World Socialist Web Site In a press briefing at the United Nations headquarters in New York on October 15, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer restated his assessment that WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange has been subjected to an unprecedented campaign of persecution that amounts to “torture.”
The UN finding, first issued in May, and updated by Melzer at the briefing, should have provoked banner headlines in the major newspapers in the US, Britain and internationally.
Melzer’s warnings carry the weight and authority of a UN official and an internationally-respected legal expert. They concern Assange, the world’s most famous persecuted journalist, who has done more than any publisher to expose the brutal realities of imperialist war, diplomatic intrigue and pervasive CIA surveillance.
As it was, footage aired by the Russian-funded RT outlet showed a grand total of four people in the audience, surrounded by rows of empty chairs. To date, the RT article, and an accompanying video, appears to be the only report on the briefing by any media outlet in the world.
If Melzer had been condemning the persecution of journalists in Iran, Russia, China, or another country in the crosshairs of US imperialism, he would have been surrounded by dozens of reporters from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and other conduits for the intelligence agencies. They doubtless would have published stories, warning in sombre tones of an assault on the media and insisting on the necessity to defend press freedom.
Because Assange is being targeted by the US government and its allies, including Britain and Australia, for his role in revealing American war crimes, the establishment media simply did not show up.
The press boycott is all the more striking given that even corporate publications have acknowledged that if Assange is extradited from Britain to the US, it will establish a precedent for journalists anywhere in the world to be hauled before US courts for the “crime” of publishing true and newsworthy information that the American government sought to conceal.
The New York Times and the Washington Post, moreover, have noted that the 17 Espionage Act charges that have been levelled against Assange by the Trump administration pose a direct threat to the US Constitution’s press freedom protections, and could be used against other publications in the future—including their own.
The silence on Melzer’s remarks can therefore only be understood as a political decision, aimed at suppressing any public discussion on Assange’s persecution, in the lead-up to court hearings next February that will rule on his extradition from Britain to the US.
Melzer explained that when he visited Assange in May he was accompanied by two medical experts. “We came to the conclusion that he had been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time,” the UN rapporteur stated. “That’s a medical assessment.”
Speaking of his recommendations, addressed to the US, British, Swedish and Australian governments, Melzer said: “We asked for involved states to investigate this case and to alleviate the pressure that is being placed on him and especially to respect his due process rights, which in my view have been systematically violated in all these jurisdictions.”
Melzer stated: “Unfortunately none of those states agreed to conduct an investigation, although that is their obligation under the convention on torture.”