Our mock democracy is always spouting about our free press, and how fortunate we are in having such freedom as to publish facts, no matter come what may. However, if you ever get round to publishing the dark deeds and violent doings of the state, then your freedom to publish rapidly evaporates. When you make public the brutality and lying of the state, the state apparatus moves into overdrive, and ignores the information and shoots the messenger. That is the shape of our so called Western freedom. The case of Julian Assange is living proof of this methodology. The state will not tolerate anyone who dares to reveal the nasty, brutal activities it indulges in to protect and further its power and wealth. The UK judicial system, which comprises mainly of wealthy, privileged pro-establishment figures, today has by granting U$A the right to extradite Julian Assange, more or less sentenced a journalist to a life in an American prison, for telling the truth. Those who claim we live in a democracy, are either blind and naive, or one of the privileged parasites that control our lives. Where is the uproar from all those journalist that spout about our free press? If they are honest reporters, they could be next.
Julian Paul Assange (/əˈsɑːnʒ/;[3] born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Armyintelligence analystChelsea Manning. These leaks included the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video (April 2010),[4][5] the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), and Cablegate (November 2010). After the 2010 leaks, the United States government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks.[6]
In November 2010, Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for Assange over allegations of sexual misconduct.[7] Assange said the allegations were a pretext for his extradition from Sweden to the United States over his role in the publication of secret American documents.[8][9] After losing his battle against extradition to Sweden, he breached bail and took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London in June 2012.[10] He was granted asylum by Ecuador in August 2012[11] on the grounds of political persecution, with the presumption that if he were extradited to Sweden, he would be eventually extradited to the US.[12] Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation in 2019, saying their evidence had "weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question."[13]
During the 2016 U.S. election campaign, WikiLeaks published confidential Democratic Party emails, showing that the party's national committee favoured Hillary Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders in the primaries.[14]
On 11 April 2019, Assange's asylum was withdrawn following a series of disputes with the Ecuadorian authorities.[15] The police were invited into the embassy and he was arrested.[16] He was found guilty of breaching the Bail Act and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison.[17] The United States government unsealed an indictment against Assange, related to the leaks provided by Manning. On 23 May 2019, the United States government further charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act of 1917. Editors from newspapers, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, as well as press freedom organisations, criticised the government's decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act, characterising it as an attack on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press.[18][19] On 4 January 2021, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the United States' request to extradite him and stated that doing so would be "oppressive" given his mental health.[20] On 6 January 2021, Assange was denied bail, pending an appeal by the United States.[21] On 10 December 2021 Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled that Assange can be extradited to the USA to face the charges.[22][23]
Assange has been confined in Belmarsh maximum-security prison in London since April 2019.[24]
