In Defense of Julian Assange and Free Speech
A group of high-profile signatories calls on the Ecuadorean government to allow Julian Assange his right of freedom of speech.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures to supporters from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in May 2017. (Frank Augstein / AP)
If it was ever clear that the case of Julian Assange was never just a legal case, but a struggle for the protection of basic human rights, it is now.
Citing his critical tweets about the recent detention of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont in Germany, and following pressure from the U.S., Spanish and U.K. governments, the Ecuadorean government has installed an electronic jammer to stop Assange from communicating with the outside world via the internet and phone. As if ensuring his total isolation, the Ecuadorean government is also refusing to allow him to receive visitors. Despite two U.N. rulings describing his detention as unlawful and mandating his immediate release, Assange has been effectively imprisoned since he was first placed in isolation in Wandsworth prison in London in December 2010. He has never been charged with a crime. The Swedish case against him collapsed and was withdrawn, while the United States has stepped up efforts to prosecute him. His only “crime” is that of a true journalist—telling the world the truths that people have a right to know.
Under its previous president, the Ecuadorean government bravely stood against the bullying might of the United States and granted Assange political asylum as a political refugee. International law and the morality of human rights was on its side.
Today, under extreme pressure from Washington and its collaborators, another government in Ecuador justifies its gagging of Assange by stating that Assange’s behavior, through his messages on social media, put at risk good relations that Ecuador has with the U.K., the rest of the EU and other nations.
This censorious attack on free speech is not happening in Turkey, Saudi Arabia or China; it is right in the heart of London. If the Ecuadorean government does not cease its unworthy action, it, too, will become an agent of persecution rather than the valiant nation that stood up for freedom and for free speech. If the EU and the U.K. continue to participate in the scandalous silencing of a true dissident in their midst, it will mean that free speech is indeed dying in Europe.
This is not just a matter of showing support and solidarity. We are appealing to all who care about basic human rights to call on the government of Ecuador to continue defending the rights of a courageous free speech activist, journalist and whistleblower.
We ask that his basic human rights be respected as an Ecuadorean citizen and internationally protected person and that he not be silenced or expelled.
If there is no freedom of speech for Julian Assange, there is no freedom of speech for any of us—regardless of the disparate opinions we hold.
We call on President Lenín Moreno to end the isolation of Julian Assange now.
List of signatories (in alphabetical order):
Pamela Anderson, actress and activist
Jacob Appelbaum, freelance journalist
Renata Avila, International Human Rights Lawyer
Sally Burch, British/Ecuadorean journalist
Alicia Castro, Argentina’s ambassador to the United Kingdom 2012-16
Naomi Colvin, Courage Foundation
Noam Chomsky, linguist and political theorist
Brian Eno, musician
Joseph Farrell, WikiLeaks Ambassador and board member of The Centre for Investigative Journalism
Teresa Forcades, Benedictine nun, Montserrat Monastery
Charles Glass, American-British author, journalist, broadcaster
Chris Hedges, journalist
Srećko Horvat, philosopher, Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25)
Jean Michel Jarre, musician
John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Lauri Love, computer scientist and activist
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, presidential adviser
John Pilger, journalist and filmmaker
Angela Richter, theater director, Germany
Saskia Sassen, sociologist, Columbia University
Oliver Stone, filmmaker
Vaughan Smith, English journalist
Yanis Varoufakis, economist, former Greek finance minister
Natalia Viana, investigative journalist and co-director of Agencia Publica, Brazil
Ai Weiwei, artist
Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer and activist
Slavoj Žižek, philosopher, Birkbeck Institute for Humanities
Your support matters…Independent journalism is under threat and overshadowed by heavily funded mainstream media.
You can help level the playing field. Become a member.
Your tax-deductible contribution keeps us digging beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that unearths what's really happening- without compromise.
Give today to support our courageous, independent journalists.
The whistleblower is back behind bars as the government continues to try to hide its crimes.
In his new book on the global surveillance machine, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and co-authors fail to give the societywide fear “of being lonely and left out” its proper credit as a driver of totalitarianism, Laurie Penny writes on New Statesman.
Mobile phone service providers collect user information and share it with the government, to the tune of at least 1.3 million disclosures per year. What if our nomenclature reflected that?
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange convened a small meeting of friends and leading Web activists from around the world to discuss the future of the free and private flow of information on the Internet.
Three targeted Americans: A career government intelligence official, a filmmaker and a hacker. None of these U.S. citizens was charged with a crime, but they have been tracked, surveilled, detained -- sometimes at gunpoint -- and interrogated, with no access to a lawyer.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.