Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated on the United Nations in New York City on Tuesday that it’s “essential” to protect the liberty of the press and that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange shouldn’t be prosecuted for informing the general public.
“It is essential to preserve the freedom of the press. A journalist like Julian Assange cannot be punished for informing society in a transparent and legitimate way,” Lula stated.
The president’s feedback come a day earlier than a cross-party delegation of Australian politicians meet in Washington, D.C., with U.S. officers, members of Congress and civil rights teams. The group is bringing a letter signed by greater than 60 members of parliament calling on the U.S. to drop the prosecution in opposition to Assange, who’s preventing in opposition to extradition to the U.S., the place might be sentenced to as many as 175 years in an American most safety jail.
U.S. President Joe Biden will host Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in late October. Albanese has repeatedly referred to as on the U.S. in latest months to finish the prosecution of the Australian journalist.
DELEGATION OF AUSTRALIAN LAWMAKERS WILL VISIT US TO PUSH FOR JULIAN ASSANGE’S RELEASE: ‘POWERFUL MESSAGE’
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks throughout the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on the United Nations headquarters on September 19, 2023, in New York City. (Getty)
Assange is dealing with 17 fees for receiving, possessing and speaking labeled data to the general public beneath the espionage act and one cost alleging a conspiracy to commit laptop intrusion. The fees stem from the 2010 publication of cables U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning leaked to Wikileaks that detailed warfare crimes dedicated by the U.S. authorities in the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, Iraq and Afghanistan. The supplies additionally expose situations of the CIA participating in torture and rendition.
Wikileaks’ “Collateral Murder” video displaying the U.S. navy gunning down civilians in Iraq, together with two Reuters journalists, was additionally revealed 13 years in the past.
“Our fight is against disinformation and cybercrime,” Lula stated on Tuesday. “Acts and platforms should not abolish the labor laws we fight so hard for.”
Assange has been held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was faraway from the Ecuadorian Embassy on April 11, 2019, for breaching bail situations. He had sought asylum on the embassy in London to keep away from being despatched to Sweden over allegations he raped two girls as a result of Sweden wouldn’t present assurances it could defend him from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations have been finally dropped.
AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER SAYS GOVERNMENT STANDS FIRM AGAINST US PROSECUTION OF JULIAN ASSANGE
Julian Assange is dealing with 17 fees for receiving, possessing and speaking labeled data to the general public beneath the espionage act and one cost alleging a conspiracy to commit laptop intrusion. (AP)
In May, Lula denounced the shortage of concerted efforts to free Assange, calling it an “embarrassment” that a journalist who “denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail, and we do nothing to free him.”
“It’s a crazy thing,” Lula instructed reporters on the time. “We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced wrongdoing. And the press doesn’t do anything in defense of this journalist. I can’t understand it.”
The Obama administration determined to not indict Assange after Wikileaks revealed the cables in 2010 as a result of it could have needed to additionally indict journalists from main information retailers who revealed the supplies. Former President Obama additionally commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence, for violations of the Espionage Act and different offenses, to seven years.
However, former President Trump’s Justice Department later moved to indict Assange beneath the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil addresses the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at U.N. headquarters on September 19, 2023, in New York City. (Getty)
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“I think there must be a movement of world press in his defense. Not in regard to his person, but to defend the right to denounce,” Lula instructed reporters in May. “The guy didn’t denounce anything vulgar. He denounced that a state was spying on others, and that became a crime against the journalist. The press, which defends freedom of the press, does nothing to free this citizen. It’s sad, but it’s true.”
Last 12 months, the editors and publishers of U.S. and European information retailers that labored with Assange on the publication of excerpts from greater than 250,000 paperwork he obtained in the Cablegate leak — The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País — wrote an open letter calling for the U.S. to drop the fees in opposition to Assange.
And in April, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., led a letter to the Justice Department signed by a few of her congressional colleagues demanding Assange’s freedom.
