JULIAN ASSANGE REAPPEARS

Over the past few days, Mr Julian Assange has oozed his way back into the headlines, managing to find a small patch of unoccupied media space, not too blood stained, in which to tell the now largely uninterested world of his struggles for justice (or more correctly how to avoid it).

 

What has triggered his reappearance? Was it his excitement at Lady Gaga, that icon of liberty and free speech, popping in for tea? Perhaps he thinks the NSA whistle-blower, Edward Snowden might soon be joining him? Or perhaps it was his excitement at words of support from no lesser figure than John Pilger, that man of letters, beacon of moderation and giant of intellectual prowess, who has accused President Obama of “being at war with truth-tellers and the world”.  At war with the world?! I must have blinked and missed that. Perhaps the mighty Mr Pilger could tempt timid Barack into doing something about Syria in that case…..

But back to Julian Assange.  Between numbing reports of horrific slaughter in Syria that rank almost beyond comprehension and other tales of mass demonstrations and brutal police repression in Turkey and so on, a rather sallow, greasy looking Assange emerged from his figurative bolt hole from justice, also known as the London Ecuadorian Embassy. He declared he would stay where he was for a further 5 years if need be and refuse to face accusation of allegedly sexually assaulting two women (or in his rather fevered imagination, threats of extradition to the USA to face charges of leaking its secrets). But why now – has the bulb in his sun tan lamp blown, or perhaps his hosts are getting tired of his presence?

Ecuador, who have given asylum to Assange in a strange fit of preoccupation with the right to free speech (as long as it’s not exercised in Ecuador), declared, with rather cheerful desperation, that the noxious Assange might even stay so long in their embassy that he could die there.  They also asked if poor Julian might  be allowed outside into the sunshine for a bit without being arrested. Are they worried about his vitamin D depletion?  Anyway, since the sun has not been seen in London since about 2010 this seemed a rather optimistic request to say the least.

When one thinks of the scale of suffering in places like the aforementioned Syria, to have to listen to Mr Assange bleating on about his (self-imposed) living conditions in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, it's enough to make you feel like agreeing to his request. Let him go, put him on a plane and send him to Damascus.