Pink Floyd's Roger Waters calls for freeing Julian Assange at NY rally
Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters attends another rally to call for freeing Julian Assange.
-
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters (Photo: Alberto Pezzali/AP)
Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters attended a rally calling for freeing Julian Assange in front of the British Consulate in New York on Saturday.
About 100 people attended the rally in the early afternoon, holding banners that read "Free Julian Assange".
"We live maybe in the craziest city, and it is definitely the craziest country in a crazy world," Waters told the rally participants.
Waters has attended protests to call for freeing Assange in the past. Some US politicians have criticized Waters for his recent accusations of President Joe Biden fueling the conflict in Ukraine.
In August, Waters showed up in a rally in front of the Justice Department in Washington while on his 2022 "This Is Not a Drill" Tour, where he warned that Assange's stay in prison was making him sicker and pushing him closer to death and called on the protestors to "never, never shut up" and keep doing what they are doing until Assange is free.
In between stops on his “This Is Not A Drill” tour @rogerwaters found time to show up at the DOJ and demand the release of Julian Assange
— Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) August 17, 2022
He called on Merrick Garland to obey the rule of law as opposed to the security state pic.twitter.com/17aFJpvudX
Assange is accused of breaking the US Espionage Act by publishing US military and diplomatic records pertaining to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in 2010, as per US claims, whereas in reality, he exposed US war crimes in both countries, which enraged Washington. He is currently fighting extradition from London to the US.
The Assange case has become a cause celebre for media freedom, with advocates accusing Washington of attempting to stifle real security concerns.
Read: WikiLeaks team to discuss Assange with Colombian President, others
The US claims it wants him to stand trial for breaching the US Espionage Act by disclosing military and diplomatic information in 2010. If proven guilty, he may face up to 175 years in prison, though the exact punishment is difficult to predict.
The UK Interior Ministry had previously revealed that Home Secretary Priti Patel had accepted the extradition order, but he had 14 days to appeal.
The long-running legal saga began in 2010 after Assange published more than 500,000 documents classified in the US regarding war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His supporters have staged many protests against his deportation, accusing Washington of a politically motivated effort since Assange, 50, exposed US war crimes and a cover-up.
-
Julian Assange: a Timeline
Check out: A secret operation to seize Assange exposed
Assange reportedly applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to challenge his extradition to the US from the United Kingdom, where he has been held at a maximum security prison for three and a half years so far.
The Australian-born publisher has been in prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2019 and arrested by British police.
Fresh information recently revealed that at least 15 people were appointed by the UK government to the secret operation to seize WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Although Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuador back in 2012; he was never allowed safe passage out of Britain since he was the target of prosecution by the US.
