Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Supreme Court Ruling on Assange Extradition. Report from Solidarity Vigil

WISE Up for Bradley Manning | 31.05.2012 21:11 | Anti-militarism | Repression | Terror War | World

Yesterday, 30 May, the Supreme Court handed down its 5-2 majority verdict finding against Julian Assange in his appeal against extradition to Sweden. However, the verdict was far from straightforward and an unprecedented re-opening of the appeal now looks possible. The solidarity vigil at the court was organised by Veterans for Peace UK, London Catholic Worker and other supporters.














EXTRADITION APPEAL VERDICT

About a dozen of us had gathered outside the Supreme Court by 7.30am in preparation for what we expected to be the last stage, one way or the other, in Julian Assange’s fight against extradition to Sweden. We were not encouraged by the news that Hillary Clinton would be visiting Sweden hours after the verdict. This visit is the “first bilateral visit to Sweden by a US SecState for a very long time” according to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and was only announced after the Supreme Court date was publicly released last week. Draw your own conclusions.
 http://wlcentral.org/node/2623


30 ATTEND VIGIL

Over the course of the morning, the number of supporters swelled to around 30 but we were easily outnumbered by the press pack opposite (and a lot of cameras and bags just waiting to be decorated with the ‘Free Bradley Manning’ stickers someone had brought along). There was also a queue of supporters waiting to go inside the court to hear the verdict, but not crowds by any means – maybe people thought the outcome was a foregone conclusion or maybe they have just tired of the ongoing series of court dates. Unusually, there was not a single ‘Anonymous’ mask in evidence.

Today’s banners included Sue and Roland’s special ‘Queen’s Jubilee’ editions, altered to read ‘God Save Julian’ on the union flag. Photos of these have been widely used to illustrate reports on the verdict worldwide. Anthony arrived with a huge wooden placard he’d somehow managed to bring along on the bus, with ‘Free Assange’ on one side, ‘Free Bradley Manning’ on the other. Two guys turned up, made their sign there and then and donned gags before holding it up. Mirjam’s placard read ‘Don’t Shoot the Messenger’ in Swedish.


NO JULIAN

Julian’s legal team arrived early, followed by high profile supporters such as John Pilger and Vaughan Smith, but there was no sign of Julian and his mother Christine, who had flown to Britain to support her son. They were expected at 8.30, but had still not appeared 45 minutes later when we received a tweet from inside the court to say that the court had dismissed the appeal. First impressions were that Julian had lost and extradition was imminent.

It was later reported that Julian’s car had been held up in traffic.


5-2 AGAINST

At first, we had little information outside the court about the detail of the ruling, except that it was a 5-2 majority verdict, so at least two of the judges had not been persuaded to toe the party line.


STITCH UP!

More signs materialised at the vigil, including Lindi’s succinct ‘Stitch Up’ and Genny’s ‘UK Courts Kiss US Ass’ (which had a patch ready to turn ‘Kiss’ into ‘Kick’ in case the verdict went the other way – sadly not needed on this occasion).


MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE VERDICT

Gradually, details of the ruling filtered out: the matter appeared to have been decided on a discrepancy between French and English translations of the words ‘judicial authority’; the ruling was largely based on interpretation of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties; this was not part of the respondent’s case at appeal and Julian’s legal representatives had therefore not had the opportunity to make submissions on this point; the ruling referred to debates in Parliament prior to the introduction of the European Arrest Warrant and accepted that Parliament’s understanding of the wording ‘judicial authority’ was that it could only refer to a court or a judge.


14 DAY STAY OF EXTRADITION

In light of a confusing ruling that they had only had a very short time to study, Dinah Rose QC had now requested that the appellant’s legal team be given opportunity to make a case for the judgment to be reconsidered and the court had granted 14 days to present a case, during which time there can be no extradition.


PARLIAMENT MISLED OVER EAW

Julian’s solicitor Gareth Peirce emerged from the court to make a statement pointing out that all the judges agreed that Parliament had been misled when agreeing the EAW legislation:

“Parliament implemented the European Framework document on a basis that Members of Parliament did not understand to be the case. They were assured and Ministers assured them that the way in which we understand in this country ‘judicial authority’ to mean a court and a judge was what Parliament was enacting into law.”

Guardian video of John Pilger, Gareth Peirce and Julian Assange supporter Sue Gianstefani speaking about the ruling:
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2012/may/30/julian-assange-supporters-lawyers-react-video


JOHN PILGER

John Pilger, Vaughan Davies and many others gave their immediate responses to the ruling to the assembled media. John Pilger had also given an interview to Truthout the night before the judgment, the full text of which can be read here:
 http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9476-john-pilger-why-the-assange-case-is-important


CLOSING OF THE VIGIL

The vigil was continued until about 11am when the remaining supporters formed a circle and sang Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’, led by Ross on guitar and gatecrashed by camera crews.


NOT-SO-SECRET US INDICTMENT

The US has issued a secret indictment for Julian that could be used to extradite him to the US from Britain or Sweden:  http://wikileaks.org/Stratfor-Emails-US-Has-Issued.html. He remains in extreme jeopardy from the US – which is intent on exacting revenge for WikiLeaks’ public truth-telling activities – whatever the final outcome of this case. Nevertheless, the longer it plays out, the harder it becomes for those conspiring against Julian to maintain their pretence of lawful process. Wake up, World!


OTHER VIGILS AND RALLIES AROUND THE WORLD

Other vigils timed to coincide with the verdict included Brisbane and Berlin, with demonstrations across Australia and around the world taking place on 31 May.

More photos from the Supreme Court:
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/79638220@N05/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/vertigogen/sets/72157629972545676/
 http://www.demotix.com/news/1245010/julian-assange-loses-swedish-extradition-appeal-london

Photos from Berlin here:
 http://www.demotix.com/news/1245203/rally-free-bradley-manning-and-stop-extradition-julian-assange

WISE Up for Bradley Manning
- e-mail: wiseupforbm [at] yahoo.com
- Homepage: http://wiseupforbradleymanning.wordpress.com

Comments

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech