The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) are protesting against the continued detention of Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange.
NUMSA members from the union’s J.C. Bez region on Friday gathered outside the offices of the US Consulate in Johannesburg to demand that charges against Assange be dropped.
Assange is accused by US authorities of 17 counts of espionage and one of computer misuse – relating to WikiLeaks’s releases.
Assange is being held in the UK and faces possible extradition to the US.
“We handed officials at the consulate a memorandum demanding that Assange must be released immediately and unconditionally from Belmarsh prison in the UK,” said Oupa Ralake NUMSA J.C. Bez Regional Secretary.
“Julian is a journalist who is a friend to all peace-loving people in the world.”
In 2010 WikiLeaks, led by Assange, published information received from a whistle-blower in the US – Chelsea Manning – which exposed the racist brutality with which US soldiers indiscriminately murdered Iraqi civilians.
“Essentially this was the exposing of a war crime against humanity,” said Ralake.
“Since then, Assange’s staunch anti-imperialist stance has been criminalised by Western powers, led by the US acting together with the UK.”
Last month, Australian-born Assange won his legal fight to challenge his extradition to the US, where the charges against him carry a maximum prison sentence of 175 years.
The UK’s High Court ruled that Assange could take the matter to Britain’s Supreme Court.
Before his arrest, on 11 April 2019 by the London Metropolitan Police for failing to appear in court, Assange, was a resident of the Eduardo embassy in the UK for seven years.
He entered the embassy on 19 June 2012 to claim diplomatic asylum after being wanted by Swedish authorities for questioning over four alleged sexual offences.
Assange denied the charges and insisted they were a ruse to get him extradited to the US.
In November 2019, Prosecutors in Sweden dropped their investigation into the matter.
NUMSA said it was part of a coalition of organisations including Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders who are calling for Assange’s release from prison.
The coalition is urging the US Justice Department to dismiss the charges against Assange because they are a threat to press freedom.
NUMSA said Assange’s arrest and detention mean that common journalistic practices could be criminalised.
“It is clear that the US government seeks to make an example of Assange by punishing him in a very brutal way for exposing the US government by releasing classified leaks provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning,” said Ralake.
“If he is extradited back to the U.S. he would stand trial on espionage charges and if convicted, he could face a prison sentence of up to 175 years.”
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard recently said: “It is a damning indictment that nearly 20 years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail.
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“The US government’s unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange makes it clear that this prosecution is a punitive measure, but the case involves concerns which go far beyond the fate of one man and put media freedom and freedom of expression in peril.”
NUMSA said 50-year-old Assange and his Wikileaks provided the world with indisputable evidence of “the impunity with which the US is willing to pursue an imperialist agenda” in the interests of a small capitalist class.
“And this is why as a union we stand by him and we will continue to call for his release,” said Ralake.
While the court in London permitted Assange to appeal, the Supreme Court had to agree to accept the case before it could move forward.
