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Prominent whistleblowers and journalists defend Julian Assange at online vigil

Accepted submission by Anonymous Coward at 2018-07-12 11:01:55
Business

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/12/vigi-j12.html [wsws.org]

Over the weekend, dozens of public figures, including prominent whistleblowers and journalists, took part in a 36-hour international online vigil in defence of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange.

[...] Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 exposed the extent of US criminality in Vietnam, drew a parallel between his own activities and those of WikiLeaks. Referring to WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of US war logs in Iraq and Afghanistan, he stated: “I really waited almost 40 years, after the Pentagon Papers had come out, for someone to do what I had done.”

Ellsberg pointed to similarities between the attacks that had been levelled against him, and the persecution of Assange. “I was charged with 12 felony counts, a possible 150 years in prison. Nixon had in mind for me what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had in mind for Julian Assange,” he said.


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