If we care about freedom.

"I cannot leave to my children a world where telling the truth has become a crime, for it will be a tyranny"-Nils Melzer, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

While millions around the world will be familiar with the upcoming mega event Super Bowl Sunday, few are aware that just a few days later on Feb 20th, the last appeal of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as he attempts to avoid extradition to the USA, will begin.   

One of these events will have very little impact on our lives.  The successful prosecution of Assange on the other hand, may have serious ramifications for democracy and free speech.   Indeed the threat it poses has been recognized by leading human rights organisations and experts along with media giants across the world, all of whom have called for the charges to be dropped.  According to the American Civil Liberties Union the pursuit of Assange “poses a grave threat to press freedom”, while Amnesty International has described it as “nothing short of a full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression”.

For those who cherish and champion the virtues of democracy and free speech this should ring alarm bells and elicit a thunderous condemnation of the United States as it relentlessly pursues its witch hunt.  Western democracies, the self declared arbitrers of truth who unashamedly bleat about law and order, freedom and rights etc, have, in their silence, aided and abetted in the political persecution and torture of an award winning journalist. Unsurprisingly, the trial of Mr. Assange retains a low profile in public consciousness, concealed by a barrage of media distractions and political deceptions.   

For daring to expose the crimes, corruption and hypocritical machinations of Western powers, Mr. Assange now finds himself perilously close to a lifetime in prison in the United States.  No doubt should Mr. Assange be at the receiving end of Iran/China/Russia’s wrath for exposing their crimes, he would be hailed a hero.  The glare of pro-capitalist propaganda has brilliantly concealed the thin veil of corporate and state collusion, and contributed in large part to a public mostly unaware of and often indifferent to our double standards and criminality.    Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer starkly forewarns us of the precedence a conviction of Assange would have; “once telling the truth has become a crime, while the powerful enjoy impunity, it will be too late to correct the course. We will have surrendered our voice to censorship and our fate to unrestrained tyranny.”

Living in our privileged silos while refusing to engage in these vital issues is no different to the countless historical precedents that predicated many of the darkest chapters in human history. Our freedom imposes on us a responsibility to defend for future generations, that which past generations fought for and bestowed upon us.

Vagner Castilho