UN expert calls for immediate release of Assange

The UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, today appealed to British authorities to immediately release Julian Assange from prison or place him under guarded house arrest during US extradition proceedings.

He made the urgent call ten years after Mr. Assange's first arrest on 7 December 2010, amid an outbreak of COVID-19 at Belmarsh prison. Reports say 65 of approximately 160 inmates, including a number in the wing where Mr. Assange is being held, have tested positive.

"Mr. Assange is not a criminal convict and poses no threat to anyone, so his prolonged solitary confinement in a high-security prison is neither necessary nor proportionate and lacks any legal basis."

"Today, he is detained for exclusively preventative purposes, to ensure his presence during the ongoing US extradition trial, a proceeding which may well last several years," said Melzer.