“Give me the freedom to think, to speak and to argue freely, according to conscience above all other liberties” — George Loveless, leader of the Tolpuddle Martyrs,1834.

“One of the best ways to achieve justice is to expose injustice” Julian Assange, imprisoned on remand in Belmarsh for over four years.

THE Tolpuddle Martyrs were trade unionists transported to Australia in 1834 for seeking higher wages. Julian Assange is an Australian journalist who faces imminent extradition from Britain to the US for publishing the truth about US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. At first sight, the two cases seem completely different.

Look closer and there are striking parallels.
In both cases, ruling elites were outraged that their “rights” (to cut wages at will or to commit war crimes across the globe as they choose) were challenged.

In both cases, brave men asserted that we the people have rights  — to decent living conditions or the right to know the truth about our rulers’ wars.

In both cases, the Establishment used the law as a form of “shock and awe” to deter others and to deny the liberties claimed.

In both cases violation and abuse of legal process were used to trap the men and to subject them to inhumane treatment; their names were smeared and their families harassed.

Lawfare

In both cases, men were charged under laws intended for national security purposes, which therefore carried heavier sentences, and criminalised what were normal activities: trade unionism in the 1830s and investigative journalism today.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were charged under the 1797 Unlawful Oaths Act, a law directed against mutinies in the navy and intended to combat seditious conspiracies in the armed forces. Assange was the first journalist to face charges under the 1917 Espionage Act in the US.

Tainted testimony

The key witness at the trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs was the son of the head gardener of the landowner who pressed the charges and who had sought to reduce labourers’ wages, Joseph Frampton. The wording of the supposedly illegal oath was never produced.

The statements of the key witness at Assange’s trial, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, purported to show that Assange instructed Thordarson to commit computer intrusions or hacking in Iceland.

He has since admitted to the Icelandic paper Stundin that Assange never instructed him and it is now known that Thordarson had several convictions for sexual abuse of minors and fraud and that the FBI had promised him an immunity deal. Subsequent hearings have failed to acknowledge this new circumstance.

Excessive and extrajudicial punishment

The Tolpuddle Martyrs received harsh sentences, they were subjected to further brutal treatment in Australia, their families were left destitute, and their names and their beliefs smeared; when they returned they were effectively hounded out of England.

Julian Assange has suffered still worse. He endured seven years of “arbitrary detention” in the Ecuadorean Embassy, deliberately trapped there through the machinations of British, Swedish and US authorities.

He continues to be arbitrarily detained in Belmarsh, on remand for over four years, some of that time spent in near solitary confinement. Together with a media campaign of vilification the whole process amounts, according to Nils Melzer, a former UN rapporteur, to psychological torture.

He faces charges in the US which carry a sentence of up to 175 years and he is likely to suffer prison conditions in the form of Special Administrative Measures that amount to torture.

Judges, jury, family and class

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were initially indicted through a grand jury whose foreman was William Ponsonby MP, brother-in-law to Lord Melbourne, the home secretary. Melbourne believed that trade unions were “inconsistent, impossible and contrary to the law of nature.”

Key decisions in Assange’s legal process were made by Lady Arbuthnot whose husband and son have ties to security firms and the intelligence services.

Just recently, Judge Jonathan Swift, arbitrarily and without explanation, has denied Assange’s defence team the right to appeal against two adverse judgements.

Swift has represented the Ministry of Defence and the security services on at least nine legal cases and said in a newspaper profile that his “favourite clients were the security and intelligence agencies.”

Organs of mass persuasion

The Church of England of the past and today’s mainstream media have upheld the Establishment. Although the effect of Assange’s case is to silence investigative journalism and free speech, journalists have not only failed to defend him, they have been part of an orchestrated and relentless campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation, collective ridicule, insults and humiliation.

This process dehumanised Assange, muting condemnation of his treatment and depriving him of his rights. Yet the writing is on the wall for all journalists and our access to the truth: judgements have been passed and precedents set which make it a crime to reveal war crimes.

As Assange’s defence has stated, the five “national security” publications by Wikileaks cited in the US extradition request “exposed irrefutable evidence of, inter alia, illegal rendition, torture, and black site CIA prisons across Europe, as well as aggressive steps taken to maintain impunity and prevent the prosecution of any American operatives involved in these crimes.”

Trade unionists should also remember that Wikileaks published the hitherto secret draft texts of international treaties — TTIP and the International Trade in Services. Many trade unions praised Wikileaks at the time for exposing these plans to entrench corporate power, and in so doing enabled public mobilisation. It is time to pay back their debt to Assange.

If the current appeal against Swift’s judgement is refused, Assange will have run out of legal options and only an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights could save him from what appears to be imminent extradition.

Nils Melzer’s comment in his book The Trial of Julian Assange could stand equally well as a comment on the significance of the Tolpuddle Martyrs: “Assange is not persecuted for his own crimes but for the crimes of the powerful. Their impunity is what the trial of Assange is really about.”

The pamphlet Tolpuddle, Julian Assange and the Long Struggle for Social Justice is available at the Committee to Defend Julian Assange festival stall. Find out more at www.wiseupaction.info.