According to the UN, the treatment inflicted on Julian Assange puts his life in danger

The UN worries about the health of Julian Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks accused of spying by Washington and threatened extradition to the United States. Nils Melzer, the UN's rapporteur on torture, on Friday (November 1st) expressed his "concern over the continued deterioration of Julian Assange's health since his arrest and detention earlier this year," saying "his life was now in danger ".

"Unless the UK turns its course urgently and improves its inhuman situation, Julian Assange's continued exposure to arbitrariness and rights violations may soon cost him his life," he said. he declared.

An expert on torture sounds alarm: Julian Assange's life may be at riskhttps: //t.co/fkIle9fqqd

Nils Melzer told AFP that his current concern was related to "new medical information from several reliable sources claiming that Julian Assange's health has entered a vicious circle of anxiety, stress and helplessness, typical people exposed to prolonged isolation and constant arbitrariness ".

"Oppression"

"Although it is difficult to predict with certainty the precise evolution of these symptoms, they can quickly turn into a life-threatening situation, involving a cardiac arrest or a nervous breakdown," said the rapporteur .

This independent UN expert and professor of international law visited the founder of WikiLeaks in London in May, accompanied by doctors, a month after his arrest by the British police at the Embassy of Ecuador.

Following this visit, Nils Melzer claimed that Julian Assange had been a victim of "physical ailments" and presented "all the typical symptoms of prolonged exposure to psychological torture, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma". Julian Assange "continues to be held in conditions of oppression and isolation and surveillance, not justified by his status as a prisoner," said Friday the rapporteur.

On October 21, the 48-year-old Australian appeared disoriented during his first public appearance in six months, stammering during a hearing in London and seeming to have difficulty remembering his date of birth. At the end of the hearing, he stated that he did not know what had happened and had complained about his conditions of detention at the London High Security Prison in Belmarsh.

A sentence of 175 years imprisonment

In 2012, Julian Assange, who was being prosecuted in Sweden for rape, had fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden or the United States because of the dissemination of US secret documents through its website.

>> To read: Arrest of Julian Assange: what judicial future for the founder of WikiLeaks?

After seven years in diplomatic representation, he was dislodged by the British police on April 11, with the agreement of Quito. He was immediately detained and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison on 1 May for violating the conditions of his provisional release.

Julian Assange faces up to 175 years of imprisonment in the United States. He is accused of endangering some US sources at the time of WikiLeaks' 2010 publication of 250,000 diplomatic cables and about 500,000 confidential documents on the US military's activities in Iraq and Iraq. Afghanistan.

With AFP