© Rasid Necati Aslim/Getty ImagesJullian Assange supporter
By locking away one journalist and abetting the misery of an entire people,
the West combines oppressive structure with disregard for law...Recently, two of the defining injustices of the contemporary West have been the object of legal proceedings. And while one involves mass murder and the other the torture but not murder of a single victim (at least not yet),
there are good reasons to juxtapose the two systematically. The suffering involved is different, but the forces that cause it are intricately linked and, as we will see, reveal much about the nature of the West as a political order.In The Hague, the
UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) - also known as the World Court - has held extensive
hearings (involving 52 states and three international organizations) on Israel's post-1967 occupation - or de facto annexation - of Palestinian territories.
These hearings are connected to, but are not the same as, the genocide case against Israel also currently proceeding at the ICJ.All of this is happening against the backdrop of Israel's relentless genocide of the Palestinians by bombing, shooting (reportedly
including small children, in the head), blockade, and starvation. As of now, the constantly growing - and conservative - victim count stands at about 30,000 killed, 70,000 injured, 7,000 missing, and at least 2 million displaced, often more than once, always under horrific conditions.
In London, the Royal Courts of Justice have been the stage for Julian Assange's fight for an appeal against Washington's demand to extradite him to the US. Assange, an activist and publisher of investigative journalism, has already been in confinement - of one kind or the other - for more than a decade. Since 2019, he has been held in the Belmarsh high security prison. In fact,
what has already happened to him is the modern equivalent of being locked away in the Bastille by royal
"lettre de cachet" in absolutist, pre-revolutionary, Ancien régime France. Multiple observers, including a UN special rapporteur, have argued compellingly that Assange's treatment has amounted to
torture.
Comment: Fani should have been turfed out as a prosecutor and disbarred long ago. The case reeks. And what's up with Gov Kemp and the GA Republicans??