By Xavier Lasso on June 11, 2023
photo: EFE
It has been almost ten years since Edward Snowden’s adventures in his quest to reach Ecuador. Snowden had chosen Ecuador because Julian Assange was an illustrious guest at the embassy in London. The Ecuador of that time was different, it had sovereign dreams, it was part of the proposals of the Patria Grande, that of Nestor Kirschner, Chavez, Evo, Lula, Lugo was also included, and Rafael Correa was leading my country.
Julian Assange was beginning to be known for his different vision of journalism; he did not want to pay attention to what a certain journalistic establishment, that of the big media, recommended to him.
In 2010 Chelsea Manning gave Assange a lot of information about the barbarities of “the gringos” in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. Manning had previously contacted the British Guardian and other media that did not give her any time. That is why he ended up in WikiLeaks and gave Julian Assange worldwide fame. He did not hesitate to practice other premises that can be applied to what he himself calls scientific journalism; you have irrefutable evidence to prove your hypothesis, then: receive, own and publish.
That is what Assange did and, in addition, he used what today, in the face of so many sources, is known as “secure mailbox”: no one has to know where what you publish comes from. Even more, put a mask on your source and then he will tell the truth. We have always known that the mask veils, but contains the truth.
Today Assange is in a very deteriorated condition, mentally and physically, they are hastening his death with so much psychological torture, with the extradition that seems now to have been approved by the British courts to extradite him to the United States, a country that has brought 18 charges against him, accusing him of exposing the people mentioned in the cables published by WikiLeaks.
The Ecuadorian government of the traitor Lenín Moreno, full of wretchedness, like the then Foreign Minister, José Valencia, who handed Assange over to the British police from the our Embassy (which in essence was to hand him over to the United States), allowing them to enter the embassy of a sovereign country and take the Australian away, as if by force. They took with him the notions of dignity that we had been forged from a free foreign policy, which rejected the centrality of the interests of Europe and the United States. Moreno, bowed down and subordinated himself to the ideas of the world system, built from the most ruthless capitalism. He never thought of the damage he was doing to free journalism, that which is slowly trying to build another story, one that also takes into account our visions, our contributions, our way of understanding that same world.
The indifference of the media conglomerate, which claims to defend freedom of expression, and which happily received the first contributions from WikiLeaks: The Guardian, LeMonde, Der Spiegel, El País and the New York Times and used them as they pleased, keeping a lot of information, managing it, captivating audiences, as if they were not capable of diving into the documents WikiLeaks had received, is striking.
Stella Morris, Assange’s lawyer and partner, fears the worst, death included, she cries out to the world for a little justice, she confronts us with the different meanings of freedom of expression, her husband is not a “hacker”, he is a very intelligent journalist who today, before our almost total indifference, rots in a maximum security prison in London. Two weekly visits are not enough, his two children have a very sad image of their father, full of shadows, because as in the caves, things are projected without being able to see them in full light.
Assange must be released, we all need that little piece of freedom we are missing. Let the United States know that a good part of this planet will set its eyes on the justice that the Assange case demands. We will be millions, rivers of people facing that power that explodes dangerously when they are caught red-handed. Assange pulled many veils, that is his crime; that, at the same time, is his great contribution.
Source: Página 12, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English