As Special Rapporteur on Torture, I was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor compliance with the global prohibitions on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatments and punishments, investigate alleged violations of these prohibitions and transmit questions and recommendations to the states concerned with the aim of clarifying individual cases. When I investigated Julian Assange’s case, I found irrefutable evidenceof political persecution and arbitrary judicial decisions, as well as deliberate torture and ill-treatment. Yet the states responsible (the US, UK, Sweden and Ecuador) refused to cooperate with me in carrying out the investigative procedure required under international law.
The Assange case is the story of a man persecuted and mistreated for revealing the sordid secrets of the powerful, in particular, war crimes, torture and corruption. It’s a story of deliberately arbitrary judicial decisions made by Western democracies eager to claim exemplary human rights records. It’s a story of deliberate collusion by intelligence services without the knowledge of national parliaments and the public. And it’s a story of manipulated and manipulative reporting by the mainstream media to deliberately isolate, demonise and destroy an individual.
In a democracy governed by rule of law, everyone is equal before the law. In essence, this means that comparable cases should be treated in the same way. Like Julian Assange, who is currently being held in Belmarsh high-security prison, the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was held in British extradition detention, from 16 October 1998 to 2 March 2000. Spain, Switzerland, France and Belgium sought to prosecute him for torture and crimes against humanity. Like Assange today, Pinochet described himself as ‘Britain’s only political prisoner’.
Unlike Assange, however, Pinochet was not accused of having obtained and published evidence of torture, murder and corruption, but of having committed, ordered and approved such crimes. And, unlike Assange, he was not seen as a threat to the British government’s interests, but as a friend and ally during the cold war and — crucially — the Falklands/Malvinas war.
When a British court dared to apply the law and removed Pinochet’s diplomatic immunity, its decision was immediately overturned. The reason given was possible bias on the part of one of the judges. Apparently, he had at one point helped organise a fundraiser for Amnesty International UK, a co-appellant in the Pinochet case. In the Assange case, meanwhile, judge Emma Arbuthnot, whose husband, a Conservative Party politician, had been repeatedly criticised by WikiLeaks, was not only allowed to rule on Assange’s arrest warrant in 2018, but, despite a fully documented request for recusal, also presided over Assange’s extradition proceedings until judge Vanessa Baraitser took over in summer 2019. None of Arbuthnot’s decisions were overturned.
Pinochet, accused of being directly responsible for tens of thousands of serious human rights violations, was not insulted, humiliated or ridiculed by British judges in public hearings, nor was he held in solitary confinement in a high-security prison. When he was taken into custody, prime minister Tony Blair did not express satisfaction in parliament that ‘in the UK no one is above the law’, nor was there an open letter from 70 MPs enthusiastically calling on the government to send the former dictator to the countries seeking his extradition. Instead, Pinochet spent his detention under luxurious house arrest on an estate in Surrey, where he was allowed unlimited visitors, including a Chilean priest at Christmas and former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. By contrast, Julian Assange, the inconvenient truth-teller — who is accused of journalism, not torture and murder — is not under house arrest. He’s been consigned to silence in solitary confinement.
By contrast with Pinochet, Julian Assange, the inconvenient truth-teller who is accused of journalism, not torture and murder, is not under house arrest. He's been consigned to silence in solitary confinement
As in the Assange case, Pinochet’s state of health was a decisive factor. Although the general himself categorically rejected the idea of release on humanitarian grounds, UK home secretary Jack Straw intervened personally, commissioning a medical assessment of Pinochet which concluded that he was suffering from amnesia and had difficulty concentrating. When several governments requesting his extradition demanded a second independent evaluation, the UK refused. Straw himself decided that Pinochet was unfit to stand trial and ordered his immediate release and repatriation.
Unlike the United States in regard to Assange’s extradition, the states seeking Pinochet’s extradition were denied the right of appeal. In Assange’s case, several independent medical reports, as well as my official findings as UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, were ignored and, even when he was barely able to speak in court, the trial continued, ignoring his deteriorating health and his unfitness to stand trial.
As in the Pinochet case, Assange’s extradition was, at least initially, refused on medical grounds. But whereas Pinochet was immediately freed and repatriated, and the applicant states were denied any legal recourse, Assange was immediately returned to solitary confinement, denied bail and the United States was invited to appeal to the High Court, thus ensuring the prolongation of his ordeal and his silence during the remainder of what could be an extradition process lasting several years.
Guy Smallman · Getty
The comparison of these two cases shows the double standards the UK authorities have applied and how, in the UK, it’s untrue that everyone is equal before the law. In the Pinochet case, the aim was to offer a former dictator and a loyal ally impunity for alleged crimes against humanity. In Assange’s case, the objective is to silence an embarrassing dissident whose organisation, WikiLeaks, challenges exactly this kind of impunity. Both approaches are motivated solely by power politics and are incompatible with justice and rule of law.
The mainstream press in the US, UK and Australia has failed to grasp the existential danger that the Assange trial poses to press freedom, due process, democracy and rule of law. The painful truth is that Assange’s persecution would end tomorrow if major media organisations in the English-speaking world were to act.
The case of Ivan Golunov, a Russian investigative journalist who specialises in exposing official corruption, is instructive. When Golunov was suddenly arrested for alleged drug offences in summer 2019, Russia’s mainstream press sprang into action. Russia’s three leading dailies, Vedomosti, RBC and Kommersant, printed identical front pages declaring ‘We are Ivan Golunov’. All three openly challenged the legality of Golunov’s arrest, suspecting that he was being persecuted for his journalism, and demanded a thorough inquiry. The Russian authorities, caught in flagrante and in the firing line from their own media, backed down within days. President Vladimir Putin ordered Golunov’s release and dismissed two senior interior ministry officials, thereby proving the arrest was not the result of misconduct by a few incompetent police officers, but had been orchestrated at the highest level.
There is no doubt that a comparable show of solidarity by the Guardian, BBC, New York Times and Washington Post would immediately end Julian Assange’s persecution. If there’s one thing governments fear, it’s the media spotlight and critical press scrutiny. But what’s happening in the British, American and Australian mainstream media is simply too little, too late. As always, their coverage fluctuates between dull and spineless, meekly reporting court proceedings without understanding that what they are witnessing are the side-effects of a monumental societal rollback of the achievements of democracy and rule of law to the dark ages of absolutism and a system of governance based on secrecy and authoritarianism.
A handful of half-hearted editorials and articles in the Guardian and New York Times condemning Assange’s extradition are not enough. While these two newspapers have timidly stated that if Assange is convicted of spying, it would endanger press freedom, not a single mainstream media outlet is protesting against the flagrant violations of due process, human dignity and rule of law that have characterised proceedings throughout. None of them has held the governments involved to account for their crimes and corruption; none has had the courage to ask political leaders uncomfortable questions. They are a shadow of what was once the respected ‘fourth estate’.