Peace and Justice Organizations Call for Freedom for Julian Assange

Assange faces a life in prison for publishing the truth.

Julian Assange, before his incarceration.

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - Imprisoned Wikileaks founder, journalist and free speech champion Julian Assange today faces life imprisonment for telling the truth about U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the U.S. torture base in Guantanamo Bay.

Assange faces charges under the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act.

Prosecution under that WWI anti-democratic law placed thousands of antiwar activists in prison for exercising their free speech right to protest WWI.

Ironically, the Dec 19, 2021 New York Times front-page two-part series entitled, Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes, follows in Assange’s footsteps in reporting U.S. war crimes, yet The Times staff writers remain free.

Some 100 Times reporters evaluated Pentagon confidential documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These included reports on 50,000 U.S. airstrikes on Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan conducted under the Obama and Trump administrations.

The Times on-the-scene reporters subsequently confirmed tens of thousands of civilian casualties – collateral damage.

“The [Pentagon] documents,” according to The Times, “identify children killed or injured in 27 percent of cases; in The Times’s ground-breaking reporting it was 62 percent.”

The Times and several other major publications worldwide reprinted much of the same Pentagon material that Assange’s Wikileaks released to the world. Yet Assange faces a life in prison for publishing the truth.

The persecution of Julian Assange by the U.S. government is a threat against free speech and free press.

It is also a threat to the Peace Movement and all movements for social change since without information and the ability to speak and write freely about U.S. wars and war crimes we are greatly limited, and the people of the world are kept in the dark.

• Free Julian Assange!
• No to U.S. wars!
• Freedom of the press!
• Free journalists!
• Free speech!

Please read the letter (here) demanding Freedom for Julian Assange from the antiwar movement at large; feel free to sign it and circulate it widely.

The letter was initiated by UNAC and is sponsored by the Julian Assange Defense Committee, with the Syria Solidarity Movement and many other organizations as initial signers.

Our rights are Julian Assange's rights. When they are at risk we must resist.

SEE ALSO:

• VIDEO: In his New Year’s message, Yonden Lhatoo demands Western governments free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange before preaching press freedom to everyone else. (Jan 1, 2022)
• Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement-- A Deal with the Devil (2013 Salem-News.com)
• Transformational Politics: Awakening an American Society and the Global Community (2012 Salem-News.com)
• Julian Assange and Raymond A. Davis America Wants them Both -Who Should be Released? (2011 Salem-News.com)