Newsweek‘s Shaun Waterman reports: Julian Assange “is locked alone in a 6′ by 12′ cell for 20 or more hours a day — his reading limited and his mail censored.”
Waterman also reported on the CIA lawsuit and the ‘Spartacus moment‘ of Daniel Ellsberg and John Young coming forward to announce themselves as equally eligible for prosecution.
Stella talked about what he’s been reading in prison:
“Assange sleeps poorly, she said, meaning that he is often too tired to concentrate properly. But when he can, he likes to read, and recently enjoyed a new biography of the visionary leader of the Haitian slave revolt, Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture. He also tackled In the Thick of It, the autobiography of controversial Tory Minister Alan Duncan.
He is teaching himself to read and write Chinese, she added.”
On the ongoing punishment by process of a years-long imprisonment and trial:
“His family says that with uncertainty about his extradition hanging over him like the sword of Damocles, he has lost weight and become depressed and anxious.”
The worst part about the confinement is having no idea when or how he would be able to leave, Stella Assange said. “It is the uncertain duration that makes it so hard to bear … It’s a kind of torture.”
The uncertainty has exacerbated Assange’s physical and mental deterioration, his wife said. In October 2021, during a High Court hearing about his extradition, Assange, attending via video link from Belmarsh, suffered a “transient ischaemic attack” — a mini-stroke. He has been diagnosed with nerve damage and memory problems and prescribed blood thinners.
“He might not survive this,” she said.
Waterman on the support Assange receives around the world:
Assange gets thousands of letters and parcels from all over the world, Stella Assange said, but the authorities interdict banned items, such as books about national security, paintings and other forbidden objects.
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Even the letters he doesn’t recieve make a difference, Stella Assange said. “The letters he reads help him feel connected to the world, but above all the letters show prison authorities the world cares about him.”
What it’s like for Julian’s two young children, Max and Gabriel:
Gabriel has recently “put two and two together” and figured out that the place he meets his father a couple of times a week is actually a prison, Stella Assange said. “Because he has a concept of what a prison is from TV or whatever, and he asked me the other day ‘Is he in prison?’ And I said, Yes. He’s in prison, but he’s not like any other prisoner. He’s not there because he’s done anything bad. He’s there because he’s done something good.”
Max, for his part, refers to Belmarsh simply as “the Queue” because of the repeated lines the family has had to join to be cleared through to visit. “The checks are very onerous,” she said. “The children have to be searched, as well as me. We have to be checked inside our mouths and in our hair, behind our ears, under our feet, and so on. And sometimes there are dog searches, which are quite intimidating.”