Pirate MEPs have sent an open letter to Boris Johnson, fearing Julian Assange could die
in the US* and calling on him to not extradite Assange to the United States.
According to Pirates, Assange is facing the death penalty and Vladimir Putin could take advantage of the entire situation in a psychological war against the European Union.
The Pirates have supported the WikiLeaks founder since the beginning of his
trial.*
*
Markéta Gregorová*, MEP and author of the letter, explains:
“*We believe that the extradition of Julian Assange would inflict a heavy
blow to the credibility of our proclamations, that there is a struggle
between freedom and tyranny in Ukraine. Such developments play into the
hands of Putin’s long-term disinformation strategy: to weaken the value
the predominance of the West, to warn of its transgressions against its own
claims, and to destabilize Western democracies*.”
In the open letter, the Pirates point out that millions of democratically
spirited people around the world stand behind the WikiLeaks founder. By
extraditing Assange to his declared enemies, the British government would
disappoint these people’s enthusiasm for a united and freedom-loving West.
The Pirates also emphasize the following:
*If Assange’s findings on WikiLeaks served Putin’s propaganda, it was
a side effect of fulfilling the public interest – Donald Trump in the White
House was also Putin’s victory, but Trump’s victory itself was
democratically legitimate. Assange’s extradition will undoubtedly play into
Putin’s hands, but this time without fulfilling the public interest. If
anyone called Assange a “useful idiot of the Kremlin”: today, there is a
danger that the British and American administrations themselves will become
such “useful idiots of the Kremlin”. On the verge of this threat, we humbly
ask you not to send Julian Assange somewhere, where he is in danger of
death.”
