Elias Camhaji Mascorro – Jul 5
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has come out in defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and has asked that US authorities drop the charges against him. “If they take him to the United States and he is sentenced to the maximum penalty and to die in prison, we must start a campaign to tear down the Statue of Liberty,” said the president, who often goes by his initials AMLO, at his news conference on Monday. The Mexican leader added that he will discuss the issue with his counterpart, Joe Biden, during his upcoming visit to Washington on July 12.
López Obrador’s comments followed information published this weekend by The Washington Post and the organization Reporters Without Borders, criticizing the situation of insecurity and violence experienced by members of the media in Mexico. Twelve journalists have been murdered in the country so far this year, at a rate of two murders each month. “It is a smear campaign against the government of Mexico,” the president asserted on Monday.
Convicting Assange would imply that the monument in New York “is no longer a symbol of freedom,” said AMLO. The Mexican president said that he had already discussed the issue with former US president Donald Trump. “There can be no silence,” he added.
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