InterOuts

Goodbye Freedom of Speech.

The problem with Human Rights is that they revolve fundamentally around a simple series of issues that affect all of us in different ways, often on very basic. One of the most basic is Freedom of Speech or Expression, one which is being undermined in many of the nations of the world who are intent on winning at whatever the cost in the current global race not just for survival, but for who will take the biggest slice. For this prize, they will supress the truth other than the version which reinforces their take on the matter, using methods which are the implementation of quasi Legal structures to allow this to happen and the subjugation of Law to politics and power to enable arrests and the silencing of a public thorn in their sides.

“In the age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell.

This is not limited to the usual nations, regimes and ‘strongmen’ around the globe who are trotted out as examples of the excess of power that they weild (unlike the west) as in Syria, Russia, North Korea, China and Iran, but has now increased to include the main body of the so called ‘democratic’ western nations starting with the G7 and following with the EU and Ukraine. The whole concept and idea of the Freedom to Think is under attack by the very authorities that are supposed to be the ones guarding the ‘freedom’. Without freedom of information the status quo continues and eventually, we reach the stage where we get consensus decisions due to one view/idea/concept holding sway with no alternatives allowed. Is this where we are headed? We need to ask whether our intentions are to become wholly monochrome in our lives as we fit into the mould we are assigned. Two pertinent examples of this in the ‘now’ we all supposedly live in, are the journalist Julian Assange in the United Kingdom and the Chilean/American journalist, Gozalo Lira In Ukraine.

Julian Assange’s continued incarceration in Medieval England on baseless charges with a very skewed and convolutedly corrupt legal consensus to justify this has been far too long. The prolific outpourings in many sectors of the media only reinforce the conclusion that the execution of the Law is subject to human failings like emotions, cultural input, and of course, political and economic factors. The Law is just that, or it is purposeless if it’s regarded in the light of the basic idea underpinning it of ensuring that mankind lives relatively harmoniously with others of its kind. Otherwise we are in a state of legal anarchy where decisions are handed down not on the basis of proof, evidence and the fulfilment of clearly defined objectives necessary to reach a verdict but instead, the Law is but a tool of the establishment or governing authority used to silence opposition or adversarial debate in the public forum. The charges were not only brought by the United States but then the United Kingdom (apparently a sovereign nation), bowed to pressure and enacted the necessary legal processes to implement the extradition of Julian Assange starting from his initial Arrest and Incarceration in the UK.

His crime was telling the truth when WikiLeaks published factual data on many highly political issues and the presiding national authorities in the USA went on the attack to be able to silence him and make him pay for their loss of prestige, power, money etc. due to the revelations. In showing us what was done in our ‘names’, and most often without our knowledge, he threatened the very structure of the USA’s Administration and its actions which in the main, apart from being morally indefensible are in many parts, wholly illegal (certainly in most nations). For this, he was charged with being contrary to the Espionage Act of the USA. The malevolence that accompanied the whole issue with the USA bringing in false accusations and evidence was without justification, much like the original charge used to arrest him which was ‘rape’ which has since been completely disallowed and is pronounced unfounded In attempting to turn him into the ‘enemy’ and the wrong doer, they went overboard. The plaintiff the USA, has shown complete lack of regard for the rule of Law, not just by fact he was charged in the first place but by attempting any avenue open to them to prosecute him, legal or not. He, like so many other journalists and communicators who are being removed from publication with baseless accusations (with the usual exceptions) is now slowly but quite literally being driven into a form of depression which is causing his premature dysfunctionality. There is much factual information available regarding this and other issues like it in the media The Daily Mail’ article covers the latest aspect. His treatment can only be called inhumane.

This is the complete abnegation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the USA who willingly signed the declaration in 1949 and who are the plaintiffs. The UK also signed the declaratiion but has let politics overule Law in the extradition process to which Assange is subject. The International community has turned its back on the Legal safeguards we all emplaced to prevent the abuse of power denying us our basic Human Rights. For those of the public at large who are not in the ‘media’, it is the thin end of the wedge in the process underway of negating all the Human rights we came to regard as fixed and unchangeable.