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On the front page of the press, the examination by the British High Court, from Tuesday February 20, of Julian Assange's appeal to prevent his extradition to the United States. The possible extradition of the founder of Wikileaks to a country where he risks up to 175 years in prison for "espionage" is relaunching the mobilization in his favor.
In France,
L'Humanité
presents him as "a symbol" of freedom of expression and freedom of the press "in danger", of which "nothing can justify the fate" which has been reserved for him": his reclusion for almost seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, then his detention since 2019 in a high security unit, where "his conditions of detention amount to moral and psychological torture", according to L'Huma. In Italy,
Il Fatto Quotidiano
denounces "the silence of the indecent" towards a man who told "the truth about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan". A silence observed by almost all Italian political parties, accused of silencing "the injustices" of which Julian Assange is a victim, or of aligning with Washington.
On the front page of L'Humanité on February 20
In Mont-Valérien, in the footsteps of Manouchian.
📰: https://t.co/s4nZf9skga pic.twitter.com/90kK8Ictju
— L’Humanité (@humanite_fr) February 19, 2024
“Sending him to stand trial in the United States would be an unacceptable act against the founder of WikiLeaks – and against journalism”: the British daily
The Guardian
recalls that the indictment from the American Department of Justice, presented under the Trump presidency in 2019, alleges several violations of a 1917 espionage law. A law that originally suppressed opposition to the United States' entry into World War I, and which was primarily invoked against whistleblowers in recent years.
In an interview with the Belgian newspaper
Le Soir
, the former Icelandic Interior Minister accuses the FBI of having tried to illegally investigate in Iceland and trap Julian Assange there. Ögmundur Jónasson was Minister of Justice and then the Interior in the early 2010s, at a time when the founder of Wikileaks was in Iceland. In this interview, Jonasson repeats that in the summer of 2011, FBI agents landed in Reykjavik, ostensibly to help the Icelandic government thwart "an imminent attack on the computer system." According to him, there was initially no question of WikiLeaks or Julian Assange, and it was only later that these envoys said they wanted to "stage a coup" against Assange "by setting a trap for him with the complicity of an Icelandic citizen and thus build a criminal case against Assange in the United States". Proposal refused.
If these attempts failed, American journalist James Kirchik recalls in
The New York Times
that the founder of Wikileaks was also accused of rape and sexual assault in Sweden in 2010 – accusations which he denied. But if Kirchik considers Julian Assange's ideology "repugnant" and his methods "reckless", he believes that the proceedings against him "constitute a dangerous escalation in the (American) government's attempt to hinder freedom of expression", and that Julian Assange should not be extradited.
“The FBI wanted to trap Assange with the complicity of Iceland” https://t.co/uW1vHIXCja pic.twitter.com/6ADolSEH9Y
— Le Soir (@lesoir) February 19, 2024
In DR Congo, the threat of open war increasingly looms over the province of North Kivu, in the east of the country. The Swiss newspaper
Le Temps
reports an "intensification of fighting" for two weeks between Congolese forces allied with armed groups, and the M23 supported by the Rwandan army. Fighting which once again led to the flight of tens of thousands of people, while the DR Congo already has nearly 7 million displaced people. On the diplomatic side, the magazine
Jeune Afrique
confirms that "the time has still not come for appeasement between the DRC and Rwanda", after the failure of the mediation attempt last weekend by Angolan President Joao Lourenço, between Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
A meeting "which was of no use", confirms
L'Observateur Paalga
, which presents the Rwandan president "as a sort of thorn in the side of the giant but fragile Congolese". The Burkinabe newspaper cites "certain international observers" who consider that Kigali behaves "like an imperialist power in search of living space and natural resources, by means of an endless war of plunder." "An attitude that the international community has long put up with", according to the newspaper, which wonders "how far (the) warnings against the Rwandan government will go", and is worried to see "the escalation verbal give way to an open and direct confrontation between the two neighbors.
#DRC - #Rwanda: why the “battle of Goma” raises fears of an escalation
Decryption.#RDC #Rwanda #M23 #Tshiekedi #Kagame #Goma pic.twitter.com/t4Hcly4VVk
— Jeune Afrique (@jeune_afrique) February 19, 2024
Verbal and diplomatic escalation, also, between Israel and Brazilian President Lula, who compared the intervention of the Israeli army in Gaza to the Holocaust. Following these statements, Lula da Silva was declared "persona non grata" in the Hebrew State, announces the Israeli daily
Haaretz
. But Lula's remarks are also making waves in his own country, where several diplomats, quoted by
O Globo
on condition of anonymity, describe them as "unfortunate, useless and disastrous". Criticisms shared by
A Folha de Sao Paulo
, worried to see Lula's statements "isolate Brazil from the rest of the democratic world and strengthen the opposition in the country".
We won't leave each other on this. An article in the
Times
reports a study on a lack of parity which, for once, does not fall too badly for women. Men need to spend twice as much time exercising as women to achieve the same long-term benefits, including reducing the risk of heart attacks, according to American researchers. Remember ladies, the next time you see a man passing you sweaty at the gym!
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