Speaking at a May 6 press conference in London following the coronation of King Charles III, which he attended, Brazilian President Lula da Silva strongly denounced the “shameful” jailing of Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been held for four years at the maximum-security hellhole known as HM Prison Belmarsh by the British government. There are no charges against him in Britain.
Brazilian journalist Sara Vivacqua from the online publication O Diário do Centro do Mundo (DCM), prefaced her question to Lula about the situation of “political prisoner” Assange by noting that Lula himself had “defeated a hybrid war and is totally aware that freedom of expression and [people’s] right to know is threatened globally,” DCM reported her saying. She was referring to the media smears that were part of the fraudulent DOJ-led Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash) case against Lula which finally landed him in jail on “corruption” charges that prevented him from running for President in 2018.
“God bless you for that question, Sara,” Lula replied. “It is shameful that a journalist who denounced the fraud of one state against another is imprisoned, condemned to die in jail and people do nothing to help him. People fight and talk about freedom of expression and do nothing. The guy is jailed because he denounced the swindles. He didn’t denounce anything vulgar … he exposed that one state was spying on others. And that becomes the journalist’s crime?”
