Julian Assange is not a hero or someone who has deserved love or compassion. His discredit was influenced by an accusation of rape by the Swedish prosecutor's office, archived due to lack of conclusive evidence and because the accused was outside the country.
His flirtations with a regime as undemocratic 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 had as much luck as the whistleblower Reality Winner, who was also imprisoned in the US for leaking classified information to the press but claimed in fiction for a wonderful film in which 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 the admired Sidney Sweeney in the role of Winner. It can be seen on the Filmin platform.
In the absence of a good film (there was one, but it does not even deserve mention), there are essays that highlight the contributions of the founder of WikieLeaks to the fight for freedom of information.
But, if a text had to be highlighted that reveals the injustice of his process, this would be the indictment itself with 18 charges presented by the American prosecutor's office in 2019, expanded in 2020. Because, black on white and without ambiguities, the writing is a missile directed against one of the foundations of free societies, which is the right of journalists to reveal what power wants to hide.
If the accusations against Assange are successful, this essential practice of journalism would be condemned, which is to collect information that governments prevent from being disclosed (seven of the charges against him) and reveal it (nine) for the benefit of the public interest.
It could be argued that Assange did this work in contravention of journalistic rules on verification of sources. But the fact that he can be considered a lax or even unscrupulous reporter (computer intrusion is not the most ethical means of obtaining information) in no way justifies the magnitude of the accusations. Nor did he put him in prison.
On Tuesday the 20th, the London Court will open the procedure to decide whether to accept the United States' request 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 United States have multiplied the expressions of solidarity.
In Barcelona a rally has been called and a play is going to premiere on March 1 (Assange, the power of information, at the Teatre Gaudí), while the Rome City Council has named the journalist an honorary citizen and the protests are proliferating. protest concerts in cities around the world.
Perhaps the most extravagant of all the displays of support is that of dissident Russian artist Andrei Molodkin, who has announced that he will destroy 16 works of art by Jake Chapman, Sarah Lucas, Santiago Sierra, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and Rembrandt, among others. , if Assange dies in prison. Teresa Sesé explained it on Wednesday in these pages.
This performance, a ruse to push for a happy outcome, is titled Dead Man’s Switch. The works, donated by people who sympathize with the cause, are housed in a type of bunker in the idyllic Pyrenean town of Cauterets. The camera is equipped with a mechanism that would cause a devastating chemical reaction to the paintings, based on acid powder, if Assange stopped showing signs of life.
The Spaniard Sierra has spoken out in favor of this destructive art form (he said in The Guardian that people like Assange are what Bertolt Brecht spoke of, "those who fight throughout their lives"); Of Warhol there is surely a dispensable self-parody copy and Rembrandt is far away from us, so he proceeds to ask himself what Picasso would think if he knew that one of his works was already a hostage threatened with death.
Good. Without attempting to provide conclusive arguments, 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 so as not to whitewash the Franco City Council of José María de Porcioles, that Picasso himself would, without a doubt, lend himself to collaborating in the just cause of freeing Julian Assange.
(Despite everything, it is desirable that the threatened works have a long life and that Assange, almost 12 years later, returns to practice journalism in freedom).
