Julian Assange corre perigo
José Manuel Catarino
Soares
Fico contente por ter a oportunidade e o privilégio de dar eco, reproduzindo-o neste blogue, a um texto de cariz orwelliano do jornalista John Pilger,
uma lenda viva do jornalismo contemporâneo. O texto de Pilger (O prisioneiro diz não
ao Irmão Mais Velho, na minha tradução) foi escrito há pouco mais de um
mês em defesa de Julian Assange, seu compatriota, colega de profissão e
fundador-editor da Wikileaks.
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O governo dos EUA quer castigar Julian Assange por este jornalista ter divulgado muitos crimes praticados por políticos corruptos, pelas forças militares e pelos serviços secretos desse país. Pretende extraditá-lo do Reino Unido, para o poder encarcerar e amordaçar até ao fim dos seus dias numa prisão americana de alta segurança, ou, se possível for, condená-lo à morte.
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O texto de Pilger não só conserva toda a sua actualidade, como ganhou também uma nova acuidade com o recente e brutal ataque combinado de três governos (o governo do Equador, o governo dos EUA e o governo do Reino Unido) contra a liberdade e a segurança de Julian Assange, e, através dele, contra a liberdade de expressão e a liberdade de imprensa de todos nós, cidadãos — um ataque que beneficiou do silêncio cúmplice do governo do seu país natal: o governo australiano.
Julian Assange foi expulso
da Embaixada do Equador em Londres no passado dia 11 de Abril de 2019, onde
tinha vivido nos últimos 7 anos como refugiado político, e arrastado à força para
uma carrinha por agentes da polícia à paisana (de que polícia[s] não sabemos)
do Reino Unido. Está actualmente preso nos calabouços da Polícia Metropolitana
de Londres, onde enfrenta um pedido de extradição feito pelos EUA, que o acusam falsamente
de crimes que podem valer-lhe a prisão perpétua ou até, no pior dos casos, a pena de morte.
Os seus direitos de refugiado político foram brutalmente espezinhados pelos governos do Equador e do Reino Unido. A recuperação da sua liberdade, a sua segurança e a sua própria vida estão em grande perigo, se não criarmos uma poderosa corrente internacional de solidariedade para o proteger. Voltarei a este assunto, nas páginas deste blogue, tão breve quanto possível, para o demonstrar.
Os seus direitos de refugiado político foram brutalmente espezinhados pelos governos do Equador e do Reino Unido. A recuperação da sua liberdade, a sua segurança e a sua própria vida estão em grande perigo, se não criarmos uma poderosa corrente internacional de solidariedade para o proteger. Voltarei a este assunto, nas páginas deste blogue, tão breve quanto possível, para o demonstrar.
De imediato, convém que
todos saibam quem é, de facto, Julian Assange, para que cada um(a) saiba combater
a maciça campanha de difamação que já começou a ser feita contra ele, para o
desacreditar e isolar aos olhos da opinião pública. O texto de John Pilger (embora só acessível a quem conheça o idioma inglês) é um
bom começo para conseguirmos criar esse contra-movimento libertador. Outro passo, mais simples e imediato, é subscrever a petição que se encontra aqui (pressione neste link Não extraditem o Julian Assange !).
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THE PRISONER SAYS
NO TO BIG BROTHER
John Pilger
4 March 2019
Imagem © George
Burchett 2019
John Pilger, que é australiano, invoca George Orwell ao apelar os seus compatriotas a mobilizarem-se pela liberdade «de um distinto Australiano, o fundador e editor da WikiLeaks, Julian Assange», e por «um jornalismo genuíno de uma espécie que agora é considerada exótica». O Irmão Mais Velho [Big Brother] é a misteriosa personagem do romance 1984 de George Orwell que encarna o poder de Estado na sua máxima potência e a quem todos devem total e acéfala obediência.
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Whenever I visit Julian Assange [na embaixada do Equador em Londres], we meet in a room he
knows too well. There is a bare table and pictures of Ecuador on the walls.
There is a bookcase where the books never change. The curtains are always drawn
and there is no natural light. The air is still and fetid.
This is Room 101.
Before I enter Room 101, I must surrender my passport
and phone. My pockets and possessions are examined. The food I bring is
inspected.
The man who guards Room 101 sits in what looks like an
old-fashioned telephone box. He watches a screen, watching Julian. There are
others unseen, agents of the state, watching and listening.
Cameras are everywhere in Room 101. To avoid them,
Julian manoeuvres us both into a corner, side by side, flat up against the
wall. This is how we catch up: whispering and writing to each other on a notepad,
which he shields from the cameras. Sometimes we laugh.
I have my designated time slot. When that expires, the
door in Room 101 bursts open and the guard says, «Time is up!» On New Year’s Eve, I was
allowed an extra 30 minutes and the man in the phone box wished me a happy new
year, but not Julian.
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| John Pilger em 2017 |
Of course, Room 101 is the room in George Orwell’s
prophetic novel, 1984, where the
thought police watched and tormented their prisoners, and worse, until people
surrendered their humanity and principles and obeyed Big Brother.
Julian Assange will never obey Big Brother. His resilience and courage are astonishing, even
though his physical health struggles to keep up.
Julian is a distinguished Australian, who has changed
the way many people think about duplicitous governments. For this, he is a
political refugee subjected to what the United Nations calls «arbitrary detention».
The UN says he has the right of free passage to
freedom, but this is denied. He has the right to medical treatment without fear
of arrest, but this is denied. He has the right to compensation, but this is
denied.
As founder and editor of WikiLeaks, his crime has been to make sense of dark times. WikiLeaks has an impeccable record of
accuracy and authenticity which no newspaper, no TV channel, no radio station,
no BBC, no New York Times, no Washington
Post, no Guardian can equal.
Indeed, it shames them.
That explains why he is being punished.
For example:
Last week, the International Court of Justice ruled
that the British Government had no legal powers over the Chagos Islanders, who
in the 1960s and 70s, were expelled in secret from their homeland on Diego
Garcia in the Indian Ocean and sent into exile and poverty. Countless children
died, many of them, from sadness. It was an epic crime few knew about.
For almost 50 years, the British have denied the
islanders’ the right to return to their homeland, which they had given to the
Americans for a major military base.
In 2009, the British Foreign Office concocted a «marine reserve» around the Chagos archipelago.
This touching concern for the environment was exposed
as a fraud when WikiLeaks published a
secret cable from the British Government reassuring the Americans that «the former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not
impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire
Chagos Archipelago were a marine reserve.»
The truth of the conspiracy clearly influenced the
momentous decision of the International Court of Justice.
WikiLeaks has also revealed how the United States spies on its
allies; how the CIA can watch you through your iPhone; how Presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton took vast sums of money from Wall Street for secret
speeches that reassured the bankers that if she was elected, she would be their
friend.
In 2016, WikiLeaks
revealed a direct connection between [Hillary] Clinton and organised jihadism in the Middle East:
terrorists, in other words. One email disclosed that when [Hillary] Clinton was US Secretary of State, she knew that Saudi
Arabia and Qatar were funding Islamic State, yet she accepted huge donations
for her foundation from both governments.
She then approved the world’s biggest ever arms sale to
her Saudi benefactors: arms that are currently being used against the stricken
people of Yemen.
That explains why he is being punished.
WikiLeaks has also published more than 800,000 secret files
from Russia, including the Kremlin, telling us more about the machinations of
power in that country than the specious hysterics of the Russiagate pantomime
in Washington.
This is real journalism journalism of a kind now
considered exotic: the antithesis of Vichy journalism, which speaks for the
enemy of the people and takes its sobriquet from the Vichy government that occupied France on behalf of the Nazis.
Vichy journalism is censorship by omission, such as
the untold scandal of the collusion between Australian governments and the
United States to deny Julian Assange his rights as an Australian citizen and to
silence him.
In 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard went as far as
ordering the Australian Federal Police to investigate and hopefully prosecute
Assange and WikiLeaks — until she was
informed by the AFP that no crime had been committed.
Last weekend, the Sydney Morning Herald published a
lavish supplement promoting a celebration of “Me Too” at the Sydney Opera House on 10 March. Among the
leading participants is the recently retired Minister of Foreign Affairs, Julie
Bishop.
Bishop has been on show in the local media lately,
lauded as a loss to politics: an “icon”, someone called her, to be admired.
The elevation to celebrity feminism of one so
politically primitive as Bishop tells us how much so-called identity politics
have subverted an essential, objective truth: that what matters, above all, is
not your gender but the class you serve.
Before she entered politics, Julie Bishop was a lawyer
who served the notorious asbestos miner James Hardie which fought claims by men
and their families dying horribly with asbestosis.
Lawyer Peter Gordon recalls Bishop «rhetorically asking the court why workers should be
entitled to jump court queues just because they were dying.»
Bishop says she «acted on instructions... professionally and ethically.»
Perhaps she was merely “acting on instructions” when she flew
to London and Washington last year with her ministerial chief of staff, who had
indicated that the Australian Foreign Minister would raise Julian's case and
hopefully begin the diplomatic process of bringing him home.
Julian’s father had written a moving letter to the
then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, asking the government to intervene
diplomatically to free his son. He told Turnbull that he was worried Julian
might not leave the embassy alive.
Julie Bishop had every opportunity in the UK and the
US to present a diplomatic solution that would bring Julian home. But this
required the courage of one proud to represent a sovereign, independent state,
not a vassal.
Instead, she made no attempt to contradict the British
Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, when he said outrageously that Julian «faced serious charges». What charges? There were no charges.
Australia’s Foreign Minister abandoned her duty to
speak up for an Australian citizen, prosecuted with nothing, charged with
nothing, guilty of nothing.
Will those feminists who fawn over this false icon at
the Opera House next Sunday be reminded of her role in colluding with foreign
forces to punish an Australian journalist, one whose work has revealed that
rapacious militarism has smashed the lives of millions of ordinary women in
many countries: in Iraq alone, the US-led invasion of that country, in which
Australia participated, left 700,000 widows.
So what can be done? An Australian government that was
prepared to act in response to a public campaign to rescue the refugee football
player, Hakeem al-Araibi, from torture and persecution in Bahrain, is capable
of bringing Julian Assange home.
Yet the refusal by the Department of Foreign Affairs
in Canberra to honour the United Nations' declaration that Julian is the victim
of «arbitrary detention» and has a fundamental right to his freedom is a
shameful breach of the spirit of international law.
Why has the Australian government made no serious attempt
to free Assange? Why did Julie Bishop bow to the wishes of two foreign powers?
Why is this democracy traduced by its servile relationships, and integrated
with lawless foreign power?
The persecution of Julian Assange is the conquest of
us all: of our independence, our self respect, our intellect, our compassion,
our politics, our culture.
So stop scrolling. Organise. Occupy. Insist. Persist.
Make a noise. Take direct action. Be brave and stay brave. Defy the thought
police.
War is not peace, freedom is not slavery, ignorance is
not strength. If Julian can stand up to Big
Brother, so can you: so can all of us.
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John Pilger fez este discurso num encontro
ao ar livre em prol de Julian Assange, realizado em Sydney, na Austrália, e organizado pelo
Socialist Equality Party. John Pilger pode ser lido no twitter @johnpilger e no
seu blogue http://johnpilger.com.
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Foto de Peter Rae/EPA. Uma das muitas
manifestações de protesto contra a prisão de Julian Assange que se realizaram
em várias cidades do mundo.
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P.S. (17-04-2019)
Julian Assange está actualmente nos calabouços de
uma prisão de Londres de sua Majestade Britânica.
Por favor, escreva-lhe uma carta com uma CURTA mensagem
pessoal, dando-lhe ânimo para que possa resistir às provações que enfrenta e
informe-o, se for caso disso, do que você fez em prol da sua não-extradição e
libertação.
Não se esqueça de pôr o seu nome e morada no
remetente. O destinatário é o seguinte:
Mr. Julian Assange
DOB: 3/07/1971 HMP Belmarsh
Western Way
London SE28 0EB
UK
Vamos submergir a prisão de
Belmarsh com cartas de apoio a Julian Assange!
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