An event took place on Monday in Nicosia highlighting the illegal and anti-democratic detention of Julian Assange, activist and journalist of the WikiLeaks platform, who is being held in a British high security prison without having been sentenced. The event was organised by the Assange Initiative and the Union of Cyprus Journalists.
President of the Union of Cyprus Journalists George Frangos said that Assange should not be extradited to the United States, noting that “we stand by his side, together with dozens of journalists’ organisations all over the world, the Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International.” He said that Assange must be set free, adding that information about everything that is of global interest must also be free.
Sociologist Andreas Panayiotou said during a panel discussion that Assange is a key figure who intervenes to say what everyone suspects, while Political scientist Stavros Tombazos said that Americans who had committed horrific war crimes in prisons in Iraq had been sentenced to months in prison, adding that “when you torture you are punished with imprisonment for a few months, but when you reveal torture you risk 175 years in prison.” Human Rights Lawyer Nikoletta Charalambidou referred to the “inhuman and degrading” conditions of Assange’s detention and added that when in court he was kept in a glass cage “as if he were the worst criminal in the world and therefore dangerous.”
The event was coordinated by journalist Soula Hatzikyriakou, who noted that the case of Julian Assange concerns us all and we must support him since freedom of the press is important for all democratic people.
Source: Cyprus News Agency