“Show me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are” says a Greek proverb.

US/UK national security establishment shares the values of Erdogan’s Turkey that detains and imprisons those who publish WikiLeaks materials. The arrest and imprisonment is shocking because it smashes the belief prevalent in US/UK societies that democratic institutions protect Human Rights de facto as a counteracting force. The prosecution of Julian Assange and his legal treatment as played out in British Courts reveals that this is not so. It illustrates that whatever national security establishment throws at us as society gets a free pass without Human Rights taken into account and individuals are put through Courts naked without protection and subject to arbitrariness.

In the ECHR Judgment Ogreten and Kanaat v. Turkey – pre-trial detention of journalists for publishing emails released on Wikileaks (1) we find some hope for the defence of Human Righs. It found:

No doubt with such precedence the ECHR will find in favour of Julian Assange if he survives till the matter reaches that court but the danger is that our institutions including government are so captured  by the national security establishment that they find a way to once again serve them rather than Human Rights.

This is what he endures from inside his cell at HMP Belmarsh:

The national security partnering of US/UK with the Near and Middle East repressive regimes has the effect that we mirror their practices, adopting their political values of autocracy. Even our Courts in their decisions do not reflect our values of Press Freedom and Freedom of Expression. The abandoning of Democratic and Human Rights values by our national security establishment is dangerous to our demos. Defending Julian Assange we defend everything we hold dear in our society.

Find the thing you can do to #FreeJulian Assange and do it!