Honorary citizenships for Assange

This morning the commission for capital Rome gave a positive opinion to the proposal of the former mayor Virginia Raggi confer honorary citizenship on Julian Assange. A prestigious recognition that in the past has been awarded to the former President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, to life senator Liliana Segre and to Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino. The final decision rests with the city council which presumably will have to take it before February 20th. In fact, on that date the British High Court will decide on theappeal presented by Julian Assange’s lawyers who oppose his extradition to the United States where he is accused of espionage and a sentence of 175 years awaits him.

The honorary citizenship of Romawhich follows those already assigned Naples, Reggio Emilia, Bari and another dozen Italian cities, it is the latest attempt to make us look at this story from a different perspective.

According to the promoters, in fact, the Australian journalist Julian Assange is not a spy in the service of Russia, as the Americans say, but a martyr of freedom of the press (and in fact the journalists’ association awarded him an honorary membership). His story dates back to 2010 and some may have forgotten it but it caused quite a stir: he published on WikiLeaks, the web platform he had founded, almost half a million confidential American government documents on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan: the United States came out badly, there was evidence of authentic atrocities. Since then Assange has spent several years in asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London (where he was even spied on in the toilets, it became known later); and almost five years in a English maximum security prison, in isolation and without being able to see the light of the sun. Treated like an outcast of the universe. There are things and relationships in Julian Assange’s life that need to be clarified, this is true; but a democracy should never become as bad as the enemies he says he wants to fight. The move of Rome and other Italian cities is the pebble that could stop a deadly mechanism and make us human again.