Hundreds of people have demonstrated in front of the British Parliament in London against the planned extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the USA. They formed a human chain that completely circled the building, and thus led partly on the opposite side of the Thames. The wife of the 51-year-old Australian, Stella Assange, who also took part with her two young sons, had called for the demonstration.
The US judiciary wants to put Assange on trial for allegations of espionage. He faces up to 175 years in prison if convicted. He is accused of having stolen and published secret material from US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan together with whistleblower Chelsea Manning, thereby endangering the lives of US informants. His lawyers argue that no one was harmed at all. Supporters see Assange as a courageous journalist who brought war crimes to light and who should now be made an example of.
The government in London had recently approved the extradition. But the legal tug-of-war over the Wikileaks founder is not over yet. His supporters hope that they can still stop the extradition by court.
Assange has been held in Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison in London since his arrest in April 2019. Before that, he had evaded the law enforcement authorities for several years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. They had initially sought him in Sweden because of allegations of rape. However, these allegations were later dropped for lack of evidence.
