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https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/since-2001-us-and-allied-governments

https://theduran.com/since-2001-u-s-allied-governments-treat-the-best-journalists-as

Since 2001, U.S.-&-allied Governments treat the best journalists as criminals.

3 May 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Two fine examples of this were reported by me yesterday, in my article “The U.S.-UK-Israel empire is a police-state.” It concerned Richard Medhurst and Julian Assange, two journalists who were so committed to telling the public only truths, Assange spent over 10 years in prison in UK and was never convicted of anything, but in order to regain his freedom from the U.S.-&-allied regime he was finally forced to sign a confession that he was guilty of having — in this forced confession, said that he had — been “Conspiring to Obtain and Disclose Classified National Defense Information” (not that he had “obtained and disclosed classified national defense information,” but only that he had “been conspiring” to do that, he said, in this forced ‘confession’). If he hadn’t signed it, he would have been spending the rest of his life in a U.S. maximum-security prison (though he had never even been on U.S. soil, and was not a U.S. citizen, but was nonetheless villainized most especially by the U.S. Government, so that Americans were the ONLY nation where a MAJORITY of the population hated him — he was viewed more as being a hero in most of the other countries). So: there was NEVER any actual court trial of him, for ANYTHING, and yet he had already been imprisoned in Britain for over a decade — imprisoned for all of that time with no due process of law, just ‘temporary’ ‘detainment’ (most of which was in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison). The Richard Medhurst case is, however, even more terrifying to journalists than the Assange case was. In this superb Chris Hedges interview of Medhurst, Hedges asked him what had “triggered” his having been arrested in Austria on 3 February 2025, and Medhurst responded (15:37):

15:37

HEDGES: Do you have any idea with the timing [of your arrest], do

15:40

you think something triggered it, or not? MEDHURST:  I think it's because Labour [Britain’s Labour Party] came to

15:46

power, so I was arrested [in England] in August, and they [Keir Starmer, who had been the man who imprisoned Assange] won the election in what was it June July, you and I were in England uh

15:53

for Craig [Murray’s] campaign in June, yeah, so that was the last time I was in the UK in peace, right, and then when I came back

16:00

the next time, I was arrested but I think that's the, the the shift, which is, which is, not me trying to say like the Tories

16:06

are any better, they were the ones giving the Israelis weapons as well, but I think you you, you could, you could, imagine that

16:12

it might be linked to Labor coming to power, especially after what they did to Corbyn there was a purge in the Labour

16:18

party and a crackdown and they got rid of anyone who was pro Palestine including Jewish MPs, you know Jackie

16:24

Walker, Tony Greenstein also booted from from Labor, and he's been charged by the way under the terrorism act, and he was

16:31

raided as well. So, I, I, I think that that is the trigger, but, honestly, I think it's

16:37

also because we were having an effect in terms of our reporting. Again, we're not taking sides, we were just telling the truth about what's happening in

16:45

Palestine. HEDGES: What, what effect has this had on other journalists around you; uh, I

16:52

mean as you said, there have been others since, they've gone after you, and I think

16:57

Palestine Action is listed in this Israeli diaspora affairs report right? I

17:03

believe they're also, just as an organization, targeted for allegedly promoting

17:10

anti-semitism [i.e., equating anti-Israel as being anti-Jew — which IGNORES the fat that many Jews OPPOSE Israel]. Have you seen, have they succeeded? I mean, are they essentially shutting down voices that, that, uh, detail

17:19

what's happening in Palestine? MEDHURST:  I think yes. I think they, they are

17:25

succeeding, they've succeeded in getting away with genocide, so if you can get away with genocide on on live TV, you can,

17:33

I mean you're getting away with murder literally, and I think you know I had to

17:38

make a decision when I got arrested, whether to tell [on, against] people or not, because the lawyers, I think in any case, will

17:44

tell you don't talk about it [don’t identify your sources], and, and, I know that other people who were detained um under schedule 7 for example, haven't

17:50

talked about it publicly; they only, they came to me privately after they saw that I got arrested and discussed it with me, but they didn't announce it publicly, and,

17:58

and the reason that some of them for example didn't want to talk about it publicly, is they didn't want other

18:03

people to start becoming afraid, or for a climate of fear to, to develop, or, or

18:09

transpire, which is perhaps what exactly, what these uh powers want when they're arresting and detaining people, but the,

18:16

the, what they did to me was, was, was so new, and again not just the provision they used, but to make it an actual

18:22

arrest and then to put me in jail, it it was it was so wild, that, that, I, I felt obligated to tell people about what was

18:28

happening, and I think that they are succeeding in in silencing people. They they've certainly put me in a position

18:34

where I'm I'm not able to talk, because if you've looked at the provision 12(1)A,

18:39

it's so broad, I mean stating a simple fact uh could could really land you in

18:45

jail. That's how the lawyers explained it to me. If you if you, if they really want to, they can charge you for just saying a simple fact, just because the

18:51

fact is uncomfortable to to to the government, and uh or or perhaps you know

18:57

they can twist it into saying you're glorifying a group that's proscribed [on the “terrorism”-list, as that’s defined by Israel’s regime], but it’s, it's not true, you're not glorifying anyone; you're just stating a fact, but

19:03

they can still charge you. That's what's so dangerous about this law. HEDGES: Well, if the, if the goal was to shut down

19:10

your platform at least until now, they succeeded.

19:15

MEDHURST: Yeah, I mean they've made it impossible and difficult for me to work, yeah, they they have, and and they've come for me in

19:22

my country of origin [Britain], and in my country of residence [Austria], so there's there's a very clear agenda here which is like, you know,

19:29

just to make sure that I, I stop working. I think there's many aspects to it, There's a material aspect where they

19:34

take your your equipment, uh as they took mine, I mean we're talking about at least €10,000 worth of gear, every single

19:41

laptop computer drive, stick, you know, that I bought since I started working in

19:47

journalism, they took it from me and and then there's also a psychological aspect to to rattle you to make you feel

19:54

uncertain, anxious, and and and the and the legal aspect, of course, where the law

19:59

is so broad that you know this is not a walk in the park. I mean, it's a terrorism, uh, investigation, it's it's it's purely

20:06

political, so it can it can turn into anything, and uh I'm I've been unable to

20:11

work now properly for almost nine months, and uh I don't know how long this is going to go on for, but yeah they they've

20:17

certainly succeeded in that regard. HEDGES: But it's also financial, Richard, too. MEDHURST: Yeah

20:22

yeah I've uh I’ve, haven't been able to work, so I'm not earning, uh, anywhere near the same money I was when I was.

20:30

HEDGES: Uh what do you think the goal is? I mean, is is, I mean they, I assume the goal is just

20:37

complete silencing through intimidation of anyone who reports

20:43

uh what Israel doesn't want reported. MEDHURST: Yeah I, I'm I'm not quite sure what their

20:50

end goal is. Some lawyers and legal experts told me that perhaps their their

20:56

plan ultimately is to keep me in this state of limbo where they don't have to take it to court but they can still reap

21:02

the benefit of just silencing me out of, out of, you know, um, well just basically out of fear of

21:10

further legal threats. So that's one one potential outcome or or situation and

21:16

and I'll just, I'll just remind people that with Richard Barard, for example, they had him under investigation for a

21:23

year with 12(1)A they shut the case, they reopened it a week later, and charged him, so you know how a week later, and charged him so you know: how can you live like that?

21:30

You know you’re, you're basically they they they've got you by the neck for the rest of your life. And and uh the other

21:37

option of course is that they actually take it to court. I don't know what their plan is, and, you know, I I'm glad that the

21:44

IFJ and the NUJ and the United Nations, have stood behind me, because as a, as a journalist especially, I’m, you know, I'm

21:50

accredited in in Austria, at the UN, in the UK, uh at the IFJ as well the

21:56

international one, so, you know: it is a threat to everyone, to to basically

22:01

silence journalists for their reporting, to arrest them, and put them under investigation, and you, and I, saw what they did to Julian [Assange].

22:07

——

A BOOK-MANUSCRIPT that Medhurst had in draft at the time of his Austrian arrest was on Medhurst’s main computer, but he might never see it again, because, when he asked the Austrian police while they were confiscating all of his devices, whether he will be getting them back, they said they don’t know. They said that they might be sending all or some of them to unnamed other countries (perhaps UK and/or Israel); they couldn’t say. All that they could say was that since he wasn’t telling him where the encryption keys to his files are, his devices would need to be taken apart and might be broken and unusable by, and unusable to, him, if Medhurst ever will get them back. Of course, if they will be able to decrypt, then maybe his sources are going to be similarly arrested. Medhurst said in the interview, as an example of what might happen to his sources in that eventuatlity, that the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi got trapped (and was immediately chopped-up and disappeared) because “his phone was compromised.” Medhurst is exceptionally careful to protect his sources, and explained that he works only with a certain type of “grapheneOS” phone, because all others are far more vulnerable to hacking.

At around 29:00, Medhurst, who has extensively covered the genocide in Gaza, explained that he believes that the terror-tactics by The West against reporters who cover that (and such as he now experiences first-hand) are a large part of the reason why this genocide isn’t being reported in the U.S.-and-allied countries. It’s part of today’s “managed consent” for all of these ‘democracies’.

I urge all readers of the present article to listen to the entire interview — one great investigative journalist interviewing another, at the very same time in history when The West is finally stripping away its liberal mask that has been covering-over until the past few decades the nazi core of the American regime. Also, please click onto the few links in this article, because the average reader clicks onto no links (all of my careful vetting of sources is simply wasted on them), and mine are authentically expanding upon and documenting their respective linked word or phrase — so, if you want to know what my evidence is behind any one of them, I have made that evidence available to you just a mere click away. And in this way, my articles go deep; they’re not aimed only at readers whose interest in the subject is at the superficial level, but allow the reader to easily go even far deeper, on any key point. That is what they are there for.

The REASON why this subject is so important is that the MAIN way that America’s Deep State — the thousand-or-so U.S. billionaires who collectively control the U.S. Government, by being the mega-donors who fund (basically hire) their candidates into public office, so that U.S. officials represent this aristocracy or “oligarchy,” and NOT the voters (who instead are fooled by them via the billionaires’ ‘news’-media etc.) — control the public, is to deceive them to think that their Government is a democracy, when it’s REALLY instead just an aristocracy (or “oligarchy”); and the billionaires do this (use this ruse) so that the public will falsely believe that the countries these billionaires want to ADD to their empire (i.e., to conquer, via sanctions, coups, invasions, or whatever) — such as China, Russia, and Iran — are dictatorships which need to be regime-changed, when the REALITY is instead that what needs to be regime-changed is the U.S. Government itself, THEIR Government, in order to free the American people from their enemies, which are the people (America’s own richest) who collectively FUND this operation and have been doing so ever since 25 July 1945. Donald Trump, like his predecessors, such as Biden and Obama, represents ONLY billionaires, and NOT the public.The idea that the billionaires peddle, that the electoral contests between the Democrats versus the Republicans is the good guys versus the bad guys, is the myth that hides the REAL problem, which is that America’s politics is between two teams of billionaires — Republican ones versus Democratic ones; two teams of extremely bad guys — the result from which is that the U.S. Government’s policy-priorities are exactly OPPOSITE TO the American public’s policy-priorities.

I have even argued and documented that the widespread idea that no democracy cn even EXIST without political Parties and competitive public elections and political campaigns, is a falsehood that aristocracies in modern times constantly fund in order to keep the corruption going and so to prevent ANY authentic democracy from existing, anywhere. So, exposing that fraud is essential in order to become enabled to overcome it. This is how deep the problem really is. Political Parties and competitive public elections and political campaigns are NOT neccessary in order to have a democracy, and have NEVER produced a democracy that didn’t degenerate into an aristocracy by means of corruption of it by the super-rich.

What such cases as Assange’s and Medhurst’s show is that after George W. Bush came into office in 2001, the ultimate clampdown-phase by the aristocracy began — and everyone throughout the U.S. empire is suffering from this. But at the very FOUNDATION of this is the ongoing lie that these countries are ‘democracies’ instead of the police-states they actually ARE (and are increasingly becoming). That EXCUSE for their constant imperialism is what has been essential in order to keep it going.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.