Minority report

The apparently perverse finding by a UN panel that a rape suspect who jumped bail and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy has been "detained arbitrarily" received no support in Britain - even from the newspaper which published the revelations for which he claims he is being victimised.

Roy Greenslade describes here how all five national newspapers which have written leaders on the subject, and between them cover both right and left wing perspectives, give the decision "short shrift."

The Guardian, the paper which had published the "WikiLeak" revelations for which the suspect, Julian Assange, says he is being victimised, said it was "simply wrong" to suggest that he is being detained arbitrarily and accused him of “a publicity stunt.”

The Guardian added that it was possible to applaud Assange’s role in the exposure of embarrassing and sometimes illegal US activity, “without accepting his right to evade prosecutors’ questions about the allegation that he committed a serious criminal offence.” It concluded:
“WikiLeaks was founded on exposing those who ignored the rule of law. Surely its editor-in-chief should recognise his duty to see it upheld.”
The Guardian also published an excellent piece by Joshua Rozenberg,

"How did the UN get it so wrong on Julian Assange?"

The UN panel which made this finding had five members, but one recused herself as she shared Julian Assange's Australian nationality.

The other members of the panel split three to one in favour of the ruling, which has no legal force, against the British and Swedish authorities.

The dissenting member, Ukrainian lawyer Vladimir Tochilovsky, has published a minority opinion, which seems to me to be so self-evidently correct that I do not think any further discussion is needed, and it reads as follows:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more