Protests on Sixth Anniversary of Assange Entering the Ecuadorian Embassy Bring People Together From Across the Political Spectrum

Speakers and activists, ranging from Socialists to Trump supporters, joined together all across the globe for a day of unity in protest of the sixth anniversary of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange entering the Ecuadorian Embassy in London seeking political asylum.  

The protesters were demanding that Australia, Britain and the US abide by the UN ruling that Assange be allowed his freedom.

Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on June 19, 2012, where he applied for, and was granted, political asylum. Since that time, the building has been encircled by police waiting on standby to arrest him, likely to extradite him the United States where he would face extreme persecution for the crime of doing truthful journalism.

Outside the White House, left-wing activists including Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin and  CIA whistleblower Ray McGovern stood alongside Trump-supporters such as Lee Stranahan of Breitbart and Sputnik News, Will Chamberlain who helped build MAGA Meetups, and myself.

“He has enough support that we will protect him,” McGovern said during his speech.

Benjamin expressed deep concern about the enemies that Assange has made in every administration since his organization’s inception.

“You know how they say you can know a person by the friends they keep? Well, you can also know a person by the enemies they make — and when you look at Julian Assange he’s made a lot of enemies,” Benjamin began. “Those enemies were in the Bush administration, the Obama administration — and now it looks like he’s making enemies in the Trump administration. He released critical information about what the Bush administration was doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo. Then, he released information about what Clinton was doing with her foundation and Saudi Arabia.”

Benjamin added,”now it looks like the Trump administration is pissed off at Julian Assange as well, look at the pressure they are putting on Ecuador.”

In March, Ecuador caved to pressure from the United States to isolate Assange by revoking his right to have visitors, make phone calls or use the internet. With no access to the outside world or means of communication, he is now being kept in conditions worse than our prisoners in solitary confinement.

https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/1009098008879878144

A writer from the World Socialist Web Site, a Marxist website that has long demanded freedom for Assange, also gave a passionate speech discussing many of the publisher’s contributions to the world that held the attention and gained applause from those who were there from the right.

There were no conflicts despite the extremely differing political ideologies.

In Australia, Julian Assange’s father joined the protests.

In the United Kingdom, the mother of WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning joined a protest in London to support Assange.

Protests also took place in California, New York,  Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, India, and Sri Lanka.

In 2016, after 16 months of investigation, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) concluded that Julian Assange is the victim of arbitrary detention. Not only did the group, made up of lawyers and human rights professionals, release an opinion that Assange should be released, they reported that he should be compensated by the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom for “deprivation of liberty.”

 

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