Supporters of Julian Assange do not relax their mobilization. A thousand people formed a human chain around the British parliament in London on Saturday, to demand the release of the founder of WikiLeaks.
“Free Assange, no US extradition” (“Free Assange, no extradition to the United States”), “Journalism is not a crime” (“Journalism is not a crime”), could we read on signs held up by demonstrators. The human chain stretched, under a big blue sky, along Westminster Bridge, along the front of Parliament and in the gardens of Victoria Tower.
Refugee seven years in an embassy
Julian Assange, who has been detained since 2019 in the high-security Belmarsh prison near London, has appealed the British government’s decision to extradite him to the United States. The 51-year-old Australian is being prosecuted across the Atlantic for having published in 2010 on the WikiLeaks site more than 700,000 confidential documents relating to the activities of the American army, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He faces decades in prison if convicted of espionage under a law prohibiting the disclosure of confidential information. Julian Assange was arrested by British police in 2019, after having taken refuge for seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.