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GUEST COMMENTARY - In our complex world, understanding global events is crucial. We hunger for truth about Amazon rainforests, Tibet and China, Niger in Africa, Antarctica, Guyana, and the ongoing tensions between Russia and Europe in Ukraine, as well as the conflict between Hamas and Israel supported by the United States. To make informed decisions, we must carefully analyze the facts.
History teaches us that truth can be suppressed under regimes like Stalinist Russia, Hitlerite Germany, or the Iraq war waged on false intelligence. Manipulated narratives, elegant lies, and misinformation have led to devastating consequences, from gulags and wars to concentration camps. Yet, brave individuals—Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, George Orwell, and Martin Luther King Jr.—stood by the truth, regardless of the odds.
Today, Julian Assange stands alongside these names. His work challenges power structures, revealing uncomfortable truths hidden by the United States Government.
We are now reaching a critical stage in Julian Assange’s fight against U.S. extradition with appeal hearings taking place at the U.K. High Court on February 20 and 21.
The new UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Jill Edwards on Tuesday called on the U.K. to halt the extradition, stating that if it goes forward, Assange would be at risk of treatment amounting to torture or other forms of ill-treatment or punishment.
Amnesty International in a petition it organizes says that “USA must drop charges against Julian Assange. He fully deserves to be released; he already paid a heavy price for what he did”.
To put as much pressure on the court as possible, we would also urge all of you to support these events before the hearings:
– February 14: The Geneva Press Club, alongside RSF Switzerland, hosting an online and in-person talk with Stella Assange. Stella will be available for interviews after the event.
– February 15: The Freedom of the Press Foundation online event on Assange. Speakers include Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute; Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation; and Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.
And here is this useful thread from Stella laying out the legal arguments in the case.
Let us champion honest information, for it is our shield against propaganda and our path to a more just world.
(Dimitris Eleas is a New York City–based writer, independent researcher, and political activist. David Andersson is a citizen journalist, writer, activist, and Author of THE WHITE-WEST: A LOOK IN THE MIRROR.)
