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    good WSWS article on the subject Archived Message

    Posted by brooks on March 25, 2021, 5:54 pm, in reply to "CM"

    Scotland: Journalist Craig Murray charged with contempt of court over Alex Salmond trial

    excerpts:

    A police van had parked outside his house two days before he was charged. Elements within the media appeared to be aware of the charges against him before they were served, indicating collusion between the press and the police.

    Murray is not well liked by the establishment. His perceptive and widely read reporting of the show trial of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has earned him hatred and enmity in ruling circles. But the legal charges and police intimidation used against him point fundamentally to the immense tensions building up around the Scottish government and the SNP leadership in the aftermath of Salmond’s acquittal. Instigated by the prosecution team at Salmond’s trial, they appear to be an attempt to suppress public knowledge of what was revealed by the trial—a high level conspiracy to send Salmond to jail on the flimsiest of charges.

    ......

    Jim Sillars, a former deputy leader of the SNP, wrote of Salmond, “The book he is writing, with the material he was not allowed to produce at trial, but which has all the authenticity of Scottish government and SNP party documents, will be like a volcano going off underneath some people. Some whose identities I and others know, but cannot name, must tremble at the prospect of what is to come.”
    Sillars’ and MacAskill’s comments underscore the politically explosive implications of the faction fight raging in the SNP and why such extraordinary measures are being taken to silence Murray.

    ......

    The Salmond affair could bring down Sturgeon, collapse the Scottish government and blow the SNP to bits, exposing its toxic internal relations, wrecking its political authority, and confirming its bitter hostility to the working class. The party has for decades assiduously sought to foster a leftish veneer, now much eroded, in its pitch to Scottish voters.

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/04/murr-m04.html

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