Prisoner of the British state Julian Assange is being kept inside a Hannibal Lecter style see-through armoured box throughout the hearings in a Belmarsh Prison ‘special court’ over his extradition warrant from the USA.
Assange, investigative journalist and WikiLeaks founder with many international journalism awards to his credit, and whose only ‘crime’ was releasing footage of a 2007 US massacre/atrocity in Iraq, is being escorted every day by Serco private security guards to and from his courtroom box/cage (built by G4) through a special underground tunnel from his cell, all shelled out for at untold cost to the taxpayer.
In scenes reminiscent of the Nazi State’s ‘Trial’ of Sophie Schöll, or the infamous and internationally condemned Diplock Courts from Northern Ireland’s darkest days of injustice, Assange is not allowed to even see his defence team, let alone confer with them in private as British law allows. Instead, he has to shout across the court chamber to them through a slit in the box and in full exposure to the entire court. And considering even the US authorities have no objection to Assange getting a proper legal defence, why are the Brits so craven and desperate to exceed their master’s call?
The UN special rapporteur on torture has already stated that Julian Assange was undergoing extreme psychological torture even before he was unceremoniously bundled out of his diplomatic sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy, and that his subsequent treatment by the British state has only served to amplify that. Amazingly, amid the deafening silence of UK and world ‘liberal’ media over his plight, the only effective action implemented to reduce his suffering was that made by his fellow prisoners in Belmarsh high security prison, who formed a successful campaign to get him removed from the 24 hour solitary confinement dungeon he was being kept in and be transferred to the normal part of the jail.
Yes, it was these people, all incarcerated violent criminals to a man, who are the only ones who took concrete sympathy with his plight and told the prison authorities, ‘He is not one of us, and the way you are treating him is wrong. Take him out of here.’
