Journalists and Activists Gather in DC, Call for Assange’s Release on 4-Year Anniversary of Arrest
The Tuesday rally on behalf of the long-persecuted WikiLeaks publisher briefly took an alarming turn when one man seemingly attempted to light himself on fire in an apparent political statement. | Journalists, scholars and political activists descended on the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, on Tuesday to condemn the ongoing legal assault on jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. ● In an event marking the four-year anniversary of Assange’s imprisonment in the UK’s notorious Belmarsh prison following his forcible removal from the Ecuadorian embassy by British police, organizers denounced the Biden administration’s continued persecution of the Australian editor. "Today marks a total of 4,507 days of illegal and arbitrary detention" of Assange, "and it was four years ago today – 1,460 days that he was ‘essentially kidnapped from the Ecuadorian embassy and sent to ‘the Guantanamo Bay of Britain,’ Belmarsh prison, all for telling the truth," explained Action4Assange co-host Misty Winston. ● "This case is no longer just about Julian Assange," [CIA whistleblower John] Kiriakou noted. "This case is about the Constitution." "This case is about the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of the press," said the CIA whistleblower, who pointed out that "if Julian Assange goes to prison, then all of us are liable to go to jail." ● But according to retired CIA analyst Elizabeth Murray, the potential ramifications don’t end there. Citing public statements of support from international human rights organizations, major mainstream papers, the presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, and Argentina, "the US is becoming an outlier, not just because of things like de-dollarization or the way things are going" in Ukraine, "but because of its attitude toward Julian Assange.”
■ Democrats urge Biden to drop Julian Assange charges (RT.com)