The petition demanding that the UK Government immediately move Julian Assange, a non-violent political prisoner, out of the punitive maximum security conditions of Belmarsh has now exceeded 17,500 signatures in just over five weeks. 

The urgency of this demand was tragically emphasized by Julian Assange himself when he rang his friend UK journalist Vaughn Smith and his wife and on Christmas Eve. Vaugn tweeted out a photo of a smiling Assange from 2010 and stated “This was the last time that Julian had a family Christmas. He told my wife and I how he was slowly dying in Belmarsh where, though only on remand, he is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and is often sedated.”

These words,coming from the mouth of Assange himself, confirm all of our worst fears about how the UK authorities are using Belmarsh and Governor Rob Davis in an ongoing way to give cover to their efforts to torture Assange and interfere with his right to defend himself. 

No mail emerging from Belmarsh Again!

It has now been well over a month since anyone has publicly claimed to have received any mail from Julian Assange in Belmarsh. After months of his mail being interfered with, a petition was launched in late October demanding Governor Rob Davis give Julian his mail. When it received over 10,000 signatories many people in the first half of November received and published their replies from Julian on social media. However, it is now clear that Belmarsh is isolating Assange from one of his only direct ways of communicating with the world in order to psychologically break him and stop him sending political messages to the campaign. 

Belmarsh sabotages Assange’s evidence on December 20th hearing

Julian Assange gave evidence on December 20th at Westminster Magistrates Court in the Spanish prosecution of David Morales, the founder of security firm UC Global. Morales, a former Spanish military officer, accused of spying on Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy and who was charged in October with privacy violation, bribery and money laundering.

However, Belmarsh and the UK prison authorities did their best to isolate and sabotage Assange on that day too. Assange was scheduled to give evidence in the morning but according to his Spanish lawyer Aitor Martinez, problems occurred in transferring Assange to the court and the process took six hours, a journey which should only take about forty minutes by road! 

As Martinez told Ruptly, this meant that Assange who is already in a “delicate” state, had further trouble concentrating and giving evidence. It also meant that supporters who had arrived early in the morning to try and see Assange had to wait till late in the day to try and get a message of support to Assange as his van left the court complex. Assange’s isolation was also furthered by the fact that his evidence was heard in a closed court on “national security” grounds. 

Nils Melzer explains why Assange’’s detention in maximum security is unjustifiable

On November 27th, Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, gave a speech at the German Bundestag in Berlin on Assange. During that speech he explained in extremely clear terms why detaining Assange in Belmarsh in maximum security is completely unjustifiable on legal grounds: 

"As we correctly predicted, Julian Assange had to be transferred to the prison’s medical department only nine days after our visit. Since then he has been almost completely isolated under a very strict prison regime, even though he has already served his prison sentence for bail violation, and is now only in preventive detention to avoid his escape during the American extradition process. Obviously, to achieve this limited purpose, there is no need for a maximum-security prison, and certainly not for isolation. Rather, it would be clearly sufficient to impose house arrest or a similar, open regime where he has access to his family and lawyers, where he can prepare his defense, and where he can also correspond with the press."

Julian's next hearings in his extradition process are an Administrative “roll over” hearing on January 14th (these must occur every 28 days for a prisoner in UK on remand) and a January 23rd Case Management hearing. Please try and attend these court appearance if you are in London.

A global call out has been made for protests on February 24th on the first scheduled day of Assange’s full extradition hearing. Please keep sharing this petition. Please continue to do whatever you can to build a mass movement demanding freedom for Julian Assange. This is the only social force that ultimately can win this campaign!