On 22 November, over 60 doctors from around the world signed an open letter to the British home secretary Priti Patel (and shadow home secretary Diane Abbott) warning of their fears that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — who is being held in Belmarsh maximum-security prison where he is being unjustly and cruelly incarcenated, as he fights plans to extradite him to the US to face espionage charges that carry a 175-year prison sentence — may die in British custody, and urging her to allow him to have “urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health”, and that, if any medical treatment is required, for it to be “administered in a properly equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital.”
The doctors fear that if action is not taken immediately, that Assange could die in prison. Still, many people are demanding an explanation to why Assange is in Belmarsh prison at all. Persecuting him is persecuting truth and justice for all of us.
I’m pleased to note that the letter was picked up on by a number of significant mainstream media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian. and was shared widely across social media. If you haven’t read the whole letter, I hope you will find it useful, and will share it if you do.
Despite worldwide media coverage of their open letter, more than 80 medical doctors have received no response from the UK government. The doctors are now calling on the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice to intervene.
“We reiterate our grave concern that Mr Assange could die of deliberate medical negligence in a British prison and demand an urgent response from the UK Government”, the doctors write.
Their second open letter has been sent to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice the Rt Hon Robert Buckland QC.
“In our open letter, we urged the UK Government to change course immediately and transfer Mr Assange from Belmarsh Prison to a university teaching hospital for appropriate expert medical assessment and care. So far, we have received no substantive reply from the UK Government, nor has receipt of our letter been acknowledged."
It concludes:
“In our opinion the UK government’s conduct in this matter is irresponsible, incompatible with medical ethics and unworthy of a democratic society bound by the rule of law. We reiterate our grave concern that Mr Assange could die of deliberate medical negligence in a British prison and demand an urgent response from the UK government.”
Julian Assange is one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners. The UK government must end his persecution. through Wikileaks, he has done the world a great service in documenting American war crimes, its spying on allies and other dirty secrets of the world's most powerful regimes, organisations and corporations. This has not endeared him to the American deep state.
Assange's persecution, the persecution of a publisher for publishing information that was truthful and clearly in the interest of the public - and which has been republished in major newspapers around the world - is a danger to freedom of the press everywhere, especially as the USA is asserting a right to arrest and try a non-American who neither is nor was then on American soil.
He had been granted asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. But following a change of government in Ecuador, he was handed over to the British authorities last April for extradition to the USA. The sentence is already clear: if not the death penalty then life in a supermax prison and ill treatment like Chelsea Manning.
Julian Assange is not charged with any crime or misdemeanor in Britain and has fully served his sentence for his single offense: jumping bail to avoid extradition to the United States via Sweden.
He was not and is not charged with any crime in Sweden. The sole charges against him originate in the United States, on purely political grounds, aimed at punishing Julian Assange for publication of accurate information provided by informed sources. This is a regular practice of all mainstream media , which now shamefully fail to speak out in defense of Mr Assange, even when they published exactly the same information that he did.
It is quite clear that in the current treatment of Jilian Assange, the United Kingdom is debasing itself as a mere instrument of political repression exercised by the United Statesv
Assange was visited in May by Nils Melzer, who denounced his treatment as a form of “psychological torture” and again demanded an immediate end to Assange’s imprisonment. Prompting the decision by the doctors to take a public stand, Melzer issued a further statement on November 1, 2019 in which he warned: “Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life.”
In their latest letter, the doctors concisely state: “The UK government’s refusal to take the required measures to protect Mr Assange’s rights, health and dignity appears to be reckless at best and deliberate at worst and, in both cases, unlawfully and unnecessarily exposes Mr Assange to potentially irreversible medical risks….
“When the UK, as a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council, repeatedly ignores not only the serious warnings of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, but also its unequivocal investigative and remedial obligations under international and human rights law, the credibility of the UK’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law is fatally undermined.”
Doctors who signed the open letter also made statements that were included in a press release sent out with their latest letter.
Dr Richard House, Chartered Psychologist, former psychotherapist and senior university lecturer (UK) said : “The disgraceful treatment of Julian Assange should become a General Election issue, and the current government and Home Secretary held robustly to account for what appears to be deliberately inflicted suffering.”
Dr Victoria Abdelnur MD, Specialist in Integrative Trauma Therapy (Germany and Argentina)added : “The global medical community is watching, we know he needs urgent proper health care, and if he does not receive it soon, it will be crystal clear we are governed by criminals. The popular backlash will have astronomic proportions.”
The very extradition of Julian Assange to the United States would at the same time mean the final death of freedom of the press in the West.
The latest letter can be accessed in full here and shared.
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