The silence around Julian

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The articles of Cassandra Crossing I'm under license CC BY-SA 4.0 | Cassandra Crossing is a column created by Marco Calamari with the “nom de plume” of Cassandra, born in 2005.

We decided to publish this article by Cassandra from 2012 due to the recent (not good) news about Assange, namely the inability to appeal to the English Supreme Court and the probable imminent extradition to the United States ^{1 2}.

This article was written on August 10, 2012 from Cassandra

Cassandra Crossing 254/ The silence around Julian

What's happening at Ecuador's London embassy? What plots are being woven behind Assange's back? This is why we should also talk about freedom in August.

In London there are the Olympics, and in Quito, even if at 3000 meters it won't be as hot as in Italy, perhaps August and local problems will be the main topics. In Italy then the spread, coalitions and other political subtleties reign supreme. Yes, it is true that someone on PI (and where, if not?) noticed that perhaps we have privacy problems even in stories with happy endings, that the Privacy Guarantor, in the meantime, does not release politically correct messages (at least in the format), and that a group of engineers from overseas managed to build a automatic vehicle which managed air braking, localization of the landing site and lowered a toy onto Mars that will entertain swarms of scientists for the next four years. Of course, it is powered by plutonium batteries, and perhaps this will make it less attractive to our purists, but it remains good news for everyone. Apart from these, the August news is full of the usual nonsense, and nowhere in the Italian press does anything leak out about an affair, which has been on the front page for weeks, which is now moving towards an epilogue away from the spotlight. The silence tightens around Julian Assange, and it is a noose that all those who do not speak or who do not demand news contribute to tightening. Let Cassandra summarize just a few of the previous episodes for you.

A distinguished gentleman who has made it his mission to make burning secrets public (a mission which is also to your advantage), is locked up in the London embassy of Ecuador. He is there because he is being chased by an international arrest warrant based on the breaking of a condom, issued by a European country linked by extradition treaties with a global superpower.

On the other side of the ocean, the aforementioned global superpower continues to make an otherwise inexplicable rant about a case defined as "espionage", administered by a military justice system not usually accustomed to letting the grass grow under its feet (that of Bradley Manning ), so that once Julian is extradited to the aforementioned European country, he can pull fresh accusations out of the freezer to have him extradited further beyond the Atlantic. The use of a military base in Latin America, a death row or perhaps of both would then allow for easier management of a case which, having caught many diplomats with their pants down, they would like to nip and make "exemplary" at the end.

And while the President of Ecuador is carefully considering a historic stance that could also get him into trouble, in a move that could be 100% Italian, Julian's mother she flew to him to recommend his son's skin to him.

“But – you will say – Cassandra, you get so excited, but what do we have to do with all this?” “Sin of omission – is the answer, implacable in its simplicity – a short memory for which you will have to answer first of all to yourselves”. Even those of us who are fortunate enough (often undeserved) to live in fully or partially democratic countries have forgotten the benefits of the transparency evidence that Julian's initiatives have created. Although far from original or perfect, they represented the sign of a turning point that could be historic and force all present and future Kings to consider in their actions the possibility of hearing without warning a "The king is naked!" that concerns them personally. Do you really think that all this is worthless? Do you really think that knowing the truth, or even just facts that someone wanted to keep you in the dark about, doesn't make you freer? Do you really think that claiming to know what happens to Julian even in August, and continuing to ask for his freedom is of little importance, for him but first of all for you?

Marco Calamari

1. Assange cannot appeal against the approval of extradition to the United States[↩]
2. United Kingdom: Supreme Court denies Assange right of appeal. A hard blow to justice[↩]

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