My slogan would not be “The end is nigh”, although, in light of climate change, perhaps that would be a good one.
What I mean is that I have several T-shirts embossed with slogans.
Some people look forward to summer so that they can show off their self-mutilating tattoos without dying of hypothermia. I like summer for its warmth and for allowing me to wear an uncovered T-shirt, making me a walking billboard.
I have a shirt bearing a massive CND symbol, ‘NHS not trident’, Extinction Rebellion’, ‘Dump Trump’ and a LGBT rainbow shirt, among others.
During the past week of Extinction Rebellion (XR) demonstrations, I have been sporting one of my XR shirts. Disappointingly, due to the formidable reserve of the southern English, I have received no sympathetic or antagonistic comments from the public. If I were to walk the streets naked, I doubt if I would attract more comment from these shy, frozen-faced Londoners.
Today, at last, a neighbour pointed to my T-shirt and said: “So it was you lot who stopped my Sunday paper.”
“Yes, guilty as charged. Guilty of attracting attention to the mortal threat to the planet.”
Just as in the United States and Belarus, unless you create some civil disorder, the media disregard you. If you want some attention for your cause, you must do something out of the ordinary in order to attract it. This was true for the Suffragettes; it is true for Black Lives Matter and it is true for we who are trying to get the government to abide by its own law binding it to reach zero carbon emissions by mid-century.
Yes, it is a law introduced by our own government that stipulates that target. The government basked in a lot of glory when we became first nation to set such a target, but it has since done precious little to realise the target. Indeed, it has done much in the opposite direction. In this neglect, the government has been aided and abetted by most of the media, helped by the press barons, especially by the Murdoch titles, the emperor himself being a climate change denier. It would be no surprise if he were also an evolution denier and flat-earther. Just to complete the set, no doubt he is a born-again Christian. His personal views heavily influence the editorial policies of The Times, The Sun and Sunday Times. His own son and heir, James, recently stepped down because he disagrees with papa on these matters.
This explains why certain titles were the subject of last weekend’s XR blockades, one barrier being a giant poster reading, ‘ Five crooks control our news’.
Jerry Hall, aka Bianca Jagger, aka Jerry Murdoch, has condemned XR for holding up the distribution of the Murdoch empire titles as well as the Sunday Mail , Daily Mail and Sunday and Daily Telegraph a few days ago.
If I met her I would be tempted to ask: “What attracted you to the world’s oldest and most wizened multi-billionaire?”
Her credentials as an environmentalist have by now worn too thin to be taken seriously.
This week also saw Julian Assange in court for his much-delayed extradition hearing.
With breath-taking hypocrisy, the above titles, together with Boris Johnson declared that a free press is vital in holding government to account and so it was unacceptable to limit the public’s access to news as XR had done.
The extradition threat which has been hanging over Assange for seven years represents a serious threat to press freedom and independent journalism. It is no surprise that Trump’s America is baying for blood, but it is humiliating that the UK government is kowtowing.
Assange published on Wikileaks classified files passed to him by the whistle-blower Chelsea Manning. The initial leaking would be considered a crime in most countries, but to punish a journalist for revealing the explosive material is tantamount to attempting to muzzle the press by intimidation.
The leaked files exposed War crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the deliberate killing of civilians in both countries. The people of the US and Britain have a right to know what was being done in their name in the wars started by George W Bush and Tony Blair.
On the first day of the hearing, Mark Feldstein, an American journalism professor, a witness for Assange, said that no journalist had ever been successfully prosecuted in the US for accepting and publishing a leak. The US government was chary of pursuing publishers for fear of falling foul of the US Constitution’s first amendment, protecting free speech.
In light of that, it would be grotesque if a British court approved extradition, in effect finding Assange guilty and sending him to the US in order to face a possible sentence of 175 years in solitary confinement, the sort of cruel and unnatural punishment few nations on earth would concoct.
This is strictly about Julian Assange’s extradition trial this autumn and the decision, on 4 January 2021, by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, about whether or not he should be extradited to the US over his publication in WikiLeaks of secret US military documents.
I only became aware of this imminent event when I heard a discussion on the French national radio, France Inter, a week ago, where one of Assange’s French lawyers, Antoine Vey, was interviewed. Apparently Assange has two French lawyers, the second one significantly is Eric Dupont-Moretti, a well known French criminal defence lawyer who has recently been appointed as Garde des Sceaux (Minister of justice) by President Macron. Antoine Vey raised the possibility of a pardon from President Trump, this was actually requested by Stella Morris, Assange’s partner and an approach had been made; this was before the outcome of the US presidential elections. Trump had not totally rejected the idea but the conditions he required were not acceptable to Assange.
In this radio interview Antoine Vey was mooting the possibility of an approach by Macron to Trump. The argument for this approach was that the WikiLeaks extradition trial is viewed by the French government and the unions CGT and CFDT media sections as a serious attack on the Freedom of the Press. This is also the case of the Australian media unions. It is also apparently the case that the WikiLeaks papers are mainly kept in France, although some of them are also kept by other European countries.
The Guardian published a fairly lengthy article (possibly on 18 Dec) also arguing that Assange should be treated as a journalist rather than a hacker and this extradition trial is therefore a serious attack on the universal notion of the Freedom of the Press.
There are also serious issues about conflict of interest within the Court. Initially the case was to be judged by Chief Magistrate Judge Emma Arbuthnot but there was clear conflict of interest as she is married to a former Conservative Minister who had links with the British military Intelligence in areas exposed by WikiLeaks. The case was therefore handed to District Judge Vanessa Baraister but under the “guidance” and supervision of the Chief Magistrate! In other words Arbuthnot is telling Baraister what to do.
So, in 2 days’ time, at 10.00am on Monday, at the Old Bailey, the District Judge will deliver her verdict and it will be left to …Priti Patel! the British Home Secretary to decide whether the UK should go ahead with the extradition. If she does go for extradition it will be an absolute disgrace and another nail in BoJo’s coffin.
In any case if Priti Patel decides to go ahead with it, the Assange’s legal team is sure to appeal against it, which might mean another long wait in prison. Since Julian Assange’s health has deteriorated over the last few months and the threat of Covid19 contamination is a real one, especially in prison and I think that the time he might be given bail on compassionate ground but I guess his lawyers will have to fight hard for it.