Hi Taxacis,
Thank you for your contribution to the discussion...and you may well be
right....I really don't know... as the situation isn't covered by the
Convention.
see url:
http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
Quote<<<Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Immunity 1961 ARTICLE 9
The receiving State may at any time and without having to explain its decision,
notify the
sending State that the head of the mission or any member of the diplomatic
staff of the
mission IS persona non grata or that any other member of the staff of the
mission is not
acceptable.
In any such case, the sending State shall, as appropriate, either recall the
person concerned
or terminate his functions with the mission.
A person may be declared non grato or not acceptable before arriving in the
territory of the
receiving State.
2.
If the sending State refuses or fails within a reasonable period to carry out
its obligations under paragraph 1 of this Article, the receiving State may
refuse to recognize the person concerned as a member of the mission.>>>end of
quote
The UK government would argue that Article 9 doesn't cover the Assange
situation, because they weren't given the opportunity of declaring the person
non grato or unacceptable BEFORE arriving in the territory of the receiving
state...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the event that this wasn't acceptable or practicable, the UK could also
refuse to allow him to leave...as did Hungary refuse to allow Cardinal
Mindszenty to leave the US Embassy in Budapest for 15 years.
see url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Mindszenty
I am sure that a compromise of some kind can be worked out. One would hate
to think that some of our best diplomats, sons and daughters of a highly
schooled and intellectual and academic background and establishment would be
imprisoned in the British Embassy in Ecuador for the next 15 years, living in
all that dire discomfort to which they have become accustomed, without any
holidays, junkets, spying activities etc., to keep them occupied, just for the
sake of loyalty to some important special relationship principle of the British
state to its cousins in the US of A. Even with all that US imperial pressure
being placed upon the UK and Ecuadorian governments and diplomatic service to
arrest Assange and extradite him to the USA for further processing.
Of course the UK government might decide that the light isn't work the candle,
and...most unlikely...the US establishment might decide that taking extradition
proceedings and prosecuting Assange may not be worth providing the light for
the candle either, and the whole arrest thing might finish up as smoke and
mirrors waxed lyrical by supporters of Assange.
He could, of course, do the "honourable" thing though and give himself up and
put himself at the mercy of British justice...:-). Contempt of court and
jumping bail are serious offences in the UK, as are charges and allegations of
rape, indecent assault in all countries. And...one wonders if he ever repaid
the bail money of £250,000 which his friends laid out on his behalf...if they
so requested...or if the money was forfeited to the British State. I haven't
seen any reports about that.
By the way, I am not opposed to Wikileaks or Julian Assange particularly as a
person or organisation, in some respects it and he has done a valuable job in
exposing some of the hanky-panky around the world, and continues to do so...at
a price. He has his role to play on the world stage and has continued to do so
with a great amount of ingenuity and creativity and therefore commands my
respect and admiration.
However, I don't have, and never have had great faith in those "leaky" media
organisations which run themselves as a business and publish at a profit, and
prevent ordinary people from getting access to news which they have received
from whistleblowers, unless they pay for it. And so much of the leaks, I have
noticed, have been let out in dribs and drabs, and great mountains of
information have been kept secret by those very organisations who are supposed
to be keeping the world informed, and to which whistleblowers have taken a lot
of risk in providing them with information. Also, there is a whole industry of
false, gray, dark propaganda, fake news and operations and such disinformation
stuff around with which they get targetted, that it is becoming increasingly
difficult to tell what is truth, lie or innuendo. I think too that
whistleblowers tend to be given a false sense of security by those
organisations when they leak stuff to these organisations. They themselves are
a bit leaky, I have observed...especially when it comes to giving information
to governments, via security letters and such like; though promising that they
take your security most seriously...folks.
As Binney says in his lecture at LaRouche, the NSA has access to deep packet
technology, each packet is marked and dated and timed with its origins, and
they have access points all over the world, where they can fix geographically,
using a combination of software and guile, which with reasonable accuracy can
determine where data is being transmitted from, even when it is disguised and
encrypted and sent through many false trails.
see url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPg2s6V3iKo
ATB
Dougie.
On 12/01/2018 00:58, taxakis wrote:
Dougie:
That remains to be seen. First of all, JA is (supposedly) granted full
Diplomatic Immunity by the nation of Ecuador, of which he's now a formal
citizen. Not by the U.K. It is not a matter (as suggested by the Guardian)
that Ecuador has to request the U.K. for ANY permission. The U.K. may deny to
respect JA's diplomatic Immunity. But then it may ONLY expell him as persona
non grata, nothing else. Both nations are signatories of the Vienna convention
(1961), and have principally to abide by that convention, not withstanding the
fact that the U.K. has only partially ratified the treaty. If the U.K.
declares him p.n.g. they can demand to escort him out of the country. If they
do arrest him (as he's a diplomat now) the U.K. takes the considerable risk
that Ecuador will detain all British diplomats currently present in Ecuador.
And I happen to doubt if they would want thát.
/An Cruithna
.
