By Ciaron O’Reilly
On Thursday 24 Feb 2011 it is likely Assange will be taken from Woolwich court. This was purpose built for the Provisional IRA. Assange will be taken via a tunnel into Category A Belmarsh Prison. The IRA were kept in this prison. People accused of Islamic Jihad are presently kept there. The Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs, was there.
Assange will be placed in a special secure unit (SSU) or if they have gone now he will be put in solitary – it is still there. Assange was in solitary at Wandsworth.
Fr . Martin Newell, who lives with me at Giusepp Conlon House, was held there ‘on remand’ after disabling the nuclear convoy vehicle in 2000.
Martin gave a speech about Belmarsh outside the Assange hearing.
No doubt Assange’s lawyers will wish to appeal the decision for extradition.
The British government’s lawyers will again oppose bail at the request of the US administration.
Assange will not go to Sweden.
He will be handed directly over to the US and extradited from Britain.
The Swedish extradition is just a holding operation while the Grand Jury in Virginia gets it shit together by breaking Manning or concocting evidence
The guy with aspergers who hacked in to the Pentagon was extradited recently after 18 months – 2 years of appeals.”
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Once again we have witnessed the tragedy of people dying in their attempt to reach Australia. This time it was Hazara families.
This tragedy brings out the best and worst of responses. Reactions are varied from compassion and commiseration to some of the most hateful and brutal of comments.
Most of this is driven by ignorance of the reasons why people take a risky boat journey. So here are some facts you may wish to share.
Right now in Quetta, Pakistan many Afghan Hazaras have fled after being driven out of Afghanistan by Taliban and Pashtun militia.
Now they are being bombed and killed daily by Lashvi-i-Jangvi another terrorist group.
This is why families are trying to get to Australia. For those who have a husband and father in Australia, there is a waiting list of five to ten years for family reunion and years even for a spouse visa.
Hazaras are the largest (?) group of refugees in the world for obvious reasons. Hazaras are a minority who are targetted by Taliban and other brutal militias.
In order to fulfil the visa requirements, Australian immigration demand that people travel to Islamabad 900 klms away to do health checks with an Australian Approved Panel Doctor and that they have DNA testing at great expense with swabs taken in the presence of an Australian immigration officer. Many have no documents so cannot fly but have to take the dangerous bus journey 900 kms overland. The roads are controlled by Taliban who extort taxes from the bus drivers. When they see Hazaras on the buses they take them out and kill them. For this reason there are weeks when the bus companies refuse to take Hazaras becasue they could be targetted by Taliban.
In addition Australian immigration are asking that the wives go to Kabul, another dangerous overland journey back into the country from which they have fled in order to get their taskeras (birth certificates ) stamped. Families wait years in hiding in Quetta to even start this process and after completing all this they must still wait. we all know people in Australia who have lost sons, brothers, daughters and wives in the recent bombings. We see their grief.
Immigration and politicians know the problems because lawyers and migration agents keep telling them. Now at last an alternative to have the processing done in Quetta is being discussed but in the meantime the dangerous life threatening journeys are still required to fulfil formal visa requirements.
So when the politicians and media talk about sending people to Nauru and Manus to stop the dangerous boat journeys- Ask them what they are doing to stop making these dangerous boat journeys the only choice for people fleeing for their lives.
If your choice is being bombed or killed by Taliban on a bus or street in Quetta which you have witnessed happening or taking a chance on a boat to Australia which you have never seen before what would you choose?
If our politicians really cared they would start managing the arrival of asylum seekers, process their refugee applications fairly and settle those people who proved that they had valid claims – as we promised to do when we signed the refugee convention. we have done it before and we could dom it again if we changed the toxic debate on asylum seekers and refugees.
–
Pamela Curr
Campaign Coordinator
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
12 Batman st West Melbourne 3003
ph 03 9326 6066 / 0417517075
“AUSTRALIA. Built by boatpeople.”
They came like passing clouds,
Mother and child,
drifting before the moon,
lingering intangible angels.
Sudden lightning flash!
Gone for good,
leaving love lost in rain;
still glad you came
between the devil and deep blue sea.
Such beauty!
Made small
by war
on the
horizon.
— Ian Curr
May/July, 2012
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What a self indulgent, derivative piece of alleged prose! If that’s be st you can come up with thaen your approach is no better than that of the United Nations; namely “WE’RE GOING TO WRITE A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER!”
Maybe this is why you’re so ineffectual. Your so called protest at Gallipoli Barracks to ‘celebrate’ the 10 year anniversary of the war in Afghanistan was laughable and about as entertaining as a bunch of amateur clowns doing magic trics and making baloon animals. Whenever I you people at ‘work’ I feel amusement and a pitty, a bit like you’d feel for an immature and slightly retarded distant family member’s antics. Please keep it up, we all need the laughs.
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Julian Assange arrived at Woolich Court Thursday looking a lot more relaxed than last time. This may indicate that the Prosecution indicated pre-hearing they were not going to oppose bail.
Prosecution opposition to bail had been denied at the High Court in December and Julian had fufiled all bail requirements since his release that day. The written verdict was recited and defence tried to renegotiate bail conditions. When this concluded Julian came out into the courtyard to make statements to the media. When that concluded Roland, originally from Melbourne and myself from Brisbane made our move, nonviolently blockading the road entry to the court. Images of our action were carried in the printed version of Friday’s Washington Post Friday, Associated Press, New York Times website, BBC South, Australia SBS, Times of India etc.
Our report photographs of the NVDA etc on this link,,,,,
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/99106
http://www.londoncatholicworker.org
Sapper Jamie Larcombe with his partner
Julian Assange took on the US
Wikileak’d ten years war in Afghanistan
Protesters in Tahrir Square had no time
The leaks did not rhyme
Put out Mubarak for freedom sake
To have their say
Across Africa and Arabia
Other side of the world
Julian roams downstairs in Woolwich Court
Thinking what would Pilger and Ellsberg do now?
Waiting to be taken through tunnel to Belmarsh Prison
Where ghosts of IRA meet Ronnie Biggs in special secure unit
No Wikileaks today about Sapper Jamie Larcombe
No mention of his Afghan mate
They lost their lives at Mirabad last night
Jamie died, despite first aid, unable to be saved
Gunshot wounds killed Sapper Larcombe
Air Vice Marshall Houston sighed
Only 21 years old and his interpreter
Buried according to local custom
Jamie Larcombe was just nineteen
When he signed up for the Operation
They called ‘Slipper’
Code for global war
In Afghanistan, Middle East and the Gulf of Aden
No medals will bring Jamie home,
That boy from Kangaroo Island
Lets bring to an end
The terror and the killing
Those masters plan wars in tall towers
But do they think of the children and the flowers?
They conscript women to kill
But care not a damn
Young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
Now buried in the sand
Back in Afghanistan
US fuelled ideas on Economy and State
Some succeed, others must fail
Australia, a one party state
With Labor and Liberal both the same
To poor people whose only hope is revolt
So sad for Sapper Larcombe and his Afghan mate
In Mirabad lay their fate
Three journos approaching, Julian, John and Dan
Winds of knowledge howl
US Generals standing on the watchtower
Cry our country always does the right thing
Meanwhile Grand Jury in Virginia has sent
Poor Bradley Manning on the last train to Mirabad
Americans do the right thing
Only after exhausting every other option first
From Arab Spring
we come singing
for freedom’s sake
strike up the banner,
cry war no more
rid us of this insane curse
those warmongers are the worse
our job is not to lead
nor is it to be led
lower the casket down
on our graves rich masters
feed their fortune
let’s bring war to an end,
it cannot come too soon
in this, our pale afternoon
– Ode to lives lost at Mirabad
Ian Curr
2011
Reference
Ten Years War in Afghanistan – 7 October 2011
Malalai Joya
Stop Cluster Bombs
Ten years since 9/11: What have progressives really learned about war & Islamophobia?[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/28741477 w=400&h=225]
Malalai Joya Armidale Town Hall 5/9/2011 from SVM on Vimeo.