Watchman: Journalists in the United States Are Supposed To Be Protected, but Julian Assange Will Be Punished for Daring To Challenge the Powerful. John Joseph Mearsheimer recently emphasized the importance of freeing Julian Assange by stating, “Journalists are not imprisoned for releasing classified information in the United States.” Mr. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, made this statement in a recent video. There has been extensive coverage on Mr. Assange, with his legal team making a last-minute effort on Feb. 20 to prevent his extradition to the United States. Since 2019, the WikiLeaks founder has been detained in Belmarsh Prison in Britain and is facing 17 charges of espionage along with a single charge of computer misuse. One of the documents published by WikiLeaks, titled “Collateral Murder,” revealed video footage of a U.S. military airstrike in Baghdad…

Read More

We Have a Right to Know: The Lies of Our Governments and the Crimes

They Commit in Our Name… Journalist John Pilger has spent the last three weeks watching Julian Assange’s extradition trial at London’s Old Bailey. He spoke with Arena Online’s editor, Timothy Erik Ström: Q:  Having watched Julian Assange’s trial firsthand, can you describe the prevailing atmosphere in the court? The prevailing atmosphere has been shocking. I say that without hesitation; I have sat in many courts and seldom known such a corruption of due process; this is due revenge. Putting aside the ritual associated with ‘British justice’, at times it has been evocative of a Stalinist show trial. One difference is that in the show trials, the defendant stood in the court proper. In the Assange trial, the defendant was caged behind thick glass, and had to crawl on his knees to a slit in the glass, overseen by his guard, to make contact with…

Read More