Assange to Stay in British Prison Until February for Extradition Hearing

The full extradition hearing for Julian Assange has been set for February 2020. The British courts decided to keep Assange locked in their prison for the full term of his sentence for breaching bail in 2012.

_Source

Assange evaded British courts that would have had him surely extradited to the U.S. in 2012 by seeking asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy. With the revocation of his asylum status in April this year, Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail and has been in prison since.

Assange's health has deteriorated over the past 2 months to the point where he has been in the prison's hospital acre for the past few weeks. For his Friday court appearance, he was not present in person, but did appear by video link from the Belmarsh Prison that hods him. His previous hearing was skipped due to being too ill to attend even a video session.

The U.N. special rapporteur on torture previously said about Assange's condition:

"In 20 years..I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law."

This was how he was able to explain the state Assange is in after having spent a month in prison. It's very odd that Assange has broken to this point while in prison, while others don't. The more likely explanation is of psychotropic drug torture as has been alleged by one person who spoke of Assange's ill-health before anyone else was.

Then weeks later we have co-founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks visiting Assange with Pamela Anderson who spoke of the unhealthy state Assange was in. Soon to follow was the reports of Assange being moved to the prison hospital and being unable to appear for a court hearing.

The U.S. extradition request came soon after in early June. The next day, Britain’s home secretary, Sajid Javid signed the extradition request and spoke on BBC's Radio 3 saying:

"He’s rightly behind bars."

Protesters denounced Javid's decision outside of court on Friday, with signs saying:

"Hands Off Assange".

It seems that unless a miracle happens from now until February 2020, Assange will be sent to the U.S. for a sham show trial where former intelligence whistleblowers say he will not get a fair trial. Assange faces a heavy 18 counts of violation the antiquated Espionage Act.

Yet, he didn't spy in America, so it makes no sense for him to be charged with espionage. He wasn't spying, and wasn't in the U.S. I'm almost certain that if a foreign intelligence agency had done what Assange had done, the U.S. would be unable to charge them with the Espionage Act, because it only applies to people in the U.S. It just such a farce.

In the video appearance on Friday, Assange appeared in a gray T-shirt with glasses denying having cracked the Pentagon network password as prosecutors read out the charges against him. He said:

"It is important that people aren’t fooled into believing that WikiLeaks is anything but a publisher."

"The U.S. government has tried to mislead the press."

The press seems all too willing to throw Assange to the wolves. Even with these charges easily being applied to journalists anywhere as they do to Assange, only some have spoken out against the charges having validity.

At least we know Assange is still able to speak rationally about what's going on, and isn't bowing to the pressure being stacked on him. When the inevitable happens, I hope a jury is wise on the government and media manipulation and deceit. That's the only chance I see for Assange.

---

References:

• Julian Assange’s U.S. Extradition Hearing Is Set for February

---

Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.

---

_{If you appreciate and value the content, please consider: Upvoting, Sharing or Reblogging below.
me for more content to come!}

---

Like what I do? Then consider giving me a vote on the Witness page :) Thanks!

_{My goal is to share knowledge, truth and moral understanding in order to help change the world for the better. If you appreciate and value what I do, please consider supporting me as a Steem Witness by voting for me at the bottom of the Witness page.}

---

Posted from KURE