The working group overlooked the central fact of the WikiLeaks founders situation: he has not been detained,but rather has hidden himself awayIt must be appalling to find yourself subjected to arbitrary detention. You would bear no power to challenge said detention. You would bear no idea when, whether ever, and you would be set free. And that concept is reflected in the first of five definitions offered by the UN working group on arbitrary detention: “when it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty”.But that was not the reason they gave for their opinion that Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy. His detention fell foul of their third definition; when non-observance ... of the international norms relating to the right to a just trial ... is of such gravity as to give the detention an arbitrary character”.
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Source: theguardian.com