Comment by Seenso | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Seenso | Hacker News Reader

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Honestly, stuff like this just debases the word "torture." Waterboarding is clearly torture. Undergoing prolonged periods of solitary confinement while in detention is arguably torture. However, choosing to avoid needed medical care during an attempt to flee law enforcement is definitely in the "not torture" category. It's self-inflicted harm.

Self-inflicted harm doesn't elicit the same kind of moral outrage that true torture does. These efforts seem to me to be an attempt to exploit that moral outrage in order to benefit a particular person. If successful, the lack of clarity that introduces just creates extra doubt in cases of true torture that blunts the outrage.

Here are some similar cases:

After conducting a bunch of bombings, Eric Rudolph fled the FBI by living in a forest for years, feeding himself by gathering acorns and dumpster diving [1]. His choice to do that to himself is similar to what Assange did, and was not torture, either.

Rudolph's brother, bizarrely, decided to cut off his own hand with a saw to protest the FBI's treatment of his brother and its surveillance of his family [2]. If the FBI had done that to him, it'd have been a gruesome case of torture, but since he did it to himself, it's definitely not torture.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Rudolph

[2] http://www-cgi.cnn.com/US/9803/09/briefs.pm/rudolph.amputati...

The very real and substantial claims about torture and mostly about his time in prison in the UK - not his time on the asylum, though I would still say that his asylum treatment was inhumane and violated his rights.

> The very real and substantial claims about torture and mostly about his time in prison in the UK - not his time on the asylum

Can you give details of the actual practices of torture alleged here? Scanning this and a few other things, the only details I'm seeing are complaints of how he was treated in the embassy (which IMHO were self-inflicted), and some nonspecific observations that he looks like he's in worse health now that he's actually gone to jail.

> I would still say that his asylum treatment was inhumane and violated his rights.

I can't see how that could be without essentially creating a lawless situation, where law enforcement is bizarrely tasked with supporting fugitives and assisting with their escape.

Clearly I don't have a video of his time in prison. But countless doctors and the UN specialist have witnessed, reported, and endorsed that he has been tortured and I don't know what else you want.

> But countless doctors and the UN specialist have witnessed, reported, and endorsed that he has been tortured and I don't know what else you want.

I don't think that's true. They don't say he was tortured, they say he displays the symptoms of psychological torture. From the OP:

On May 31, 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, reported on his May 9, 2019, visit to Assange in Belmarsh, accompanied by two medical experts: “Mr Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”

While I don't doubt those are symptoms of torture, they also seem nonspecific. I'm sure spending 7 years on the lam as a fugitive could also lead to "extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma," for instance. I think that's even more likely since the visit by the Special Rapporteur occurred about 1.5 months after Assange's arrest, and there were already reports that he was depressed and in poor health before his arrest.

To be tortured requires a torturer, and to say that Assange was tortured by the UK for his time at the embassy requires bizarre conclusions such as:

1. law enforcement is to support fugitives and assist with their escape rather than trying to arrest them, or that

2. torture is a normal and necessary activity of law enforcement (since chasing a fugitive is torture and law enforcement is supposed to chase fugitives).

Again, both of the above numbered statements are bizzare nonsense, but I think they're implicit in the belief that Assange was tortured by the UK for his stay in the embassy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julia...: "After Assange's asylum was revoked, the Ambassador of Ecuador to the UK invited the Metropolitan Police into the embassy on 11 April 2019. Following this invitation, Assange was arrested and taken to a central London police station."

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