Protesters rallied around the world on Saturday to oppose the United States government’s bid to extradite courageous journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange. The WikiLeaks founder is being persecuted for exposing vast troves of data implicating American imperialism in crimes ranging from efforts to subvert foreign governments to brutality inflicted on populations under military occupation throughout the world.
Over 200 gathered outside the US Department of Justice in Washington D.C. to rally and hear speeches from a number of speakers. Among the speakers were Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, Consortium News editor Joe Lauria, and Central Intelligence Agency whistleblower John Kiriakou.
In 2007, Kiriakou disclosed the CIA’s role in government torture programs operating out of various “black sites,” at secret locations throughout the world.
He was instrumental in revealing the CIA torture of Abu Zubayda, a “high-value detainee” currently held in Guantanamo Bay. Zubaydah remains confined in the prison camp despite evidence of his torture. Kiriakou explained his revulsion at Zubaydah’s treatment in a 2018 Washington Post column. He wrote, “I had a moral and ethical problem with torture and that … I thought it was illegal. Unfortunately, there were plenty of people in the US government who were all too willing to allow the practice to go on.”
Despite the US government determining that Kiriakou broke no laws in his disclosure, in 2013 the Democratic...
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