Julian Assange: Public Pressure is Working But Media Must Stop Being Prostitutes and Demand Freedom

The Australian government is finally responding to growing public protests to get Julian Assange freed from his British torture dungeon.

Distinguished independent journalists Dave Lindorff and Ron Ridenour gave their takes in this interview with Finian Cunningham.

As the world marks World Press Freedom Day on May 3, the most appropriate result would be the immediate release of Julian Assange. It is a travesty to ‘celebrate’ this day while he is incarcerated.

Australian-born Assange has been arbitrarily detained in Britain for 11 years over a baseless sex case that has been thrown out years ago. But the British government acting as a henchman for the United States has held Assange in solitary confinement for over four years awaiting extradition to the United States. In the US, he faces charges of spying and computer hacking that could see him spend the rest of his life in prison.

Julian Assange is being persecuted because he exposed the US and British war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and countless other forms of corruption by Washington and its lackey Western allies. Assange is being buried under concrete walls because he exposed the truth of corruption that lies at the heart of the US government.

What’s at stake is hugely vital. Not only one good man’s freedom but the entire right of free speech and independent journalism and the right of the public to know. If Julian Assange’s persecution is permitted then we can say goodbye to basic human rights. The degradation of Western media is rapidly underway as the Assange case illustrates. But it could get a lot worse if the injustice against Assange is allowed.

Dave Lindorff explains how public pressure demanding the release of Julian Assange is pushing the Australian government to finally, belatedly, make representations on getting him out of detention. There is a worldwide movement in support of Assange.

Ron Ridenour says that the Western public needs to ramp up the protests in a way similar to the 1960s movement for US civil rights and anti-Vietnam war.

Ridenour and Lindorff condemn the Western mainstream media for selling out Assange and not helping to amplify the pressure for justice. Ridenour lampoons the corporate Western media as prostitutes for the powers that be. He challenges the New York Times, Washington Post and others to prove they are not prostitutes by taking up the cause to demand Assange’s freedom.