Excerpt: "We must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the United States of America. Will it return to and reaffirm the values it was founded on? Or will it lurch off the precipice dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark?"
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks makes a statement from a balcony of Ecuador's London Embassy. (photo: Kirsty Wiggleswort/AP)
The US Must End Its War on Whistleblowers
20 August 12
Julian Assange spoke on Sunday from a low balcony of Ecuador's London Embassy to cheering crowds and the media, his first public appearance since seeking refuge there two months ago. The embassy is heavily surrounded by police. After threatening to storm the embassy to seize Assange, a breach of the 1961 Vienna convention, Britain now says it has no intention of doing so. Britain is, however, refusing to allow Assange safe passage out of the country. -- CW/RSN.
Read his full statement below.
am here because I cannot be closer to you.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for your resolve and your generosity of spirit.
On Wednesday night after a threat was sent to this embassy and the police descended on the building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it and you brought the world’s eyes with you.
Inside the embassy, after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming into the building through the internal fire escape.
But I knew that there would be witnesses.
And that is because of you.
If the UK did not throw away the Vienna Conventions the other night, it is because the world was watching.
And the world was watching because you were watching.
The next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend the rights we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark outside the Embassy of Ecuador, and how, in the morning, the sun came up on a different world, and a courageous Latin American nation took a stand for justice.
And so, to those brave people:
I thank President Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and granting me political asylum.
And so I thank the government and the Foreign Minister, Ricardo Patiño, who have upheld the Ecuadorian constitution and its notion of universal rights in their consideration of my case.
And to the Ecuadorian people for supporting and defending their constitution.
And I have a debt of gratitude to the staff of this embassy whose families live in London and who have shown me hospitality and kindness despite the threats that they have received.
This Friday there will be an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of Latin America in Washington D.C. to address this situation.
And so I am grateful to the people and governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela and to all other Latin American countries who have come to the defence of the right to asylum.
To the people of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia who have supported me in strength while their governments have not. And to those wiser heads in government who are still fighting for justice. Your day will come.
To the staff, supporters and sources of WikiLeaks whose courage, commitment and loyalty have seen no equal.
To my family and to my children who have been denied their father: forgive me. We will be reunited soon.
As WikiLeaks stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression and the health of our societies.
We must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the United States of America.
Will it return to and reaffirm the values it was founded on?
Or will it lurch off the precipice dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark?
I say that it must turn back.
I ask President Obama to do the right thing.
The United States must renounce its witch-hunt against WikiLeaks.
The United States must dissolve its FBI investigation.
The United States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters.
The United States must pledge before the world that it will not pursue journalists for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful.
There must be no more foolish talk about prosecuting any media organization, be it WikiLeaks or the New York Times.
The US administration’s war on whistle-blowers must end.
Thomas Drake, William Binney, John Kirakou and the other heroic US whistle-blowers must - they must - be pardoned and compensated for the hardships they have endured as servants of the public record.
And the Army Private who remains in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth Kansas, who was found by the UN to have endured months of torturous detention in Quantico Virginia and who has yet - after two years in prison - to see a trial, must be released.
And if Bradley Manning really did as he is accused, he is a hero, an example to us all and one of the world’s foremost political prisoners.
Bradley Manning must be released.
On Wednesday, Bradley Manning spent his 815th day in detention without trial. The legal maximum is 120 days.
On Thursday, my friend, Nabeel Rajab, was sentenced to 3 years for a tweet.
On Friday, a Russian band was sentenced to 2 years in jail for a political performance.
There is unity in the oppression.
There must be absolute unity and determination in the response.
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Comments
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Our Occupy Wall Streeters have it right:
WHAT'S THE SOLUTION? GLOBAL REVOLUTION!
And, here's a suggestion for another solution: no more Nobel Peace Prizes to (sorry to say) failures in peacekeeping and justice demanding like Pres. Oh Bomb Ah. True Peace and Justice advocates such as Assange and Manning are the ones who have earned, and then some, such prizes.
Tony Blair once observed that the best way to judge a country was to compare the number of people trying to get in with the number of people trying to get out. If America is the pits as you & many others on this blog suggest then perhaps you could provide a list of the Paradises with a greater illegal alien problem.
Tony Blair is a materialistic, greedy, ambitious and self-aggrandizi ng patsy for Dimwits Bush and Cheney. And many Mexicans and others are now leaving due to the almost doubling of immigration application fees, mean-spiritedne ss and diminishing opportunities as the job market, even at slave wages, offers little incentive to pay Coyotes, dodge the Border Patrols and even more zealous minute men and other "Guardian militias" or thugs on the border to make it safe for white supremacists.
"Ameri(k)ca, love it or leave it" is the totally predictable and as you yourself put it "childish" fallback of every Redneck ignoramus I ever met. My own response? "I'll go when and where it's MY idea Bubba"!
What are you saying? to be a "true whistleblower" one must only divulge one crime at a time? Where did you get this definition from the Fox dictionary? Assange has blown the whistle on a specific circumstance, if it makes you feel better, the covert distruction of our democracy!
Thank goodness that most of the now-progressive Latin American nations that have managed to extirpate the overwhelmingly right-wing domineering of the US are circling the wagons in support of liberty and justice for Assange.
Bradly Manning has the bad luck to be on trial IN the USA and subject to the vengeful and ruthless non-justice system here.
I hope that the UK's Cameron-patsy see some illumination in this respect but ain't holding my breath.
So go along like a predictable cypher for the lying power class status quo. Coward!
America is not like Nazi Germany yet, but we are heading that way more and more.
We are considered guilty until proven innocent, we don't give speedy trials. Half of us demonize the gays, we are forcing women to carry a bay to full term even if it risks her life.
We don't dare disagree with a GOP speaker or we might be hauled to the ground, arrested , taken from the site like that 71 YO man that dared argue about that he PAID into social security and medicare all his working life.
We have become a nation ruled by a very few 1%or .1% of the people who are buying our government, a president, congress, and then the rest of us a big chunk who believe if fox said it, then it must be true.
And these same folks will not listen to reason or the truth.
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