The world needs Julian Assange.
The world doesn’t need more pointless summits, more empty speeches about democracy, or more awards handed out to self-congratulating elites.
The world needs Julian Assange. It needs him precisely because he makes people uncomfortable, because he dismantles official narratives, and because he demonstrates, with documents and dates, that those in power lie when no one is watching.
Julian Assange is not an abstract symbol. He is a real person who has been paying the price for doing serious journalism for more than 15 years.
Since 2010, when WikiLeaks published the Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War Diaries, the message has been clear: anyone who exposes the crimes of those in power will be punished, even if they haven’t committed any.
More than 250,000 diplomatic cables revealed extrajudicial killings, systematic torture, and state lies. The response wasn’t to investigate the facts, but to destroy the messenger.
Julian Assange spent seven years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London and another five years in Belmarsh maximum-security prison. Without a final conviction. Without a fair trial. With physical and psychological deterioration documented by UN rapporteurs, who spoke of prolonged psychological torture. This is not a metaphor. It is an official diagnosis.
The political me ssage is clear: If you publish the truth, we will crush you. If you reveal how people are killed in your name, we will call you a criminal. If you expose the war and surveillance machinery of global capitalism, we will make an example of you. Not to achieve justice, but to generate fear.
JOURNALISM UNDER PUNISHMENT
The Assange case is not just about one person. It is about the collective right to know. About the very possibility of journalism that does not depend on press releases, self-serving leaks, or corporate favors. WikiLeaks did not offer opinions. It published original documents. Dates, signatures, military orders. Verifiable facts.
In 2010, the Collateral Murder video showed a US helicopter killing civilians in Baghdad, including two Reuters journalists. The footage was real. The crime was documented. No one was prosecuted for the shooting. Those who ended up being persecuted were the ones who allowed the world to see it.
Since then, governments that constantly invoke the word “freedom” have worked together to set a dangerous precedent. The United States requested Assange’s extradition under the 1917 Espionage Act, a law designed for wartime and never before applied to a publisher. If this precedent is established, any journalist, in any country, could be prosecuted for publishing truthful information that is inconvenient for a military power.
This is not a hypothesis. It is a warning. Organizations like Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, and the International Federation of Journalists have been pointing this out for years. The criminalization of investigative journalism is a strategy, not a mistake.
Meanwhile, those who defend Assange are caricatured as radicals, naive, or conspiracy theorists. It’s the classic tactic: delegitimize the defender to avoid debating the substance. But the substance is uncomfortable. Extremely so. Because it forces us to confront the link between formal democracy and structural violence.
TRUTH ISN’T TRADED ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE
In a world governed by investment funds, arms lobbies, and large technology platforms, the truth is bad business. It doesn’t generate dividends; it generates liabilities. And contemporary capitalism runs from anything that implies accountability.
Julian Assange doesn’t fit in because he doesn’t ask for permission. Because he doesn’t negotiate headlines. Because he doesn’t soften the language to make it palatable. He publishes what exists. And that exposes the true architecture of power: illegal wars, mass surveillance, diplomatic blackmail, structural corruption.
It’s no coincidence that while those who reveal war crimes are imprisoned, those who order them are whitewashed. Those responsible for illegal invasions, torture programs, and targeted assassinations earn millions from speaking engagements and write self-serving memoirs. The problem was never the violence itself. The problem was showing it.
The persecution of Assange has been met with complicit silence. From progressive and conservative governments. From major media outlets that published the cables and then looked the other way. From institutions that boast of human rights while allowing an editor to rot in a cell for doing his job.
The world needs Julian Assange because it needs to know how power truly operates. Because without leaks, without protected sources, without journalists willing to take risks, democracy becomes a mere facade. Beautiful on the outside. Empty on the inside.
This isn’t about idolizing a person. It’s about defending a principle. That telling the truth shouldn’t be a crime. That reporting shouldn’t be equated with spying. That journalism shouldn’t be punished as if it were terrorism.
[ SOURCE: INTERNET / SOCIAL NETWORKS ]
