From the creative, militant mind of Andy Worthington, comes another protest piece in support of Assange and Chelsea Manning.
As Julian Assange waits for the final verdict from UK courts, on whether or not the country will extradite him to the US, a new song soars high, carrying a message of freedom of speech and free press.
‘Warriors’ is the new single from militant reggae rock group The Four Fathers, who are led by activist and journalist Andy Worthington. Andy has written extensively about Assange and was one of the media partners of Wikileaks when the media company released the Guantanamo Files, which exposed the terrible nature of “of the US’s supposed “intelligence” regarding the prisoners, identifying how much of it was produced by a number of demonstrably unreliable witnesses amongst the prison’s population, either as a result of torture or other abuse, or through them being bribed with better living conditions.”
What awaits Julian Assange in the US, is a lengthy prison sentence and likely, due to his health, a death sentence. His crime is to have released documents that were in the public interest (just like the Pentagon Papers exposing the horrors of the Vietnam war) and from which media partners around the world published articles, collectively holding the US government to account.
“It ought to be blindingly obvious to anyone that Julian and Wikileaks were acting as journalists and publishers, just as their media partners were, and that it is monstrously unjust for the US government to have singled out Julian for prosecution.”
– From the band’s Bandcamp page.
For anyone that is not an imperial power and an oppressive regime, it should seem obvious that exposing war crimes is not worse than actually committing them. But still, here we are. The US is intent on making an example out of Assange, in order to scare journalists from reporting the truth and thus creating a dangerous precedent for free press and democracy around the world.
