CodePink: US 'Tone Deaf' to Global Calls for Assange's Release as Prosecution Mocks Free Press

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States is turning a blind eye to all the global calls to free WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, while Washington's efforts to prosecute him only make a mockery of the US call for press freedom, co-founder of women-led peace group CODEPINK Medea Benjamin told Sputnik.

Earlier in the day, activists led by co-founder of ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s Ben Cohen and co-founder of CODEPINK Jodie Evans on Thursday burned a large scale replica of the Bill of Rights in front of the US Justice Department to protest the prosecution of Assange.

"They're tone deaf to the global opinion that is saying that Julian Assange should be free, and that this effort on the part of the United States makes a mockery of their international call for press freedom," Benjamin said.

"The Bill of Rights is supposed to have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and we see that with the imprisonment of Julian Assange, it just throws that out the window - it shows that we don't care about freedom of the press."

The activist also said Assange, in addition to being a journalist and publisher, is a hero for exposing so much of the wrongdoing of the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"He did his job as a journalist," she said.

"So, it's quite ironic that the US talks about freedom of the press and freedom for journalists, and yet keeps this very, very important journalist Julian Assange behind bars for years and threatens him with 175 years in prison."

Activists in the US regularly hold protests in support of Assange, including near the Justice Department. Benjamin shared that a lot of progress has been achieved thanks to such actions.

"There are more and more heads of state that have come out and called for his release - the government of Australia, because he's from Australia, has come out," she said.

"The newspapers that published the WikiLeaks documents have come out more - and more journalists associations. There's a huge community of people and very important people who have come out, calling for his release and yet it rests on the president and the Department of Justice to actually listen to those voices."

Asked whether she believed their efforts will produce any results, Benjamin said, "we never know but it's better than not doing anything."

"We feel very strongly about Julian. We visited him in the Ecuadorian Embassy. We've been outside the Belmarsh prison. We've been with supporters in the UK," she said.

"And we feel it's very important to keep doing that. Here we've done lots and lots of protests outside the Department of Justice. You never know if your actions are going to have an impact. But you know that if you don't do anything, they're not going to have an impact."

Since April 2019, Assange has been held in London's high-security Belmarsh prison while he faces prosecution in the US under the Espionage Act. If convicted, the WikiLeaks founder could face 175 years in prison. In December 2022, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to fight his extradition.

WikiLeaks was founded by Assange on October 4, 2006, but rose to prominence in 2010 when it began publishing large-scale leaks of classified government information, including from the US.