{"id":141926,"date":"2019-09-02T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=141926"},"modified":"2019-09-09T09:30:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T08:30:31","slug":"breaking-the-media-blackout-on-the-imprisonment-of-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/09\/breaking-the-media-blackout-on-the-imprisonment-of-julian-assange\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the Media Blackout on the Imprisonment of Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"

The same media that has spent years dragging Assange\u2019s name through the mud is now engaging in a blackout on his treatment. If you are waiting for corporate media pundits to defend freedom of the press, you\u2019re going to be disappointed.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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26 Aug 2019 – <\/em>The role of journalism in a democracy is publishing information that holds the powerful to account \u2014 the kind of information that empowers the public to become more engaged citizens in their communities so that we can vote in representatives that work in the interest of \u201cwe the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is perhaps no better example of watchdog journalism that holds the powerful to account and exposes their corruption than that of WikiLeaks, which exposed<\/a> to the world evidence of widespread war crimes the U.S. military was committing in Iraq, including the killing of two Reuters <\/em>journalists; showed that the U.S. government and large corporations were using private intelligence agencies to spy on activists and protesters; and revealed how the military hid tortured Guantanamo Bay prisoners from Red Cross inspectors.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this kind of real journalism that our First Amendment was meant to protect but engaging in it has instead made WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange the target of a massive smear campaign for the last several years \u2014 including false claims that Assange is working with Vladimir Putin and the Russians and hackers, as well as open calls by corporate media pundits for him to be assassinated.<\/p>\n

The allegations that Assange conspired with Putin to undermine the 2016 election and American democracy as a whole fell completely flat earlier this month when a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed this case as \u201cfactually implausible,\u201d with the judge noting that at no point does the prosecution\u2019s \u201cthreadbare\u201d argument show \u201cany facts\u201d at all, and concluding that the idea that Assange conspired with Russia against the Democratic Party or America is \u201centirely divorced from the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the brazen character-assassination was priming the public to become apathetic towards Assange in preparation for his brutal fate, which would land him in the hands of U.S. and British authorities after spending years isolated inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.<\/p>\n

Today, Assange sits behind bars in a London prison under shocking conditions even a murderer wouldn\u2019t expect. Renowned filmmaker and journalist John Pilger visited him there and fears for Assange\u2019s life, noting<\/a> he is held in isolation, heavily medicated and denied the basic tools needed to fight his charge of extradition to the United States.<\/p>\n

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Do not forget Julian #Assange<\/a>. Or you will lose him.
I saw him in Belmarsh prison and his health has deteriorated. Treated worse than a murderer, he is isolated, medicated and denied the tools to fight the bogus charges of a US extradition. I now fear for him. Do not forget him.<\/p>\n

— John Pilger (@johnpilger) August 7, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n