Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters speaks about the arrest of Julian Assange and calls on the UK to rise up to oppose Assange’s extradition, while labelling the country a satellite state of the US empire for arresting Assange and attacking the government of Lenin Moreno for revoking his asylum.
Published on TRgoingunderground, Apr 17, 2019
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Watching WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being physically removed from his shelter at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London last week “was absolutely chilling” to legendary musician Roger Waters, who gave RT’s Going Underground his take on Assange’s arrest.
To think that the UK has become such a willing accomplice and satellite of the American Empire that it would do such a thing in contravention with all laws, moral, ethical, and actual legal restrictions is absolutely, stunningly appalling and makes me ashamed to be an Englishman.
Assange’s arrest was made possible after Ecuador last week withdrew his political asylum, which was granted seven years ago, and stripped the renowned whistleblower of his Ecuadorian citizenship. UK authorities will soon decide whether to deport Assange to Sweden, where he faces possible rape charges, or to the US, where he is wanted for conspiring with former army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break into a classified government computer.
The second scenario would be worse, Waters believes. Citizens “barely have rights anymore” after the Patriot Act was adopted, and “everything is at the whim of the commander-in-chief.”
If we let the UK get away with allowing him to be extradited to the United States, we allow the United States government, at their whim, to torture him and to detain him possibly for the rest of his life.
Assange, along with Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and other whistleblowers, “are the heroes who help us gain some of the knowledge that the [powerful] would keep secret if they could,” the Pink Floyd legend added.
According to Waters, Washington and London simply want to hush up “the matters of torture, or incarceration of innocent people,” but Assange proved to be a thorn in their side.
“And also, what they’re doing – Trump and the rest of them, and Theresa May – is to try to frighten would-be Julian Assanges who may provide this incredibly important service for the rest of us in society in the future.”
Watch the full interview here.
On this season finale episode of Going Underground, Afshin Rattansi speaks with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters on the arrest of Julian Assange. Waters calls on the UK to rise up to oppose Assange’s extradition, labels the UK a satellite state of US empire for arresting Assange and attacks the government of Lenin Moreno for revoking his asylum. He also discusses ongoing US-led regime change efforts in Venezuela. Rattansi then speaks with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, who was due to visit Julian Assange to assess his condition at the Ecuadorian Embassy. Melzer discusses with Rattansi the risk of Assange not receiving a fair trial, the possibility of Assange facing the death penalty and what his potential long-term imprisonment could means for freedom worldwide.
