In a special comment written for Consortium News, John Pilger, legendary filmmaker, journalist and friend of Assange, describes the troubling scene inside a London courtroom this week where the WikiLeaks publisher appeared in his U.S. extradition case.

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From Consortium News

The worst moment was one of a number of "worst" moments. I have sat in many courtrooms and seen judges abuse their positions. This judge, Vanessa Baraitser -- actually she isn't a judge at all; she's a magistrate -- shocked all of us who were there.

Her face was a progression of sneers and imperious indifference; she addressed Julian with an arrogance that reminded me of a magistrate presiding over apartheid South Africa's Race Classification Board. When Julian struggled to speak, he couldn't get words out, even stumbling over his name and date of birth.

When he spoke truth and when his barrister spoke, Baraister contrived boredom; when the prosecuting barrister spoke, she was attentive. She had nothing to do; it was demonstrably preordained. In the table in front of us were a handful of American officials, whose directions to the prosecutor were carried by his junior; back and forth this young woman went, delivering instructions.

The judge watched this outrage without a comment. It reminded me of a newsreel of a show trial in Stalin's Moscow; the difference was that Soviet show trials were broadcast. Here, the state broadcaster, the BBC, blacked it out, as did the other mainstream channels.

Having ignored Julian's barrister's factual description of how the CIA had run a Spanish security firm that spied on him in the Ecuadorean embassy, she didn't yawn, but her disinterest was as expressive. She then denied Julian's lawyers any more time to prepare their case even though their client was prevented in prison from receiving legal documents and other tools with which to defend himself.

Her knee in the groin was to announce that the next court hearing would be at remote Woolwich, which adjoins Belmarsh prison and has few seats for the public. This will ensure isolation and be as close to a secret trial as it's possible to get. Did this happen in the home of the Magna Carta? Yes, but who knew?

More Important Than Dreyfus

Julian's case is often compared with Dreyfus; but historically it's far more important. No one doubts not his enemies on The New York Times, not the Murdoch press in Australia that if he is extradited to the United States and the inevitable supermax, journalism will be incarcerated, too.

Who will then dare to expose anything of importance, let alone the high crimes of the West? Who will dare publish "Collateral Murder"? Who will dare tell the public that democracy, such as it is, has been subverted by a corporate authoritarianism from which fascism draws its strength.

Once there were spaces, gaps, boltholes, in mainstream journalism in which mavericks, who are the best journalists, could work. These are long closed now. The hope is the samizdat on the internet, where fine disobedient journalism is still practiced. The greater hope is that a judge or even judges in Britain's court of appeal, the High Court, will rediscover justice and set him free. In the meantime, it's our responsibility to fight in ways we know but which now require more than a modicum of Assange courage.

Authors Bio:
John Pilger grew up in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, author and documentary film-maker. He is one of only two to win British journalism's highest award twice, for his work all over the world. On 1 November, he was awarded Britain's highest honor for documentary film-making by the Grierson Trustees, in memory of the documentary pioneer John Grierson.

He has been International reporter of the Year and a recipient of the United Nations Association Peace Prize and Gold Medal. In 2003, he received the prestigious Sophie Prize for "thirty years of exposing deception and improving human rights." In 2009, he was awarded Australia's international human rights award, the Sydney Peace Prize, "for his courage as a film-maker and journalist in enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard "."

For his documentary films, he has won an American television academy award, an Emmy, and the Richard Dimbleby Award for a lifetime's work in factual broadcasting, awarded by BAFTA. His first film, The Quiet Mutiny, made in 1970 for Granada's World in Action, revealed the rebellion within the US Army in Vietnam that led to the American withdrawal. His 1979 documentary, the epic Cambodia Year Zero is credited with alerting the world to the horrors of the Pol Pot regime. Year Zero is ranked by the BFI as among the ten most important documentaries of the 20th century. His Death of a Nation, about East Timor, had a similar impact in 1994. He has made 58 documentary films.
He is the author of numerous best-selling books, including Heroes and A Secret Country, The New Rulers of the World and Hidden Agendas. He is the editor of an anthology, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs. His latest book is Freedom Next Time.

"John Pilger unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth and tells it as it is" -- Harold Pinter.

"John Pilger's work has been a beacon of light in often dark times. The realities he has brought to light have been a revelation, over and over again, and his courage and insight a constant inspiration." -- Noam Chomsky[