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Julian Assange wins right to appeal extradition to US, remains in UK prison for now

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Julian Assange, Embassy Of Ecuador on May 19, 2017 in London, England.

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

On Monday Julian Assange won the right to appeal his extradition to the United States, where he would face espionage charges, on the grounds that he could not be guaranteed a defense under the First Amendment.

In a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice to decide his fate, imprisoned journalist Julian Assange has won the right to appeal his extradition to the United States.

The May 20 ruling means his transfer to the U.S. to face charges under the Espionage Act is delayed. He was granted the right to appeal, in his absence, on the grounds that he could not be guaranteed a defense under the First Amendment in the United States.

The move came despite assurances from U.S. lawyers and could see Assange face months more imprisonment whilst an appeal is prepared.

Leave to appeal welcomed

Assange’s lawyers have questioned assurances that he will not face the death penalty if extradited to the U.S. to face 18 charges claiming his publications through WikiLeaks damaged U.S. national security and endangered the lives of U.S. agents.

No agent has been harmed as a result of Assange’s disclosures.

The U.K.’s National Union of Journalists welcomed the move.

READ: Julian Assange’s show trial could determine the future of press freedom in the West

At this crucial juncture, this judgment serves as a positive step forward for Assange and for every journalist seeking to reveal truths through their reporting… We welcome today’s judgment and hope it is the first step in victory for Assange.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, appealed for Assange’s immediate release:

President Biden should do the right thing now and clear the way for Assange’s release.

Five years and counting

“The U.K. and U.S. are happy to talk about political prisoners abroad,” said Stella Assange, in a moving video account of Assange’s ordeal published on the morning of the hearing. “But they have created a political prisoner of their own.”

She points out that whilst war criminals such as former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair are free and very prosperous, Assange has been denied the right to appear at his own trials since 2021. What is more, she says, “Julian did nothing wrong. He exposed war crimes.”

She explained why he was imprisoned – as a punishment for revealing war crimes through his organization, WikiLeaks.

Julian is in prison because WikiLeaks is a publisher which specializes in the secrets that states keep the most hidden.

She went on:

Julian revealed war crimes committed by the superpower, the United States. That superpower has punished him.

She argues that the case extends the right of states to suppress press freedom beyond its own borders. This, she says, provides a precedent for critics of any regime worldwide to be targeted and silenced in the same way.

Stella Assange, a human rights lawyer, says evidence held by WikiLeaks shows that 30 former intelligence agents have said there was a plot to assassinate Assange by the CIA.

The plot was revealed in October 2021 and documented in a piece from the same month by Patrick Cockburn titled “The CIA plot to kidnap or kill Julian Assange in London is a story that is being mistakenly ignored.”

The beginning of the end?

The current head of WikiLeaks, the outlet formerly headed by Assange, branded the court’s decision as a win, according to Consortium News.

‘This was a watershed moment in this very long battle,’ said WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn at an event following the hearing. ‘Today marked the beginning of the end of the persecution. The signaling from the courts here in London was clear to the U.S. government: We don’t believe your guarantees, we don’t believe in your assurances.’

Keeping Assange ‘caged’

Yet independent journalist Glenn Greenwald saw a darker motive in the long, drawn-out process of Assange’s continuing confinement.

His post on X (formerly Twitter) referred to the initial removal of Assange from the London Embassy of Ecuador, in which he had taken refuge in 2012.

Following accusations now withdrawn, an arrest warrant had been issued for Assange in 2010. His retreat into the Ecuadorian embassy saw him confined there for seven years.

However, 24 hours after WikiLeaks published details of high-level corruption in Ecuador, he was handed over to British police on April 11, 2019. He has been in custody or prison ever since.

Greenwald added:

The real purpose of pressuring Ecuador to remove its asylum protection for Assange, and now Biden’s relentless extradition demands, is not to bring Assange to the US for trial – the [White House] does not want that – but to keep Assange caged and destroyed.

The United Nations has long condemned his treatment, saying the British government was “arbitrarily detaining” him without charge.

Responding to one X user who said the courts were simply “kicking the can” by postponing a judgement, Greenwald replied again:

Yes, but Assange quite reasonably views extradition to the US as the worst of all options, because if that happens, he will be disappeared into a dungeon, tried in E. Virginia with national security judges who convict everyone, and then will die in a US cage.

Appeals and hope for release

With this grim fate in mind, the Defend Assange Campaign released the following appeal for his immediate release on X:

Julian Assange will remain isolated, in a cell in the UK’s harshest prison for the foreseeable future, following today’s granting of an appeal by the UK high court[.]

For over 13 years detained in one form or another – it is time to bring this charade to an end…

Hopes that President Biden, seeking to reconcile his tarnished image with younger voters, would drop the charges against Assange seem to be fading.

What remains in this box is not hope, as with that of Pandora, but a man who dared expose the crimes of the rulers to the ruled.

His treatment is an example to us all, and it is one which speaks a dark truth about those who remain in power.

Former U.K. ambassador Craig Murray, a longtime supporter of Assange, spoke outside the courtroom following the news:

“We haven’t got Julian out just yet… But we are on the way… to victory in this battle,” he said.

Murray, who recalled the 12 years he has spent in supporting Assange, gave the crowd a resoundingly confident message:

And we are seeing at last an acknowledgement of the crucial importance of freedom of speech, freedom of information, and of the public’s right to know.

And those are the grounds on which we will win this case.

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Georgia county admits illegally certifying 315k ballots in 2020 presidential election

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

Approximately 150 ‘tabulator tapes’ tracking the votes of more than 300,000 early voters were not signed.

Fulton County, Georgia, has admitted to including 315,000 early votes in the disputed 2020 presidential election despite the fact that they were not properly certified according to state law.

State law demands that voting “tabulator tapes” that publish the recorded results of polling stations must be verified and signed by poll workers, but approximately 150 tapes tracking the votes of more than 300,000 early voters were not signed.

In a hearing before the State Election Board (SEB), an attorney for Fulton County said the county does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.”

“It was a violation of the rule,” she said. “They shouldn’t have done it.”

“At best, this is sloppy and lazy. At worst, it could be egregious,” fired back Georgia SEB Member Janelle King. “It could have affected an election.”

The December 9 hearing was the result of election integrity activist David Cross, who filed a challenge with the board in 2022, alleging that Fulton County’s handling of early voting violated the state’s election rules.

“These are not clerical errors. They are catastrophic breaks in chain of custody and certification,” Cross said during the hearing.

“Because no tape was ever legally certified, Fulton County had no lawful authority to certify its advanced voting results to the secretary of state. Yet it did,” said Cross. “And Secretary [Brad] Raffensperger accepted and folded those uncertified numbers into Georgia’s official total without questioning them.”

“This is not partisan. This is statutory. This is the law. When the law demands three signatures on tabulator tapes and the county fails to follow the rules, those 315,000 votes are, by definition, uncertified,” said Cross.

“Georgia has the most secure elections in the country and all voters were verified with photo ID and lawfully cast their ballots. A clerical error at the end of the day does not erase valid, legal votes,” averred Raffensberger.

Meanwhile, Republicans took issue with Raffensperger’s denial of the seriousness of Fulton County’s procedural lapse.

Republican Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones ridiculed Raffensberger’s post.

“If only Georgia had an official responsible for preventing clerical errors that undermine election integrity,” said Jones, a candidate for Georgia governor.

“Is there anyone in Georgia who has that job, Brad?” asked Jones, his opponent in the state’s gubernatorial race.

“We just started peeling the layers back on this onion and it already stinks,” said U.S. House Rep. Mike Collins (GA-10). “Years later, when the truth finally comes out, Trump was right.”

“President Trump is owed a massive apology,” asserted Collins. “Turns out over 300,000 early votes in the 2020 election were illegally certified but still included in the final results.”

Collins said he is “tired of empty words from weak leaders. The people of Georgia demand action.”

In the 2020 election, Joe Biden narrowly beat out incumbent President Donald Trump by less than 12,000 votes in the Peach Tree State.

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International

Communist China arrests hundreds of Christians just days before Christmas

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From LifeSiteNews

By S.A. McCarthy

The operation lasted nearly five days, yet no public statement was issued by officials,” the outlet noted. “Within just the first two days, several hundreds of people were taken away for questioning.

Hundreds of Christians in China will likely spend Christmas in jail this year, according to a recent report. Starting on December 13, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mobilized “more than a thousand police officers, SWAT units, anti-riot forces, and firefighters” in the Zhejiang Province’s Yayang Town in Wenzhou City, raiding churches and conducting mass arrests of Christians, ChinaAid reported Friday.

“Belongings of relevant individuals were illegally confiscated, roads leading to the church were completely blocked by police, and Christians in Yayang Town were unable to enter the Yayang church. The operation lasted nearly five days, yet no public statement was issued by officials,” the outlet noted. “Within just the first two days, several hundreds of people were taken away for questioning. On December 16 and 17, at least four more individuals were detained.”

Two local Christians, 58-year-old Lin Enzhao and 54-year-old Lin Enci, were labeled “principal suspects of a criminal organization” by the CCP, with locally-posted wanted posters charging the two with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which ChinaAid noted is a “commonly used charge” by the CCP against religious and political dissidents. Over the past several years, CCP officials in Yayang Town have attempted to forcibly destroy church property, including symbols such as crosses, and install CCP propaganda and imagery, such as the five-star Red Flag and the CCP’s constitution. Enzhao and Enci were key figures in opposing the CCP’s efforts.

Chen Yixin, director of China’s Ministry of State Security, is a native of the province and has led efforts to demoralize the Christian community there, including by initiating a program to destroy crosses in 2014 and install the national flag, the Constitution, laws, and socialist core values in Christian spaces and promote the “localization” and “politicization” of religious activities. However, the Christians of Yayang Town have resisted the CCP’s efforts for over a decade, hosting rallies and demonstrations and even confronting state police when necessary.

Following the mass arrests this month, the CCP hosted an “Elimination of Six Evils” demonstration, with SWAT officers and riot police deployed en masse “to demonstrate force, intimidate local Christians, and create an atmosphere of fear, framing the earlier law enforcement actions as ‘results of the anti-organized crime campaign,’” by which the government means the crackdown on Christians. According to ChinaAid, police have stationed vehicles at the homes of known Christians, “disrupted” communications among Christians in the area, and have even gone “door-to-door” questioning church members and asking them to denounce Enzhao and Enci.

“Government-driven public opinion campaigns are spreading defamatory rumors portraying Christians as ‘unpatriotic’ or belonging to a ‘cult,’” ChinaAid reported. “This approach aligns with China’s recent trend of criminalizing certain religious activities. On September 29, China’s leader reiterated in a speech the need to ‘systematically advance the Sinicization of religion.’ Earlier, mass arrests at Beijing Zion Church saw pastors and church members detained on fabricated charges of ‘fraud.’”

In comments to The Washington Stand, ChinaAid founder and Senior Fellow for International Religious Liberty at Family Research Council Bob Fu said, “The massive pre-Christmas assault on churches in Wenzhou is a chilling reminder that the Chinese Communist Party fears the light of Christ most when it shines brightest. To raid churches days before Christmas is not only an attack on Christians — it is an assault on human dignity, conscience, and the hope that faith brings to a wounded world.” He continued, “History teaches us that no regime has ever succeeded in extinguishing faith through force. These pre-Christmas attacks will only strengthen the resolve of China’s house churches and further expose the moral bankruptcy of state-sponsored persecution.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and other religious liberty watchdogs have repeatedly warned that China’s totalitarian regime is enacting human rights abuses against religious groups within the nation’s border. A USCIRF report late last year detailed mass arrests and the destruction or removal of church property, part of CCP President Xi Jinping’s “sinicization of religion” policy. Religious groups and leaders who do not register with the official government-approved religious organizations are often arrested, imprisoned, and forced into “anti-cult” programs to “de-program” Christians. Earlier this year, USCIRF called on President Donald Trump to designate China as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) due to the CCP’s brutal oppression of Christians and other religious dissidents.

This article is reprinted with permission from the Family Research Council, publishers of The Washington Stand at washingtonstand.com.

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