Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has promised to address the public in an online video statement on the website’s birthday on Tuesday, after canceling a balcony speech at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, due to security concerns.
According to Burke, those in power routinely use secrecy to stay in power. “As long as vital information is secret you have no basis for criticism,” he said.
If not for WikiLeaks, Burke stated, secret data on Clinton’s misconduct during her tenure as US Secretary of State, or war crimes in Iraq committed by the US, as well as the details about such secret deals as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, would have gone unreported, allowing those in power engaged in criminal activities to avoid responsibility for their actions.
“TTP and TTIP would have been railroaded through if it hadn't been for WikiLeaks,” Burke said, adding that the leaks “are important in today’s world, they would have been important in yesterday’s world, if they were there.”
By facilitating whistleblowers, Burke said, Assange has made enemies of many powerful people.
“It’s anyone in the so-called Anglo-American establishment and Saudi Arabians, and many others,” Burke said.
“We have an extremely broad definition of rape in Sweden. It extends to acts that in normal language would not be called rape. It includes behavior that has nothing to do with threats or violence,” he said, citing the Swedish bar association of lawyers.
That level of sophistication in the campaign against Assange is just one marker indicating the significance of the service that whistleblowers do for the world, Burke asserted.
