Skip to content

The UN And Assange’s Bail Conditions

It appears that the human rights part of the UN has a rather different version of the English language than the rest of us do.

In mid-2010, a Swedish Prosecutor commenced an investigation against Mr. Assange based on allegations of sexual misconduct. On 7 December 2010, pursuant to an international arrest warrant issued at the request of the Swedish Prosecutor, Mr. Assange was detained in Wandsworth Prison for 10 days in isolation. Thereafter, he was subjected to house arrest for 550 days. While under house arrest

The Working Group considered that Mr. Assange has been subjected to different forms of deprivation of liberty: initial detention in Wandsworth prison which was followed by house arrest and –

I’ve no idea whether he was held in solitary: sounds like something most unlikely unless it’s something that he requested for himself. But that house arrest. The actual conditions were:

When he sought asylum Assange was subject to bail conditions of living and sleeping each night at Ms Saunders home in Kent, report each day to a police station, and adhere to an electronically tagged curfew between 10pm and 8am.

That’s not house arrest. It’s an insistence that you lodge at a known address while on bail. And some address too, as above.

I think we can safely tell the UN to fuck off, can’t we?

Oh, and when we catch him, jug him good and hard. Because while it’s not quite on the books (aspects are, like perjury) there really is a punishable crime called taking the piss out of the legal system.

26 thoughts on “The UN And Assange’s Bail Conditions”

  1. So Much For Subtlety

    The stupid Committee is made up of:

    Leigh Toomey Australia 2015-2021
    Vladimir Tochilovsky Ukraine 2010-2016
    Sètondji Roland Adjovi (Second Vice-Chair) Benin 2014-2020
    Seong-Phil Hong (Chair-Rapporteur) South Korea 2014-2020
    José Antonio Guevara Bermúdez (First Vice-Chair) Mexico 2014-2020

    Toomey recused herself. We know one other member thought the claim was stupid. I would hope that is the Korean.

    That leaves three people from countries where being put in solitary probably means being beaten on the soles of your feet and being sodomised by the guards. If you’re lucky. I can understand that they get confused by the procedures of a civilised country.

  2. I’m beginning to wonder about this human rights thing. I am in favour of HR, but this is manifestly barking. So if I kill someone and hide in a friendly embassy this amounts to unlawful detention? These rulings make a mockery of the law and undermine public concern for human rights.

  3. the decision does rather read as though they think “isolation” means incommunicado, ie without any contact with lawyers or the outside world, whereas I suspect it actually means he was in a cell on his own . . . . .

  4. So Much For Subtlety

    Social Justice Warrior – “I’m puzzled as to why the exact conditions of his remand in custody for ten days in 2010 should be thought relevant to whether he’s being arbitrarily detained now.”

    Verdict first. Reason after.

  5. Joshua Rozenberg in the Graun has this explained perfectly. The UN are simply wrong.

    Of course half of CiF disagree because….JA is a hero.

  6. But don’t you understand They are out to get him?

    Once the public understand the true hero Assange will get his knighthood, sainthood, Nobel Prize before his inevitable election as the First President of the World All he has to do is to stay alive long enough to spread the Truth.

    Or. as is much more likely, Mr Assange needs to start living in reality. His girl doesn’t ride off into the sunset here.

  7. Quite frankly it is absurd beyond parody.

    As this will hopefully conflate in the public mind with the ECHR, with any luck it will add to the growing momentum of the out campaign (even though it’s really a separate issue altogether).

  8. I am most amused by the sureties, arguing that they shouldn’t be called on their guarantees because ‘they couldn’t have predicted what Assange would do.’ Obviously didn’t read the fine print, did they?

  9. Can we have a referendum on UN membership please?
    There must be a list of pros and cons of UN membership out there, which also states the cost.

  10. so what do you thhink of Swedish feminist justice.?
    That is the cause of all this. And his fear of American Justice.

  11. OT..in other news, the ghastly Sunny Hundal is back. Sort of. But his lips are still stuck firmly on the public sector teet…
    http://order-order.com/2016/02/05/sunny-days-ahead-for-scrapbook/#disqus_thread

    How long — and what effort — will it take to ensure that the Higher Education Council ceases to fund such institutions as Kingston ‘University’, where a degree certificate is worth only marginally more than a mega-pack of Aldi’s triple-ply bog roll?

  12. Ken:

    “I’m beginning to wonder about this human rights thing.”

    Obviously, you are admirably quick on the uptake.

  13. You’re all missing the point: This makes the UN seem obviously as ridiculous as it is. With the added bonus that Assange still ends up looking like the scurvy, narcissistic twerp that he undoubtedly is.

    Saying all of that, I’m with Perry de Havilland: Assange has taken a wrecking ball to the panoptican regulatory state, and this is a good thing.

  14. This whole thing would be amusing if it wasn’t for the cost to the UK tax ayer.

    Mr Assange lives in a different world from the rest of us.
    Yet another example of a UN commitee that tries to justify its existance and weald some power.

    UN should concentrate on sorting out Syira not this irrelevant matter!! We can but hope.

  15. Funnily enough Sweden wanted to offer Snowden a safe haven!! The greens in governement. The Social Democrats said no.

    What does this say about Swedens relationship with the US.

  16. Is it explained anywhere how or why this is ‘binding’, except in the sense that remote unelected multinational organisation outweighs national sovereignty?

  17. “The Working Group also considered that the detention should be brought to an end”

    No point in arguing. The UK government should agree, then ask how they might bring this about.

    The Working Group will then have to specify what the UK Government needs to stop doing in order to end Assange’s detention.

    After a reasonable time, HMG can then issue a formal Fuck You.

    Simple.

  18. “This whole thing would be amusing if it wasn’t for the cost to the UK tax ayer.”

    Well.. if they hadn’t made the whole thing into a damned circus to begin with, it wouldn’t have been so costly..

    A single bobby would have been enough to arrest him if he stepped outside.
    If the Equadorians “shipped” him through diplomatic channels, he would have ended up in Equador first, before anywhere else. Chasing him around from there would simply be a matter of using institutions who are paid for that kind of thing anyway, at no extra cost.
    The Swedish thing and the Leaking/Publishing aside, the Jumping Bail stands, and could simply be thrown into the Mill..

    The cost has mostly been caused by an impressive amount of grandstanding by Civil Servants and Politicians who can’t stand losing out to a smartass.
    Assange may be a bit of a pillock with a sideorder of cockwomble, but really.. This could have been solved a hell of a lot cheaper, whichever way you look at it.

  19. It’s like when that Brazilian head case found that Britain’s housing wasn’t good enough or something. These UN panels just seem like an excuse to let people from tinpot nations have a go at developed ones.

  20. Given that the UK has been criticised by the UN they can hardly expect any worse if they simply send whatever forces are needed into the Ecuadorian embassy and pull Assan
    ge out and stick him on a plane to Sweden. The lawyers would have a fit, but complaining that his human right to hole up in an embassy in order to avoid arrest probably wouldn’t get far in a sensible court.

  21. Well.. if they hadn’t made the whole thing into a damned circus to begin with, it wouldn’t have been so costly..

    Who is “they”?
    Assange is “he”.

  22. Having worked at the UN Secretariat for several years, I half expected to see that building in Mos Eisley when Obi Wan remarked “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *