Julianno is no hero or anyone who has made himself worthy of affection or compassion. An accusation of rape by the Swedish Prosecutor’s Office, which was filed due to a lack of conclusive evidence and because the accused was outside the country, had an influence on his discredit. His flirtations with a regime as anti-democratic as that of Vladimir Putin, among other dubious positions, have also contributed to this chiaroscuro image.
And in the field of popular culture, Assange has not been as lucky as the also alert Reality Winner, imprisoned in the US for having leaked classified information to the press but vindicated in fiction by a formidable film in which he is seen the disproportion between intolerant power and the fragility of the citizen who denounces an injustice (in her case, the confirmed Russian interference in the 2016 American elections). The film is titled Reality and was directed in 2023 by Tina Satter, with Sydney Sweeney in the role of Winner. It can be seen on Filmin.
In the absence of a good film (there was one, but it doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned), there are essays that highlight the contributions of the founder of WikiLeaks to the fight for freedom of information. But, if it were necessary to highlight a text that reveals the injustice of his process, it would be the same indictment with eighteen charges presented by the US Attorney’s Office in 2019, expanded in 2020. Because, black on white and without funnels, the document is a missile aimed at one of the foundations of free societies, such as the right of journalists to reveal what power wants to hide.
Should the charges against Assange succeed, it would condemn this essential practice of journalism, which is to collect information that governments prevent from transpiring (seven of the charges against him) and reveal it (nine) for the benefit of the public interest It can be argued that Assange did this work in violation of journalistic rules on verification of sources, but that he can be considered a reporter who is not rigorous or even careless (computer intrusion is not the most ethical of means to obtain information) no in no way justifies the magnitude of the accusations. Nor his admission to prison.
On Tuesday the 20th, the London Court will open the procedure to decide whether to accept the request of the United States to extradite Assange. The imminence of the outcome and Stella Assange’s dramatic warning that her husband will die if he is imprisoned in the US have multiplied the displays of solidarity. A rally has been called in Barcelona.
Perhaps the most extravagant of all is the one starring Russian dissident artist Andrei Molodkin, who has announced that he will destroy sixteen works of art by Jake Chapman, Sarah Lucas, Santiago Sierra, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso or Rembrandt if Assange dies in the prison This performance, mentioned on Wednesday by Teresa Sesé in these pages, is entitled Dead man’s switch. The works, donated by supporters of the cause, are inside a bunker in the Pyrenees town of Cauterets. The chamber is equipped with a mechanism that would cause a devastating chemical reaction for the paintings if Assange stopped giving signs of life.
The Spanish Sierra has expressed itself in agreement with this form of destructive art; of Warhol there is certainly a self-parodic copy expendable and Rembrandt is far from us, so it is appropriate to ask what Picasso would think if he knew that a work of his is already a hostage threatened with death. well Without any conclusive argument, based only on the artist’s career, we dare to maintain that the same Picasso who painted Gernika and who refused to participate in the inauguration of his Barcelona museum in order not to whitewash José María’s Francoist City Hall de Porcioles, that Picasso, would undoubtedly lend himself to collaborate in such a just cause.
(Even so, it is desirable that the threatened works have a long life and that Assange, almost twelve years later, is free to exercise journalism again.)
