Posted on 07/07/2022 8:32:26 AM PDT by Red Badger
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took the occasion of America’s Independence Day to declare that the Statue of Liberty should be torn down if WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is extradited to the United States and convicted of espionage.
Assange is currently facing extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States, where he has been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for having published classified material revealing, among other things, potential war crimes committed by the U.S. military. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.
The Australian journalist appealed his extradition to the U.K.’s High Court Friday.
According to the Mexico Daily Post, during a Monday press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, López Obrador called for “conven[ing] a meeting of the most important press in the world to exhort, request, call, so that a pardon be granted to Assange.”
“If they don’t do it,” he added, “they will be tarnished and we will have to start the campaign that if they take him to the U.S., and sentence him to the maximum sentence and die in prison, they will have to dismantle the Statue of Liberty that the French delivered and that is in New York because it is no longer a symbol of freedom.”
López Obrador isn’t alone in coming to Assange’s defense. London-based PEN International, a worldwide writers’ association, “strongly condemn[ed]” U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel’s decision to extradite Assange and called on the U.S. government to drop all charges against him. Noting that Assange is “the first publisher to be charged under the Espionage Act” in its 105-year existence, the group asserted:
Assange’s prosecution raises profound concerns about freedom of the press. Invoking the Espionage Act for practices that include receiving and publishing classified information sends a dangerous signal to journalists and publishers worldwide. The state’s desire to keep matters secret does not automatically override the public’s right to know, particularly where there is strong evidence of human rights violations or corruption.
Assange’s treatment can hardly be justified under the U.S. Constitution. As columnist Ilana Mercer observed, “First-Amendment jurisprudence is clear-cut with respect to the guerrilla journalism of WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks operators have committed no crime in publishing what is undeniably true, newsworthy information, with probative value. Besides, why has America any jurisdiction over a foreign entity (WikiLeaks) and a foreign national (Julian Assange)?”
López Obrador has gone beyond merely stumping for a pardon for Assange. At least twice, he has offered to grant Assange humanitarian asylum and Mexican citizenship — assuming Assange can get to Mexico or one of its embassies. In 2020, he wrote a letter to then-U.S. President Donald Trump asking him to pardon Assange; he claims Trump never responded. On Monday, he said he was also “going to ask President [Joe] Biden to address this matter.”
“I am aware that it goes against the severe hardliners that exist in the United States as in all countries, but humanism must also prevail,” he declared.
The Mexican president, while undeniably a man of the Left, has made other sensible statements in recent years.
In January 2021, after Trump was kicked off social media, López Obrador also invoked the Lady of the Harbor, saying, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed that since they took these decisions, the Statue of Liberty in New York is turning green with anger, because it doesn’t want to become an empty symbol.”
“What we want in Mexico is that liberties are guaranteed,” he said. “Zero censorship. Prohibition is prohibited.”
In addition, López Obrador has been a longtime opponent of foreign interventionism. Last month, he condemned NATO’s involvement in provoking and extending the war in Ukraine, saying it amounted to “I’ll supply the weapons, and you supply the dead,” a policy he deemed “immoral.”
“I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries, the exclusion, the desire to dominate … the lack of respect for the sovereignty of the countries, the independence of every country,” he explained.
Assange could do far worse than to have López Obrador in his corner. Besides, he’s getting considerably more help from Mexico’s leader than he is from his own prime minister.
He’s exactly right. Obrador was the last world leader to recognize Biden, and he waited until after the electoral college voted. Bibi raced to the the phone the morning after the election to congratulate Biden.
Maybe not the one to say it, but he does have a point.
“Assange should have outed her murdered campaign team member as the source of his alleged leaking.”
Seth Rich?
He was a Bernie Bro.
He was the last leader to acknowledge Biden in the 2020 steal. He was under massive pressure to throw Trump under the bid like Bibi and the Euros. Obrador waited until AFTER the electoral college vote.
Could be that he does.
His nation has laws that set down the lawful entry of foreign
nationals into his nation. Every nation not only has the
right to, but the obligation to.
You have to protect your republic or not only the nation is
harmed, but the public you serve as well.
Sure the Statue of Liberty talks of bring us your masses, but
that is in line with reasoned limited immigration.
As for Assange, exactly how did he flip his issue to one
of immigration? It’s a clear but case of espionage.
Does a nation have a right to classify information and
deny the public, or the world to see it?
If we don’t, then as a nation we’re done. We can’t have
people revealing any old thing they want to, just because
on the individual situation, we really wanted to know the
information.
If the law expressly forbids this information’s release,
whether I wanted it released or not doesn’t impact the
legality of it.
I’m good with that. Send that fossil back to France. Or, wherever. Enough with the “give us your leeches, etc.”
Verdad, Senor Presidente!
There’s certainly nothing free about this country not for a long time. I think it would be appropriate if we melted it down and used the copper in it to make wire for windings for electric cars. Seems to me a fitting end
Of course he ran, and he doesn't need imprisonment. He's the sole admitted witness that the DNC files provided to him were not by RUSSIAN HACKERS as claimed by the Democrats and their willing MSM, but instead, were provided to him by Seth Rich and his brother.
He's on record as saying that to Ellen Ratnor of NPR who interviewed him at the Ecuadorian embassy just days before the 2016 election........
Hillary was the one I think had Seth removed. Bad typing on my part.
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