The
award is given to individuals "uncovering the truth and exposing
it to the public" and to honor those "intimidated and/or
persecuted" for such actions.
Julian
Assange has been awarded the 2019 European United Left-Nordic Green
Left Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers and Defenders of the Right
to Information, WikiLeaks informed Tuesday.
The
award is given to individuals "uncovering the truth and exposing
it to the public" and to honor "individuals or groups who
have been intimidated and/or persecuted" for such actions. Thus
recognizing Assange's work through WikiLeaks.
The
prize is sponsored by European left-wing parliamentarians, who
devised it in 2018 in honor of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne
Galizia. Nobel Peace prize winner (1976), Mairead Maguire, received
it on Assange’s behalf at an event in the European Parliament in
France.
Assange
is a multi-award winning journalist, with more than 15 international
recognitions for his work. The most outstanding awards are the 2008
New Media Award from The Economist, 2010 Time Person of
the Year (Reader's Choice), 2009 Amnesty International UK Media
Award, among others. Something his defense has repeatedly explained
since by being a publisher and journalist, U.S. imprisonment would
mean the violation of fundamental freedom of expression rights.
“The
warning is explicit towards journalists. What happened to the founder
and editor of WikiLeaks can happen to you in a newspaper, you in a TV
studio, you on the radio, you running a podcast,” said
award-winning journalist John Pilger writing in an op-ed for teleSUR.
On April
11, Assange's even-year asylum was abruptly removed and then arrested
by British police. Immediately the U.S. charged him with "computer
hacking conspiracy," over an allegation he conspired with former
army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break into a classified
government computer.
Ecuador’s
President Lenin Moreno even tried to minimize the actions by saying
he was “miserable hacker.” Now his defense is fighting an
extradition request to face the U.S. justice system, even though
Ecuadorean officials have assured this will not happen.
Source,
links:
Comments
Post a Comment