Jailing Julian Assange is an Attack on the Free Press

Jailing Julian Assange is an Attack

on the Free Press

New Chapter for a Fascist Playbook

Australian journalist Julian Assange published a set of U.S. government documents supplied to him by whistle blower Chelsea Manning. Among the documents are operations reports detailing thousands of Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. military personnel, including a U.S. military helicopter gunship attack that killed two journalists, nine additional civilians and critically wounding two children. No one was prosecuted for this attack.

Assange has been charged with spying by the U.S. government and is imprisoned in a British jail awaiting extradition hearings on February 20-21. If extradited to the U.S., he faces up to 175 years of jail time and would be tried in a court where his defense is hindered by U.S. anti-terrorism laws.

A 2022 statement about the Assange case signed by the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL stated that “Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information, when necessary, in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.”

It goes much further than that.

By prosecuting Assange, the U.S. government is targeting anyone on the planet who publishes a U.S. government document. It creates a legal framework for criminalizing journalists and those who expose government wrongs. It is step toward erecting an international fascist framework for discouraging and ultimately eliminating freedom of the press.

FREEDOM FOR JULIAN ASSANGE!

“The League supports all political organizations and sections of society that fight against the growing poverty, social and ecological destruction, fascism and war” (Program of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, link)

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Program of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America:

https://lrna.org/lrna-program/