Free press - Free Assange
Join Stella Assange and other activists in the fight for the freedom of speech.
On October 16th, 1975, a few weeks before the full scale military invasion of East Timor by the Indonesians (that would lead to an occupation that lasted for 24 years and that has caused around 200’000 deaths among East-Timorese civilians), five journalists working for Australian news networks were executed by Indonesian troops in the border town of Balibo - Brian Cunningham, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart and Brian Peters.
Indonesia occupied and annexed East Timor to its provinces, under the support of USA and Australia. The atrocities committed by Indonesians, that the five journalists tried to report, never reached the outside world during the first decade of occupation. It was only until the Timorese resistance turned away from the socialist and Marxist ideologies that the Western democracies re-opened communications with East Timor. Slowly people in European countries began to discover about children being killed and women being raped under the tacit approval of US and its allies.
On November 12th of 1991 the Portuguese parliamentary delegation planned a visit in Dili, but it was cancelled. East Timorese youth, taking advantage of the presence of international journalists, organised a demonstration and marched to Santa Cruz cemetery to pay homage to Sebastião Gomes (another victim of the brutal occupation). Indonesian military opened fire on the demonstrators, killing and injuring hundreds. Many vanished without a trace, but the footage of the killings of unarmed students was recorded by Max Stahl and Steve Cox, and was broadcasted around the world.
In 1999, after years of international demonstrations against the Indonesian occupation, the East Timorese had the chance to vote on their independence, and in 2002 they officially began to live in the independent republic of Timor-Leste.
Previously secret files of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, released in September 2000, showed that comments by the Whitlam Labor party government may have encouraged the Suharto regime to invade East Timor. The Australian government didn’t care much about the life of its journalists or about the freedom of press in 1975, as it didn’t care in 2012 when its award winning journalist and editor Julian Assange, asked for help.
In 2006 Julian Assange co-founded WikiLeaks.org - an internet platform on which people can upload confidential documents of public interest in anonymity, involving corruption, war crimes, money laundry by banks and corporations, child abuse court cases of the Vatican and the likes. The WikiLeaks team, along with international journalists who collaborate with them (like Stefania Maurizi in the case of Italy) verify the authenticity of the leaked documents and edit them in order not to cause any casualties or harm that may occur to people because of the publication.
In April 2010, WikiLeaks released video footage of the July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike (see video here), that shows US soldiers shooting and killing 18 civilians, including Reuters journalists Samir Noor-Eldeen and Said Chmagh. Reuters had previously asked the US Army to see the unedited version of the video of the airstrike under the US Freedom of Information Act, but did not succeed.
Later in 2010, WikiLeaks also released other documents leaked by the former US Army Analyst, Chelsea Manning - the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs (a collection of 391,832 United States Army field reports from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from 2004 to 2009) and US diplomatic cables, known as the “Cablegate” files, showing United States espionage against the United Nations and other world leaders, as well as strategies to win the support of the European citizens on the Afghanistan war.
Needless to say that until these publications, the US and the European media were depicting a completely different picture of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. NATO countries like Italy went against their own Constitution principles and sent their troops to fight the war initiated by the United States. War crimes have been exposed, and yet the people responsible of those crimes have never gone to court. Julian Assange and his source Chelsea Manning, instead, faced an unprecedented legal persecution by the Obama administration. Both of them have been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917.
Back in 1973, another US Army analyst was charged under the Espionage Act - Daniel Ellsberg, for his release to the New York Times of the Pentagon papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of US government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War. He faced charges for a total of 115 years, but got dismissed of them all while the right of the press to publish the papers was upheld in New York Times Co. v. United States. The Supreme Court ruling has been called one of the "modern pillars" of First Amendment rights with respect to freedom of the press.
Despite Julian Assange being an Australian citizen, and despite the support of Daniel Ellsberg, human rights organisations, politicians and musicians like MIA and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, at the time of the writing (October 11th 2023), Julian has been kept in a high security prison of Belmarsh, near London, for almost 5 years, waiting for the UK Supreme Court to decide upon his extradition to the United States, where he would face charges of 175 years. The date of this decision is kept secret, in order to make it harder for the activists to organise a demonstration in support for Assange and the freedom of journalism.
(Rumours say it might be at the end of October 2023, but keep an eye on social media profiles of Stella Assange and local activist groups in defence of Assange to get ready for the day X, if you’re interested in defending your own freedom)
Before living in a 2x3 metres prison cell where his physical and mental health deeply deteriorated, Assange lived for nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy that had granted him political asylum, surrounded 24/7 by the London police, costing the municipality 10 millions pounds just in the first three years. His reputation was undermined by the mainstream media - he has been accused of rape, of collaboration with Putin, and of the killing of innocent people. The newspapers that won journalism prizes because of the collaboration with WikiLeaks, turned their back in him for years. CIA spied on him and tried to kill him. Trump and Biden administrations continued the Obama’s persecution of Julian and free press.
Their strategy is clear - make an example out of Assange and his sources, to discourage other journalists and whistleblowers to publish about crimes and corruption of the people in power. Without free press, people become blind to the power abuse and democracy dies - just look at the freedom of press in Russia, Hong Kong, China or North Korea. Good luck fighting for your rights in those countries!
In a SPIEGEL interview from 2010, Assange has been asked:
“You could have started a company in Silicon Valley and lived in a home in Palo Alto with a swimming pool. Why did you decide to do the WikiLeaks project instead?”
Assange answered:
“We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have and to do something that is meaningful and satisfying. This is something that I find meaningful and satisfying. That is my temperament. I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work.”
[Join Stella Assange and other activists in the fight for the freedom of speech. It is for your own benefit.]