More support from Sri Lanka for WikiLeaks editor

By our correspondents

4 July 2018

The following statements endorsing the ICFI/WSWS campaign to free Julian Assange are from students from Sri Lanka’s war-devastated northern Jaffna, writer-translator Justin Piyaratne and electrical engineer Buddhika Wijayawardhana.

Writer and translator Justin Piyaratne has written several novels and short story books. His translations into Sinhala include the first chapter of The German Ideology by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Today, we live under the shadow of a third world war instigated by the US and other imperialist forces. This would be a devastating nuclear war, a product of the escalating internal antagonisms of capitalism. The US and allied imperialist countries are inclined to re-organise and redistribute the globe and its resources according to their strategic and economic interests. In its drive for global hegemony, US imperialism will resort to all forms of violence and unethical practices such as waging wars, manoeuvring political affairs of other countries and harming the democratic rights of people.

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange courageously exposes the criminality of the US, its machinations, lies and cover-ups. His revelations are undoubtedly an immense threat to US geo-political interests. Assange’s revelations have exposed the nakedness of liberal democracy—the prevailing American ruling class ideology. This is why the US and their allies want to take his life and thereby silence other media personnel.

I admire Julian Assange, who has dedicated his life to truth and reason, strongly condemn his confinement and insist that he should be freed immediately and unconditionally. I earnestly join the WSWS international campaign for the freeing of Julian Assange from his confines in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Sujeevan, a science student at Jaffna University

I was able to learn much about Assange through your campaign. I don’t like these types of arrests and detentions. We are from a war-torn area where people were subjected to arrests, detention and human rights violations. Assange should be released.

Kavaskar, a student at High Technical College Jaffna

WikiLeaks has exposed to the people news that is blacked out by governments. It has revealed issues in Sri Lanka as well. His detention is an anti-democratic act and he should be released.

In Sri Lanka we are unable to express our views freely and don’t know what will happen if we do so. Democratic rights and freedom of expression must be defended.

Buddhika Wijayawardhana is an electrical engineer with a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. He is currently a project management executive at a public utility.

I fully support the WSWS campaign to free Julian Assange. Release Assange and assure justice!

The world was shocked when Julian Assange, through WikiLeaks, revealed in 2010 the Collateral Murder video, which showed United States soldiers fatally shooting 18 people from a helicopter in Iraq, and leaked the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs and the Guantánamo files.

WikiLeaks established that there were no weapons of mass destruction and exposed the lies of the war establishment and the whitewashes of the US mainstream media… All of this was made possible through Assange’s bravery.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention confirmed in 2016 that Julian Assange’s detention in UK is arbitrary and clearly a deprivation of justice to Assange. Assange also bravely decided to publish material related to the USA’s conduct in covert regime-change operations etc. in non-compliant states. He showed the world the immoral conduct of the USA and its gross violation of human rights, which was an act of heroism and ethically justifiable because it revealed the true face of the USA to the world.

I learnt through the WSWS the horrific conditions faced by Assange in detention and how his health is continuously deteriorating. He has been effectively locked inside the Ecuadorian Embassy by UK authorities for six years now.