Europe

Appeal to Archbishop of Canterbury for Liberation of Julian Assange

01/12/2019

Α letter signed by 60 intellectuals from 15 countries was delivered to Lambeth Palace calling on His Grace, Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, to use his moral influence to end the unjustified imprisonment of Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison.

Signatories include, among others, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, film-maker Oliver Stone, human rights defender Francis Boyle, former chair of the Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Dick Marty, the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, the popular German Bundestag member Sahra Wagenknecht, the ex-editor of Le Monde Diplomatique Alain Gresh, William R. Polk, descendent of the 11^th President of the United States and former President of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs, Manolis Glezos, named by Charles de Gaulle “the first Resistant in Europe”.

Here follows the text of the letter

To the Most Reverend Justin Welby,
Archbishop of Canterbury

We the undersigned respectfully call on the moral authorities of the United Kingdom to use their influence to obtain immediately release of Julian Assange, citizen of Australia, from Belmarsh prison where he is being unjustly and cruelly incarcerated.

Julian Assange is not charged with any crime or even misdemeanor in Britain, and has fully served his sentence for his single offense: jumping bail to avoid extradition to the United States via Sweden. He was not and is not charged for any crime in Sweden. The sole charges against him originate in the United States, on purely political grounds, aimed at punishing Julian Assange for publication of accurate information provided by informed sources. This is a regular practice of all mainstream media, which now shamefully fail to speak out in defense of Mr. Assange, even when they published exactly the same information that he did.

It is quite clear that in their current treatment of Julian Assange, the United Kingdom is debasing itself as a mere instrument of political repression exercised by the United States.

Your Grace,

The current imprisonment of Julian Assange is a blot on the nation’s judicial system, a disgrace to British decency. This scandal may be largely hidden today but will surely emerge in history unless measures are taken immediately by the highest representatives of the British people to correct this major injustice.

We ask you to respectfully transmit this message to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

We appeal to your sense of justice and of national honor to uphold the best traditions of British democracy and respect for human rights by calling for the immediate freeing of Julian Assange.

With great concern,

Tariq Ali, author, editor, filmmaker, UK.
Mary Beaudoin, Women Against Military Madness, Minnesota, USA.
Francis Boyle , law professor, Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1988-92)
Paolo Borgognone, scholar, author, Italy.
Jean Bricmont, mathematical physicist, author, Belgium.
Peter Brock, mainstream reporter, media critic, journalist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, USA.
Scott Burchill, senior lecturer in International Relations, Deakin University, Australia.
Al Burke, editor, Nordic News Network, Sweden.
Franco Cavalli, former President of the International Union Against Cancer, Geneva.
Noam Chomsky, linguist, author, activist, USA.
Michel Chossudovsky, economist, director Global Research, Canada.
Neil Clark, journalist, broadcaster and author, UK.
Andrew Cockburn, author, Harper’s Magazine editor, Washington DC, USA.
Michel Collon, publisher, director of Investig’Action, Bruxelles.
Francis Combes, poet, publisher, Paris, France.
Sevim Dagdelen, journalist, Member of the German Bundestag.
Manlio Dinucci, journalist, author, Rome, Italy.
Bruno Drweski, historian, France.
Björn Eklund, publisher, Sweden.
Daniel Ellsberg, former military analyst, public discloser of Pentagon Papers, author, USA.
Norman G. Finkelstein, political scientist, author, USA.
Julie Franck, Laboratoire de Psycholinguistique, University of Geneva, Switzerland.
Julio Cesar Gambina, economist, President of the Fundación de Investigaciones Sociales y Políticas, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Manolis Glezos, leading WWII resister, former Member of European Parliament, age 97, Greece.
Alain Gresh, journalist, author, former editor of Le Monde diplomatique, Paris, France.
Katharine Harwood Gün, celebrated British truth revealer (whistleblower).
Chris Hedges, journalist, author, USA.
Diana Johnstone, journalist, author, Paris, France.
John C. Kiriakou, former CIA Officer, whistleblower, USA.
Dimitrios Konstantakopoulos, journalist, writer, expert on East-West relations and arms control, director of DefendDemocracy.press, Greece.
Tamara Kunanayakam, former Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Cuba, to the United Nations Office in Geneva and to the Holy See.
Annie Lacroix-Riz, historian, France.
John Laughland, historian, author, UK.
Joe Lauria, veteran foreign correspondent, Editor-in-Chief of Consortium News, USA.
Annie Machon, former MI5 intelligence agent, truth revealer (whistleblower).
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Northern Ireland.
Cynthia McKinney, Former Congresswoman, activist, author, USA.
Dick Marty, jurist, former Senator and former Chair of the Committee on Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Switzerland.
Albrecht Müller, economist, author, director of NachDenkSeiten website, Germany.
Moritz Müller, journalist, Germany.
Jan Oberg, peace researcher, founder director of The Transnational Foundation (TFF), Sweden.
Jean-Pierre Page, former head of the international department of the French General Confederation of Labor (CGT), France.
Dragan Pavlovic, professor of anesthesiology and intensive care medicine, Serbia.
John Pilger, journalist, author, filmmaker, Australia.
William R. Polk, Professor of History emeritus University of Chicago, former President Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs, USA.
Jesselyn Radack, human rights attorney, USA.
Raúl Roa Kourí, playwright, former Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations and to the Vatican, Cuba.
Paul Craig Roberts, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, USA.
Coleen Rowley, retired FBI agent/division legal counsel; 9-11 whistleblower, USA.
Rick Rozoff, editor, Stop NATO, USA.
Robert Scheer, journalist, commentator, California.
Eugene Schulman, stockbroker, bibliophile, Geneva, Swizerland.
Norman Solomon, director, Roots Action, USA.
George Szamuely, journalist, New York.
Matthew Stevenson, travel writer, Switzerland.
Oliver Stone, filmmaker, USA.
Mikis Theodorakis, composer, Greece.
Jeannie Toschi Marazzani Visconti, journalist, author, Milan, Italy.
Antonio Tujan, IBON Foundation founder, Manilla, Philippines; Chair international Reality of Aid Network.
Sahra Wagenknecht, economist, Member of German Bundestag.
John Walsh, physiologist, essayist, California.
Daniel Warner, independent scholar, Switzerland.