Brazilian President Lula threw his support behind WikiLeaks founder Julain Assange

[Better Believe It]

Lula backs Assange, queries press freedom
UPI.com
December 10, 2010

Outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threw his support behind WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and questioned how the Australian's arrest squared with international protestations about freedom of expression and of the press.

Lula, an outspoken populist with an eye on a third term after he hands over power Jan. 1 to Workers Party protege Dilma Rousseff, indicated he saw
nothing wrong in Assange's conduct.

Lula, a former trade union leader, said at a gathering in Brasilia that Assange, through his publication of about 250,000 U.S. diplomatic documents, appeared to have done less harm than the classified documents' authors, MercoPress reported.

"I'm surprised they arrested the man and I didn't see any protest, not a word in defense of freedom of expression or freedom of the press," Lula said. "The guy was just posting what he read."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/12/10/Lula-backs-Assange-queries-press-freedom/UPI-88671292018648/


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Putin: Assange arrest undemocratic
December 12, 2010

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, questioning the reliability of leaked U.S. cables referring to his nation as undemocratic and corrupt, said the fact that Mr. Assange was in custody shows the West has its own problems with democracy.

“Why was Mr. Assange hidden in prison?” Mr. Putin asked at a news conference. “Is this democracy?”

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he was surprised by the lack of outcry against Mr. Assange's arrest. “This WikiLeaks guy was arrested and I'm not seeing any protest for freedom of expression,” said Mr. da Silva in Brasilia. “There is nothing, nothing for freedom of expression and against the imprisonment of this guy who was doing better work than many of the Ambassadors.”

U.N.'s top human rights official Navi Pillay raised the alarm over officials' and corporations' moves to cut off WikiLeaks' funding and starve it of server space — something she described as a “potentially violating WikiLeaks' right to freedom of expression”.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article946389.ece

[Name removed]

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[Born_A_Truman]

2. Bazilian? Where is Bazil?

[Better Believe It]

3. Just north of Arentina

:)

[Name removed]

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[Peace Patriot]

4. Good point from Lula! WHO has done more harm...

...Julian Assange, or the U.S. foreign service/diplomatic corps shills for our multinational corporate/war profiteer rulers?

Depends on how you look at "harm," I guess. Is it harmful to do the dirty work for Corporate Politicians who murder tens of thousands of people, torture prisoners, rip up the Constitution, the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, rob and connive against the poor everywhere on earth, and connive against the Earth itself? Or is it harmful to commit real journalism and expose these toadies?

In Latin America, they now have leaders who actually speak the truth. And what a wonderful thing it is!**

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**(To get that here, we need to, first of all, get rid of the far rightwing-corporate controlled 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines. I intend to tag this on to every complaint about our leaders, cuz I think it's the be-all and end-all of corporate rule--'TRADE SECRET' control of our very vote counting. It is mind-boggling. Getting rid of them is doable--hard, but still doable. And then we have a chance to do everything else we need to do, to restore democracy here. They have terrible corpo-fascist press in Latin America. How do they keep electing good leaders, all over the region? It's Latin Americans' hard work and insistence on honest, transparent elections that is the difference. We need to follow their example.)