Protesters from Code Pink interrupted the performance of a Washington Post hack who cosplays a journalist and his partner-in-crime (so to speak), Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at a farcical travesty marketed as a “media freedom” event.
Their aim, in the interest of an actual free press, was to agitate for the release of Julian Assange, a true hero of journalism who has paid for it with his freedom.
Via 1News:
Assange is currently being held in London’s Belmarsh prison and is fighting a US attempt to extradite him in order to have him tried on espionage charges.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was just about to answer a question on Evan Gershkobich, a Washington Post journalist who has been imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges.
“Excuse us,” activist and CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin said after rushing onstage, “we can’t use this day without calling for the freedom of Julian Assange. The Biden admin…”
The protest faded off as the broadcast’s sound was cut. However, the sound quickly came back on to the sound of protesters yelling.
Security promptly escorted the protesters off the stage, allowing the theater performance to resume uninterrupted.
On World Press Freedom day @codepink demonstrators invade the stage to confront Anthony Blinken over the continued persecution of Julian Assange for basic journalistic practices
"On this day it is impossible not to call for the release of Julian Assange" @medeabenjamin #WPFD pic.twitter.com/vp2n1zo9Fo
— Defend Assange Campaign (@DefendAssange) May 3, 2023
Here’s an excerpt from a Code Pink petition for AG Merrick Garland to drop his department’s ongoing political persecution of Assange:
We, the undersigned, are firmly opposed to the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, where he is facing 18 charges under the Espionage Act and could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison. We call on you to drop extradition proceedings.
Assange’s alleged crimes date back to 2010, when the organization he founded, WikiLeaks, transmitted documents to media outlets including Le Monde, The Guardian and The New York Times. The documents, which were provided to WikiLeaks by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, included 250,000 US diplomatic cables and US army reports about military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, exposed cases of torture, abduction and disappearances.
The publication of these documents by media outlets was clearly in the public interest, and not an act of espionage. Julian Assange’s contribution to journalism is undeniable.
If the legal persecution of Assange continues, investigative journalism and press freedom will be the victims, since news organizations regularly rely on and publish classified information to serve the public interest.
I would rather not discuss the elephant (no pun intended) in the room, but not pardoning Assange when he had the chance is reason #1679 Trump is a coward.
Despite pleas from Tucker Carlson and others to grant Assange a pardon in the waning days of his presidency, Trump was presumably influenced in the other direction by his scheming son-in-law, Jared Kushner, or else some other sniveling D.C. Swamp creature, who in turn got the directive to quash any pardon effort from Blackrock or NBC Universal or whoever promised him the most lucrative board position when his father-in-law got out of office.
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