© Reuters/Henry NichollsSupporters of Julian Assange hold aloft placards and unfurl a banner outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, UK, December 10, 2021.
He exposed empire as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, its callous disregard for human life, its rampant corruption, and its innumerable war crimes. But, as history shows, empires kill those who inflict deep wounds.Let us name Julian Assange's executioners. Joe Biden. Boris Johnson. Scott Morrison. Theresa May. Lenin Moreno. Donald Trump. Barack Obama. Mike Pompeo. Hillary Clinton. Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett and Lord Justice Timothy Victor Holroyde. Crown Prosecutors James Lewis QC, Clair Dobbin QC and Joel Smith. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser
. Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia Gordon Kromberg. William Burns, the director of the CIA. Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5.
Let us acknowledge that the goal of these executioners, who discussed kidnapping and assassinating Assange, has always been his annihilation. That Assange, who is in precarious physical and psychological health, and who
suffered a stroke during court video proceedings on October 27, has been condemned to death should not come as a surprise. The 10 years he has been detained, seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and nearly three in the high-security Belmarsh prison, were accompanied by a lack of sunlight and exercise, and unrelenting threats, pressure, anxiety and stress.
"His eyes were out of sync, his right eyelid would not close, his memory was blurry," his fiancรฉe Stella Moris said of the stroke.
Comment: Here's just some of the footage from today's Europe-wide protests:
France; Marseille, Toulouse, Montpellier, Paris, Dijon:
Luxembourg:
Zurich:
Austria:
Also in South Korea, and Canada:
See also: