"Pentagon Papers leaker comes to the defense of Assange"
Authorities cite unpaid fees and problems in naturalisation papers relating to WikiLeaks founder
Pro-Julian Assange protesters at Piccadilly Circus, London demanding his release from Belmarsh prison. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock
Associated Press in Quito Wed 28 Jul 2021 09.08 AEST Last modified on Wed 28 Jul 2021 13.37 AEST
Ecuador’s justice system formally notified the Australian of the nullity of his naturalisation in a letter that came in response to a claim filed by the South American country’s foreign ministry.
A naturalisation is reconsidered when it is granted based on the concealment of relevant facts, false documents or fraud. Ecuadorian authorities said Assange’s naturalisation letter had multiple inconsistencies, different signatures, the possible alteration of documents and unpaid fees, among other issues.
Carlos Poveda, Assange’s lawyer, said the decision was made without due process and Assange was not allowed to appear in the case.
“On the date [Assange] was cited he was deprived of his liberty and with a health crisis inside the deprivation of liberty centre where he was being held,” Poveda said.
Poveda said he will file appeals asking for an amplification and clarification of the decision. “More than the importance of nationality, it is a matter of respecting rights and following due process in withdrawing nationality.”
Assange received Ecuadorian citizenship in January 2018 as part of a failed attempt by the government of then-President Lenín Moreno to turn him into a diplomat to get him out of its embassy in London.
On Monday, the Pichincha court for contentious administrative matters revoked this decision.
Ecuador’s foreign ministry said the court had “acted independently and followed due process in a case that took place during the previous government and that was raised by the same previous government”.
Assange, 50, has been in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London since he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail seven years earlier during a separate legal battle.
Assange spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador’s London embassy, where he fled in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault, which he denied. Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.
US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
Liveingreenbay, Naomi Wolf Didn’t Just ‘Go Crazy.’ Read ‘The Beauty Myth.’ [...] Six years later, in assessing rape charges by two Swedish women against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Wolf was less sympathetic to her sex. She published an open letter .. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/interpol-the-worlds-datin_b_793033.html .. to Interpol in which she slapped the global policing body for seeking to arrest Assange who, she wrote, had done no more than behave like many men who are “narcissistic jerks to women they are dating.” Wolf’s narrative framed the rape accusations as arising from two jealous women vying for the same man. Yet one of the alleged victims reported that Assange had nonconsensual sex with her while she was sleeping—hardly a case of feeling snubbed. Instead of grappling with the complexity of the situation—a man who had just published classified U.S. documents having potentially committed sex crimes—Wolf made a leap to a conspiracy. The rape allegations were, according to her, a pretext for capturing Assange to extradite him to the United States to face charges under the Espionage Act. P - Since then, Wolf’s conspiracy theories have become more peculiar. Last year on her Facebook page, she expressed her “creeping concern” that Edward Snowden was not an authentic whistleblower but an inside man. He was too calm, organized, and well spoken, she said. As for why this notion made any sense, Wolf asserted, “It is actually in the Police State’s interest to let everyone know that everything you write or say everywhere is being surveilled.” In other words, Wolf nonsensically surmised, it’s more effective to maintain unchecked power over people if they know their rights are being violated. [...] Wolf’s constant use of passive voice belies a belief in an omnipotent force, offering “men’s institutions,” “institutional power,” “the power structure,” and “the dominant culture” as culprits. We know that women feel pressure to look good, yet the forces creating this pressure are manifold and complex. And beauty is a symptom rather than the root of the problem: The primary barrier for women was and remains sex discrimination in the form of hiring, pay and promotion gaps, lack of worker-centered flexibility, and paid maternity and family leave. P - It is less alluring to talk about how women make up two-thirds of the country’s 20 million low-wage workers. The fastest-growing job in the fastest-growing sector of the economy for women is home health aide. It’s less thrilling to talk about how these aides are paid on average just $21,000, less than half the median income. Yet we don’t need conspiracy theories to explain women’s paltry wages; history, politics, and the economic drive for ever-cheaper labor do. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=162274589
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