Ken Maas, Castlemaine
On December 7, 2010, Julian Assange was handcuffed and locked into Wandsworth prison. Julian Assange (Wikileaks) is a journalist (publisher) for whistle-blowers, no different to our daily newspapers that regularly investigate and publish illegal leaks.
This reporting and media service is the so-called fourth estate of democracy.
This everyday journalism is what occurred when five leading international newspapers (one of which was The New York Times) together with Wikileaks, collaborated and researched for many months on the Bradley Manning leaks. Then together simultaneously, they each printed the leaks in their respective publications.
Yet those five other newspaper publishers have never been pursued nor prosecuted. Since then we have had Edward Snowden (whose efforts resulted in legislative change in the US), the Panama Papers and now the Paradise Papers.
Government legislation for the protection of whistle-blowers is being implemented by many nations including Australia.
It has been years of obvious wilful intent by western governments to mistake in law and due process, to abandon and leave Julian Assange to languish and perish.
Australian governments have been complicit in this vindictive crime against an Australian citizen. The one remaining charge, insist the British Government, is for skipping bail.
Notwithstanding, the British Government refuse to give assurances that they will not extradite Assange to the US on charges that may or may not even exist.
In February 2016, the UN investigation declared that Assange must be allowed to leave immediately and given protection to do so.
The AFP have declared that Assange has broken no Australian laws.
Why has the Australian Government not offered this Australian journalist political asylum, as Ecuador has?
The hypocrisy, injustice and illegality by the governments of Australia, UK and the US is obscene. Amends must be made immediately. The precedent of US classified leaks in the public interest, was made with the Pentagon Papers in the 1960s. Bring Assange home.
