The Communication Forum for the Integration of Our America expresses its emphatic rejection of the arrest of journalist Julian Assange by the UK police and demands his immediate release so that he can choose, in full use of his rights, wherever he wants to go.

We denounce the joint responsibility of the United States, Great Britain and Ecuador in this flagrant violation of Human Rights and International Law. The Right of Asylum is a universal mandate inscribed among the highest precepts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Under the cloak of alleged infractions to the restrictions imposed by the government of Lenin Moreno on Mr. Assange's stay at the Embassy of Ecuador in London, the ecuadorian State undertook to expel who ought to be protected by it. Thus, legal guarantees are infringed and the international prestige of the country is affected with regard to its respect for international human rights conventions.

The prosecution of Mr. Assange is a persecution on freedom of investigation and citizen information. This puts in danger every brave journalist and communicator who reveals the criminality that underlies a decadent pseudo-democratic structure. The governments that prosecute Mr. Assange are the ones who fear that the truth will be spread.

Julian Assange has not committed any crime. He has fulfilled the journalistic duty of informing the world about the indecency of those who daily conspire against democracy throughout the world. The work of Assange and Wikileaks is of great moral stature and ethical value, since it denounced the atrocities of the US worldwide, the manipulation, the lies, the intrigues behind the scene and the spying practices on a global scale.

Meanwhile, large Internet companies mine and sell data of millions of people every day, without any State denouncing them for espionage or violation of the right to privacy.

As an articulation of communicators and social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, we express our solidarity with Julian Assange and our commitment to join efforts to achieve his freedom.

COMMUNICATION FORUM FOR THE INTEGRATION OF OUR AMERICAS

04/11/2019

We demand the immediate freedom of journalist Julian Assange