Manning, Assange and Bini

Last month, Chelsea Manning was sent to jail indefinitely after she refused to take part in a US Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks. Now a court has denied the whistleblower’s request to be released on bail.

This month, on the 11 April, both Julian Assange and a friend of him, Ola Bini, were arrested.

Regarding Assange, keep in mind that already in 2016, the United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called on the Swedish and British authorities to end Assange’s deprivation of liberty, which is considered a form of arbitrary detention, respect his physical integrity and freedom of movement, and afford him the right to compensation. However, that is hardly ever mentioned by mainstream media. For example, The Economist argues that Assange should be extradited. Among many other things, the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks revealed how Swedish social democrats asked the US embassy for help to gain public support (link to content in Swedish). That year, Assange was invited to Sweden, where he became suspected of sexual misconduct and other allegations,

According to Bini’s lawyers, the detention of Bini is unlawful – he was denied access to lawyers for 17 hours, was not informed of the charges against him, and was not offered a translator, as required by local laws. His lawyers also said they have been harassed and threatened by police.

More on this subject:

Another threat against equality before the law

Tomorrow, the European Parliament will vote on two agreements on trade and investment between the EU and Singapore. Just like TTIP, CETA and other similar agreements, the EU-Singapore deal is not primarily about trade. It is a another threat against equality before the law. The EU-Singapore deal contains a form of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) and is supposed to be a model for future agreements.

See the petition STOP ISDS.

Follow-up of Brabant and Octoberfest cases

NATO’s “Stay Behind” is suspected to have been involved in murders and terror attacks in a number pf European countries during the Cold War.

In Belgium, an ex-gendarme has recently been arrested on suspicion of hiding evidence regarding the Brabant killings, which took place in the 1980s.

In Germany 2014, the Octoberfest bombing case was reopened. One year before, the German historian Andreas Kramer testified that his father had as a “Gladio/Stay Behind” officer been involved in the bombing in 1980 (link to German article).