Craig Murray has been covering this trial from the public gallery. He certainly has his opinions and I don't want to get in the weeds on that account. He did mention that very few people were allowed in the public gallery, the rest where to sit in a room next door where (he claims) the sound is difficult to hear.[0]
My understanding at this point is that the public isn't really allowed access at all. The poor sound quality makes it impossible to understand what is happening, it's not access in the sense that they can follow the proceedings. Craig Murray seemed to be saying that Amnesty International was excluded even from this room. I believe this may be the crux of Amnesty International's complaint.
"Rather to our surprise, nobody else was allowed into the public gallery of court 10 but us five. Others like John Pilger and Kristin Hrafnsson, editor in chief of Wikileaks, were shunted into the adjacent court 9 where a very small number were permitted to squint at a tiny screen, on which the sound was so inaudible John Pilger simply left. Many others who had expected to attend, such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, were simply excluded, as were MPs from the German federal parliament (both the German MPs and Reporters Without Borders at least later got access to the inadequate video following strong representations from the German Embassy)."
He clarified "about ten journalists in total." There's also the room for the public, presumably another five, and the two for Assange's family. So seventeen people.
This piece of news has been interpreted by user stevespang. the fact his comment is now dead and the fact that Amnesty Interntaional are being denied access to this trial really support his point of view. The comment should not be dead, to be clear about it.
I disagree in that I still hope it's merely arrogance and exceptionalism by the UK courts thinking, unlike courts in poorer parts of the world, they are utterly above reproach in all things and so there is no need for Amnesty International at the trial of a publisher who has reported and published evidence of war crimes. For all that arrogance I hope the court will make the correct decisions according to statute and precedence.
The job that has been done on Assange has been astonishingly effective. People don't /like/ him enough to notice his rights being removed are precisely their own rights and are removed for all. I put him with Tony Blair, George Bush jnr, Hilary, Donald, Boris as someone I would cross the road to avoid having to talk to - as is my right. It's also my right to note that it matters not at all in defending the rights of all of these people to fair due process because even the worst asshole imaginable's rights are yours and mine. Of my list of assholes above, I think Assange is the only asshole with no evidence to suggest his actions have actually killed anyone at all. Blair and Bush jnr in particular deserve fair trials so they can rigorously defend the extremely prevalent belief that they did kill people, knowingly, making decisions supported with jusification made in bad faith to enable the actions leading to the carnage. I would completely support their rights and Amnesty being present at their trials.
The rule of law and equality before it is the most important thing to ensure civilisation continues.
UK: "You are free to monitor the trial as a member of the public."
AI: "No, we demand physical access and the right to a reserved seat to monitor the trial."
UK: "From the Crown's point of view, you are a public institution and have the same rank as any other public institution. The auditorium seating is ----> thataway."
This is not to say that AI having reserved seating to oversee the trial couldn't be useful, but it's understandable why the UK might choose not to treat them as a privileged observer.
They're a charity and a private institution, not a legal arm of the UK, an oversight organization of the EU, or a division of the UN. They have as much legal authority as any other private institution.
Not to say that it wouldn't be a good idea for AI to have the privilege of oversight of any court proceeding in the UK. But I believe such a thing would have to start as law from the Houses, not the discretion of an individual judge. If there is precedent to the contrary, I will stand corrected.
According to Amnesty, "Amnesty International monitors have gone to Guantanamo Bay, Bahrain, Ecuador, Turkey, and Hungary, among many others, to observe trials as officially recognized fair trial monitors." - https://twitter.com/JuliaHall18/status/1306200278207782913
The fact that the courts cannot accommodate an organization like amnesty international should be be concerning.
It's appropriate for the court to take steps necessary to ensure not just a fair trial, but the apparence of a fair trial.
If you fail to ensure the apparence of a fair trial, you undermine the court.
It saddens me that the court can't ensure a trial that is beyond criticism, especially in a case this controversial.
It gives serious credibility to people claiming this is a sham trial. Because a fair trial should go out of it's way to also appear fair.
Um, I believe AI is seeking physical access to the trial because they have sought - and were specifically denied - remote access to it.
If you want to write some justifications for why the government is refusing to let the public watch a video of the proceedings, then knock yourself out.
"Be sure to get up early and be there on-time" is hardly no access.
It's AI that's requesting special treatment. I think it'd be cool if the UK passed a law making it so, but it seems less cool if a trial judge decides unilaterally to go outside of the norms and allow it. Isn't AI's goal to make sure norms are followed?
Yeah, I don't think "waking up early" is going to help if they only let in five people.
Did you read her Twitter thread you keep posting? The reason she is requesting "special treatment" is so that the spots allocated to the public wouldn't be used. They are trying to use their authority to push for more people allowed to attend.
>Isn't AI's goal to make sure norms are followed?
No, the goal is to try and ensure that a tryly public trial is held.
That would be a nice narrative if it was really possible to access the courtroom. Only 5 persons of the public are allowed in, meaning there is no access.
The fact that AI was denied access seems like support for them being there. If the court behaved in a way that would be consistent with them allowing AI, then AI would not need to observe.
Of my list of assholes above, I think Assange is the only asshole with no evidence to suggest his actions have actually killed anyone at all.
Actually there is evidence that his actions started a number of civil wars. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective, but certainly it lead to dead people.
His actions were far from the sole cause, but they certainly contributed. The chain of causality being that he created Wikileaks and solicited releases of confidential US information. The confidential US cables then became public. The information in those cables helped start civil wars.
This may seem tenuous, but it was pretty much what he was hoping for. http://web.archive.org/web/20070129125831/http://iq.org/cons... describes what Assange hoped Wikileaks would accomplish before it had accomplished anything. Said purpose was to make it harder to maintain authoritarian conspiracies.
Given that, the fact that his actions caused trouble for authoritarian conspiracies in the Middle-East is an intended consequence.
> This piece of news has been interpreted by user stevespang. the fact his comment is now dead and the fact that Amnesty Interntaional are being denied access to this trial really support his point of view.
Not really (non sequitar). He's shadowbanned (see their submissions and comments).
The particular comment doesn't add much either; its merely an opinion, nothing more. Not a well argued one either while we're at it. That doesn't mean they should or shouldn't be allowed to have the opinion, nor does it mean they're right or wrong. It merely means its a shallow post.
This is a tweet. It is, by itself, misleading. It is about a legal matter. The thread of tweets it begins is not an analysis of the legal context of the decision returned to Amnesty International by the judge.
Amnesty International has not been "denied access" to the extradition hearing. The judge has declined to provide them with special status and guaranteed access by an AI observer within the courtroom itself. The proceedings will be broadcast live to members of he press in auxiliary room, where AI is apparently welcome.
Other comments speculate about various extralegal shenanigans that could occur in such a situation. Information about that might make up a good article, an informative article, that I might be glad to read on HN. However I already have a place where I can indulge in soapboxing in response to tweets, it is called Twitter, and I am not sure that providing redundancy for this activity is a good use of HN.
Many people are concerned about the way this hearing is being carried out. For example, here's the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI):
> The IBAHRI concurs with the widespread concern over the ill-treatment of Mr Assange. He must be afforded equality in access to effective legal representation. With this extradition trial we are witnessing the serious undermining of due process and the rule of law. It is troubling that Mr Assange has complained that he is unable to hear properly what is being said at his trial, and that because he is locked in a glass cage is prevented from communicating freely with his lawyers during the proceedings commensurate with the prosecution. - https://www.ibanet.org/Article/NewDetail.aspx?ArticleUid=c05...
As others here, like cmiles74, have mentioned, there are also serious sound issues affecting those who are trying to follow the case. Given all that, it's hardly surprising that Amnesty would be worried and would want access to monitor for themselves.
But that interpretation of Julia's tweet contradicts the snippet of text she shared (I assume from the judge) that clarifies they are welcome the same as any other public member.
It seems they are not exceptionally welcome. Or unwelcome. First-come, first-serve.
You don't see a problem when a legal hearing that's been criticised as "undermining of due process and the rule of law" by the International Bar Association only offers a tiny number of hard-to-get seats to the public and then asks Amnesty International to compete with them on a first-come, first-serve basis?
From the Amnesty tweet thread: "The general public has a right to the few seats in the public gallery; trial monitors should not be competing with the public to secure a seat that belongs to the public-at-large." - https://twitter.com/JuliaHall18/status/1306198935816613889
I tend to agree that the problem is that everybody is prohibited from seeing the trial, not that Amnesty International is included in the group "everybody".
Trial monitors are the public-at-large. If they want a special designation, I believe that's a process that starts with a law from the Houses, not the whim of a single trial judge. Otherwise, it adds burden to all trial judges to have to decide who's a "trial monitor" at their discretion.
I'm happy to stand corrected if there's precedent to the contrary.
Well, Amnesty do not think that their trial monitors should be treated as "public-at-large", otherwise I doubt they'd be concerned by this development. They've stated that they've observed trials before in other countries without trouble. Shouldn't the onus be on you to prove that they're wrong on this?
I found this in one of their documents:
"Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have for many years sent observers to significant political trials. The acceptance of international trial observers (whether sent by foreign governments or by non-governmental organizations) has arguably become an international legal norm. The practice is well established and accepted within the international community." - https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/156000/pol3000219...
You write:
> Otherwise, it adds burden to all trial judges to have to decide who's a "trial monitor" at their discretion.
I'm sure if the judge in the Assange case was facing an influx of trial monitors and finding it hard to decide which ones to let in, she would have made that clear. She hasn't said anything of the sort.
Given the poor quality (to the point of utter uselessness) of the audio and video links provided by the court for "public access", AI's objection is justified.
I hope that one or more folks actually in the room are surreptitiously recording the proceedings so they can be leaked later.
I believe the issue is that there is a very limited number of public spaces so its elbows out in the scramble for all who want to be there to get them, then things have a way of going wrong so that official observers are, quite accdidentally, shut out from observing. In some countries suddenly a number of off duty policemen decide they want to have those seats for themselves and arrest anyone who doesn't back down when barged out of the way. Of corse it needn't be people as reputable as policemen for it to be organised to occurr that way.
In any case the idea is that Justice must not only be done it must be seen to be done. Telling amnesty they are nobodies in the eyes of the courts is not really supporting that.
According to the quote in the tweet itself the proceedings are accessible to them and all other members of the media over a live link.
Amnesty really needs to explain why this is not adequate, and if it genuinely is not adequate why the deserve this special access over and above any other party with a strong interest in reporting this case.
As already being mentioned by someone else, the live link breaking down (coincidental or not) or being intentionally muted by the court (for whatever reason), could seriously obstruct the assessment of a fair trial. Spoiler alert: it already isn't, even if only for the judge's bias, so one might even argue that AI doesn't need to be there to re-establish an already given.
However, more crucial here is that AI does not have any official monitoring status. Sure, they have good reputation, but ultimately are "just" an NGO. It might have been a different story if this was an official (UN) body safeguarding fair trials. But I'm not even sure if those exist, given that courts are often considered an "internal affair" of a country. If there's something wrong with them, the official way is usually to proceed to an international court, after having exhausted your options in a national court.
Also, AI itself is not without controversy. It certainly does a lot of good work, with most people involved having nothing but good intentions. That said, I have personally witnessed how the organization (at least once) made some seriously politically damaging statements for a ruling government, but as it later turned out based on false information. That itself can happen. But when AI was privately informed (with evidence countering their statements), about how they were used for a political agenda, they still held on to their initial stance. That was rather surprising and even shocking to me, for an organization like AI. Only years later, did I finally hear about questionable personal relationships between the local political opposition and AI staff. From what I've heard since, that was neither the first time that AI wasn't as politically (or nationally) neutral as often thought/claimed.
I doubt that the above has much relevance in this particular case though. Still, apparently AI isn't always above using information "tactically" for their own and/or political means/ends.
Over the course of these hearings, the "live link" has had a habit of breaking up or otherwise become unavailable at short notice, as Craig Murray has reported.
This might be entirely coincidental, but regardless, I can see why observers would find it not adequate.
I'm sure that's annoying, but given the nature of what is being discussed it's hard to come up with a scenario where that has a serious impact on the observation of justice. Not least because if the live feed goes down at the same time as something bad happens that would give an enormous amount of ammunition to Assange's defence team.
“Something bad” in this context is stuff like the judge reading pre-written decisions rather than elaborating them on the spot. Without independent observers, there is no “ammunition” to be had, because it’s simply one’s word vs the authorities’.
As someone else mentioned, this is the sort of thing that, when it happens in “bad” countries, we often call with certain choice words.
The audio quality of the medialink has been reported to be so poor quality that for long stretches nothing but static is sent out. There is a limit on how much independent observation that amnesty can do in such conditions, and it gives a massive loophole for other regimes if amnesty would tolerate it.
A public hearing having (excluding a few for the family of the accused) no seats in the court room for the actual public is not a public hearing, but a secret one.
Is there a real difference between video-link access, and being physically present in this case?
From all the reporting, including Craig Murray's (who's in the public gallery and definitely not on the government side in all this), it seems like the controversial aspects of the trial are based on what's being said in the courtroom rather than physical actions in the courtroom.
Is there a suspicion of physical foul play that needs to be monitored and/or guarded against here rather than legal, evidential, or procedural foul play?
I will personally go and install a decent audio and video link for free for the court if it so desires, and I can do it after proceedings tonight and have it ready for tomorrow morning. I can do it for zero cost.
Yet, I would bet that if I informed the court of that offer, they would say no.
No citation needed. The onus is on the court to prove that the trial is fair. The mechanism for that is allowing the public to observe the proceedings. Otherwise an adverse inference may be drawn.
>"But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
>“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
>“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
>“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard."
You can try all you want to hide behind "they had the same access as everyone else, I have no pity at all if they can't take interest in local politics/justice", but at the end of the day it isn't fooling anyone. If the Court were actually, truly trying to maintain it's credibility in the eyes of the international, let alone their national community, rather than refusing to acknowledge there might be a case where "Gee, maybe even the Courts of Great Britain might have a rather momentous occasion on their hands, where concessions are warranted over being territorially pissy because an outsider dares impugn the equanimity of the Court like it were some Third World Tin Pot Kangaroo court needing to be babysat. I"m really not trying to be flippant or dismissive, but given what I've seen of a prevailing English attitude in the
post-Brexit age, it just seems like the country has given up on anything remotely resembling living up to it's lofty ideals in anyone else's eyes but their own in the post-Brexit era,and it saddens me as an American to see it. Doubly so, because I've always seen Europe as a brake/foil of sorts for our culture; so please don't think it's coming from a position of the pot calling kettle black so much as a teaball wondering why it is being forced into a Keurig. I certainly know how I expect things to go, but something about the circumstances surrounding what's going on just seems a bit off!
For all we in the West have presented ourselves as beacons of Truth, Justice, and "Doing it the Right Way" over the years, it never ceases to amaze me how positively nasty things tend to get once you get someone in the crosshairs of the establishment, and no, I don't at all think that this case is being handled in an impartial manner from back room politics.
Trust but Verify doesn't even do this any Justice at all.
My understanding at this point is that the public isn't really allowed access at all. The poor sound quality makes it impossible to understand what is happening, it's not access in the sense that they can follow the proceedings. Craig Murray seemed to be saying that Amnesty International was excluded even from this room. I believe this may be the crux of Amnesty International's complaint.
"Rather to our surprise, nobody else was allowed into the public gallery of court 10 but us five. Others like John Pilger and Kristin Hrafnsson, editor in chief of Wikileaks, were shunted into the adjacent court 9 where a very small number were permitted to squint at a tiny screen, on which the sound was so inaudible John Pilger simply left. Many others who had expected to attend, such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, were simply excluded, as were MPs from the German federal parliament (both the German MPs and Reporters Without Borders at least later got access to the inadequate video following strong representations from the German Embassy)."
[0]: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...