Breaking The Media Blackout on the Imprisonment of Julian Assange
The same media that has spent years dragging Assange's 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're going to be
disappointed.
by Mnar Muhawesh
August 26th, 2019
By Mnar Muhawesh Mnar Muhawesh
The role of journalism in a democracy is publishing information that holds
the powerful to account - 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 "we the people."
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 to the world evidence of widespread war crimes the U.S.
military was committing in Iraq, including the killing of two Reuters
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.
It's 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 -
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.
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 "factually implausible," with the judge noting that
at no point does the prosecution's "threadbare" argument show "any facts" at
all, and concluding that the idea that Assange conspired with Russia against
the Democratic Party or America is "entirely divorced from the facts."
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.
Today, Assange sits behind bars in a London prison under shocking conditions
even a murderer wouldn't expect. Renowned filmmaker and journalist John
Pilger visited him there and fears for Assange's life, noting he is held in
isolation, heavily medicated and denied the basic tools needed to fight his
charge of extradition to the United States.
The United Nations has consistently condemned the actions of the U.S., U.K.
and Swedish governments, and called for Assange's immediate release. Their
special rapporteur on torture and ill-treatment visited him in May,
declaring:
"
[Assange has been] deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to
progressively [more] severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as
psychological torture.The collective persecution of Julian Assange must end
here and now!"
On May 23, Assange was charged under the U.S. Espionage Act for the
possession and dissemination of classified information given to him by army
intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, marking the first time the Espionage
Act has been used against a journalist for publishing classified
information. He now faces a sentence of 175 years in jail if found guilty.
But you may not have known any of this because it seems clear the very media
that spent years dragging Assange's name through the mud are deliberately
engaging in a media blackout on his treatment. So if you were waiting for
the corporate media or their lapdog pundits to defend freedom of the press
and freedom of speech, you'd be disappointed.
It is important to ask ourselves what Julian Assange's real crime is. In an
era, dubbed the Information Age, where the strategy of the powerful appears
to be to know as much as possible about the rest of us while ensuring that
we know as little as possible about them and how they operate, Assange
worked to prevent that imbalance from becoming a rout, and stuck like a bone
in the throat of the mighty.
A double chorus of voices across the mainstream media spectrum cheered the
destruction of the First Amendment. The New York Times applauded Trump,
claiming he'd "done well" to charge Assange with an "indisputable crime."
CNN demanded that Assange finally "face justice," while others claimed the
day in court of the "narcissistic" "internet troll" who attacked America
with his "vile spite" was "long overdue."
All around the world, Assange's treatment seems to have given the green
light to governments to intimidate and hassle journalists. Australian
police, for instance, recently conducted a raid on journalist Annika
Smethurst's home. Smethurst had not long before that revealed that the
government had been secretly requesting permission to spy on its own
citizens. Meanwhile, independent media everywhere are being marginalized by
the crackdown on internet freedom.
In a clear sign to the world, Assange held up Gore Vidal's book The History
of the National Security State to the cameras while being dragged from the
Ecuadorian Embassy. The book warns of an increasingly powerful and
unaccountable authoritarian government taking over the country. Part of that
is silencing dissent and limiting or destroying the freedoms centuries of
struggle have won us.
If Assange is successfully prosecuted it will send a message to the world
that the era of freedom to speak and publish is well and truly over. He will
not be the last to be persecuted. The more a power oppresses and takes away
rights, the more it needs to oppress and take away rights, until the last
vestiges of opposition are destroyed or driven far underground. We cannot
expect corporate media to stand up to the corporate state. We have to do it
ourselves, or any citizen of the world can be next. Will you heed this
warning?
Feature photo | Police watch Assange supporters protesting outside
Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Friday, June 14, 2019. Frank
Augstein | AP
Mnar Muhawesh is founder, CEO and editor in chief of MintPress News, and is
also a regular speaker on responsible journalism, sexism, neoconservativism
within the media and journalism start-ups
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