Civil Liberties Advocates and Whistleblowers Decry Extradition of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange
Shane Trejo
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Prominent civil liberties advocates and whistleblowers are decrying the news that WikiLeaks founder and information liberator Julian Assange will be extradited to the United States to stand trial for 17 felony charges under the Espionage Act.
Three co-chairs of the Assange Defense Committee – linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky, economist and “Pentagon Papers” leaker Daniel Ellsberg, and Angela Walker, a Pulitzer Prize winner – released a statement in response to news that UK Home Secretary Priti Patel is approving Assange’s extradition.
The full statement can be seen here:
“It’s a sad day for western democracy. The UK’s decision to extradite Julian Assange to the nation that plotted to assassinate him – the nation that wants to imprison him for 175 years for publishing truthful information in the public interest – is an abomination.
We expect the world’s most despised autocrats to persecute journalists, publishers, and whistleblowers. We expect totalitarian regimes to gaslight their people and crack down on those who challenge the government. Shouldn’t we expect western democracies to behave better?
The U.S. government argues that its venerated Constitution does not protect journalism the government dislikes, and that publishing truthful information in the public interest is a subversive, criminal act. This argument is a threat not only to journalism, but to democracy itself.
The UK has shown its complicity in this farce, by agreeing to extradite a foreigner based on politically motivated charges that collapse under the slightest scrutiny.”
Big League Politics has reported on how the case against Assange has been built on lies from the start:
“A crucial witness who has been relied upon to build the deep state’s case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is admitting that he has lied constantly to help the feds railroad the information liberator.
Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson reportedly told reporters at Grabien that he lied about Assange to get the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation off of his back so he could commit criminal acts with impunity.
Thordarson had allegedly embezzled funds from WikiLeaks after offering to sell merchandise for the group. He then reached out to the federal government hoping to become an informant in order to save his own skin.
Additionally, “according to a psychiatric assessment presented to the court Thordarson was diagnosed as a sociopath, incapable of remorse but still criminally culpable for his actions,” Stundin reported, and this was an individual who has been tasked with building the case against Assange for the feds.”
What is being done to Assange is an assault on the true free press. The people who are speaking out are defending liberty. Those who are silent are complicit in this crime against humanity.
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