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British Hypocrisy and Julian Assange
Why calls for press freedom and open journalism by the United Kingdom are entirely superficial in nature.
Earlier this year in April, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by British authorities after being forced to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London, a location in which he had stayed in since 2012 as an asylum seeker. Assange was subsequently sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail back in 2012 and delaying justice.
The 50–week sentence was a mere two weeks off of the maximum that could be placed on Assange. The sentencing that took place, at least on the surface, had little to nothing to do with the ongoing feud between the United States and WikiLeaks. He was sentenced to HM Prison Belmarsh, a prison that used to be referred to as “Britain’s Guantánamo Bay” because of the poor conditions that inmates were often subject to in the post-9/11 era.
During his time in HMP Belmarsh, many human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and groups within the United Nations, have actively criticized the British authorities for not correctly handling the case in regards to proper treatment of the award-winning journalist. According to The Guardian, Assange was set to be released from HMP Belmarsh on September 22, 2019. However, Vanessa…
