Friday, March 30, 2018

Brian Eno & Yanis Varoufakis: Restore Julian Assange’s access to visitors and the outside world!


It is with great concern that we heard that Julian Assange has lost access to the internet and the right to receive visitors at the Ecuadorian London Embassy. Only extraordinary pressure from the US and the Spanish governments can explain why Ecuador’s authorities should have taken such appalling steps in isolating Julian.

Only recently the government of Ecuador granted Julian citizenship and a diplomatic passport, in a bid to allow him safe passage from London. The UK government, under heavy pressure from the US government, refused to exploit this opportunity to end Julian’s detention – even after the Swedish authorities announced that no charges were, or would be, laid against him. Now, it seems that the Ecuadorian government that has been ‘leaned’ on mercilessly not only to stop attempting to provide Julian with a diplomatic route to safety but to drive him out of their London Embassy as well. In addition to US pressure, the Spanish government is also using its leverage over Ecuador to silence Julian’s criticisms of Madrid’s imprisonment of Catalan politicians and, in particular, of the arrest of Catalonia’s former premier in Germany.
Clearly, Ecuador’s government has been subjected to bullying over its decision to grant Julian asylum, support and, ultimately, diplomatic status. Naturally, Quito cannot admit that it is buckling under that pressure and it argues, in public, that Julian’s tweets over Catalonia are responsible for the decision to isolate him. Of course this is utterly unbelievable. Julian is now a citizen of Ecuador and as such enjoys the full protection of his freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution of Ecuador. Additionally, the only reason Julian is holed up in Ecuador’s London Embassy – and why Ecuador gave him asylum in the first place – is precisely because he empowered whistleblowers’ freedom of expression and defended our right to know the truth about practices of the US and other Western powers that the latter found ‘inconvenient’ once exposed to the light of day.
A world in which whistleblowers are hounded, small countries are forced to violate their cherished principles, and politicians are jailed for pursuing peacefully their political agenda is a deeply troubled world – a world at odds with the one the liberal establishment in Europe and the United States proclaimed as its artifact since the end of the Cold War.
With these thoughts in mind we call upon all citizens of good conscience to send a message to the Ecuadorian authorities asking that Julian’s access to the outside world be restored and another, more pertinent one, to the British authorities to end Julian’s detention.

7 comments:

Footsoldier said...

I'd like to wish everyone who contributes to this site a very happy Easter.

We are a mixed bag from every part of the political spectrum and that's the way it should be.

Open, honest and with debates that have unearthed some golden nuggets of knowledge over many years.

A special thanks to Tom and Matt and Kaivey who without the site would probably have died like new economic perspectives. To a couple of posts a month.

And Mike who is a diamond in the rough.


Keep up the good work guys and have a fantastic weekend.


From Sunny Glasgow in the UK.

Noah Way said...

"sign the petition"

The illusion of taking action.

Tom Hickey said...

@ Footsoldier

Thanks, and back at you.

Kaivey said...

Thank you, Footsoldier.

Noah Way said...

Sad how factual information and those who expose it are the mortal enemy of fake news.

Democracy was a nice theory ...

Kaivey said...

'Fake news', what a joke, the corporate media is the fake news. I'm putting the real news out on Facebook at the moment, no one takes any notice.

Matt Franko said...

“Democracy was a nice theory ...“

I’d have voted for Trump with or without the Wikileaks guy in detention...