UPDATES - The extradition of Julian Assange would undermine freedom of speech plus MORE

The extradition of Julian Assange would undermine freedom of speech

 j   Uncategorized   September 21, 2020  3 Minutes
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
The Wikileaks founder is a champion of democracy – the charges against him affect journalists around the world

• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was president of Brazil from 2002 to 2010
  

Mon 21 Sep 2020 


The British courts will soon be deciding the fate of the Australian journalist Julian Assange, a man who has been unjustly charged as a criminal. Assange committed no crime. He is a champion of the cause of freedom.
The UK will say whether it will accept or deny the request for the extradition
of Assange to the US, where he will face 18 charges brought against him
by the government of that country. If he is extradited, Assange, 49,
could be tried and sentenced to up to 175 years in prison, the
equivalent of a life sentence.

We
must keep this outrage from happening. I call on all those committed to
the cause of freedom of speech in every corner of the world to join me
in an international effort to defend the innocence of Assange and demand
his immediate release.
This is the first time in the history of the US that a journalist has been indicted under the Espionage Act
for publishing truthful information. The world knows, however, that
Assange never spied on the US. What he did was publish documents he
received from Chelsea Manning,
a US Army intelligence analyst who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Manning was tried, convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. She
has now served her sentence.
We all know why
the US government wants to seek vengeance against Assange. In
partnership with the New York Times, El País, Le Monde, the Guardian and
Der Spiegel, Assange revealed the atrocities and war crimes committed
by the US during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the torture
to which the prisoners in Guantánamo were subjected.
The world also remembers the terrifying video
published by Assange, recorded from a military helicopter, showing US
soldiers strafing the streets of Baghdad – apparently for the pure
pleasure of it – and killing 12 unarmed civilians, among them two
journalists from the Reuters news agency.
In
addition to all of these reasons, Brazilians owe an additional debt to
Assange. Files published on his WikiLeaks page revealed conversations
that took place in 2009 between those who would later be in the Temer administration – which in 2016 deposed the Dilma government – and top officials in the Department of State about questions related to the privatisation of Brazil’s deepwater oil deposits.
It was through reading the documents revealed by Assange
that Brazilians learned of the relationship between the man who would
later be minister of foreign affairs in the Temer administration, José
Serra, and executives in the North American oil giants ExxonMobile and
Chevron.
The charge adopted by the Trump
administration to justify the allegations against Assange – that he
attempted to help Manning hack into government computers – is both
dangerous and false.
It is false because the
only effort that Assange made was to try to protect the identity of his
source, which is both a right and an obligation for all journalists. It
is dangerous because to advise sources on how to avoid arrest is
something that every ethical investigative journalist does. To
criminalise this is to put journalists everywhere in danger.
When Jair Bolsonaro attempted to charge US journalist Glenn Greenwald, for example, at the beginning of this year for exposing the corruption that led to my illegal arrest and imprisonment, the Brazilian government was copying this new and dangerous theory used by the US against Assange.
All people and institutions committed to freedom of speech, and not just the mainstream media with which WikiLeaks shared Washington’s secrets, now have an essential task: to demand the immediate release of Assange.
We
know that the accusations against Assange represent a direct assault on
the first amendment rights guaranteed by the US constitution, which
guarantees freedom of the press and expression. We know that treaties
between the US and the UK prohibit the extradition of persons accused of
political crimes.
The risks that Assange will
be extradited, however, are real. No one who believes in democracy can
allow someone who provided such an important contribution to the cause
of liberty to be punished for doing so. Assange, I repeat, is a champion
of democracy and should be released immediately.
• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was president of Brazil from 2002 to 2010
via The extradition of Julian Assange would undermine freedom of speech

https://jonsnewplace.wordpress.com/2020/09/21/the-extradition-of-julian-assange-would-undermine-freedom-of-speech/

Thanks to: https://jonsnewplace.wordpress.com

They Call for Assange’s Immediate Release: Lula, Rousseff, Morales, Zapatero, Corbyn, Correa, Paul, Galloway, Gravel, Varoufakis…


 j   Uncategorized   September 21, 2020 
Volume 26, Number 265–Monday, September 21, 2020

Check here for the latest update to this list. 

“If
the democrats of the planet Earth, including all journalists, all
lawyers, all unionists and all politicians, have no courage to express
themselves in defence of Assange, so that he is not extradited, it means
we have a lot democrats out there who are liars. Assange should be
perceived as a hero of democracy. He does not deserve to be punished. I
hope the people of the UK, the people of France, the people of the
United States will not allow this atrocity. As was the knee of a
policeman killing a black man, this will be the knees of millions of
governors from around the world suffocating Assange so that he dies. And
we do not have the right to allow that.”

“Julian
Assange is being politically persecuted for publishing information that
was in the public interest, including hard evidence of U.S. war crimes.
That the perpetrator of those war crimes, America, is now seeking to
extradite Mr Assange is unjust in the extreme and arguably illegal under
British law. If it goes ahead, not only would Mr Assange face 175 years
in prison, but the precedent would be set for all Australians, and
particularly journalists, that they are at risk of being extradited to
any country they offend.” 

“Freedom
of speech remains a crucial value in the beginning of the 21st century.
Despite it sometimes revealing inconvenient truths, we shall do our
best to protect it.”

Jeremy Corbyn. (Chatham House / Wikimedia)

Galloway.
via They Call for Assange’s Immediate Release: Lula, Rousseff, Morales, Zapatero, Corbyn, Correa, Paul, Galloway, Gravel, Varoufakis…

https://jonsnewplace.wordpress.com/2020/09/21/they-call-for-assanges-immediate-release-lula-rousseff-morales-zapatero-corbyn-correa-paul-galloway-gravel-varoufakis/