Jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will become an honorary citizen of Rome by early next year following a vote this week by its local assembly, the city's former mayor Virginia Raggi said on Thursday.

cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/1242124

Assange, 52, has been in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019 and is wanted in the United States over the release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables in 2010.

“Assange is a symbol of free speech which is essential for any genuine democracy,” Raggi, who ran Rome’s city hall between 2016 and 2021, told Reuters.

“He has been deprived of his own liberty for years, in awful conditions, for doing his job as a journalist,” she said.

Other Italian cities have taken similar steps. The northern city of Reggio Emilia granted Assange citizenship last month, while Naples is set to follow shortly.

  • @anlumoEnglish
    0•1 year ago

    Freedom of the press is an important part of a democratic society. It’s perfectly fine to not like what they’re publishing (and I certainly don’t like a lot of things that are published), but if you start prosecuting journalists based on what you like and what you don’t like, others will do so as well.