To:
Taoiseach Enda Kenny TD,
Department of the Taoiseach,
Government Buildings,
Upper Merrion Street,
Dublin 2
Dear
Mr. Kenny,
I write to you today as
one of the “engaged citizens”
that
José Manuel Barroso lauded Ireland for having in his speech launching the
European Year of Citizens and I write to you today as a student of History,
Politics and Criminology regarding an issue which concerns all subjects.
I
also write to you today on behalf of issues such as transparency in politics,
trust between politicians and the people and I write to you on behalf of a
mother who has urged people who care about this case to write to people in a
position of power who can help influence the current situation her innocent son
finds himself in.
I
will present to you today, a case that needs urgent investigation and I believe
that as Taoiseach in Ireland’s current role as President of the European
Council, you are placed precisely in a role to investigate this matter.
In
this the European Year of the Citizen we have in our midst a man who is being
kept illegally in the Ecuadorian embassy by the United Kingdom and Sweden. He
has had to stay there since August after the UK denied him safe passage to
Ecuador after being granted political asylum. In the case I present to you
today, I will present the evidence as to why you must investigate and act as a
matter of urgency on this man’s behalf. The evidence will clearly demonstrate
why you must question both the UK and Sweden on their ulterior motives in
regard to Mr. Julian Assange.
Why Should We Be So Concerned?
Without
going into every little background detail on Wikileaks, Julian Assange and the
countries involved, I will bring to your attention the most concerning issues
regarding the situation and talk about why, using available evidence, this
issue needs addressing now.
Sweden:
Sweden
today says that it can’t extradite people to the US because of European Law.
That has not stopped the following instances of extraordinary renditions
involving Sweden, foreign nationals and its own
citizens:
In
2001, Sweden allowed the CIA to extraordinarily rendition two Egyptian’s who
were deemed to be terrorists to Mubarek’s Egypt. They did this even though
extraditing
people to countries known to be engaged in torture is against international law.
The Swedish government also kept
the CIA's role in the case a secret for more than three years. Then, in 2004,
following unofficial reports of the rendition, it released documents showing
that a U.S.-registered plane had been used to transport the Egyptians to Cairo
but said the details were classified. It wasn't until March, when the
parliamentary investigator released his findings that the CIA's direct
involvement was publicly confirmed.
In
2012, Sweden allowed the US to detain two of its citizens, of Somali descent,
in Somalia. Despite Swedish diplomats being allowed to visit the men, there was
absolutely no protest or objection by Sweden to the illegal rendering of their
citizens. Indeed the Washington Post quoted them as saying “authorities in
Sweden and Britain had monitored the three men for years as they travelled back
and forth to Somalia, but neither country assembled enough evidence to press
criminal charges.”
The
Washington Post wrote that “
U.S.
agents accused the men — two of them Swedes, the other a longtime resident of
Britain — of supporting al-Shabab, an Islamist militia in Somalia that Washington considers a
terrorist group. Two months after their arrest, the prisoners were secretly
indicted by a federal grand jury in New York, then clandestinely taken into
custody by the FBI and flown to the United States to face trial.”
Did you notice the mention of those two European countries
again in the Washington Post’s article – Britain and Sweden? Well here is what
Asim Qureshi, a spokesman for human rights
charity Cageprisoners, had to say regarding the British resident: 'We believe
that because of the problems that the UK Government has had with deportations
and extraditions, it has been easier for them to remove the citizenship of
individuals, thus allowing them to be victims of rendition by third-party
countries.'
On January 18th it emerged that a British court will hear Mr. Hashi's case to
restore his British passport.
Regarding Swedish
political interference in Julian Assange’s case, please look at the series of statements made by members of the
Swedish Executive and government officials on the Assange case cited
from a letter written by Australian Green Party Senator Scott Ludlam to Senator
Bob Carr, Australia’s Foreign Minister.
Such executive
commentary in Sweden, or indeed any European country, compromises the
democratic principle of separation of the executive from judicial processes and
is prejudicial and therefore jeopardises the potential for a fair trial.
For these reasons
I respectfully request that representations be made to the Swedish government
noting and regretting the potential damaging nature of these statements made
about an Australian citizen, requesting their retraction or at the very least
cessation.
11 February 2011
– The Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt mistakenly stated that Assange
had been charged. The statement was never officially retracted.
25 January 2012 –
Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, criticised Assange on Swedish
national radio one week before Assange’s Supreme Court case was heard in the
UK. Reinfeldt stated that Julian Assange’s criticisms of abuses by the Swedish
system in his case were not legitimate and were a strategy to avoid
extradition. The full interview is available at the cited link.
February 2012 –
Foreign Minister Carl Bildt makes statements on Assange via Twitter
8 February 2012 –
In a parliamentary address the Prime Minister Reinfeldt said that “we do not
accept sexual abuse or rape” and said that Assange and his lawyers had little
regard for women’s rights. Mr Assange’s barrister, Geoffrey Robertson QC, said
Mr Reinfeldt had also “accused Mr Assange of claiming women’s rights are
worthless”.
15 August 2012 –
Swedish Minister of Social Affairs Göran Hägglund issued a series of tweets:
”Sick. A coward who does not dare to have his case tried by the court. If the
accusations against him are true, he is a lowlife.” None of these statements
have been retracted.
Please see the citation for a longer version of the entire Twitter
conversation.
In a statement
given to Expressen later that week, The Minister called Assange a “coward” and
a “pitiful wretch” for taking refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy. “Assange is a
very cowardly person who does not dare confront the charges against him.”
18 August 2012 –
the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a tweet, presumably arguing why
Assange cannot be questioned in London: “You do not dictate the terms if you
are a suspect. Get it?”
While the
comments of journalists, particularly those writing for Dagens Nyheter, Svenska
Dagbladet, Expressen and Aftonbladet are beyond the control of the government,
statements made by senior officials have contributed to providing a permissive
environment for blatantly offensive aggression towards Assange in the Swedish
press, a few examples of which are also provided below.
22 February 2012
– Expressen publishes a story – entirely false as it turns out – that Wikileaks
threatens to publish an internal memo that will reveal Carl Bildt as an
informant for the US. This causes Bildt to make hostile public statements on
his blog. Wikileaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson puts the matter to rest but
not before a great deal of destructive and malicious commentary is made in the
Swedish press.
29 February 2012
– Sweden’s largest daily, Dagens Nyheter, called Assange “paranoid”, and a
“querulant”.
14 March 2012 –
Aftonbladet’s prominent journalist Martin Aagård called Assange an, “Australian
pig”. ”There are many good reasons to criticize Assange. One of them is that
he’s a repugnant swine.”
24 April 2011 –
Jan Guillou stated in Aftonbladet that regardless of, “whether Assange is
guilty or not – he’s still an unprincipled disgusting little creep”, adding
”and now I’m holding back”.
16 August 2012 –
Aftonbladet columnist Oisín Cantwell characterised Assange as a ”coward”, a
”creep”, a ”white-haired crackpot” and an ”asshole” because he would rather
request asylum from Ecuador than face extradition to Sweden.
18 August 2012 – TV journalist Jenny
Strömstedt stated in Expressen that Assange should be put on display in a glass
cage at Ecuador’s London embassy for the next fifteen years ”so that anyone
willing to pay entrance can watch his aging struggles”.
Rhetoric like the
above is hardly conducive to constructive discourse or any sort of fair hearing
Taoiseach.
The United States:
With
regard to the United States, this is a country that previously openly said
that they were not after Mr. Assange. Why then in 2010 did
Vice President Joe Biden describe Julian Assange as a “high tech terrorist”?
And why when asked by David Gregory if the
United States was doing anything to stop Wikileaks and Mr. Assange did Vice
President Biden say “we’re looking at that right now”.
Why Taoiseach, has there been a secret grand
jury actively investigating Wikileaks for 857 days at the time of writing?
Karl
Rove said that he feels Julian Assange is “a criminal who ought to be hunted down,
grabbed and put on trial.”
Karl Rove was from 2009 until 2011 at least, an
advisor to the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt
who
as you read above, has no problem openly stating his opinions regarding Mr.
Assange.
Mitch
McConnell who is the US Senate Minority leader said (also in 2010) on Meet the
Press that Mr. Assange “needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law
and if that becomes a problem, we need to …. to change the law”
and
that was not mere rhetoric. In December 2010
the so-called Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing
Lawful Dissemination (Shield) Bill was thus introduced by Congressman Peter
King and Senator Joe Lieberman to prosecute Mr. Assange.
Here
I have what is a link to the bill.
Lastly,
why do leaked emails from the US intelligence firm Stratfor clearly confirm
that the US has a sealed
indictment on Julian? Were you aware that this Indictment cannot be
served until Julian Assange is in prison? Say for example, in Sweden?
Taoiseach, since
WikiLeaks began publishing leaked US diplomatic cables in 2010, the US
government has made clear its intention to prosecute Mr. Assange:
• On 29 November 2010, US Attorney-General,
Eric Holder, announced “an active, ongoing criminal investigation’ into Mr.
Assange and WikiLeaks.
• US officials told the Australian Embassy in
Washington that the investigation is “unprecedented
in both its scale and nature”.
• The existence of a secret grand jury
convened in West Virginia for the purpose of indicting Mr. Assange has been
confirmed by the publication of subpoenas compelling witnesses to testify
before it.
A transcribed record of courtroom
proceedings for alleged whistle-blower, Private Bradley Manning, reveals that
the FBI currently has a file on WikiLeaks that is “42,135 pages or 3,475
documents”, excluding grand jury testimony.
Now tell me that the US is not
interested in prosecuting Mr. Assange.
The journalist
Glenn Greenwald wrote that “over the last decade, the US government - under both parties -
has repeatedly accused people of being Terrorists and punished them as
Terrorists who were nothing of the sort. Whether due to gross error or more
corrupt motives, the Executive Branch and its various intelligence and military
agencies have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that their mere accusation
that someone is a Terrorist - unproven with evidence and untested by any
independent tribunal - is definitively unreliable.”
Why are we still trusting their words? As
you’ve seen previously with the two Somali’s – if the US deems you to be any
type of terrorist they believe they can rendition and prosecute you.
As
you can see from the US’ political responses, the charges against Mr. Assange
are of a most serious political nature. Why else after Marianne Ny allowed him
to leave Sweden in 2010 would all these issues arise? Mr. Assange himself has
the answer: “I stayed five weeks
in Sweden, was given permission to leave. I published Cablegate & got an
INTERPOL warrant.”
The
United Kingdom:
Finally regarding the UK, the Foreign
Office has said that "on
the case of Mr. Julian Assange, the foreign secretary told [the Ecuadorian]
Minister Patino that the UK was under an obligation to extradite Mr Assange to
Sweden.
Isn’t it funny how in 2000, Jack Straw,
then the UK’s Home Secretary took his decision not to extradite General Pinochet to Spain
under a section of the 1989 Extradition act which requires him not to extradite
an alleged offender if he believes it would be "unjust or oppressive"
to do so.
Indeed
it is well known that this decision was taken on medical grounds, although it
may be done on others, such as that the offence was trivial or the accusations
were not made in good faith, or because of the passage of time since the
alleged offences.
The
home secretary's discretion not to surrender someone after the magistrate has
committed them for extradition is wide. He is required to consider the personal
circumstances of the alleged offender and any new evidence since the committal. I agree absolutely with
President Correa when he says that Britain's
failure to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet more than a
decade ago means it has no right to lecture others over the fate of WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange. He continued “Pinochet was not extradited for humanitarian reasons, when there were
dozens of Europeans and thousands of Latin Americans who were murdered, and
tens of thousands of people were tortured during the Pinochet dictatorship,” he
told reporters in Quito.
Pinochet was arrested
by British police at a hospital in London in 1998 after Spain demanded his
extradition for alleged torture and murder, including of Spanish citizens,
during his 1973-1990 rule.
The British government decided in 2000
that the frail Pinochet was unfit to stand trial and free to fly home.
So are we to understand that it is to be
one rule for an innocent, award winning, transparency seeking citizen of the
world, another for a US installed, murderous dictator?
To reiterate
the FACT: The UK Government can and
has previously overruled court decided Extraditions.
We
are at a point now Taoiseach where Sweden has refused to question Mr. Assange
in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Julian has not refused to answer any allegations
that he has been accused of. What he has refused to do, is travel without any
guarantees for his safety and without any guarantee that Sweden will not hand
him over to the US. Why have they not been able to offer this simple guarantee
Taoiseach? Can Ireland in its role as President of the European Council get an
answer for all of us who seek answers to this extreme injustice?
Why are Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
different?
I’m
now going to list some of the awards that Wikileaks and Julian Assange have won
in their role as journalists:
Julian won The
Economist magazine’s Freedom of Expression Award in 2008.
Julian won the Amnesty UK Media Award in
2009 for the “Cry of Blood” report into extrajudicial killings and
disappearances in Kenya
In
2010, Julian was awarded the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence
(regarding the Iraq War Logs) On the panel that day? Retired senior US Military and Intelligence Officers no less.
In 2011 Julian Assange won a Wakely Award for Most Outstanding
Contribution to Journalism.
Also in 2011,
Assange won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. The awarders of the prize
noted that “He is brave, determined
and independent and a true agent of people not power… [WikiLeaks'] goal of
justice through transparency is in the oldest and finest tradition of
journalism.”
And finally in 2011, Mr. Assange was awarded
the Sydney Peace Foundation's gold medal for "exceptional courage in
pursuit of human rights". The
Sydney Peace Foundation has only awarded 4 Gold Medals in 16 years, with Nelson
Mandela and the Dalai Lama being 2 of the other 3 recipients.
On
February 3rd this year, Julian will receive (in absentia) the Yoko
Ono Lennon Courage Award in New York; The Centre for Constitutional Reform's
Michael Ratner and Judge Garzon will accept this on his behalf.
And
may I point out that Wikileaks
has
a perfect
record regarding information reliability. No Government has denied the authenticity
of any documents.
The
only ‘crime’ Wikileaks and Julian Assange could be accused of is releasing
‘treasonous truths’. Well let me say that the truth should never be considered
treasonous. In an age where politics is at a low ebb and José Manuel Barroso
has admitted that politicians need “to earn [the peoples] trust more than ever”
–
this is your chance to earn peoples trust and admiration the world over.
Now
Taoiseach, you might ask “well why doesn’t Mr. Assange face justice for his
alleged crimes in Sweden? Why if he is innocent, does he not return to Sweden
to face his accusers?” Well you have previously read the beliefs and attitudes
of the Swedish executive and as one of my heroes in life, Arsene Wenger, said
in a speech to sports journalist students “
We have moved to a ‘media' society, from a rational to an emotional
society, opinions spread quickly.”
He could have
made that comment to any school of journalists. The opinions of the Swedish
executive were put out in the public sphere concerning Mr. Assange after his
release of US Government files showing the illegal actions of the US government.
Please, let me offer you some facts on the case Taoiseach so you may see for
yourself why a return to Sweden is not currently possible:
You may also be asking ‘Is Julian Assange
avoiding questioning by the Swedish prosecution’?
The Swedish prosecutor offers no
reason as to why she will not question Mr Assange
in London.
The interview of one complainant was not recorded,
despite the fact that interviews with all other persons were recorded. A condom
submitted as evidence by the other complainant contained no
DNA from Mr Assange.
So to reiterate
a FACT: The only conditions Sweden
will accept to interview Julian is if he is first in indefinite detention in
Sweden. Why Taoiseach?
These are just a few examples of the
peculiar conduct of the investigation.
You
might also question the changing relationship of the mainstream media and how
they’ve turned against Wikileaks and Mr Assange. I urge you to look at the slowly
changing attitudes of the New York Times
and
the LA Times.
The
reason? During a recent court hearing in Bradley Manning’s trial, the
journalist Kevin Gosztola recorded the following line of questioning that happened:
Judge:
if we substituted the New York Times for WikiLeaks, would you still charge
Bradley Manning in the way that you have?
Without
hesitation the Government answered “yes.”
This
is the frightening direction we are heading towards. Thankfully this answer has
slowly started awakening some people in the media in the US as to the dangers
we all face to freedom of information.
European Arrest Warrant
Lastly
in regard to Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks, I wish to draw your attention to the
European Arrest Warrant (EAW) that has been issued by Sweden for Mr. Assange as
this is in regard to our European Law.
From
the European Unions own website, Europa.eu,
it
says that a EAW
applies
in the following cases:
• where a final sentence of
imprisonment or a detention order has been imposed for a period of at least four
months;
• for offences punishable by
imprisonment or a detention order for a maximum period of at least one year.
Neither
of these issues apply to Julian Assange.
Europa.eu also says
that
the framework decision
defines "European arrest warrant" as any judicial decision issued by
a Member State with a view to the arrest or surrender by another Member State
of a requested person, for the purposes of:
• conducting a criminal
prosecution;
• executing a custodial
sentence;
• executing a detention order.
Again, not one of these points relates to Mr. Assange’s
case. Sweden has consistently stated he is wanted for
questioning. I find it hard to fathom why a EAW was issued when the
Chief Prosecutor of Stockholm, Eva Finne dismissed the rape allegation in 2010
as "having no basis". Also after refusing Julian’s requests for an
interview, Prosecutor Marianne Ny gave Julian permission to leave Sweden on
15/9/10.
Please read the actual
court documents
Taoiseach. Point 13 states Mr. Assange was given permission to leave.
It
is also a fact that Julian offered to fly back to Sweden for an interview, Oct
9-10 2010, but the Swedish Prosecutor refused because it was a weekend. And
lastly, it is also a fact that Sweden has refused ALL Julian’s requests to be
interviewed via Mutual Legal Assistance - the normal protocol.
As
the great Carl Sagen once said, “I don’t want to believe, I want to know.” Well
I don’t want to believe that you will look into this Taoiseach, I want to know
you will. It is an issue of utmost importance.
As Jonathan Turley, an
American lawyer, legal scholar, writer, commentator, and legal analyst in
broadcast and print journalism commented, “the material released by WikiLeaks ticked off the US government,
primarily because it showed that the government had been routinely lying to the
American people. That produced tremendous anger from government officials who
are not used to being exposed in this way, including members of Congress. These
are people who tightly control what the public knows and what information is
allowed out of the government.”
We
the citizens need to know what are
the rights of people to expose the truth? Where are our protections? How far are you, our government prepared to
go to protect us from this unstable attitude the US currently has towards
freedom of information in regard to crimes committed by said government?
Readers of Shoutout UK voted
The European Union the 5th most influential organisation in 2012.
Can you use this influence to help protect the 2nd most influential
organisation
Taoiseach?
So Where Do We Currently Stand?
At
the time of writing, here is where we stand:
WikiLeaks has been financially blockaded without process for 780 days.
Julian Assange
has been detained without charge for 777 days.
- 215
days at the Ecuadorian
Embassy.
Bradley
Manning has been in prison without trial for 972 days.
Jeremy Hammond
has been in prison without trial for 323 days.
A secret Grand Jury on WikiLeaks has
been active for 857 days.
This
is neither a legal, moral or decent place to find ourselves in Taoiseach.
Ireland must act in its current role as President of the European Council and
also with our seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Today,
Barack Obama had his inauguration on Dr. Martin Luther King day. Let me leave
you with two quotes from Dr. King that resonate as strongly today as they did
when he said them:
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The US’ tentacles of ‘justice’ are stretching far from its
own shores. By not having anyone question their illegalities of the last decade
we find ourselves under threat of injustice in Europe because of Obama’s
repressive and secretive war on information and European governments are
seemingly happy to ignore this injustice.
“There
comes a time when silence is betrayal."
As
I demonstrated earlier, the silence has been deafening in regard to the
injustice being bestowed upon WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Politicians silence
is betraying us the citizenry. We need you to be our voice on issues that
affect our freedoms this deeply. Please Mr. Kenny, use your position of
influence to bring this case to the attention of those who can affect change. The
world awaits your action. Please don’t betray Mr. Assange or we the people with
silence any longer.
I
thank you most sincerely for taking the time to read this.
Yours
sincerely,
__________________
Me
