBODY is ever extradited for simple questioning...a quick trip to guantanamo awaits on the other end.
If it was otherwise then they would have simply questioned him at the embassy as suggested.

In the early days after the leaks, the (very effective) approach was simply to see how many media outlets would repeat a thousand times the words "rape", "sex crime" and "julian assange" in the same sentence. Standard propaganda technique of association by repetition.

Name raked through mud successfully. Now it's time for his punishment beating as a lesson to others...
Even if they don't get him, they have wasted a lot his life and destroyed it and he is not getting a whole lot done. Effectively neutralised for all intensive purposes.

 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy