Stella Assange came to Lisbon to ask for support for the release of her husband, Julian Assange, head of WikiLeaks. “Julián is a technologist, an innovator, who is on the side of freedom of expression.”
Stella Assange, the wife of Julian Assange, a journalist who released classified US government documents, in a case that became known as WikiLeaks, came to Portugal to ask for support for her husband’s release.
The lawyer and activist, who has been working in the defense of Julian Assange since 2011, confessed on the main stage of the Web Summit that “he doesn’t have the predisposition” enjoy public speaking. “It’s not the most comfortable thing for me to be in a setting like this, but I have to do something. The biggest risk is that my children grow up without their father.”
In the eyes of Stella Assange, who landed in Lisbon directly from the cold of Oslo, where she went to receive an award on behalf of her husband, the person in charge of WikiLeaks “is in prison and is being punished because he exposed a superpower.” Assange made public information from the United States, which she received through Chelsea Manning, who spoke after Stella Assange on stage at the Web Summit. At the time, Manning was a security analyst for the United States government. She “saw these war crimes and decided to denounce them.”
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With the accusation against Julian Assange, “a line was crossed that had never been crossed before,” considered the Australian’s wife. “It is a complete rethinking of journalism,” argued Stella Assange, who considers that the arrest of her husband is a dangerous path to accuse “a journalist who published truthful information.”
“It is a political persecution, which basically criminalizes citizens’ right to information,” he argued.
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Stella Assange also criticized the role of the press in the portrait of Julian Assange created in recent years. “The press behaved very badly, but they retracted it. If Julian had not been so vilified by the press, he probably would not have spent a day in prison.”
The lawyer and activist asked for continued support for Julian Assange. “The most important thing is that Julián is a technologist, an innovator, who is on the side of freedom of expression and who is in prison. Freeing Julian is essential in this fight. [pelo direito à informação]. “I ask you all to help Julián,” he appealed. “We need him free and able to speak.”
In a call for activism, Stella Assange asked not to take the risk of “not speaking out, not taking a position in which they believe.” “If you don’t choose a path more in line with your interior and your thoughts, it’s harder to find people you identify with,” she explained. And there are “many different ways to be an activist.”
At the end, he called on attendees to put their skills and competencies into practice “for the good of humanity.”
Source: Observadora
