An account of Julian Assange in court on November 18, 2019
This is an account by Monika Karbowska of what happened in the court on Julian Assanges appearance in Westminster Magistrates Court on November 18, 2019 and is of interest because of it's rather large difference to other reports and because it is the report after Julian Assange’s hearing on October 21st 2019 where she alleges that @greekemmy assaulted her leading to this post.
The original can be found here and the archive copy here. Deepl translation software has been used to translate this text and the English version has not yet been verified by the author.
Going through physical and institutional violence - Julian Assange in court on November 18, 2019
For the fifth time in two months I am in London on November 18 to attend a Julian Assange trial hearing at the Westminster Magistrate Court. Since we understood that all hearings are important for the battle, there is no way to avoid even the shortest one. It is crucial to report on what is happening there in order to avoid the false storytelling that can be spread by good or evil people in the absence of films and photos still banned in this public extradition trial. Our presence is all the more crucial as the Wikijustice association has just published and sent to the courts, parliamentarians and the British media a "request for release", a ready-to-use request for Julian Assange's release. A British lawyer or human rights association could, in the name of human rights above all state procedures and interests, immediately demand the release of an innocent man, the political prisoner Julian Assange. Indeed, the Act gives the right to file this request to the judge every month that passes after the 28 days of his pre-trial detention from the hearing of 21 October to the present day of 18 November. Gareth Peirce and Mark Summers, lawyers for Julian Assange, could have directly copied our request written in English with the help of our French and European lawyers.
I doubt they will do so, but it is important to point out, in contrast to the physical and institutional violence I will experience, that Julian Assange could have legally become a free man again that day.
The news of the dismissal of Judge Emma Arbuthnot (1), whose conflicts of interest in this case have been highlighted by some media, comes to me this morning like a balm to the heart as I stand in line with three friends from 6:30 am to 9 am outside the court door. It is important to arrive early to get a place in room number 3, the experience of the October 21 grab fair amply demonstrated it. We are the first when the front door of the building opens onto Mitie security guards who will check our bags. At 7:30 am two young men whom we believe to be employees or translators are standing behind us. At 8 am the "Greekemmy" network presents itself with 15 people and other supporters of Julian Assange form a small demonstration of about thirty people in the cold autumn morning. This time we don't have too many problems with our bags but Mitie's access criteria are fuzzy and erratic - sometimes a camera doesn't fit, the other day it will be a glass jar... We rush towards the lists of the extradited of the day suspended in the hall - surprise, Julian Assange does not appear there! I suspect manipulation and I go up to the first floor. We inspect the lists posted on the doors of all rooms. At the last minute, an employee came to change the one in room 3: yes, at the top of a list of 20-something extradited people still from Eastern Europe, is Julian Assange's name.
Usually the work of the court is well done: at 9:30 a.m. the secretary of the registry opens the room, lets the public in and organizes for half an hour the work of lawyers and interpreters before the arrival of the registry, the prosecutor and the judge. From 20 September to 21 October no one paid any attention to us in the relatives' public, except on 18 October when we attended the trials of the extradited Eastern Europeans as identified "observers". But today something has changed. The clerk of the registry leaves at 9:15 and asks who comes for Julian Assange. I am surprised by the turn of events. Having made the crane step in front of the door for 6 hours for this public hearing I thought it was impossible to get us out of the room. Unfortunately, the physical violence that the person of "Greekemmy" had exerted on me on 21 October in front of Room 1 took an institutional turn on 18 November.
We are physically pushed behind our backs by the group of 20 people who came with her. Some people are skimming and constantly trying to pass in front of us. One of the women stands so close to my shoulder that her hair and breasts touch my back. It is essential to remain calm, not to respond to provocations, but also not to let oneself be pushed and to keep one's place to indicate that one has the right to attend this public trial on a first come, first served basis. Unfortunately, the court and the security company Mitie cynically changed their own rules at the last minute: the court secretary announces that only "the list" will be accepted. What list? The famous list is held in a master's hand by "Greekemmy" who wrote down at the last minute the "important people". We protest aloud about the illegality of the list and the fact that we were the first to arrive. The proof is that we are always standing first in front of the door, in front of the secretary and in front of Mitie's agents who came to help him. However, we are erasing ourselves to allow the lawyers and interpreters of those extradited to pass through. Moreover, among them arrives an old lady who is a slender woman that in confusion and tension everyone forgets to greet: it is Gareth Peirce, Julian Assange's lawyer. The secretary hesitates, disappears into the room. Mitie's manager announces that only the press cards will come in, about ten people show up at the door. The tone and temperature are rising. The 13 seats of the audience will be expensive and everyone tries a diversion, a trick to access them. The woman behind me, yet a friend of hers, was shot by "Greekemmy" for dodging the queue. This same woman is insulting in my ear, but I must focus above all on the strategy to convince Mite's security agents that we, as an association, have as much right to attend this trial as "those on the list" who came after us.
Greekemmy has difficulty proving that its legitimacy is stronger than ours. After all, she is a normal citizen on this issue, as are all those who come to court hearings for various reasons. The secretary hesitates and then ends up saying:" Is there a family? ». The complete families of the Polish and Romanian extradited of the day are standing behind them, certainly annoyed at not being able to assist their relatives because of this uproar. Greekemmy announces that "yes, the father is there, but he is down there". The secretary decided to favour "the family" and John Shipton arrived shortly afterwards, without having been mixed up in the atmosphere of violence that characterizes the struggle for Julian Assange's fate. But with him, the secretary of the court first brings in a whole bunch of people from the list of "Greekemmy". Among them were the two 20-year-olds who were supposed to be in primary school when Julian Assange was free and active. We do not understand their greater legitimacy than ours to be there. Then the women friends of the commando commander and Anu Schukla who plays the role of bodyguard of John Shipton, in all ten people. We protest. Finally, and this is the miracle of the arbitrary nature of the security company, or the "justice" of the court, Mite's manager reopens the door and allows three more people to enter the room.
I am here with my colleague, publisher Aymeric Monville. Behind me the free-riding woman follows me and looks at my stuff with a bad look as we sit on the two remaining chairs in the tiny public space. The actors are in place, the justice show can begin. However, if I recognize all the usual protagonists of the play, including the prosecutor, the registry office and the lawyers for the following accused, the judge is not there. A bailiff who announces the events immediately tells us to turn off our phones, so as not to record the hearing, which everyone has certainly always done so far. Then a tall and imposing man gets up, has a blond haircut cut into a bowl and wears a beautiful grey suit and a green tie. It contrasts with the appearance of English court employees everywhere in the room. He gets up from the bench of the prosecution lawyers and goes to the secretary of the registry and to the prosecutor and talks to them. An American? If this is the case, it has nothing to do here in a court supposedly in a sovereign country when the hearing must decide on the release of the accused, who is still innocent, or on his pre-trial detention. If this is the case, the political pressure from the United States on Great Britain spreads without shame. After the hearing the man will leave the premises so quickly that I will not have time to question him about his name and qualities.
Then I notice that the video is already on and a row of red chairs behind a table, unusual for the Belmarsh prison boxes, appears on the screen. There is no uniformed prison guard to introduce the prisoner, as was the case in the videos we followed on October 18, nor is there a "HMP Belmarsh" sign that should hang on the wall. The court asks us to take his word for it that Julian Assange was comparing well from Belmarsh prison (and not from a psychiatric hospital or other unidentified place...) when nothing shows it and when throughout the trials the protagonists of the game have always avoided pronouncing the name of the prison in words, preferring litotes like "where he is", "where he is", "from where he is"... I reflect on all this, when the surprising event occurs: Julian Assange appears when the judge is not there! He enters the video space and sits in the center chair. Someone must have pulled the table in front of him so he could sit on it, but we can't hear anything because the sound is not plugged in either on our side or his...
What follows is akin to real institutional violence and a form of torture on us, the spectators of the show. As if the system wanted to tell us "you don't believe us that he's alive, you accuse us of killing him? Well, look at him now! "The screen shows us a man who doesn't react because he doesn't know he's being watched from the room because on the side of the room where he is, the video is off. Julian Assange is shown to us as we show an animal in a cage. And we are forced, while we are his relatives and supporters, to observe him without his knowledge. We are put in a similar obscene way to the employees of Rafael Correa's security company who have been watching Julian Assange for years in the premises of his captivity, rue Hans Crescent - this strange building in which the premises rented by Ecuador since 1976 have been adjoining those of Colombia since that date, whose proud flag is raised on the twin balcony of the one where Julian Assange sometimes appeared to the public from July 2012 to May 2017.
I quickly feel embarrassed and I feel how humiliating and disturbing this forced spectacle is for him and disturbing for us, especially since it lasts at least a quarter of an hour. It is so long that we come to wish that they would shorten this voyeurism when we had wanted so much to see Julian Assange alive. But to see him alive is to see him worthy, to see him interact with the audience, to see him express himself, to grasp the words he could have intended for us, the audience, since since since October 21 he knows that we are there. I had not crossed paths, but I had grasped his gaze, I had encouraged him by the gaze and my attitude to transmit information to us and I had tried to comfort him by my facial expression, by the rare gestures allowed. I wasn't the only one. Some people cried when they saw him and he saw our emotion and understood that he is no longer alone. This morning the system decided to tell us, "Look at it. It is ours" and to send us back to our helplessness.
Indeed, I no longer feel like I am facing the same man whose dark and sad, but determined eyes stared at my face on October 21 during the short break. It seemed as if he was asleep, or drugged, so slow were his actions, he seemed absent, his eyes in the dark. He wears a grey sweatshirt and beige pants, it is not clear from the video whether he wears a beard or is shaved. The camera is fixed a little high and zooms in on his head giving the impression that his skull is bald. Quickly he takes out the glasses from his pocket and puts them on and then you can't see his eyes anymore. On October 21, he had abandoned the idea of putting them as if they were useless while interacting with the room and the lawyers. We do not understand why he wears them when he cannot see anyone and has no documents on the table in front of him or in his hand. Nevertheless, I recognize the same round face and the chin a little tight backwards as when you tighten your jaw with force. So we look at him, but it is a real torture to see him and to know that we can't tell him anything and that he can't communicate with us, to send us a message.
At some point he puts his leg on his knee in a familiar gesture, and crosses his hands on his knees but he will not make any other gestures, remaining motionless and indifferent to the events. We think we're seeing the ill-fated man we were introduced to on October 11 again. This show lasts so long that in the middle Julian Assange even falls asleep, leaning back, as if exhausted. When the judge appears, he keeps his eyes down and his gaze passive. I am so sad because I feel that he is worse than when we last met. I look at John Shipton behind the scenes, he remains impassive but I am sure he can only suffer in the face of this spectacle of suffering. However, the young men in front of us do not seem to understand that they are watching the torture of a man. As for the others, they are obviously chatting distracted.
The bailiff announces the judge's arrival and gives us the order to stand up. It was Vanessa Baraitser who appeared on the stage as two other people entered the room through the door reserved for judges. Impossible to understand who they are and everything goes very fast then. Baraitser asked Julian Assange to introduce himself. He does it in a lower voice than usual, hesitant too, but to the very end of a line. "Julian Assange, July 3, 1971". Unfortunately, that is all our political prisoner friend will say. He will neither greet his lawyer, nor the court, nor pass anything on to the supporters. Or react to anything. I can hardly recognize the same man who wanted to talk so much, after superhuman efforts on October 21. Have they intimidated him since then? Is it worse than October 21? Does he really have video access to what is happening in the courtroom? We would like the court to provide us with proof of this. It is not forbidden to interact with the court. I have seen Polish detainees greet and thank their lawyers and interpreters and even conduct elements of their own defence in addition to lawyers, in this same room during the hearings on 11 and 18 October.
Judge Baraitser tells him that he is here because the 28 days of legal detention have passed. It is not she who will remind him that detention is provisional, that it must be reviewed and that it is therefore an opportunity to put forward new arguments for a request for release. This is the role of the lawyer and the judge turns to Gareth Peirce to ask her if she has a motion to file. Julian Assange's defender stands up and in a tired voice explains that they are working very hard on this case (Julian Assange attends these words without a gesture, his face keeps the expression absent, sad and resigned from the beginning of the hearing) but that it is impossible to prepare a defence without an appropriate computer to which his client does not have access in Belmarsh. The following sentences all relate to this computer request. The lawyer does not mention a request for release, even on bail, or her client's state of health. It is nevertheless visible to the public that it is Julian Assange's worrying state of health that prevents him from being effective in his defence. Here again, it seems surreal to me to see lawyers deploring the consequences of the illegal solitary confinement that Julian Assange is suffering without being indignant about this psychological torture so many times denounced and, above all, without quickly implementing all the possible tools to put an end to it. We have since understood that our many letters are not distributed to him even though the prison has received them by registered mail.
Ms. Peirce's speech was delivered in a soft voice. Vanessa Baraitser smiled at her and quietly replied that computers in prison were not her responsibility and that she would do better to contact the competent authority. I feel the humiliation of this disturbing scene: a young judge looks down on a 79-year-old tenor of the bar, a person considered THE figure of the English left in the field of law, and tells her that she is wrong about procedure! If I were English, I would be mortified. As a left-wing European, I am very concerned about the outcome of the Julian Assange trial because its consequences will affect us all. But here in the audience, everyone seems to be laughing at it. Baraitser turns to the image on the video and announces two dates: 13 December video appearance for extension of detention and 19 December the important "case management hearing" with physical appearance. She does not ask the prisoner if he has understood and does not bother to give her the floor, unlike on 21 October when she was in the public spotlight. The bailiff announces his departure and while we get up the video system makes the image of Julian Assange disappear.
We remain in the hallway helpless, trying to evacuate the violent emotions we have experienced. Most of the "ten" in the room leave the courtroom to join the demonstrators and answer journalists. John Shipton talks in a corner of the room with Gareth Peirce and then leaves the room preceded by Anu Schukla who pushes people to ensure him a passage without having to be around the crowd, as if he were at least a minister. Two women who were present on October 21 come to tell me their surprise and anger at the passive behaviour of Julian Assange's lawyer. The revelations about Mark Summers' conflicts of interest defending American interests in the Browder-Magnitsky case(2) did not escape them. Although it is legal in the British system to defend the interests of both the accuser and the accused within the same law firm, for these left-wing activists the doubt about the integrity of the defence is cast. And yet we had not yet heard the news of Gareth Peirce's collaboration with Rand Paul, a libertarian senator who was rather anti-warning...(3) We finally understood that the public silence of lawyers for months meant the application of the "connivance strategy" (4), postponing the full force of the response until the fateful hearings in February. But if this strategy fails, while the public will be banned from the courtroom, located inside the prison and whose space reserved for "relatives" has even less space? The lawyers will be able to say, and those who support this strategy of silence, "Too bad, next time we'll do better". Except there won't be a second Julian Assange. The only Julian Assange who exists will have died in Guantanamo or in a psychiatric hospital in a US prison.
What energy is needed to break down its walls of violence, indifference and misunderstanding?
