OHCHR<\/a> video<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u201cIn 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonize and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law,\u201d Mr. Melzer asserted.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince 2010, when Wikileaks started publishing evidence of war crimes and torture committed by US forces, we have seen a sustained and concerted effort by several States towards getting Mr. Assange extradited to the United States for prosecution, raising serious concern over the criminalization of investigative journalism in violation of both the US Constitution and international human rights law,\u201d the expert spelled out.<\/p>\n
Since then, he said that there has been a \u201crelentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation\u201d against the defendant \u2013 not only in the US, but also in the UK, Sweden and more recently, Ecuador \u2013 that includes humiliating, debasing and threatening statements in the press and online as well as by senior political figures and magistrates involved in proceedings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination\u201d, the UN expert asserted.<\/p>\n
Cellblock meeting<\/h3>\n
On 9 May, the Special Rapporteur visited Mr. Assange with two medical experts who specialize in examining victims of ill-treatment. The team spoke to the prisoner and conducted a thorough medical assessment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was obvious that Mr. Assange\u2019s health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years,\u201d the expert said. \u201cMost importantly, in addition to physical ailments, Mr. Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calling the evidence \u201coverwhelming and clear,\u201d Mr. Melzer said that Mr. Assange \u201chas been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Special Rapporteur condemned \u201cin the strongest terms\u201d the \u201cdeliberate, concerted and sustained nature of the abuse inflicted\u201d on the prisoner.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy displaying an attitude of complacency at best, and of complicity at worst, these governments have created an atmosphere of impunity encouraging Mr. Assange\u2019s uninhibited vilification and abuse\u201d, the expert argued.<\/p>\n
In official letters, Mr. Melzer urged the four involved governments to cease all activities prejudicial to Mr. Assange\u2019s human rights and to provide him with redress and rehabilitation for past harm.<\/p>\n
He appealed to the UK not to extradite the prisoner to the US or any other State that would not provide guarantees against his onward transfer to the US; and reminded Britain of its obligation to ensure Assange\u2019s unimpeded access to legal counsel and adequate preparation for his proceedings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe collective persecution of Julian Assange must end here and now\u201d, concluded the UN expert.<\/p>\n
Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council<\/a> to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honourary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMy most urgent concern is that, in the United States, Mr. Assange would be exposed to a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,\u201d said Nils Melzer, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/unric.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/11\/un-expert-criticizes-states-for-ganging-up-on-wikileaks-assange-warns-against-extradition-fearing-serious-rights-violations.jpg\" "\\"Wikileaks")
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