Thread by @les_politiques

I cried while reading this account from @ChrisLynnHedges on Julian and Stella's wedding. The cruelty of the UK authorities toward #Assange is unimaginable. chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-marriage…

"authorities denied Julian & Stella the use of the chapel. The ceremony was witnessed by 6 family members, including Julian & Stella’s two young sons...Two guards were stationed...A guard took a few pictures, but prison authorities told Julian & Stella they could not be...shared"

"Julian and Stella were given half an hour together in a crowded visitors hall. And then Julian, prisoner A 9379AY, was escorted back to his cell to the applause of the prisoners on his tier." #Assange

“It was an act of defiance,” Stella tells me later of the wedding. “You can tell by how much they fear it.” #Assange

"The campaign to dehumanize Julian...extends to his wedding day...the prison authorities did not want us to write about the wedding, which they should have known we would do whether we were in the prison or not." #Assange

"'They have viciousness,' Craig (Murray) says'...They have arbitrary power they can use to take cruel and nasty decisions for the sake of it, just to show that they can, but we, on our side, have peace & love & truth. Those values, at the end of the day, are far more important'"

"Julian is targeted because his org WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs...which documented numerous #US war crimes including... the Collateral Murder video of the gunning down of 2 Reuters journalists & 10 unarmed civilians (and) the killing of 700 civilians (at) US checkpoints"

"He (Julian) is targeted because he documented the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians, the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 to and 89, at Guantánamo." #Assange

"He (Julian) is targeted because he made public the hacking tools used by the CIA known as Vault 7...to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers and the operating systems of most smart phones, as well as operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux." #Assange

"He is targeted because he showed us that HillaryClinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats to spy on UN Sec Gen Ban Ki Moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the UK... that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords" #Assange

"part of the long pattern of illegal US surveillance (of UN diplomats)...included the eavesdropping on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003." #Assange

"He (Julian) is targeted because he exposed that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA orchestrated the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing it with a murderous and corrupt military regime." #Assange

"He (Julian) is targeted because he released documents that revealed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb, and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians." #Assange

"He (Julian) is targeted because he made public the $ 657,000 paid to Hillary Clinton by Goldman Sachs to give talks and her private assurances to corporate leaders that she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation and reform." #Assange

"He (Julian) is targeted because he revealed the internal campaign to discredit and destroy British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by members of his own party.

For these truths alone he is guilty." #Assange

"The Biden admin is determined to extradite Julian and charge him with 17 counts of the Espionage Act and one count of hacking into a gov computer, which would send him to prison for 175 years...But there is also the bald fact that Julian never committed a crime" #Assange

"Julian is not a US citizen. WikiLeaks is not a US-based publication. And yet he is charged, under the US Espionage Act, with treason." Such is the hegemonic extrajudicial reach of the #US in the West. #Assange

"The perversion of the law for all of us who follow Julian’s case is chilling. It presages the rise of a global corporate totalitarianism, one where the law is a tool not of justice but oppression." #Assange

"Julian... is being methodically and systematically tortured. The goal of the US and UK govts is to turn Julian’s psychological & physical obliteration into a chilling warning to anyone who might also attempt to shine a light on the inner workings of power"#Assange

"If #Assange is extradited & found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting...The inner workings of power will be shrouded in darkness, with ominous consequences for press freedom & democracy"