Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange staged a “night carnival” on Saturday night in London to demand his release from prison.
Around 2,000 supporters of the Don’t Extradite Assange campaign met at Lincoln’s Inn Fields near Holborn and marched past Parliament Square. Activists were seen carrying lanterns and posters displaying messages in support of Assange, while a carnival-like drum set marched behind them.
Assange is currently being held in London’s Belmarsh high-security prison, where he has resided since he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019 for violating prison conditions. He had sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over charges of raping two women. The investigation into the alleged sexual assaults was eventually dropped.
He is facing a legal battle regarding his potential extradition to the United States for publishing classified material. If he is extradited to the United States, the journalist will face several charges, including espionage. Assange is accused of publishing classified information detailing crimes committed by the US government at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Iraq and Afghanistan, and reveals instances where the CIA engaged in torture and rendition.
NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, OTHER MEDIA ASK US TO END THE PROSECUTION OF JULIAN ASSANGE
Supporters of Julian Assange walk during an ‘Assange Night Carnival’ march in London.
Last summer, the British High Court ruled that Assange could be extradited to the United States. In the event of extradition, he risks a sentence of up to 175 years in an American maximum security prison. The WikiLeaks founder appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in December.
Protesters were heard during Saturday’s march shouting “Free Julian Assange” while carrying placards with similar messages.
Assange’s wife Stella spoke after the march at a rally at the Emmanuel Center in Westminster.
“We have to keep building until the movement is so big that those in power and the courts realize there is nowhere else to go but free Julian,” he told the crowd.
Some activists wore carnival clothes for Saturday’s march while others were dressed as prisoners and judges.
National coordinator of the Don’t Extradite Assange campaign, John Rees, told the rally that the group decided to hold a night carnival to be “dramatic” and “bring light to a dark place”.
“Julian Assange has not been convicted of any crime, and justice delayed is justice denied,” Rees said. “We as activists have a responsibility to make sure this case doesn’t disappear from the public eye. The newspapers that partnered with Assange wrote a joint letter supporting his release, and he has the backing of most major rights organizations humans in the world. This is unprecedented and in most cases this would be enough to free him. I hope our action tonight will help put pressure on the British and American administrations to free Julian Assange.”
JULIAN ASSANGE SUPPORTERS PROTEST AGAINST US EXTRADITION IN LONDON, DC: ‘CRUCIAL WE FIGHT’
Activists pushing for the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange take part in a rally.
The editors and publishers of the US and European news organizations who worked with Assange to publish excerpts from more than 250,000 documents he obtained in the “Cablegate” leak wrote an open letter last year calling on the US to end at the trial against Assange. The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País cited freedom of the press demanding that the charges against him be dropped.
The “Cablegate” material for which Assange is accused was leaked to WikiLeaks by then US soldier Chelsea Manning, who was convicted in 2013 of violating the Espionage Act and other offences. The documents exposed the inner workings of US diplomacy around the world and revealed “corruption, diplomatic scandals and espionage deals on an international scale,” according to the media letter.
During the Obama administration, which was in office when Wikileaks released the documents in 2010, Assange would not have been indicted because the administration was also supposed to indict journalists from major news organizations. But of former President Donald Trump Department of Justice moved to indict Assange using the Espionage Act of 1917.
The CIA reportedly had plans during the Trump administration to kill Assange over the release of sensitive agency hacking tools, known as “Vault 7”. The CIA said it suffered “the largest data leak in CIA history” after Wikileaks released the materials.
A protester holds a placard during Julian Assange’s procession in London to protest his continued detention.
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At the time, the agency was having discussions “at the highest levels” of the administration about plans to assassinate Assange in London, according to a 2021 Yahoo report. Following orders from then CIA director Mike Pompeo, the agency had elaborated ” sketches” and “options” for killing. The report also outlined the advanced plans to abduct and hand over Assange and that the CIA had made a political decision to indict him.
Assange’s Wikileaks also published internal communications in 2016 between the Democratic National Committee and the then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, revealing the DNC’s attempts to promote Clinton in that year’s Democratic primary. Assange has been accused of hurting Clinton’s chances of winning the 2016 presidency.
