April 11 () –
Amnesty International considers it “unacceptable” that the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, remains imprisoned in the United Kingdom five years after being arrested, which is why it has demanded his release and the definitive rejection of potential extradition to the United States.
Assange was arrested on April 11, 2019, after leaving the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he remained a refugee for almost seven years. Since then, he has been in a maximum security prison, under an arrest warrant issued from the United States.
For the general secretary of Amnesty, Agnès Callamard, “it is unacceptable that years of (Assange's) life have been stolen.” “He continues to be arbitrarily detained in the United Kingdom on charges that are politically motivated, presented by the United States for revealing his alleged improper acts,” she said, alluding to the dissemination of documents on the Wikileaks portal.
Assange, who faces a battery of charges that could involve up to 175 years in prison in the North American country, is trying to exhaust all judicial avenues in the United Kingdom to stop the extradition. The Superior Court has yet to rule and has demanded new diplomatic guarantees from the United States.
Amnesty, however, has questioned any type of promise from Washington. “The dubious diplomatic assurances offered by the United States regarding the treatment it will receive are worth no more than the paper on which they are written, among other reasons because they are not legally binding and are riddled with legal loopholes,” Callamard noted.
In this sense, he has stressed that the ongoing judicial process against Assange “constitutes a mockery of the obligations of the United States under International Law and its declared commitment to freedom of expression”, since he understands that what should have started is “a full and transparent investigation into his alleged war crimes.”
The head of Amnesty has also warned that press freedom is also at stake, since journalists “frequently receive confidential government information from external sources” and citizens have the “right to know” the alleged crimes committed by governments. .
“US authorities are preparing the groundwork to set a disastrous precedent for media freedom around the world if Assange is extradited. The US must drop all charges against Assange, allowing for his prompt release from custody. state of the United Kingdom,” he claimed.
