Mexico City. US President Joe Biden and the US Congress have 97 members of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico askedto drop the charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and end the ongoing extradition proceedings.
“We join the call for Assange’s immediate release made by international organizations at the United Nations, Amnesty International and other human rights defenders, as well as legal, medical and medical associations,” they said.
In your Writewhich they addressed to Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on April 11, they support the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, “which sees the treatment of Assange as one of the most serious threats to the right to freedom of expression, as well as the European Parliament and parliamentarians around the world who oppose extradition and express concern about violations of Assange’s fundamental human, civil and political rights.”
The senators and lawmakers join “a growing public voice” in civil society, human rights organizations, the press and in political and legal circles “demanding that the persecution of Assange must end,” it said.
Also around 100 members of the Brazilian Parliament signed issued a statement urging the US Department of Justice to drop the charges and end attempts to extradite Assange from the UK.
Also on Tuesday, parliamentarians from the USA, Australia and Great Britain US Attorney General Merrick Garland asked in open letters to end the prosecution of the Wikileaks founder.
Assange has been charged with espionage in the United States. 17 of the 18 charges can be traced back to Wikileaks obtaining and passing on classified documents that the disclosure portal published in 2010. He is also accused of information piracy. Assange faces up to 175 years in prison. Serious war crimes committed by the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan became known through the Wikileaks publications.
The journalist fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London in June 2012 to avoid being extradited to the United States. Then-President Rafael Correa (2007–2017) granted him political asylum. Assange lived in the embassy for the next seven years and was also granted Ecuadorian citizenship. Correa’s successor, Lenín Moreno, stripped him of both on April 11, 2019. Assange was subsequently arrested at the embassy by British police and has since been held at Belmarsh Prison in London.