[D66] Free Julian Assange!

[A.O.]

Statement of the World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board

Free Julian Assange!
12 April 2019

The World Socialist Web Site emphatically condemns the forcible seizure
and arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. We call for an all-out
campaign in the UK and internationally to defend Assange, oppose his
extradition to the United States, and secure his freedom and return to
Australia, with guarantees against any future prosecution.

Assange is in grave peril. The US Justice Department has issued a
statement claiming that Assange only faces charges that could lead to a
prison sentence of up to five years if he has been found guilty. This is
a transparent lie, the purpose of which is to facilitate Assange’s
extradition and provide the Ecuadorean and British governments with a
pretext that they are not turning Assange over to a government that
might subject him to torture and execution.

If he is transferred to the custody of the United States, anything is
possible, including charges of treason that carry a death penalty or
indefinite detention as an “enemy combatant.”

Assange has become a target because he did what journalists are supposed
to do—expose the truth. Along with Chelsea Manning, who remains in
prison for refusing to testify against the WikiLeaks publisher, Assange
exposed the crimes that emerged out of wars launched on the basis of
lies, which have led to the deaths of more than one million people.

New crimes are now being prepared. Even as the conspiracy against
Assange was unfolding, Trump was meeting with Al-Sisi, the butcher of
Cairo, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was issuing threats against Iran.

Everyone involved in this crime stands guilty of a monstrous attack on
fundamental democratic rights, without even the pretense of due process.

Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno, beset by a domestic crisis provoked
by popular opposition to his corrupt administration, and desirous of
economic aid offered by the White House, broke Ecuador’s own asylum laws
to force Assange out. Its actions are a violation of the honor of
Ecuadorean workers, who overwhelmingly support Assange.

The UK government, headed by Theresa May, is gloating over Assange’s
arrest, issuing statements that are clearly prejudicial to any legal
proceedings. When May, speaking to parliament, declared the “whole house
will welcome the news this morning that the Metropolitan police have
arrested Julian Assange,” Tory MPs and many Laborites cheered in approval.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn issued a pro-forma statement declaring
that the extradition of Assange “should be opposed by the British
government,” but he kept his mouth shut when May issued her denunciation
before parliament and has maintained a silence on Assange during his
forced asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy.

As for the United States, while the Trump administration is now leading
the campaign against Assange, the Democratic Party is solidly behind his
persecution, blaming Assange for contributing to the exposure of the
crimes for which Hillary Clinton was justly and massively hated. One of
the central aims of the Democrats’ anti-Russia campaign has been to
justify the attack on WikiLeaks as part of a broader campaign for
internet censorship.

Added to the list of those responsible is the pseudo-left, the
organizations of the upper middle class in the US and internationally,
which seized on the initial fraudulent and trumped-up rape allegations
against Assange to justify his persecution and their own cowardly
abandonment of Assange to American imperialism.

For its part, the establishment media, which functions as an arm of the
state, has jumped in to support the attack on Assange.

On Thursday evening, the editorial boards of the New York Times and the
Washington Post issued statements supporting Assange’s extradition. “The
government charged Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, not with
publishing classified government information, but with stealing it,”
declared the New York Times, adding “The administration has begun well
by charging Mr. Assange with an indisputable crime.”

The Washington Post was even more open in its support of the Trump
administration’s campaign against Assange, declaring “Mr. Assange’s case
could conclude as a victory for the rule of law, not the defeat for
civil liberties of which his defenders mistakenly warn.”

“Mr. Assange is not a free-press hero,” declares the Post. “Unlike real
journalists, WikiLeaks dumped material into the public domain.” By the
Pos t ’s definition, the only “real journalists” are those that
self-censor at the behest of the Pentagon.

These newspapers, which once published the Pentagon Papers, are nothing
but apologists for US imperialism. One can only imagine the howls of
outrage that would issue from the media if it was the Russian government
that had carried out the forcible seizure and arrest of a journalist and
critic of its foreign policy!

In the seven years of Assange’s confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy,
much has changed. Most significant is the eruption of class struggle
internationally. It is the fear of the emergence of the class struggle,
combined with growing opposition to capitalism, that is compelling the
ruling elites to destroy all democratic rights, including the freedom of
expression, of which Assange's persecution is the most grotesque example.

In the working class there is overwhelming sympathy for Assange. A
dividing line has opened up in social, economic, and political life. The
ruling elites are shedding their democratic pretenses. Their media and
the pseudo-socialist opposition—the representatives of the politics of
the affluent upper-middle-class—function as defenders of the state and
the dictatorship of the financial oligarchy.

It is the working class, the broad mass of the population, that must be
mobilized to defend Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and all class war
prisoners. The demand for their freedom must be a rallying cry for the
global working class.

The World Socialist Web Site calls on all workers and young people, and
all those who uphold democratic rights, to come forward and take an
unequivocal stand in defense of Julian Assange. Organize meetings,
protests and demonstrations to demand his immediate release and his safe
return to Australia!