[Other] Free Julian Assange - Guerilla Projection On Parliament
inminds 27 April 2019 Guerilla projection on Parliament demanding freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Guerilla projection on Parliament demanding freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
On Friday 26th April 2019 Inminds Human Rights Group along with the Islamic Human Rights Commission carried out a guerilla projection on the walls of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British government, to demand freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Messages displayed included: "Free Assange - Journalism is not a crime", "Free Manning - Jail the war criminals" and "Can't silence Truth".
BACKGROUND
In 2010 Private Manning leaked 750,000 confidential documents detailing US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, abuses in Guantanamo Bay, and the Diplomatic Cables, to Julian Assange to publish on the Wikileaks website. The documents were also published by Wikileaks partners The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and El Pais.
Manning was subsequently arrested, after she confided to a friend who reported her to the army. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison under the Espionage Act even though she wasn't a spy, but a whistle-blower revealing US war crimes. In prison she was tortured, the UN special rapporteur on torture formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Manning. Eventually after 7 years imprisonment her sentence was commuted in January 2017.
In February 2019 she was again imprisoned for refusing to testify against Wikileaks and Julian Assange. She is placed in solitary confinement for 22 hours each day.
For publishing evidence of US war crimes, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been labelled a terrorist by prominent politicians in the US government with calls for a drone strike against him. A secret indictment was issued by the US for his extradition forcing Assange to seek asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Rafael Correa's anti-imperialist government granted Assange asylum and Assange remained in the Embassy of Ecuador for almost 7 years.
After Correa's three successful terms as President ended, Moreno took over in 2017. He took the country in a very different path, one of appeasing the US. After US Vice-President Mike Pence's visit to Ecuador, Moreno launched a security deal with the US including buying weapons and sharing intelligence. The US ensured the IMF approved a $4.2 billion loan to Ecuador in early 2019. Moreno for his part rescinded Assange's asylum and invited the MET police to enter the Ecuadorian Embassy to arrest Assange on 11th April 2019, ready for extradition to the US.
In order to ensure other publishers of Manning's leaks like the New York Times are not prosecuted along with Julian Assange, the US government has carefully ensured the initial charges against Assange on the extradition documents refer to hacking - they accuse Assange of helping Manning crack a password. Indications are that further charges will be added once they have him in custody.
The American Civil Liberties Union had said that "any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for Wikileaks’ publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations. Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public's interest."
Julian Assange's extradition hearing is on 2nd May 2019 at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
VIDEO: Free Julian Assange - Guerilla Projection on Parliament
Guerilla projection on Parliament demanding freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Source: www.inminds.com
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