(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The "murderous system" Melzer sees taking shape, according to Republican magazine Jan. 28, is neither limited to Trump's world nor the United States, but includes Storbritannia and not least Sweden. Why has not this outrageous charge created a storm in the Norwegian and Swedish press?
Profit on WikiLeaks
Nils Melzer is the UN's Special Rapporteur on torture cases and cannot be dismissed as contradictory or conspiratorial. He warned against processing the alert website WikiLeaks'editor and founder Julian Assange gets into British prison, and delivered a report last year. References to lack of health care and torture has occasionally appeared in Norwegian media.
#PRETTY she responds, and MODERN TIMES has among others on front page in May 2019 informed about the treatment of Assange. Following a grumbling chronicle of politician and corruption hunter Eva Joly in the Evening Post January 28 this year against the silence of the Norwegian press about the assaults against Assange, Aftenposten's editor Trine Eilertsen was forced onto the field. She was invited to Dagsnytt 18 to defend the newspaper's lack of commitment.
"He's not a journalist," Eilertsen said, so he didn't deserve the protection and support journalists can expect. She reflected with this view also her former employer Bergens Tidende, and also Dagbladet, have defiled.
Faced with that Aftenposten had profited profusely on Assange's and WikiLeaks' revelations and then criticized him, Eilertsen dismissed this as saying that Aftenposten had not received the material from WikiLeaks, but "from other sources".
Aftenposten is "frugal with the truth"
Here Eilertsen is what the Englishmen in godlune would call "economical with the truth". She forgot that Aftenposten had its own group working on the WikiLeaks disclosures: Bergens Tidende reported that Aftenposten had 11 full-time employees to fine-tune the WikiLeaks documents. On August 24, 2010, Assange is also called "journalist" in Aftenposten's factual framework for the case "Wikileaks boss not cleansed".
Aftenposten's archive tells about frequent WikiLeaks lookups: in July 21 articles, August 19, September 5, October 19, November 28, and in December we get 150 hits on WikiLeaks – this is in 2010, when the revelations gained momentum. But it was then. If you click on the "Wikileaks fabric" collection page on Aftenposten's website today, you get: "We're sorry. We couldn't find the page you're looking for. "
Warning for future whistleblowers
Nils Melzer – with all his weight as a lawyer for the International Red Cross Committee and as a Special Rapporteur on torture cases for the UN – did not limit his criticism to torture in British and American prisons. Since Melzer both speaks and writes Swedish fluently, he could go into the court papers in Sweden and reveal a dirty and criminal behavior on the part of the authorities. This was something any journalist with a minimum of professional pride could do – nine years ago!
In other words, Melzer does not criticize an investigation "full of errors", such as the class struggle writes. Melzer rages against what he believes is a collaboration between the Swedish and British judiciary driven by the Americans to "crush" Assange and warn future whistleblowers. Hence his serious outburst: "A murderous system is about to emerge right before our eyes."
Diplomas were changed
"I was shocked," Melzer concluded about police clap hunting on Assange. In the article in the Republic magazine January 28 this year he elaborates on this:
Two women go to the Swedish police to find out if they can demand that Assange pass an HIV test after they both had sex with him recently. The women did not talk about rape at any time. But then it happens: Testimony was changed by police to just a charge of rape. The women do not want to hear about the report and leave the police station.
Two hours later, the police not only changed their explanations, but also fed the newspaper The Express with the news that Assange is being called and reported – for rape.
Meltzer provides an email asking the police officer who interviewed the women to change the explanations. But it is not known what the changes consisted of, since the first draft is "lost".
In Sweden, it is the dishwasher if they want to save their reputation as a rule of law.
Fear delivery rightly
Assange does not get an explanation. Melzer claims that this is not a reluctant Assange, but about authorities with other intentions. Melzer sees this in the context of information he has received that the Stratfor consulting firm has recommended the US Department of Defense to run a swearing-in campaign against the whistleblower.
We must remember that the WikiLeaks leaks about US war crimes were the largest ever, and that the United States, of all its allies, demanded wholehearted support in the fight against the warrants – not the war criminals.
Assange had every reason to fear extradition to the US, because the Swedish authorities had handed registered asylum seekers to the CIA the year before, says Melzer. They were already abused at Arlanda Airport and ended up being tortured in Egypt. We know of these cases because the victims survived, says Melzer.
There is no need to criticize Assange for carrying out investigative journalism. What was supposed to be democratic practice, on the other hand, was to investigate the war crimes that were revealed, Melzer says. But not a single review has been made, he says.
The most horrible, says Melzer, however, to the Republic, is the lawlessness that has played out in the process against Assange. It worries him about the future.
It's about freedom of speech
In Sweden, Meltzer's warnings are reflected by the outgoing leader of the Swedish Bar Association, Anne Ramberg. She rejects that Assange's use of "stolen information" disqualifies him as a journalist. She reminds us what the Assange case is about: freedom of speech and legal principles, and ultimately a moral responsibility to expose war crimes.
In Norway, Eva Joly has challenged the media. While Bergens Tidende used many pages to criticize Assange, Melzer's significant disclosures are set as a small one-column article. In the Aftenposten archives it is not as easy to find anymore.
The newspaper's former chief editor Harald Stanghelle has previously proven to be a good advocate for whistleblowers (See Aftenposten June 13, 2015). February 24 of this year he takes one clear stand against the extradition of Assange to the draconian justice system of the United States.
But in the commentary, Stanghelle loses perspective. Assange has not neglected to criticize Trump, as Hillary Clinton's camp likes to think, and which Aftenposten collegiates. And it calls for the smile that Assange should have used to "manipulate a people's free national elections" – after all, the United States has made just this a craft, regardless of who is president.
To date, no one has documented that WikiLeaks' revelations have led to the loss of life. On the other hand, WikiLeaks has revealed that the United States' ugly warfare since 2001 has killed tens of thousands of innocent people – and that US leaders are aware of this. Stanghelle calls the US warfare "dirty" and "on wild roads".
"Assange is not a journalist," emphasized Aftenposten's editor Eilertsen. And we who thought it was only dictatorships that decided who could call themselves a journalist.
Today, Assange is abused by the Swedish and British judiciary, so there is reason to take the UN Melzer seriously when he warns against "a murderous system". For Assange's future is more than a single destiny. It is about the very basis for the development of democracies the way we want them, and about the survival of a true press.
Julian Assange has been in custody in the United Kingdom since April 2019. He faces 175 years in prison if extradited to the United States. The UK will decide the issue in the hearing which started at Woolwich Crown Court on February 24. The hearing will continue in May.
Also read:
Melzer interview in Republic and the MODERN TIMES commentary I'm Julian from May 2019.
Daily News 18 January 23, 2020.
