This makes me feel incredibly cynical. I genuinely want to know: would it matter if they did get to observe? I'm sure Amnesty has reported on tonnes of US/UK crimes and human rights violations, and a quick google search shows many such reports. How many of those actually changed anything? Sure, when Amnesty reports on, say, Syria, the US could use that as justification for intervention, but what use is reporting on the UK? Even if the big headline from Amnesty tomorrow is that the UK held a show-trial for Assange, would it change anything?
It would, because Amnesty International has a stronger voice than Craig Murray (the only one currently reporting on this). Craig is a meticulous reporter, but he's also prone to a number of strange conspiracy theories that diminish his credibility (people should be considering that separately from the Assange case, but human nature doesn't work that way).
There are a lot of things going on in that courtroom that should alarm journalists everywhere (especially American journalists), but without a strong voice to raise them out of their stupor, no journalist will pay enough attention to understand the new danger they face.
This isn't true. The number of press there is incredibly limited, Murray estimated about ten journalists total. Exberliner is another source covering it that I've found, though not as thorough as Murray.
> people should be considering that separately from the Assange case
Strongly disagree on this point.
I've been reading Craig's reporting, because it's the best that is available as a result of the court, but it being from a less than credible source makes it significantly less valuable.
When reading I never know to what extent he is cherry picking the facts he chooses to report based on his obvious and pre-existing bias. This isn't necessarily even intentional on Craig's part, it's just a fact that people notice things that confirm their existing world view more than things that challenge it.
When reading I have to make a conscious effort to separate the factual matters reported on, from Craig's personal opinion of the situation. The strength of Craig's conviction his world views means his writing has a lower signal to noise ratio than is typical. Moreover the extreme point of view that is likely wrong (as evidenced by him believing "strange conspiracy theories" that I do not) means that the noise doesn't tend to cancel out, but is instead systematically biased.
Craig is almost certainly better than nothing (at least if you're going in eyes wide open about the kind of writing you are reading), but far from ideal.
> I'm sure the EU would like to know how the UK treats some of these basic matters in light of Brexit and the pending trade negotiations.
Why would they care? Did you forget about the whole thing where they forced the President of Bolivia to land on command of the US because the US had (allegedly by Assange) been lead to believe that Snowden was on board? The EU isn't any further from the US' reach than the UK. It's a larger province in the empire, but it's still a loyal province.
As a citizen of the UK, I would like to be able to reassure myself of my government's good faith and just conduct in this matter. I'm sure some of my fellows feel the same way.
The fact that this hearing looks crooked as all hell is concerning to me and will inform my politics to some extent.
