Assange is a symbol of journalistic freedom

Dear Editor:

I am writing to alert readers to the ongoing and unprecedented court case initiated by the Trump administration against Julian Assange, the courageous, truth-telling Australian journalist and whistleblower.

Assange told the truth about American war crimes back in 2010 when he released, among other things, a video showing an American helicopter gunship murdering civilians and two Reuters journalists in the streets of Baghdad.

The Trump administration seeks to imprison him for 175 years.

Assange is 49 and in poor health. Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture, visited him in prison and wrote that he is being tortured. Assange is the father of two young children. He now sits in solitary confinement, entombed in London’s infamous Belmarsh prison as he suffers through his extradition hearing.

If he loses and is sent to the Eastern District of Virginia for a trial and successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which heretofore was used only against spies, it will be the death of free journalism.

As an American lawyer who practiced for 45 years, I have joined the National Committee to Defend Assange and

Civil Liberties. It is chaired by Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Alice Walker. Go to defendassange.org. Please help draw the line and defend free journalism, the First Amendment and our right to read, watch and learn.

Michael Steven Smith

Kerhonkson