Mexican parliamentarians support Julian Assange
by Andrea Becerril, Víctor Ballinas and Fernando Camacho
The stance of [Mexico’s] President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to confront the US government and offer asylum to Julian Assange “will resonate throughout the world”, highlighted the father of WikiLeaks founder John Shipton recently in the Senate during an event in which deputies from the Morena faction promised to fight from Congress for the release of the journalist and activist.
Later, during a discussion at UNAM’s Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, John Shipton, accompanied by his son Gabriel, stressed that although Julian Assange is not guilty of any crime, he has been subjected to “cruel and malignant treatment” for more than 13 years simply for having exposed war crimes committed by Washington in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Julian’s case is “a disturbing example of how justice can be trampled on in today’s world without anything happening”.
In UNAM, Gabriel Shipton said that despite the fact that the trial of his brother was flawed, he still had a chance of the UK Supreme Court preventing his extradition to the United States after an appeal to that effect was allowed a fortnight ago.
In the Senate, he pointed out that demands had been made in most parliaments around the world to drop the charges against Assange, and he urged the Morena legislators present not to let up in their defence of press freedom. He asked them to “let their colleagues in the US Senate know how they see the unjust persecution” of his brother.
As part of the Dialogues for Freedom of Thought, Expression and the Press, Senator Citlalli Hernández Mora, Secretary General of Morena, supported “the outstretched hand” offered by the Mexican government to the founder of WikiLeaks. Together with Senator Héctor Vasconcelos, she urged that the Assange case be brought more into public focus and that they join the fight that John and Gabriel Shipton have been waging for years for the journalist’s release.
Hernández Mora insisted that Mexico has been a world reference in terms of political asylum since the 19th century and argued that Julian Assange must find refuge in this country, as José Martí, Leon Trotsky, Luis Buñuel, León Felipe, Fidel Castro, the family of Salvador Allende, the Spanish Republicans and all those who in the past decades fled Latin American dictatorships have experienced.
Activist and journalist Alina Duarte, who organised Shiptons’ visit to Mexico, concluded the Senate event by saying, “If we don’t get Julian Assange out of jail, it could be any of us tomorrow.”
Source: https://www.jornada.com.mx/notas/2022/09/14/politica/resuena-el-apoyo-de-mexico-a-julian-assange/ of 14 September 2022
(Translation Current Concerns)
“We have to stop believing that the case of Julian Assange is really about a criminal investigation for sexual offences, espionage and hacking. What WikiLeaks has done threatens political and economic elites worldwide alike. The Assange case shows that governments today are no longer concerned with legitimate confidentiality, but with suppressing the truth to protect uncontrolled power, corruption and impunity.”
Nils Melzer
(Translation Current Concerns)
Assange appointed as Mexico City’s guest of honour
gl. The head of government of the Mexican capital Claudia Sheinbaum symbolically appointed Julian Assange as guest of honour and handed over the keys of the city to his father and brother, who took part in Mexico’s independence celebrations on 15 and 16 September. The city of Mexico has always defended “the great freedoms”, he said.
The presidents of Chile, Colombia and Bolivia have also called for Assange’s release. On the same day, an open letter demanding Assange’s release was also made public to the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss, written by Manuel Zelaya, ex-President of Honduras, and signed by numerous personalities from Latin America, including Fernando Lugo, ex-President of Paraguay, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.