Assange Is Reportedly Gravely Ill, and Hardly Anyone's Talking About It
May 29, 2019
Caitlin Johnstone finds this jarring revelation reported by only a few
outlets, often in an offhand manner.
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
Julian Assange's Swedish lawyer Per Samuelson has told the press that
"Assange's health situation on Friday was such that it was not possible to
conduct a normal conversation with him."
This jarring revelation has been reported by a small handful of outlets, but
only as an aside in relation to Sweden refusing Samuelson's request for a
postponement of a scheduled hearing regarding Assange's detention en
absentia for a preliminary investigation of rape allegations.
The fact that the imprisoned WikiLeaks founder is so ill that he can't
converse lucidly is itself far more significant than the postponement
refusal, yet headlines mentioning Samuelson's statement focus on the Swedish
case, de-emphasizing the startling news from his lawyer.
Assange in better days. (Twitter)
As of this writing I've been able to find very few news outlets reporting on
this at all, the most mainstream being a Reuters article with the very tame
headline "Swedish court rejects delay of Assange hearing over ill-health:
lawyer." The Sydney Morning Herald also covered the story without even
mentioning illness in its headline, instead going with "Swedish court
rejects effort to delay Assange hearing." The much smaller alternative media
outlet World Socialist Website has been the only outlet I've found so far
reporting on Samuelson's statement in anything resembling its proper scale,
publishing a good article on May 29 titled "Despite Assange's ill-health,
Swedish court rejects delay to hearing."
News Lag
This news has been so under-discussed and under-appreciated as of this
writing that I didn't find out about it until hours after the story broke,
and I'm very plugged in to both alternative media commentary and
WikiLeaks-related news. A report that Julian Assange was so sick he could
barely speak all the way back on Friday and we still have no news about how
he's doing now should be hugely significant for everyone who cares about
Assange, press freedom, government transparency or peace activism.
Another part of this story that has gone completely uncovered in all
English-language media as of this writing is the news that Assange has been
transferred to the hospital wing of Belmarsh prison. This was reported by
the Swedish outlet Upsala Nya Tidning, a newspaper published in the same
district court in which Assange is scheduled to call in for his hearing. The
report was also based on a statement to the press by Per Samuelson.
The article reports the following, per machine translation:
"Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's Swedish lawyer wants the arrest hearing
on Monday in Uppsala to be postponed. According to the lawyer, who has now
visited his client in British prison, Assange is admitted to the medical
department and was unable to make a call.
.
"Last Friday, Assange's Swedish defender, lawyer Per E Samuelson, visited
his client in prison. In a letter to Uppsala District Court, the lawyer says
that they met for just under two hours. According to the lawyer, Assange's
state of health at the meeting was such that 'a normal conversation with him
was not possible'. Julian Assange is said to have been taken to the prison's
ward, but there is no more detailed information about his state of health."
This story was picked up from Upsala Nya Tidning by Danish new agency Ritzau
and published in the outlet Politiken, with the title (per machine
translation) "Weakened Assange hospitalized in London prison: 'Impossible to
have a normal conversation with him.'" These outlets are to my understanding
as reputable as any other mainstream western outlet, yet they remain the
only publications I've been able to find which are reporting that Assange
has been hospitalized. This is absolutely bizarre.
I've emailed Per Samuelson with a request to confirm the news that Assange
has been hospitalized. I'll update this article if I hear back.
For Assange's supporters, one of the many frustrating things about his
imprisonment has been the way he's been cut off from the usual means by
which people learned about his wellbeing. It used to be that news reports
could be easily confirmed or refuted by people who had consistent access to
Assange in some way by sources like the WikiLeaks Twitter account, but the
people who operate that account don't have ready access to him anymore.
Rumor Mill
Now we're seeing all sorts of rumors circulating about how Assange is faring
in prison, and it gets difficult to sort out fact from fiction. It appears
that it would be difficult to find a more reliable source on the state of
his health than his own lawyer, however.
It has long been an established fact that Assange was in failing health
while trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London; doctors who visited him
published an article with The Guardian in January 2018 titled "We examined
Julian Assange, and he badly needs care - but he can't get it."
Renata Avila, an activist and author who has worked with and written about
WikiLeaks, tweeted in response to the new revelations, "He needed urgent
assistance after his expulsion from the Embassy. Instead, he was not allowed
to receive adequate medical treatment. In the case of Emin Huseynov (1 y @
Swiss Embassy) it took at least a month of treatment to go back to normal.
Imagine after 7 years! Brutal."
We have been watching the slow-motion assassination of Julian Assange. They
have been choking him to death by tactical psyops, siege tactics, and
willful neglect as surely as if they placed a noose tied around his neck,
not just in Belmarsh prison but in the embassy as well. The only difference
between his execution and someone on death row is the same as the difference
between covert and overt warfare, which makes sense because the
intelligence, judicial and military agencies carrying out his death sentence
operate within the same power structure that carries out war. First came the
smears (propaganda), then came the siege (sanctions), and they staged their
coup (dragged him out of the embassy) and now they've got him in their
clutches and they can do what they want behind closed doors. That's how you
kill a nation while still looking like a nice guy, and that's how they're
killing Assange.
Shout this from the rooftops. Whether this media blackout is self-imposed or
perhaps the result of the malicious use of a D-notice, we have to use
everything in our power to get this information into the mainstream, and get
people asking questions of the press and their local members about what the
Dickens is going on in Belmarsh prison right now. Assange's life may depend
on it.
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who
publishes regularly at Medium. Follow her work on Facebook, Twitter, or her
website. She has a podcast and a new book "Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia
Preppers." This article was re-published with permission.
