Julian Assange Quotes

The Debt We Owe Julian Assange

He was a tearaway-tech from Townsville who traversed the terabyte-highway into the systems of tech-titans from Texas to Toronto. It started as a curiosity. Here was a teenager with an Amiga computer who would cut a path to fame and infamy by telling the truth.

The boy was called Julian Assange. And, he would soon discover, that truth is a very selective delicacy flavoured for a few favoured figures only.

From the beaches of Brisbane to the bars of Belmarsh there has only been two meaningful mainstay's in the mind of Assange:

Ethics and truth.

The boy from Townsville has never been a philosopher in the traditional sense. But, as his path was hazed by hell, high water and heinous hypocrisy, he always maintained a determined effort to conform to ethical practices. Back in the day, Julian was a bright eyed boy armed with a simple computer and a curiosity to explore. Ethical hacking seemed comic not crime, afterall, it was always about access and never about profit.

The essence of genius lurks in the mind of Julian Assange. His education was mostly self-taught. He seldom attended school and he bored of university. He immersed himself in skills he found interesting. Maths came easy to him, so creating cryptographic algorithm's was more cheer than chore.

He was a typical flawed genius. Some say he lacked in social skills. Some also question his willingness to expose the lies of the powerful; is this madness, they exclaim from the safety of their sofa's. But, they seldom doubt his grey matter for understanding technical analysis or creating technical solutions.

The next step in understanding Assange is his ethical code of conduct. Unwavering is the word that best describes the philosophy of truthfulness that Julian lives by. Governments and corporations would soon find out the sword of truth wielded by Assange would reveal many unclothed emperor's.

But what of main stream media journalism? Julian quickly learned that MSM think nothing of burning their sources. MSM did not share Assange's interest in truth regardless of position of power. Alternative news was the only way. WikiLeaks has spearheaded alternative news sources with the publication of in excess of 10 million documents and associated analyses.

There have been many court cases. It has never been proven that WikiLeaks published any untruths. Everything they ever published was true. Assange went further to redact any personal details to ensure no harm could come to any individual.

It could be argued that Julian's greatest achievement was not selling out to become a stooge for the establishment. Afterall, the empire likes to use the brilliance of genius to further its agenda under the radar of declared news. If he had done this many emperor's would still appear to be clothed. If he had done this there would be no WikiLeaks.

Pondering if there was no WikiLeaks is now unimaginable.

No need to imagine this; Our misbegotten leaders still pontificate their so called democracies from ivory towers built on the three C's of condescension, corruption and corpses. The distrust in western politico's has never been higher. For a few corporate dollars more this trust can still be bought, but, it raises the spectre of time. For how long?

The entire world owes a massive debt to Julian Assange, a debt we may never get the opportunity to repay. Will he ever emerge from the bowels of Belmarsh? Oh the irony, rotting in solitary confinement for telling the truth to power. The only crime by Julian Assange is exposing the crimes of the powerful. One day in the future this senseless persecution may cease and desist, let's hope for Julian that day is sooner rather than later.

Quotes About Julian Assange

The former Ecuadorian president, Evo Morales, shared this insight: "Sometimes the empire talks about freedom of expression, but deep down they are enemies of freedom of expression. The empire, when someone tells the truth…that is when the retaliation begins, like with Assange"

Morales went on to say: "This detention of our friend Assange is an intimidation so all the crimes against humanity committed by the United States are never revealed"

The human rights activist, Craig Murray, shared this assessment: "The cold calculation behind Assange’s treatment in his last months in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, when he was denied access to wash and shave, in order to produce the apparent monster for the photos of his arrest, is a true example of evil unfolding"

A British politician, Jeremy Corbyn praised his ethical journalism: "Assange managed to collect information on what the U.S. was doing, U.S. foreign policy was doing, its illegal activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and much else. In the great traditions of a journalist who never reveals their sources, very important, and he was pursued because of this and as we know, eventually sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, but was unable to get out of it."

Corbyn then added: "We then discover that all that time in the Ecuadorian embassy… there was the surveillance of him by apparently an independent security company, but in reality it was working for the Americans"

The writer Chris Hedges summed up Assanges situation thus: "His imprisonment for revealing the war crimes, mendacity, cynicism, and corruption of the ruling class, including the Democratic Party, heralds a new era. Investigations into the centers of power, the life blood of journalism, will be a criminal offense."

Hedges also said, quite bluntly: "The campaign against Assange, and I have sat in on hearings in London, is a Dickensian farce, the persecution of an innocent and heroic man, far more reminiscent of the Lubyanka than the best of British jurisprudence. He is being used to send a message — if you expose what we do we will destroy you."

Hedges went on to say: "A Society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice... the battle for Julian's liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher. It is the most important battle for press freedom of our era. And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating"

His wife, Stella Assange, opined this view: "He should be free and everyone knows it. The process is being used to hide atrocities from history. … They have to tie themselves up in knots in order to allow this outrageous extradition. I think it’s probably been extremely difficult for them to come up with some kind of semi-coherent argument"

Stella went on to say: "The U.K. should not be engaging in persecution on behalf of a foreign power that is out for revenge. That foreign power … committed crimes that Julian put into the sunlight. Julian has done nothing wrong. He has done everything that any self-respecting journalist should do when given evidence of a state committing crimes — they publish it because their duty is to the public. And Julian’s duty to the public has landed him in prison."

The award winning Journalist John Pilger spoke of the treachery of the MSM: "It has been open season on the WikiLeaks' founder for more than a decade. In 2011, The Guardian exploited Julian's work as if it was its own, collected journalism prizes and Hollywood deals, then turned on its source"

John Pilger described him thus: "Julian Assange is a truth-teller who has committed no crime but revealed government crimes and lies on a vast scale and so performed one of the great public services of my lifetime. Do we need to be reminded that justice for one is justice for all?"

John Pilger was praiseful with his words: "Julian Assange is the courageous embodiment of a struggle against the darkest, most oppressive force in our world; and people of principle, young and old, should oppose it as best they can; or one day it may touch their lives, and worse"

John Pilger on Assange's public service: "He informed millions about the deceptions of governments too many trusted; he respected the right of people to know. It was a remarkable public service"

John Pilger then shared this comparison: "His courage beyond doubt, and a quality of resistance and resilience that is heroism. It is this that may see him through the present Kafkaesque nightmare - if he is spared an American hellhole"

An Australian film maker, Mark Davis, bore witness to verify how Julian took extraordinary measures to ensure no names were revealed in the published documents: "Assange was the only one who worked day and night extracting 10,000 names of people who could be targeted by the revelations in the logs"

A former intelligence officer, John Kiriakou, on the pending extradition: "I know from personal experience, Julian Assange cannot and will not get a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia"

John Kiriakou shared an interesting insight: "In the meantime, I ran into another national security whistleblower at an event recently. He told me that the F.B.I. had recently paid him a visit. He is still on probation and the F.B.I. offered to get that probation lifted if he would tell them anything and everything he knows about Julian Assange and Ed Snowden. He told them that he speaks through his attorney and wanted no further contact with them. His attorney told the F.B.I. that his client had nothing to say, would tell them nothing about Assange or Snowden even if he knew something and to not contact his client again."

An American author and attorney, Jacob Hornberger, shared this indisputable comparison: "It’s pretty sad when the communists are condemning and criticizing the U.S. government for hypocrisy when it comes to human-rights abuses and civil liberties. It’s even sadder when they are right, especially in the case of Julian Assange"

The author, Tariq Ali, believes that truth will prevail: "Julian exposed another set of wars. Basically, he exposed the so-called war on terror, which began after 9/11, has lasted 20 years, has led to six wars, millions killed, trillions wasted. That is the only balance sheet of that war. ... And if they think that punishing him in this vindictive and punitive way is going to change people’s attitudes to coming out and telling the truth, they’re wrong"

The NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, shared this view: "Julian Assange... has been charged as a political criminal — something that I understand quite well, but he has been charged as the purest sort of political criminal, for having committed the transgression of choosing the wrong side.... The charges, which are — they are absolutely an unadorned legal fiction. We are told to believe that the state has these powers over what can be said and what can’t be said..."

Snowden went on to say: "He has consistently and continuously dared to speak the unspeakable, in the face of opposition, in the face of power. And that is a remarkable and rare thing. That is the reason that Julian Assange sits in prison today."

The author and activist, Lee Camp, shared this view: "Assange and WikiLeaks revealed the American military’s war crimes, the American government’s corruption and the American corporate media’s pathetic servile flattery to the power elite"

The ousted president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, shared this damning opinion: "The greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history, Lenin Moreno, allowed the British police to enter our embassy in London to arrest Assange. Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget."

A Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, was praiseful with this description: "He not only is one of the few authentic heroes of our time, he also has shown to all of us how to be a hero today and that it is possible to be a hero today."

A political analyst, Bob Beckel, shared a different opinion: "A dead man can't leak stuff. This guy's a traitor, a treasonist, and he has broken every law of the United States. The guy ought to be — And I'm not for the death penalty, so if I'm not for the death penalty, there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch"

Back in 2010, the author and academic, Michael Lind, questioned the authenticity of the WikiLeaks founder: "Assange’s attorney has promised that if anything happens to his client, WikiLeaks will release a “nuclear bomb” of even more damaging information … If Assange sincerely believes that he needs to blackmail the U.S. government into refraining from assassinating him, he is delusional as well as conceited. Assange’s supporters ought to be upset by the revelation that the supposed champion of transparency has deliberately been holding the good stuff back. After all, authentic whistle-blowers would release the most damaging information at the beginning — not withhold it as a bargaining chip to intimidate prosecutors."

Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, used this clarification towards whistleblowers: "I think we should be clear here. WikiLeaks and people that disseminate information to people like this are criminals, first and foremost"

A Republican representative from Michigan, Candice S. Miller, did not mince her words about free speech and truth tellers: "It is time that the Obama administration treats WikiLeaks for what it is—a terrorist organization, whose continued operation threatens our security. Shut it down. Shut it down. It is time to shut down this terrorist, this terrorist Web site, WikiLeaks"

The Mexican president, Lopez Obrador, held a different view and shared this radical idea about the monument to American freedom: "If they take him to the United States and he is sentenced to the maximum penalty and to die in prison, we must start a campaign to tear down the Statue of Liberty"

The American writer, Robert Bridge, shared this assessment of the potential extradition: "Julian Assange can expect no justice in the US, nor even any sympathy, which is why London should never have agreed to extradite him to the Empire of Lies in the first place"

Julian's brother, Gabriel Shipman, spoke of his appeal against the extradition: "The appeal will include new information that we weren’t able to bring before the courts previously. Information on how Julian lawyers were spied on, and how there were plots to kidnap and kill Julian from within the CIA"

The Australian independent journalist, Caitlin Johnstone, shared this appraisal: "Extraditing a foreign journalist for exposing your war crimes is as tyrannical an agenda as you could possibly come up with. The US, UK and Australia colluding toward this end shows us that these are member states of a single empire whose only values are domination and control, and that all its posturing about human rights is pure facade. Assange keeps exposing the true face of power."

Johnstone went on to say: "There is in fact a strong argument to be made that even all these years after the 2010 leaks for which he is currently being prosecuted, Assange is doing his most important work yet. As important as his WikiLeaks publications were and are, none of them exposed the depravity of the empire as much as forcing them to look us in the eye and tell us they’ll extradite a journalist for telling the truth."

The British investigative journalist, Iain Overton, expressed this view: "As far as I can see, Assange’s only crime has been the publication of confidential – but damning – military documents."

Overton then added: "It seems that a very effective way to stop someone exposing British or American death squads is to lock them up."

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, had this to say: "Our voices will become louder and louder and louder until Julian Assange is set free... If we no longer have a voice, we're done .... If they destroy Assange they destroy the most important voice of the 21st century"

The Irish politician Mick Wallace shared this opinion: "Julian Assange is in prison for speaking the truth about US NATO War Crimes - Staying Silent and refusing to defend him amounts to a form of complicity..."

The writer, Maxine Walker, expressed this view: "This is, of course, a political extradition – something that expressly is not allowed under Extradition agreements between the US and UK. But that has never stopped the case either"

The British politician George Galloway pondered this similitude: "If Chinese crimes rather than American crimes had been revealed by Assange, he would now be the poster boy for the Winter Olympics’ boycott campaign. Every news bulletin today would’ve led with his fate, every press still turning would be rolling out the outrage at the crushing of this butterfly on the wheel. Poor Julian, if only he had been born a Chinaman"

A film maker, Suzie Halewood, pondered irrational political logic: "How can it be a crime to report a crime? For many it would be more like a duty. Assange’s only ‘crime’ was in humiliating the intelligence community – notably Pompeo and the CIA"

The writer, Nils Melzer, did not mince his words: "Julian Assange is a victim of torture and inhuman treatment. This is a threat not just to Assange himself but to freedom of speech everywhere in the world"

An American analyst, Daniel Ellsberg was in no doubt about the threat to journalistic freedoms: "If Assange is extradited, no journalist in the world is safe from life imprisonment in the United States"

The veteran activist, Noam Chomsky opined the obvious order of international subjugation: "The abject submission of British authorities to the Master in Washington in the case of journalist Julian Assange is painful to observe but - unfortunately - not difficult to understand"

The actress, Pamela Anderson, was impressed to say: "Julian is trying to free the world by educating it"

A film producer, Elliot Grove, described him thus: "He is a subtle political thinker, a radical democrat, and an audacious dissident of the digital age"

The singer Leo Sayer shared this opinion: "You need people like him, he reveals the truth, they’re all scared of the truth of course"