News OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
This from Maggie Nelmes, Ventnor. Ed
How does a democracy like ours slide into dictatorship? It starts with government control of the media, suppressing freedom of expression, and imprisoning those who publish and report the truth.
That is what Putin is doing in Russia. And I believe that is what America, the UK and Sweden have conspired to do to founder and publisher of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, who informed the world about the murders and torture of thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians and prisoners of war by American soldiers, none of whom has been charged with war crimes.
Gunning for Assange
In my view, from 2010, the CIA has been gunning for Assange, mounting a ruthless campaign of character-assassination, and pressurizing America’s close allies, the UK and Sweden, to allow his extradition to the US on trumped-up espionage charges.
Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where for seven years police stood guard 24/7, ready to arrest him if he left, and our government plotted to storm in and seize him. A change of government in Ecuador led to Assange’s cruel treatment, a smear campaign, then permission for his violent arrest in 2019.
Never convicted of any crime
Assange has never been convicted of any crime. Yet he has been incarcerated in high-security Belmarsh prison, among convicted terrorists, mostly alone, facing a 175-year sentence in solitary confinement in a US jail.
I believe that making an example of Assange by destroying him, the US aims to silence whistle-blowers, investigative journalists and publishers from revealing state crimes.
UN Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer visited Assange in prison and researched his case. He was so concerned, he wrote a book, The Trial of Julian Assange, available from Verso Books online and local libraries.
Human chain around Parliament
On Saturday 8th October, Human Rights campaigners, journalists and defenders of freedom of expression will form a human chain around Parliament to demand Assange’s release.
Image: newtown_grafitti under CC BY 2.0
