Why, though? I didn't even think that was a thing in Britain, at least if you're not some very high risk criminal convicted of violent crimes, which I don't think he is? Regardless of what one think about what Assange did that just seems extremely unnecessarily cruel unless he was a threat to guards or other prisoners...
Sure that's obvious (or not... depending on one's political views), but there must be some legal justification. Or can they put someone in permanent solitary confinement without giving any reason at all in Britain?
I'm reading at some sites that this isn't really true and that he wasn't literally held in a 2x3m cell for 23 hours every day. Although it's not very clear what were the actual conditions.
Turns out when governments toss around the words "spy" and "espionage" freely and without regard to their actual definitions they can get away with things like this.
There are a lot of countries they have never published anything on. They have a smaller number of large leaks, so that is not necessarily out of the ordinary.
I think it is credible that Wikileaks were provided some documents from Russian state-sanctioned actors, who knew Wikileaks would publish them, and that the state-sanctioned actors did so to serve Russian interests. But the claim that Wikileaks as a whole is biased towards Russia doesn't seem likely.
Things?
Correct me if I'm wrong but you're linking to 1 single publication. It doesn't seem they have anything else about Russia. From a quick glance a it, it reveals that Russia have infrastructure to control and monitor who in Russia is accessing what over the internet. Looks like a rather weak, insignificant leak to me. Which is what I was saying to begin with.
Could the reason be that no whistleblower came forward with files from Russia to Wikileaks? You're trying to make a point but missing the obvious.
Besides. The US and Europe and so have fairly free media, so the Wikileaks revelations reached a wide audience. Russia does not have free media, so if there were any leaks like it, it wouldn't reach the Russians as much.
I don’t understand your point. One should get away with a crime because others are getting away with it? Even if Julian Assange was a Russian spy (which I highly doubt), what difference does it make regarding the crimes he exposed?
You can’t diminish facts depending on who is telling them - as long as these are facts.
His role in Wikileaks wasn't to personally raid servers. He was receiving leaks that were delivered to him via his platform, and then he decided what was worth publishing.
Either he never had been handed any significant leaks on Russia, either he chosed to not publish them.
So for every crime by one state, he has to publish one from another state for balance? Is it not enough that one state committed a crime and he reported it?
The allegations I've seen floating around is that he deliberately withheld certain types of leaks. Thereby making Wikileaks no longer neutral, but politically-motivated.
> Is it not enough that one state committed a crime and he reported it?
It depends on what "it" would be enough for... but if he indeed actively surpressed damaging info leaked to him on par with the stuff he has released, yeah, that makes matters complex.
Another criticism I've seen is that the leaks did not do any redaction whatsoever - even when it clearly pertained to informants in war zones. For that, if the allegations are true, my view is simple: you shouldn't do that. And if you set up an infrastructure for leaking, it is reasonable to assume that you're capable of handling such an important and obviously necessary step.
So "isn't it enough?" - no, it is more complicated than that.
Neither of these is true. WL had a process of verifying leaks and would only publish those that it was assured were provided with full context. Typical news reporting will publish a leaked sentence or paragraph and add its own significant interpretation. WL would publish the entire source material (with appropriate redactions) once it was vetted and deemed complete, so that nobody could accuse WL of holding back part of the context that might change one's interpretation of it.
WL continued to redact information and expended significant resources doing so. If this faltered at all, it was only after the organization came under attack from multiple governments and had to undertake its mission with fewer humans available to perform that level of review. While not ideal, WL does not deserve criticism for it as WL was essentially stabbed in the back by the NY Times and other corporate news outlets.
WL wanted to team up with major corporate news outlets to ensure solid redaction and stewardship. They cooperated once before governments told them to instead publish smear stories against Assange. The timing of the diplomatic cables which embarrassed HRC was not ideal, since it led the US center-left (neocons) to get on board more fully in the character assassination campaign against Assange than would have been possible if GWB and the Iraq/Afghan war corruption was the major scandal impacting the USG revealed by WL.
Never? I can easily come up with scenarios where I think you'd also make an exception; If he was a German journalist in 1940 and he discovered what really happened at concentration camps. I'd wager exposing those papers without any redaction would be acceptable.
If you agree, then the rest is just about how you weigh certain crimes by the government, how many and what kind of names you expose, etc.
23 hour bang up isn't uncommon in the UK, mostly just because the prisons are overcrowded and underfunded and it's easier to keep things under control with everyone locked in their cells most of the time.
There are legal minimums for how much time prisoners have to be allowed out of their cells but they're pretty low and not always followed
Why, though? I didn't even think that was a thing in Britain, at least if you're not some very high risk criminal convicted of violent crimes, which I don't think he is? Regardless of what one think about what Assange did that just seems extremely unnecessarily cruel unless he was a threat to guards or other prisoners...