The
arrest of Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London last week is
another despicable crime of British imperialism. The founder of WikiLeaks was
dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London by the police on Thursday after
Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno, revoked his political asylum. Assange had
spent almost seven years in the building after being welcomed there by the
previous president, Rafael Correa. Now he’s in Belmarsh charged with jumping
bail and under a previously secret US indictment – a development which Assange
predicted and stated as his reason for going into the embassy in the first
place.
Assange, an Australian citizen living in
Sweden, came to Britain following rape allegations that he strenuously denied.
Assange was avoiding an arrest that he feared would lead to his deportation to
the USA, where he faces charges that will put him behind bars for many years to
come. The then progressive government of Ecuador offered him asylum and Assange
took refuge in their embassy in London when the British government moved to
send him to America. But Assange was denied free passage to leave the country.
Seven years later reactionary forces
willing to do the bidding of US imperialism are back in charge in Ecuador. The
Moreno regime handed Assange over to the police in exchange for around $4.2
billion worth of IMF loans/aid. No wonder former
Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa called Moreno the "worst traitor"
in his country's history for handing the WikiLeaks chief over to the
Metropolitan police.
In the past the bourgeois media told us
that information technology was transforming our lives for the better. The
internet, Twitter and other social networking services were hailed as forces
for individual freedom of expression and valuable tools of “democracy” when
they were used to foment reactionary violence in Iran, Ukraine and throughout
the Arab world.
But it’s a different tune when the boot is
on the other foot. When WikiLeaks releases embarrassing documents, when the
crimes of imperialism are exposed by ‘hactivists’ for all the world to see, the
internet becomes ‘irresponsible’ and the most craven bourgeois pundits start
calling for censorship, government control and the prosecution of those who
have dared to break the ruling class consensus.
Russia is condemned for allegedly
manipulating social media to influence elections in the heartlands of
imperialism, and WikiLeaks reviled for releasing tranches of documents that
expose the crimes of imperialism and the dirty work of their intelligence
agencies.
Assange’s ‘crime’ has been his refusal to
play the bogus ‘human rights’ game and turn a blind eye to the crimes of
imperialism. He worked together with former US soldier and whistle-blower
Chelsea Manning to expose war-crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the
notorious ‘Collateral Murder’ video that shows American helicopter gun-ships
mowing down innocent civilians in Baghdad under the cover of fighting
‘terrorism’.
Manning spent around seven years in prison
for exposing war-crimes. She’s now back in jail for refusing to testify to a
grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. Assange faces even worse retribution if he
falls into American hands.
Jeremy Corbyn says that Julian Assange
should not be extradited. The Labour leader said: “The extradition of Julian
Assange to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan
should be opposed by the British government.”
Corbyn is calling on the May government to
oppose the attempt to put the 47-year-old WikiLeaks founder on trial in America
for obtaining classified information from former US Army intelligence analyst
Chelsea Manning. This call must be echoed throughout the labour movement.
Free Manning! Free Assange!
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