Fascinating piece from Frontline Club founder Vaughan Smith on why he has given WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange a place to stay as part of the conditions of his release on bail. Assange was granted bail yesterday at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, but is still in jail following an appeal of the decision by Swedish prosecutors (background to his arrest on Journalism.co.uk at this link).
I ponder the disservice to Julian done by the media. With their stockings stuffed by WikiLeaks they dehumanise him with images printed and screened of a cold, calculating Machiavelli pulling strings from secret hideouts. The main hideout, of course, being the Frontline Club, where many of them have interviewed him.
They made him out to be the internet’s Bin Laden. The likeness might be poor, but that was OK because the colours were familiar and bright. Now the focus is on Julian’s court fight, instead of on the opaque political system that his leaks have exposed.
A big thank you to captain vaughan-smith for his help in getting mr assange out of prison for Christmas
And I have my own view on the correctness or otherwise of the charges laid against him but I think at the moment that discretion is the better part of valour. Interestingly my phone thinks that the frontline club’s website is adult, and will not let me into it unless I show a credit card…I am 55 but I do not own a credit card….. What is a person to do?