I'm quite shoked by the level of the comments regarding Assange.
Whatever you think about the character is irrelevant. Law should be the basis on any action taken against him, whether he's a-hole or not. Now you can argue on whether his actions were legal (I mean, he broke US law but he's not US citizen nor living in the US so that's debatable).
However there is ZERO legal basis on having someone not being taken care of while in custody.
> However there is ZERO legal basis on having someone not being taken care of while in custody.
Most of the health issues in question here arose when he was not in custody, but rather in self-imposed exile in the embassy. He could've walked out at any point and been treated, but that would've meant accepting the consequences for the laws he'd broken.
Yeah, no. Read that article again, and the linked Medium post they're talking about. They're talking about health issues during his voluntary exile at the embassy. From this article:
> On Nov 22, 2019, we, a group of more than 60 medical doctors, wrote to the UK Home Secretary to express our serious concerns about the physical and mental health of Julian Assange.[1]In our letter,[1] we documented a history of denial of access to health care and prolonged psychological torture.
I have no sympathy for this group's claims, because he was absolutely not denied medical care. He had an outstanding arrest warrant that was completely valid, and he chose to accept the consequences of skipping bail.
It's like a child running away from home because he didn't want to face prosecution for sexual assault, and then crying to the press that his parents aren't taking care of him while he's living in a flophouse.
They mention his health declining during the embassy visit, which is relevant because he was denied the ability to get proper medical care. But most of the ongoing news of his decline is from prison.
You are entirely lacking in empathy of a journalist who's done amazing things for society and is a human being. It's a shame your feelings were hurt by whichever leak came out of WikiLeaks, but it's also a shame you feel the need to perpetuate smears and dehumanize someone who's only ever had your best interests at heart.
Also Assange was never facing prosecution for sexual assault. He was only wanted for questioning, blatantly for political purposes. Please stop spreading fake news
> It's a shame your feelings were hurt by whichever leak came out of WikiLeaks
I'm more hurt about the radical transparency he espoused for others while keeping secrets like his relationship with the Trump campaign [1]. I wonder why Wikileaks didn't leak this truth[2]:
> President Trump offered to pardon Julian Assange if he agreed to cover up the involvement of Russia in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee, which were later published by WikiLeaks, a London court was told on Wednesday.
I'm so over this. Please spread your misinformation elsewhere. It's a shame HN moderation only selectively enforces their policies and allows people like you to propagate lies and dishonesty.
I really do not like Julian Assange as a person, I do not admire his work. He's a fraud, a con-man, and might also be a criminal. But a critical measure of a society is how equal justice is for all, even those hated by society. Tolerance of the abuse of prisoners or torture is a grave moral failure no matter who the perp is. Maybe the docs are all duped by the scammers around Assange, but it looks pretty abusive not to transfer him to a hospital.
No matter how many of Assange's lies I enumerate, his fans just brush them off since they don't want to see the truth about Assange - he's simpler when he's a good guy rather than an abusive narcissist. But google 'assange deceit' and related and you'll find plenty. Wikileaks has been working through cutouts with Russian intelligence for a while so the track record is pretty problematic.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/09/09/wikileaks-hi...
I've investigated the evidence quite carefully. The article I linked to refers to some very damning evidence for one case.
The Mueller investigation found solid evidence of WL forwarding DNC docs collected by Russian intelligence, and at this point security researcher expert consensus is that Russia was the perp and WL the front.
Wikileaks biases also show in who they target and what they ignore. They've repeatedly downplayed leaks that are damaging to the Kremlin.
There is zero evidence that the DNC docs were collected by Russian intelligence other than a private firm that Hillary paid (huge conflict of interest), and even then the "evidence" released was pathetic and about as thoughtful as "well this guy that robbed the liquor store was driving a Toyota so clearly he was Japanese".
There is no evidence Wikileaks has ignored anything out of bias. Please stop spreading fake news.
Mueller's indictments list a stream of evidence from leased VPNs in the US that the GRU was using with images from their servers made available to the Feds. You've been lied to. There's copious, rock solid evidence. The single piece counter-evidence (which fooled Binney) re transfer speeds/times was later shown to have been faked and originated in Russia.
You're not familiar with it, but it is there. Also CrowdStrike was not the only independent InfoSec firm involved in the analysis. The DCCC et al were also hacked by the GRU. SecureWorks & others attributed those other attacks. You should look into the real world information and expert opinion - you're spreading Flat Earther-class propaganda mostly fed to you by an intelligence agency.
Perhaps not what you mean, but he is actually a convicted criminal. He was a hacker in the late 80s. Was caught and eventually plead guilty in 1996, but avoided prison due to age and good behaviour.
Also, being a hacker in those dial-up times was possible even by accident. Many ISPs honored the finger command, exposing the usernames of other customers who were online. Many passwords in those times were just the same username, or words like "password". It was customary that your ISP hosted your email, so it shared the same password.
The jails would have overflowed if those kids had been adults instead.
Honestly, stuff like this just debases the word "torture." Waterboarding is clearly torture. Undergoing prolonged periods of solitary confinement while in detention is arguably torture. However, choosing to avoid needed medical care during an attempt to flee law enforcement is definitely in the "not torture" category. It's self-inflicted harm.
Self-inflicted harm doesn't elicit the same kind of moral outrage that true torture does. These efforts seem to me to be an attempt to exploit that moral outrage in order to benefit a particular person. If successful, the lack of clarity that introduces just creates extra doubt in cases of true torture that blunts the outrage.
Here are some similar cases:
After conducting a bunch of bombings, Eric Rudolph fled the FBI by living in a forest for years, feeding himself by gathering acorns and dumpster diving [1]. His choice to do that to himself is similar to what Assange did, and was not torture, either.
Rudolph's brother, bizarrely, decided to cut off his own hand with a saw to protest the FBI's treatment of his brother and its surveillance of his family [2]. If the FBI had done that to him, it'd have been a gruesome case of torture, but since he did it to himself, it's definitely not torture.
The very real and substantial claims about torture and mostly about his time in prison in the UK - not his time on the asylum, though I would still say that his asylum treatment was inhumane and violated his rights.
> The very real and substantial claims about torture and mostly about his time in prison in the UK - not his time on the asylum
Can you give details of the actual practices of torture alleged here? Scanning this and a few other things, the only details I'm seeing are complaints of how he was treated in the embassy (which IMHO were self-inflicted), and some nonspecific observations that he looks like he's in worse health now that he's actually gone to jail.
> I would still say that his asylum treatment was inhumane and violated his rights.
I can't see how that could be without essentially creating a lawless situation, where law enforcement is bizarrely tasked with supporting fugitives and assisting with their escape.
Clearly I don't have a video of his time in prison. But countless doctors and the UN specialist have witnessed, reported, and endorsed that he has been tortured and I don't know what else you want.
> But countless doctors and the UN specialist have witnessed, reported, and endorsed that he has been tortured and I don't know what else you want.
I don't think that's true. They don't say he was tortured, they say he displays the symptoms of psychological torture. From the OP:
On May 31, 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, reported on his May 9, 2019, visit to Assange in Belmarsh, accompanied by two medical experts: “Mr Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”
While I don't doubt those are symptoms of torture, they also seem nonspecific. I'm sure spending 7 years on the lam as a fugitive could also lead to "extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma," for instance. I think that's even more likely since the visit by the Special Rapporteur occurred about 1.5 months after Assange's arrest, and there were already reports that he was depressed and in poor health before his arrest.
To be tortured requires a torturer, and to say that Assange was tortured by the UK for his time at the embassy requires bizarre conclusions such as:
1. law enforcement is to support fugitives and assist with their escape rather than trying to arrest them, or that
2. torture is a normal and necessary activity of law enforcement (since chasing a fugitive is torture and law enforcement is supposed to chase fugitives).
Again, both of the above numbered statements are bizzare nonsense, but I think they're implicit in the belief that Assange was tortured by the UK for his stay in the embassy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julia...: "After Assange's asylum was revoked, the Ambassador of Ecuador to the UK invited the Metropolitan Police into the embassy on 11 April 2019. Following this invitation, Assange was arrested and taken to a central London police station."
Users flagged this post. Moderators didn't touch it, or even see it until now.
Given that there was a large Assange thread yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22351183), and a large thread on the Assange/torture question a few weeks ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201381), I don't think this letter contains significant-enough new information to support a solid HN discussion. This topic is divisive enough as it is, and in the absence of significant new information, threads tend to degrade even faster than usual.
It's not ok to post like this to HN, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
It is our opinion that Mr Assange requires urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health. Any medical treatment indicated should be administered in a properly equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital (tertiary care). Were such urgent assessment and treatment not to take place, we have real concerns, on the evidence currently available, that Mr Assange could die in prison. The medical situation is thereby urgent. There is no time to lose.
The article implies that the 7 years he spent in the embassy prior to his arrest amounted to torture.
IMO, at best we could dub his deterioration in the embassy as "self-inflicted", or more accurately institutional neglect on the part of the governments involved.
"... prior to his detention in Belmarsh prison in conditions amounting to solitary confinement, spent almost 7 years restricted to a few rooms in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Here, he had been deprived of fresh air, sunlight, the ability to move and exercise freely, and access to adequate medical care."
Extensive solitary confinement is criticized as a form psychological torture. If you're familiar with the US detention system, the treatment of Assange might seem pretty commonplace, the international community generally considers this a form of torture.
Which, one, is Assange's fault for staying the embassy rather than facing the court system. But you could give him that if he truly believed that there was a conspiracy against him and that he couldn't get actual justice.
Then, two, it's Ecuador's fault that he's confined to a few rooms, can't exercise, can't get sunlight, etc. I mean, doesn't their embassy have windows somewhere?
Everyone tries to make this Britain's fault somehow. I can't see it.
You'd figure that if he was being tortured in prison, TFA could actually say so, and we wouldn't need to try to glean hints. Yet, if you follow the references [1], you'll see a fantastic sleight of hand. [2]
Assange spent 7 years in self-imposed exile in the embassy. Throughout this period of time, torture experts have determined that he is showing the psychological symptoms of a torture victim.
In April, he was imprisoned. Torture experts continued visiting him, and have continued observing that he was showing the psychological symptoms of a torture victim. Shockingly, neither prison, nor his conviction for skipping bail make him better.
No evidence that anything about the condition of his imprisonment constitutes torture has been provided. Instead, people point at him, and say that he has clearly been traumatized. That is true - but all evidence points to the trauma being inflicted during his self-imposed exile.
No, I'd like some evidence for one of these two claims:
1. Prisoners in Belmarsh are routinely tortured.
2. Prisoners in Belmarsh are not routinely tortured, but Assange in particular is being singled out for a surprise helping of torture in Belmarsh.
Neither TFA, nor its sources provide any evidence for either of those two things. What they do provide is evidence for the much less incendiary, and less surprising claim of:
1. Assange has not gotten any better since his self-imposed exile.
> Doctors have observed, reported, documented, and endorsed that he is being tortured.
No, they haven't. If you disagree, please cite sources. Ones that don't do the bait-and-switch of pointing at the medical problems he acquired during his pre-incarceration living conditions, and using that to 'prove' the entirely unrelated claim that he is being tortured in Belmarsh.
I strongly doubt that such sources exist, because if they did, publications like TFA would directly, and unambiguously cite them, instead of dancing around the truth.
Assange is a political prisoner and clearly his treatment and situation is different from the rest, so a comparison isn't helpful.
The source is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It's linked in the very top of TFA. Sorry you don't like the truth and are yourself trying to dance around it
Why does it matter if he's a political prisoner, or a shoplifter? He's either being tortured, or he's not.
> The source is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
I have read TFA, I have read its sources, and I see no evidence that points to him currently being tortured, as I have said three times in this thread. Is there a specific passage that you would like to highlight?
it is funny to see how public opinion shifted once the narrative of him being a russian agent having helped trump appeared. People hate trump more than they hate being lied to
It's ridiculous that anyone can have anything but abundant thanks for this man. He shows us the war crimes, lying, cheating, and hypocrisy of our nations' leaders. And yet people want to see him imprisoned or killed because it happened to be against their political preferences. Awful.
Nations probably? So Assange is abused because he exposed the cheating of his parents? I don't know, doesn't work well the analogy for me. Or maybe too well.
My point is that a lot of U.S. citizens will be reading this and if they are feeling a healthy dose is concern for Mr. Assange they should be aware that his essentially the fate of many of their countrymen.
How is comparing what Assange is (reportedly) experiencing in a UK prison in any way valid for criticizing the US prison system? I know we're supposed to assume the least objectionable interpretation of someone's comments, but this really sounds like a weird pivot designed to push some sort of anti-US agenda, when there's NOTHING related to the conditions of the US prison system even relevant to this particular discussion.
Health care during incarceration is a problem most places in the world. As far as I can tell in the U.K. and Europe it is generally better. But what Mr. Assange is experiencing in the U.K. is pretty comparable to the U.S. If Americans are going to bother to fret over his situation you should probably have a similar or greater level of concern for what is going on in your own country which you actually have some hope changing. To have special concern for this one person is just trading on fame, you might as well be following tabloids.
“Mr Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”
Emphasis mine. His terrible mental health condition is not under dispute. But I am disputing the use of the word torture, as opposed to 'symptoms typical for'.
Torture (noun): the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something.
While he was in the embassy he was fugitive and definitely under duress to turn himself in, no doubt. What rights and privileges is someone entitled to as a fugitive in comparison to their rights and privileges once in custody? My bias is anti Assange, for some common reasons some people are anti, I try to keep an open mind and be a compassionate person and feel compassion for his terrible mental health circumstances, yet articles like this, I read it with a pile of skepticism and just feels weak, lacking in evidence, overstating things and drawing inferences I think are poorly supported.
It is very lacking in empathy to refer to him as a fugitive rather than someone in asylum. Any fugitive status he may have had has been proven to be political in nature.
"Any fugitive status he may have had has been proven to be political in nature."
Proven you say?
Things asylum seekers typically say: "If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case"
My uncle was a machinist in a large U.S. company back in the early 2000s when the employees decided to end the torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange.
According to him all it ended up doing was stifling innovation and rewarding mediocre lifers over the high performing employees.
