In a strong denouncement of the continued imprisonment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has reiterated his call for his release. During a press conference following the coronation of Charles III in London, on Saturday, May 6, Lula told reporters that there is a lack of organized efforts to free Assange.
“I will even speak in front of journalists. It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him,” Lula said addressing reporters. “It is a crazy thing. We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced fraud.”
This is not the first that Lula has spoken out for Assange. Even before taking power for his current stint as president, Lula was among the few world leaders to openly support Assange, his reporting, and demand an end to the ongoing incarceration and hounding by the US.
Assange has been held under judicial custody in a high-security prison in Belmarsh, UK, for over four years. He is awaiting the final phase of appeal against the UK Home Office’s decision to sanction his extradition to the US, where he will be facing a federal grand jury for multiple charges of espionage and cybercrimes.
Assange, an Australian citizen, is the first journalist and publisher to be indicted in the US under the infamous Espionage Act, and the charges against him collectively carry a maximum prison sentence of 175 years.
While journalist unions and press freedom advocates have denounced the indictment as an attack on press freedom globally, many have accused mainstream media groups for their silence over Assange. Lula specifically called out this silence stating that “the press doesn’t do anything in defense of this journalist.”
“I can’t understand it. I think there must be a movement of the world press in his defense. Not in regard to his person, but to defend the right to report,” Lula told the reporters.
“The guy didn’t report anything vulgar. He reported that a state was spying on others, and that became a crime. The press, which defends freedom of the press, does nothing to free this citizen. It’s sad, but it’s true,” he added.
Lula further told reporters that he will be writing to the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about Assange, once he gets back to Brazil. He and Sunak had a brief meeting earlier that day, but Lula stated that he did not get the chance to broach the subject of Assange’s release.
World leaders speak out
Lula’s statement on Sunday, comes just days after a similar call for Assange’s release by Australia’s prime minister. On Friday, May 5, Australia’s Anthony Albanese seemingly expressed his frustrations and indicated a possible impasse to diplomatic efforts to get the US to drop the charges against Assange.
“Enough is enough, this needs to be brought to a conclusion, it needs to be worked through,” said Albanese in a statement to the Australian parliament to questions about the state of government’s efforts to bring Assange back. He also emphasized that there is “nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.”
“I know it’s frustrating, I share the frustration,” he added. “I can’t do more than make very clear what my position is and the US administration is certainly very aware of what the Australian government’s position is.”
Albanese’s statement came just a few weeks ahead of a planned visit by US president Joe Biden to Australia, for a Quad meeting on May 24. He, however, remained tight-lipped about whether he plans to raise the matter during Biden’s visit, indicating that his government will continue to not divulge more information on the government’s efforts.
Other world leaders, however, have been more vocal and forthcoming about their support for Assange’s release.
Earlier in November, in a Latin American tour by a Wikileaks delegation consisting of Kristinn Hrafnsson and Joseph Farrell, supported by the International Peoples’ Assembly (IPA), leaders from the region reiterated their long-stated position in Assange’s defense.
During the tour, Hrafnsson and Farrell received support from Colombian president Gustavo Petro, where he and his foreign minister assured to “collectively and individually urge the Biden administration to drop the charges brought by the Trump administration and grant Assange his long overdue freedom.”
They also met with Argentinian president Alberto Fernández and vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner during their tour, along with social movements and journalist unions.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador had raised Assange’s matter with Biden during a bilateral meeting in January this year. In a recent daily briefing to reporters, he even stated that if Assange is extradited and given the maximum punishment “we must begin the campaign to dismantle the Statue of Liberty,” adding that it was “no longer a symbol of freedom.”
Assange’s letter to Charles III
In the meanwhile, Assange himself has not given up on his struggle for freedom. In a letter to Charles III on the day of his coronation, he invited the monarch, who is shared by both UK and Australia as a common head of state, to visit him in Belmarsh Prison.
In the letter Assange characterized himself as a “political prisoner, held at your majesty’s pleasure on behalf of an embarrassed foreign sovereign” underscoring the deeply political nature of his imprisonment. Inviting the King to the most “isolated place” in the prison complex, where he is held, Assange said that “it is an honor befitting a king.”
“On the coronation of my liege, I thought it only fitting to extend a heartfelt invitation to you to commemorate this momentous occasion by visiting your very own kingdom within a kingdom: his majesty’s prison Belmarsh,” Assange wrote.
“One can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners, and your kingdom has surely excelled in that regard,” the letter read, as Assange continues to point out that the UK currently holds the largest prison population in Western Europe. Assange then goes ahead to highlight, in a sarcastic but incisive manner, the abysmal conditions of the prison and the plight of its nearly 700 inmates.
“As you embark upon your reign, may you always remember the words of the King James Bible: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy’. And may mercy be the guiding light of your kingdom, both within and without the walls of Belmarsh,” he added.
