The Case for Julian Assange: 1,350 days and counting
As of this writing, Julian assange has been under effective house arrest in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for 1,350 days. That this is a travesty and a grave injustice is without question, even more so given the fact that he has not been charged with any crimes nor placed under actual arrest (though if he steps outside the boundaries of the embassy, the London police will officially detain him and most likely extradite him to Sweden.) That this is occurring in the United Kingdom — a “liberal democratic” Western nation — is nothing short of a Kafkaesque nightmare.
We cannot possibly imagine what it is like right at this moment to be in the position that Julian Assange has been in all this time, or even worse, that of Chelsea Manning, who is imprisoned in a maximum security military prison in Fort Leavenworth and who is undergoing daily psychological torture and abuse, and heaven only knows what other horrors are being inflicted upon her. For Private Manning, it’s far, far worse than a nightmare. What she faces daily is a seemingly inescapable hell. However horrible you may think it is for her, it is infinitely worse.
What Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning did was reveal to all the people of the world, through a medium that virtually anyone with an Internet connection could easily access, the raw reality behind the facade of our governments, multinational corporations and the people who run these institutions. This is all they did. There was no violence involved, nor was anyone killed or otherwise harmed in the process of obtaining this information. All this pure raw data was released electronically, and with the cooperation of several mainstream — and allegedly liberal — media outlets, who further spread this data through traditional print and television media. Of course, we’re talking about The Guardian, The New York Times, and Der Spiegel, and of their spinelessness and hypocrisy, more can be read here.
None of these media outlets, nor any of their executives or reporters — most notoriously Nick Davies, who is the worst offender out of them all — ever got in trouble for their involvement withWikiLeaks in the release of the classified United States diplomatic cables. None of them were ever arrested, nor detained for any serious length of time. None of them have had any of their rights or civil liberties restricted or violated. In fact, they all fared quite well, making a huge profit at the expense of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, railroading him and his staff in the process.
It is absolutely incomprehensible to us that Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are forced to go through what they are going through simply because they choose to live and act according to their conscience. It is a rare individual that chooses this direction in life, for most remain silent throughout their lives, ever afraid to speak out or voice their opinion for fear of being ostracized, fired from their job, arrested, even murdered. That is precisely how surreal and insane our world has become, and it’s going to get a hell of a lot worse before it begins to get better.
But when things start to really change for the better, when this world is truly ready for a transition toward a legitimately free and open society, then it will change because of the hard work and sacrifices made by individuals like Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden. Without people like them, nothing will change and everything will stay the same.
These three individuals have sacrificed their freedom and comfort for the greater good of all humanity, and there is no greater sacrifice than that. All human beings of conscience and virtue owe them a major debt of gratitude, and we encourage you to do whatever you can to help and support these individuals, whether making a donation to their legal aid funds or writing articles to help further enlighten people to their plight and correcting the disinformation spread about them by the mainstream media.
A free, open and fully transparent society is not impossible, and thanks to Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and others who have supported and continued their work, it is inevitable.
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Related articles @ Lexander Magazine:
- Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden: Three Mirrors Reflecting Our Inhumanity, Intolerance and State Terror Back At Us
- Why Hollywood Hates Freedom: The Real Reason Julian Assange is the Most Dangerous Man in the World
- The Only Mistake: On the claim WikiLeaks became a personality-centred vehicle for self-aggrandizement
