Leaders and leaders of Latin America expressed their joy at the release of the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange after signing a plea agreement with the US Department of Justice that allowed him to be released after 14 years.
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, He was one of the first leaders to react to the news. “I celebrate the release of Julian Assange from prison. At least in this case, the Statue of Liberty did not remain an empty symbol; “She is alive and happy like millions in the world,” said López Obrador in a message on the social network X.
With this message, López Obrador referred to another message launched last February when he suggested that the United States move the Statue of Liberty to Mexico, where “there is freedom,” due to the case of the founder of Wikileaks.
Claudia Sheinbaum, elected president of Mexico and former head of government of the country’s capital, recalled that last February she handed the Keys to the City to the family of Julian Assange. “For us Julian represents the truth, freedom of expression. “We are a progressive City that has always defended great freedoms and the right to free access to information.”
The Brazilian president expressed himself along the same lines, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who stated that “the world is a little better and less unfair today,” after learning of the judicial agreement.
“He is free after 1,901 days in prison” and “his release and his return home, although late, “They represent a democratic victory and the fight for freedom of the press,” Lula said in a brief message published on his social networks.
From the beginning of the case, Lula maintained that Assange was the victim of “persecution.” Last year, the Brazilian head of state argued that Assange “should have won the Pulitzer Prize for revealing the secrets of the powerful”
The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, celebrated the release of the WikiLeaks founder after what he considered “a fierce and unacceptable persecution” for “revealing war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by imperialism.”
In a publication on social networks, the Bolivian president added that “this event reminds us that the revolutionary struggle is fundamental to achieving freedom and social justice.”
The former Bolivian president also expressed himself Evo Morales (2006-2019), who wrote on the social network X: “We are very happy about the freedom of Julian Assange. He was imprisoned for many years for exposing the crimes of the United States to the world. It helped us reveal and dismantle the lies that justify wars and invasions. “It is a day of joy for the fight for peace and truth.”
The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, He also celebrated the recent release of the Wikileaks founder. “The long and cruel punishment that was imposed on him for his denunciations of imperial crimes will remain in the memory of the people as proof of how little his jailers believe in freedom of the press,” the Cuban ruler wrote in X.
In a message on the same social network, the Foreign Minister of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, showed his “satisfaction” with the news. “It is with satisfaction that we learned that Julian Assange will be released, a victory of truth, after unjust years in prison and political persecution for showing the world the crimes committed by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he noted.
For his part, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, He also celebrated the release of Assange, whom he described as an “example of courage and bravery in the battle for truth.”
“On behalf of the people of Venezuela, we embrace and congratulate Julian Assange on his release. He is the triumph of freedom and humanity’s struggle for respect for human rights”, wrote the head of state on social network X.
The president of Colombia also did so, Gustavo Petro. “I congratulate Julian Assange for his freedom. Assange’s eternal imprisonment and torture was an attack on press freedom on a global scale. Denouncing the massacre of civilians in Iraq by the US war effort was their crime, now the massacre is repeated in Gaza,” said the Colombian president.
According to a agreement reached with the US Justice, Assange, 52, of Australian nationality, will plead guilty to a single charge of conspiring to illegally obtain and disseminate classified information, allowing him to return to Australia after spending five years in a British prison.
The founder of WikiLeaks was accused in the United States of violating the Espionage Act after one of the largest leaks of classified informationwhich in 2010 revealed secrets from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as about the detainees at the Guantánamo base, among many other until then unknown data.
He is scheduled to appear in a Mariana Islands court on Wednesday at 9 a.m. local time and plead guilty to the charges against him before traveling to his native Australia after more than 14 years of litigation.
