An Open Letter To President Trump Regarding the Gagging of Julian Assange

Dear Mr President:

First, I would like to thank you for bringing back jobs to the US and for all you have already done for the citizens of this great country.  I am proud to have you as my President.

However, a month ago, a great man was gagged by Ecuador after receiving his citizenship in that country.  Julian Assange has been put in solitary confinement in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.  President Lenin Moreno removed his internet access, his ability to make phone calls and his rights to receive visitors other than his lawyers.  This is a clear violation of Free Speech and Free Press as it was done to silence the voice of a publisher and journalist.  As you are an advocate and protector of the Constitution of the United States of America and vowed to uphold this great piece of our history, I know you understand the ramifications of this unconstitutional act.

Mr. President, according to the United Nations Nelson Mandela Act, solitary confinement over 15 days is considered torture.  According to this PBS article seen here (PBS article on torture ) and my article that I researched thoroughly (the effects of solitary confinement ), this gag order will leave permanent irreversible damage to Julian Assange.  Mr. President, Assange saved us from Hillary by exposing her corruption, it is very possible, she would have won if not for the DNC emails and Podesta emails that Wikileaks released prior to the election.  Please read the above articles on torture and ask yourself, “does this man really deserve this?”  He has been detained for almost 8 years without proper medical care, sunlight or fresh air as well as being unable to see his own family. Is that not punishment enough for a man who simply published documents given to him by Daniel Manning aka Chelsea Manning?

President Obama gave clemency to Manning before he left office Mr. President, to a man many consider a traitor due to his taking of documents that he gave to Wikileaks and yet he walks free and even is running for Senate.  Why should an innocent publisher and journalist suffer for doing what is simply releasing the truth to the public as any good journalist does?

Mainstream Media and the DNC have targeted Wikileaks, Julian Assange and you in an attempt to remove you from office and have gone so far in recent days as to try and sue all of you for the loss of the election.  This witch hunt must end now!  Wikileaks and Julian Assange are being targeted just as you have been.  Perhaps, you don’t agree with their ideas or their beliefs, but isn’t that the great part of America? That we can disagree and even discuss our ideas without punishment?  Our Constitution protects our right to think for ourselves and speak those thoughts.  Why should it be any different for an outside publisher?

Mr. President, on behalf of Wikileaks supporters worldwide, I ask you to free this man and see to it that he is reconnected to the world and his family.  Stand up for what is right and good and free the very person who helped you win the Presidency and Make America Great Again.  Be the President who is known for upholding the Constitution and fighting for our rights! I thank you and the world thanks you!

A Concerned Citizen

How Solitary Confinement Effects the Mind: Plight of Julian Assange

Julian Assange has been without internet, phone or visitors for 166 days as of tomorrow, this is an extremely wicked and cruel act against an innocent journalist and publisher.  According the the UN’s Nelson Mandela Act, anything over 15 days in solitary is considered torture.  I want to explain to you what complete isolation does to the mind and the body and how this will effect Julian’s current state.

It is a proven fact that lonely people are more prone to certain physical ailments including high blood pressure, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and are more prone to infection. Mentally it has been reported to play with your sense of time, cause hallucinations, and paranoia.  Many completely isolated individuals who had no meaningful human contact lost track of reality all together as studies have shown. In a study on other primates regarding isolation, they found that after only 30 days the monkeys became enormously disturbed and after a year were unable to have social contact of any kind. ( Reference for studies ) In fact, a good example of lack of proper human interaction would be the orphans in Romania who were literally mentally handicapped because they were never held or given affection. In fact, it has been proven that solitary confinement can drive a person literally crazy.

We are talking about permanent damage here folks.  It is not temporary and is considered torture for a reason. Most examples when introduced back into society have a lack of life skills and have lost the ability to relate to others as a normal individual would.  They are highly anxious around people, often paranoid and fearful, leaving them with no joy in every day tasks or happiness. What emerges from reports on solitary confinement is literally like reading a medieval novel about torture. Some even experience pyschosis afterwards.

And as Alexis Agathocleous from the Center for Constitutional Rights has aptly noted (link reference ) :

We know that keeping someone in solitary confinement puts them at very serious risk of descending into irreversible mental illness. That’s not tolerable in a society that values the dignity and humanity of all people, no matter whether they are incarcerated or not.

 

So you may be asking why this has been done to someone like Julian Assange?  It is simply to silence the truth.  Many have contemplated the real reasons behind Moreno’s gag order including

1. He spoke about Catalonia and Spain pushed Ecuador into this act.
2. Julian was going to testify in the case against Cambridge Analytics and Facebook in the well know court case.
3. Ecuador is looking for help from the US government with security in Columbia and help with their failing economy.  Perhaps, it was a deal made behind closed doors.
4. US State department bullied Ecuador into silencing him and is currently trying to end his asylum through coercing Ecuador.
5. 

Regardless of the reason, this man is being persecuted for simply doing what journalists should do.  He investigates what information is given to him and tells us about it.  This is not a crime.  He is not in prison but in an Embassy to keep him from being extradited for political reasons to the United States to face a fixed grand jury that would put him away for 45 years, the rest of his life.  His rights are being violated by the UK and now the very country that gave him asylum in the first place.

Lenin Moreno is literally guilty of torturing a man who his country offered protection through political asylum. Asylum is defined by the Collins English Dictionary as

“The protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee.”

Punishing a man for tweeting about his views and the truth is not protecting him.  Even prisoners in solitary confinement are allowed the occasional video conference with friends and family.  Ultimately, President Moreno will be known as the man who destroyed Julian Assange. He will be known for violating the human rights of one of his citizens (Assange was granted Ecuadorian citizenship a few months ago).  He will be known for making a hypocrisy of free press and free speech if this act of suffering continues.

Please contact the leaders in your country and demand they contact Ecuador and request the reconnection of Julian Assange to the world and his family.

 

 

 

 

 

An Open Letter to Lenin Moreno Regarding Julian Assange

Dear Sir:

First, I would like to thank the country of Ecuador and you for all you have done for Julian in the past 7+ years of his detainment and for protecting him against persecution by the United States.  This is an incredible stand against the bullying of other countries to silence the truth and is greatly appreciated by myself and his supporters.  Ecuador has made itself known by doing this as a human rights advocate.

However, the recent gagging of Assange is a disservice to human rights the world over.  Please do not make yourself the President of Ecuador who is known for destroying a hero of Western society or be the man who backed down in his stand against intimidation from foreign countries.  This would be a humiliation to yourself and your country.  Your stand for free speech and free press would become a sad reminder of what happens to those who are forced into submission by big government.

There is currently a petition that has over 50,000 signatures circulating asking for you to reconnect Julian Assange and it would be a great stand for you to take to show us and fellow countrymen that you will not be bullied into submission and would help in your re-election efforts to stay in office.  I thank you in advance for doing the ethical thing in undoing the current isolation of Julian Assange.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Citizen

The Plight of a Journalist or We Are All Julian Assange

I found it very upsetting to hear that Ecuador gagged and completely isolated Assange for various reasons.  For one thing, this isn’t just about one man. If it were the populace could probably easily ignore what is happening. No, this is about all of us.  We are all Julian Assange. Let me explain…

Let’s go back to the 60’s when the US government destroyed two men because of their influential voices.  Many people forget that chaotic time of civil rights and unjust government agencies.  Our own government threatened and then killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. for the same thing that Julian Assange is detained for.  Freedom of Speech and exposing injustice!  John F Kennedy was also assassinated for speaking his mind and threatening to expose corruption.  Both men were well loved by their supporters.  Sounds all too familiar.

Julian Assange is in a very vulnerable position at the moment that perhaps, many don’t see.  Being completely isolated from others puts him in a dangerous situation because it would be impossible for him to get the word out if something happens to him. Thank goodness they are allowing his lawyers in.  It infuriates me that Ecuador has done this to this man.  Imagine if this was your son, brother or father and how you would worry for him.

Julian is a free speech advocate and human rights defender.  He stands for all of us, both average citizen and journalist.  He is persecuted the same as MLK once was.  They smeared him with fake sex allegations just as they did King.  They arrested him without charge and he sought political asylum from a foreign country who promised him to defend his rights. In fact, Ecuador recently gave him citizenship only to deny him his rights to free speech.

Where I am going with this is that he is every one of us who wants to save our God-given human rights as individuals. He exposes those who seek to destroy them.  He stands up for the underdog and the whistleblower who are unjustly victimized.  He simply is a truth teller and they are making him pay for sticking up for us.  Think of the older kid who stopped the bully from hurting you as a kid.  Then think of that older kid getting suspended for doing the right thing.  That is Assange.

When Ecuador accepted Julian as a refuge, they were making a promise to protect him and keep him from being persecuted.  The definition according to Collins Dictionary is as follows:

law

Political asylum is the right to live in a foreign country, and is given by the government of that country to people who have to leave their own country because they are in danger of persecution.

If you look at the following statement found at Ace Electoral Knowledge Network it shows what the 1952 Convention relating to the status of refugees states.

The first of these is that of the refugee, defined under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the associated 1967 Protocol as a person who ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country’. 

Ecuador promised to protect Assange by allowing him political asylum.  Protect not punish.  By taking away Julian’s right to speak with family and friends, denying him visitors and removing his internet access, they have violated the definition given in 1951 by the United Nations convention.  In fact, they have put him in solitary confinement like he is a prisoner, not a refugee.  Doing this is very contradictory to their constitution and shows that this government has willingly taken away one of its citizens rights.  KimDotCom spoke of this in the following tweet.

This illegal detainment by the UK and gagging order by Ecuador hurts every citizen of Western Democracy.  It shows that the ruling power has the right to change laws as it sees fits with no regard for its own citizens.  It should bring fear to the heart of every single person who uses these rights on a daily basis.  This gag order is nothing more than an extra chapter in the novel 1984.  It is Big Brother stifling our press, punishing our journalists and destroying our rights to free speech.

Who will be next in their destructive power?   Will it be you or I? Who will they persecute next for simply telling the public the truth?  How long before they start burning books and imprisoning people for not agreeing with them?  Is this NAZI Germany?

There is nothing more cruel and heartless than totally isolating an intelligent mind from others.  It is a punishment meant for deserving individuals not to silence a journalist.  We need to cry out for ourselves as we stand up for this man!

Currently, there is a petition written to Lenin Moreno and the Ecuador government requesting that they lift this gag order.  If you want to save a fellow human being and stand up for your own rights, please sign and spread the word.

link to petition