Râu Cao ⚡ on Nostr: Another chapter closes. I vividly remember watching Julian presenting Wikileaks 1.0 ...
Another chapter closes. I vividly remember watching Julian presenting Wikileaks 1.0 at the 26C3 in Berlin in December of 2009.
Less than a year later, the Swedish government issued what we now know was an arrest warrant based on bullshit accusations, intended to get Julian to a place that would immediately extradite him to the U.S. Then-vice-president of the U.S. Joe Biden called him a "hi-tech terrorist" at the end of that year.
After the initial legal back-and-forth, the Ecuadorian government at the time granted him asylum in their London embassy building, where he was then holed up until 2019, even though in 2017, the Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation against him and the European arrest warrant was withdrawn. But in 2018, we finally got proof of a sealed criminal case by the U.S. government against him, which was the reason for his unlawful detainment all along.
When British police were finally allowed to arrest Julian, mainstream media ran another smear campaign, claiming that the Ecuadorian government was sick of Julian's political opinions, like e.g. supporting the Catalan independence movement. Laughable.
Meanwhile, the Ecuadorian government had changed. After the socialist president Correa had run the country's finances into the shitter (and just by the way, Ecuador is using USD as their own legal tender), the newly elected former vice president was much more eager to cooperate with the U.S. government. So it wasn't that big of a surprise when Moreno signed MOUs with USAID in 2019, which resulted in a direct $62.5M investment, followed by a $6.5B IMF loan in 2020. Julian obviously being part of a quid pro quo.
Then, the worst part began. The U.K. government, stooges of the U.S. as they are, decided to not just detain Julian on behalf of the U.S. government (with Donald Trump being president at the time), but they thought putting a journalist and publisher in a supermax prison built for terrorists, rapists, and murderers was the most reasonable course of action. And they kept him there, in a 2x3 meter cell, isolated for 23 hours a day, for 1901 days.
The process was the punishment. Julian exposed war criminals, who *all* walk free today, and never served a day in prison. And he's one of us. A hacker, whose only goal was to help people by giving them the information that their own warmongering, secretive governments denied them.
There are not many people I have more respect for than this person. And I don't think I ever felt this much sorrow for someone's misfortune, outside of my own family's tragedies.
I can't wait for the next chapter to begin. But I'm so incredibly glad that this one is over!
🙏
Less than a year later, the Swedish government issued what we now know was an arrest warrant based on bullshit accusations, intended to get Julian to a place that would immediately extradite him to the U.S. Then-vice-president of the U.S. Joe Biden called him a "hi-tech terrorist" at the end of that year.
After the initial legal back-and-forth, the Ecuadorian government at the time granted him asylum in their London embassy building, where he was then holed up until 2019, even though in 2017, the Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation against him and the European arrest warrant was withdrawn. But in 2018, we finally got proof of a sealed criminal case by the U.S. government against him, which was the reason for his unlawful detainment all along.
When British police were finally allowed to arrest Julian, mainstream media ran another smear campaign, claiming that the Ecuadorian government was sick of Julian's political opinions, like e.g. supporting the Catalan independence movement. Laughable.
Meanwhile, the Ecuadorian government had changed. After the socialist president Correa had run the country's finances into the shitter (and just by the way, Ecuador is using USD as their own legal tender), the newly elected former vice president was much more eager to cooperate with the U.S. government. So it wasn't that big of a surprise when Moreno signed MOUs with USAID in 2019, which resulted in a direct $62.5M investment, followed by a $6.5B IMF loan in 2020. Julian obviously being part of a quid pro quo.
Then, the worst part began. The U.K. government, stooges of the U.S. as they are, decided to not just detain Julian on behalf of the U.S. government (with Donald Trump being president at the time), but they thought putting a journalist and publisher in a supermax prison built for terrorists, rapists, and murderers was the most reasonable course of action. And they kept him there, in a 2x3 meter cell, isolated for 23 hours a day, for 1901 days.
The process was the punishment. Julian exposed war criminals, who *all* walk free today, and never served a day in prison. And he's one of us. A hacker, whose only goal was to help people by giving them the information that their own warmongering, secretive governments denied them.
There are not many people I have more respect for than this person. And I don't think I ever felt this much sorrow for someone's misfortune, outside of my own family's tragedies.
I can't wait for the next chapter to begin. But I'm so incredibly glad that this one is over!
🙏