Press Freedom and the Freedom of Julian Assange Are Identical!
On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, May 3, Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche commented:
“The ‘narrative’ of the MSM is that there are countries, where freedom of the press thrives, such as Norway, which appears again at the top of the relevant index; and that there are countries, where it is suppressed. In reality, in the MSM, honest journalism has almost entirely disappeared. The very notion of a historical or objective ‘truth,’ which can be unearthed by investigative journalism, has been buried by a barrage of projectiles which pierce through that very concept. What has come in its place is an arbitrary variety of descriptions of that ‘truth’ which are either named as ‘fake,’ or must be ‘debunked,’ or even crushed before conception by being ‘prebunked.’
“In reality there is a brutal fight for control of the ‘narrative’ of the ‘rules-based order,’ where journalism has been degraded to serve as the executioner on behalf of the ruling elites. If this were an exaggeration, Seymour Hersh would have received a newly created Nobel Prize for Excellence in Journalism in Norway, and all the Norwegian media would have excelled in reporting about the role of Norway in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.
“The heads of state who assemble this weekend for the coronation of King Charles can prove their commitment to freedom and democracy by congratulating the newly crowned King for making his first act the freedom of Julian Assange!”
Many rallies were held throughout the world on May 3 to demand freedom for Julian Assange, the courageous founder and publisher of Wikileaks, who has been incarcerated in a maximum security prison in London for four years, awaiting extradition to the U.S., where he will most certainly be condemned to die in prison, for having denounced war crimes committed by the United States and Britain. Assange himself issued a letter to King Charles on May 5, formulated in the best ironic tradition of a Jonathan Swift:
“On the coronation of my liege, I thought it only fitting to extend a heartfelt invitation to you to commemorate this momentous occasion by visiting your very own kingdom within a kingdom: His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.”
“You will no doubt recall the wise words of a renowned playwright: ‘The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath’ [from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice]…. After all, one can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners, and your kingdom has surely excelled in that regard.”
In “Your Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh” in London, located “just a short foxhunt from the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich”, he wrote, “687 of your loyal subjects are held, supporting the United Kingdom’s record as the nation with the largest prison population in Western Europe”, and one which “is currently undergoing ‘the biggest expansion of prison places in over a century’”. He concludes fittingly: “I implore you, King Charles, to visit His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, for it is an honour befitting a king… And may mercy be the guiding light of your kingdom, both within and without the walls of Belmarsh.”
Brazil’s President Lula da Silva is one of the few world leaders who has outspokenly denounced the “shameful” imprisonment of Julian Assange and the silence of the so-called “free press” to the injustice. He repeated his call for him to be freed at a press conference in London on May 6, following the new king’s coronation ceremony, which he attended.
