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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: UN Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer Becomes One of Assange’s Most Vocal Advocates “Here [in Assange’s case] we are not speaking of prosecution but of persecution. That means that judicial power, institutions and proceedings are being deliberately abused for ulterior motives.” — Nils Melzer, UN Rapporteur on Torture On May 9, UN Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer, visited WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange at Belmarsh Prison, where he is currently serving a 50-week prison sentence for a minor bail violation. Melzer was accompanied by two medical experts who specialize in the examination of possible victims of torture as well as the documentation of symptoms, both physical and psychological. The team was able to speak with Assange and conduct a medical assessment following a set of guidelines known as “The Istanbul Protocol,” a tool designed to help UN workers and others investigate, document, and report incidents of torture and ill-treatment. The results were shocking. According to Melzer, the evidence is overwhelming that Assange has been “deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively [more] severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” the effects of which he described as psychological torture. Melzer also found that Assange has been exposed to: persistent, progressively [more] severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy; and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination.” The UN Rapporteur admitted that he had been reluctant to investigate Assange’s case, not because he felt that Assange was a “bad actor” but rather because he had been “affected by the same misguided smear campaign as everybody else.” But as he delved deeper into the case he found that Assange had been subjected to a “relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation,” during which time no government involved tried to intervene or protect him. In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.” (UN release) As a result of the limited number of outside influences to which Assange was exposed, as well as his confinement to a small, controlled environment within the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than seven years, Melzer believes that it’s possible to determine the causes of Assange’s symptoms with a high degree of certainty. He found that four nations have “contributed to medical effects” that Melzer and his team observed: Sweden, the U.K., Ecuador, and the U.S. A UN statement about Melzer’s findings was released on May 31, and since that time Melzer has become one of Assange’s most active and vocal advocates, taking part in well over a dozen interviews about his health, legal difficulties, judicial bias, and more. Below is a summary of 12 different interviews he has given over approximately the last three weeks. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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