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Discussion on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25629801
The timing is amusing.

There's currently a lot of criticism towards China for arresting journalists investigating controversial topics.

At the same time, the US is doing literally the same thing, little to no backlash.

Coming from a third world country, whenever I see someone contrasting human rights abuses of US and China, I instantly realize the person was born and bred in the west, and does not have a meaningful realization of the level of depravity that can exist. Not saying US doesn't have his problems, it has plenty. But comparing to China is, at risk of being flippant, laughable.
Yep. Response to protests in the US is greeted with rubber bullets, lost eyesight, and maybe broken bones.

Response to protests in China leads to people being crushed into literal chutney, and deaths in the 10s of thousands. That was the nature of deaths in tiananmen square, the photos of which often do not get shown in western media.[1]

[1] https://www.aboluowang.com/2008/0529/89034.html (Warning: NSFL/Gore/Human remains )

____

The US has a lot to work on, but comparing it to China is a false equivalency.

edit: if this comment comes off as too emotionally charged/ visual, the mods can feel free to delete it.

Coming from the 3rd world, I don't find GPs thought that laughable.

US constantly meddles in other countries affairs, and has scant regard for international organizations.

Abu Gharib is not so far behind us. Nor is indiscriminate drone attacks which may have caused massive amounts of collateral damage.

Despite the sentiment here, US simply does not have a good image in most of the 3rd world.

Even walking out of Paris Climate Deal does not give much credence to the view that US is willing to coexist and cooperate with other nations.

I read it as a commentary on where the US could hypothetically end up if one just lets morals to erode slowly without bounds.

Obviously comparing in terms of absolute metrics is not going to be very similar since US and China are very different countries, but at the same time, if the hypothetical came to pass, it wouldn't be the first time in history that a "modern", "powerful" country fell into ruin.

> coming from a third world country

Is it possible you also view the US with a certain rosey bias? Check out any of a bunch of major metrics, like murder, infant mortality, homelessness, healthcare, police brutality, and it must be said Covid mortality. Visit the south side of Chicago. If all you can say is "at least it is better than China, a third world country," then you aren't saying much, and in plenty of cases it actually isn't true.

> Coming from a third world country, whenever I see someone contrasting human rights abuses of US and China, I instantly realize the person was born and bred in the west, and does not have a meaningful realization of the level of depravity that can exist.

The purpose of these comparisons is to identify the similarity to the behavior of a country known to be worse. "China is worse." Yes, that's the point. We don't want to be like them, so we have to stop being like them.

As someone who is from the west every time I mention the potential depravity of China it’s met with denial or question - even sometimes here.
Actually I think the posters who make that false equivalence are often of Chinese sympathy. Whether they know they are doing false equivalence is a matter of debate.

I've heard people compare the imprisonment, re-education, forced labor, and organ harvesting of Uigher minorities in China today to the US internment of japanese in the 1940s.

Needless to say, both are bad, but if you need to reach back 75+ years in US history to find a comparable example, then the difference between the level of civil rights abuse in the two countries should be crystal clear.

It's obvious on the surface that the US still has many problems, but government sanctioned organ harvesting isn't one of them.

Whenever I see someone blindly assume everything is worse in China which just reached its goal of eliminated poverty for its massive population, I realize that person is a Trumpster
Coming from the US, it astounds me how uninformed people from third world countries are about the US and its staggering record of human rights abuses. I do understand that Hollywood and such are one hell of a marketing dept, but you are aware that the US has more Black people in cages than China has Uighurs, yes? I mean, when we're talking about how many lives each is destroying on a daily basis, I think they look pretty comparable.
Nothing ever happens in the USA without internal criticism. It is a cacophony of political discourse. Comparing us to China, "literally", is so off base that it makes your post look in bad faith.
> the US is doing literally the same thing

The same thing, really? Like picking organs on political opponents in prisons? I didn't know the US was doing that.

Agreed. I would add to this, after reading through the comments, that there is a naive idea of how a civilization or order works. The question is not whether or not we are worse in the west than China, but why we need the supplement of China to maintain the coherence of our order. If we are in fact reacting to timing and criticism to China, how come, as superpower, the US even compares itself in any way? In what ways do we create China/Russia/X as enemy to crisis manage the collapse in the belief of the goodness in the West? The current line of thought across all platforms about China ask questions that guarantee no answers save for reactions and war.
I think this is different. China just sends their people to other countries to abduct people whose speech they don't agree with (e.g. how they got that Swedish citizen in Thailand). The USA actually has to go through a legal process.
well compared to the previous Administration this one did not arrest any journalist nor set the IRS upon them. Now this dog did bark a lot.
Ask Jack Ma about this false equivalence.

The US is attempting to extradite someone for trial, not trying to harvest his organs.

It's hardly comparable unless you believe that anything a journalist discovers through illegal means is publishable.
Assange is responsible for compromising US Diplomatic relations, placing diplomats and, along with Snowden, informants in actual real life danger, and breaking countless US and international laws. To compare the two is laughable. (aside: This single side of this issue is overrepresented here and in tech circles in general. Talk to an FBI agent or a diplomat sometime that was working on key issues to hear their takes to at least balance the perspective.)
This comes up every time Assange comes up. He’s not being prosecuted for being a journalist. The US has very strong protections for journalism that stand up to just about anywhere—-and honestly look great compared to things that have happened in the UK. Assange is charged with actively working to steal classified information.

There’s a huge difference between A) someone gets classified information through nefarious means and shares that with a journalist, and B) “journalist” actively works to steal said classified documents. This case is about “B” not “A” but yet we keep seeing people trying to make the argument that this is some sort of attack on journalism. That’s a gross misrepresentation of the basic facts in this case.

I don't suppose that this opens up the door to challenging other US extradition requests based on the appalling track record of human rights and standards of care in US prisons, in which rape, murder, and torture are not only common but widely culturally accepted as part of the standard punitive aspects of imprisonment?

How do european (or perhaps just the UK's) legal system(s) work in that regard?

I have a lot of hope that this is a first crack appearing in the western cultural monolith; at some point civilized countries will have to somewhat politically break from the US so long as the US continues its domestic institutional torture programs (american prisons and the tradition of extended solitary confinement) and human rights violations (capital punishment). With luck that means that MLAT will eventually start to be unenforceable.

  >How do european (or perhaps just the UK's) legal system(s) work in that regard?
The general rule is that the laws by which other nations have to abide and the standards other nations have to meet don't apply when the USA is involved.

I seriously had to read the headline twice, to make sure I'd got it right, I was so stunned at the UK not kowtowing to the US, as a matter of course.

It would require a judgment from the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court to be able to use this to challenge any future extradition requests from the US.

This is because binding precedent is only set by the appellate courts and while this judgment is persuasive, other judges sitting in this court can ignore it since they're not bound to follow it.

> How do european (or perhaps just the UK's) legal system(s) work in that regard?

It's actually European law that's binding here, and extradition / deportation denials based on human rights concerns are nothing new - there have been bans on deportations even to EU members such as Greece (https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/Y-300-Z-BECKR...) or Hungary (https://www.keienborg.de/2018/02/19/die-12-kammer-des-vg-due...).

It's somewhat common for extradition to the US to be denied on these sorts of grounds; this is by no means the first time it has happened.
Pretty much the same reasoning was used in another case.

I wouldn't be surprised if this had gone very differently had Trump won.

Pretty sure the UK reduced cooperation with the US after it refused to extradite Anne Sacoolas to face fair trial in the UK after accidentally killing Harry Dunn.
I was wondering how old he is, thinking that he might be spending the remaining years of his life dealing with this. So I looked it up and found out he is only a year older than me. I’m honestly surprised. Just looking at him I would have guessed he was in his 70s. Maybe it’s the result of all the stress?
I love how this comment provides no info, for all we know you're 124!

EDIT: Assange is 49, which makes the GP 48, and the mystery of his age is now solved.

> Maybe it’s the result of all the stress?

"Should Assange die in a UK prison, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has warned, he will effectively have been tortured to death."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Amazing! I hope he gets access to the Bitcoin funds Wikileaks got to help him cover the bail and set him on a path to recovery where he can be with all of his family and children after this horrible ordeal.

Julian has a very rating personality, that goes without saying, but I cannot see a single erson who is still alive that has done so much to help disclose these atrocious crimes to the Public and has risked his life to help other whistler blowers than him.

Our false narrative of heroes don't actually exist, and the resolve and conviction to some of the most impactful things in regards to Freedom of Information and disclosing classified information isn't going to be from some polished Captain America figure. it only makes sense it was from someone like Assange who has pretty much lived his entire life from a young age in some form of activism as a result of his Mother.

I'm going to bypass the CCP v US thing as my stance is clear and u/dang has already told me that I take things too far with little to no benefit. But suffice it to say the two are similar but not compatible systems, the US still has the ability to re-direct it's course as it slips further into abject authoritarianism where as the CCP cannot exist without it.

> I cannot see a single erson who is still alive that has done so much to help disclose these atrocious crimes to the Public and has risked his life to help other whistler blowers than him.

Well, Chelsea Manning was the actual whistleblower in this situation. She also went back to jail for refusing to testify against Assange. (Conversely Assange said he would turn himself in if Manning was given clemency, then obviously did not when her first sentence was commuted.)

Reality Winner is also still in prison, due to The Intercept's egregious mishandling of her leaks.

This is so similar:

> Mr McKinnon is accused of serious crimes. But there is also no doubt that he is seriously ill [...] He has Asperger's syndrome, and suffers from depressive illness. Mr McKinnon's extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with Mr McKinnon's human rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon#British_governme...

So the UK now has 2 trading cards and the US has none to exchange them with. Also they previously disposed this card, most probably a win-win situation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jul/16/david-kelly...

...only because his treatment in the US would be inhumane.

And nothing else.

Of late there has been lot of chatter regarding ppl like Edward Snowden trying to get Trump to pardon Assange. Considering the pardon spree that Trump is on, I was hoping Assange would get pardoned.

I see this as UK stalling till Biden comes in power. They fear Trump might just pardon him.

That was my initial thought as well. Placate everyone until the threat of a Trump pardon is in the rear-view mirror.
Why would Trump consider Edward Snowden's opinion on pardoning Assange, and where is this chatter? Trump has never been supportive of Snowden in the past, as far as I have read.
The federal crimes have already been committed. Trump has authority to pardon him prior to charges being made.
The crazy thing is that Trump hasn't even come close to previous administrations in number of pardons or clemency, nor even the types of offenders who were granted leniency.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/24/so-far-trum...

However, I would like to see Assange pardoned. I'm sure he has some interesting information he hasn't yet released.

So I have a few thoughts on Assange:

1. I think the US has pretty much succeeded in their goal of essentially canceling Julian Assange. Being holed up for years in the Ecuadorian Embassy had to have taken a toll mentally. As much as some might say it's not prison, it effectively is.

2. There's an interesting question of where the line is between journalist and not journalist. As much as some might argue otherwise, being a "journalist" doesn't mean you can break the law. And yes there's a difference between publishing classified material that comes to you vs actively engaging in, supporting and enabling the behaviour that led to obtaining that material. Assange clearly had prior knowledge of Manning's actions and was more of an accomplice. Being a "journalist" isn't a defense here, at least not a legal one;

3. Here's my other issue with treating Assange as a journalist: he was clearly playing politics. You saw this in the Democratic email hacking and publication. This undermines the whole theory that Wikileaks was somehow different, impartial or open. It is and always was another tool to further a political end. At some point you aren't a journalist anymore;

4. The UK court upheld all the prosecution's points of law so it really was simply a matter of health grounds. I honestly don't know how an appeals court will treat that. I guess we'll see.

5. Interestingly I think Brexit works against Assange here. I don't believe this case can be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (or Justice?). Obviously the UK isn't in the EU anymore but I don't know the law well enough here. Like it might be that the case was brought while the UK was an EU member so it's possible the ECHR/ECJ has jurisdiction? Probably not but it's not impossible.

6. It's unlikely the incoming Biden administration is going to be sympathetic towards Assange. There's probably no will to spend political capital on that and the Democrats are probably still made about Assange's (active) role in the email hacking and the 2016 election.

ECHR is not an EU institution but a Council of Europe institution (not to be confused with the European Council, of course)

The ECHR still has jurisdiction over the UK, at least until the UK cancels the relevant treaties which it now can do outside the EU

Addressing point 2 from your post: during the extradition hearing, a couple of witnesses declared that sometimes journalists are actively helping sources to avoid detection. See on Craig's Murray blog[1], I remember Daniel Ellsberg also had a similar comment but I can't find it at the moment:

> Lewis You have as a journalist merely been the passive recipient of official information. Presumably you have never done anything criminal to obtain government information?

> Hager You said “passive”. That is not the way we work. Journalists not only actively work our sources. We go out and find our sources. The information might come in documents. It might come on a memory stick. In most cases our sources are breaking the law. Our duty is to help protect them from being caught. We actively help them cover their backs sometimes.

In point 3 you're convinced that the timing for releasing the Democratic papers was related to undermining the presidential bid intentionally. However I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that an impartial journalist would release sooner rather than later documents that pertain to a current developing event. Withholding them would have been "actively" getting involved in the presidential election. I think the blame for the leak lays solely with the people that leaked them, not with Wikileaks or Assange.

(Also, I see that someone else already clarified the situation about the European Court of Human Rights.)

[1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...

> Here's my other issue with treating Assange as a journalist: he was clearly playing politics. You saw this in the Democratic email hacking and publication. This undermines the whole theory that Wikileaks was somehow different, impartial or open. It is and always was another tool to further a political end. At some point you aren't a journalist anymore;

How should 2016 Bernie supporters feel seeing the leaked emails showing the establishment conspiring against him? “Political” in the pejorative really depends on which side you’re one.

Wikileaks is/was a threat to the establishment. That’s why he’s currently locked up.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/damaging-emails-dnc-wikileak...