WHY JULIAN ASSANGE IS A TARGET OF LAWFARE AND WHAT YOUR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION HAS TO DO WITH IT

Journalist and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Kristinn Hrafnsson, came to Brazil this week to gather support from newly elected President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva regarding the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange is currently the world’s greatest living journalist, although he is also the one who has suffered the longest period of time in captivity, being tortured day by day by unjust persecution and imprisonment. It has been almost eight years as a refugee inside the Ecuadorian embassy, near Buckingham Palace, plus another three years and six months as a prisoner in His Majesty’s Belmarsh Prison, 22 km away, in London.

Assange is a symbol of resistance and a warning: journalism is in the process of extinction and the best specimen that is left alive needs the attention of the whole civilization because its disappearance will also be that of press freedom and the freedom to express one’s thoughts. Hrafnsson called attention to the fact that governments of countries like Brazil are giving permission to (especially) American social media companies to control information under the pretext of fighting disinformation and fake news. This possibility of transfer of responsibility is really absurd and contributes to the increase of censorship and self-censorship.

It is easy to see that this potential to interfere in online conversations and debates on public issues is a power that amounts to control of information and communications, which can be turned into a weapon of war and other mechanisms facilitating the manipulation of opinion. This has happened before and was ruled illegal by the US court following the scandalous case of mob businessman Steve Bannon’s company, Cambridge Analytica, which pulled data from Facebook to turn the heads of voters favorably to his political clients. Anyone who has a profile on social networks is being monitored willingly, but only realizes the trouble they are in when their account is suspended or canceled for supposedly committing some infraction.

There is no apropriate defense mechanism against the accusations, and they are obscure, unfamiliar, and based on complaints offered by other profiles. The matter is so absurd that the profile @lawfare4all, for example, has already been suspended a few times, even being closed to other profiles who were not previously accepted as followers. 

Thus, censorship and self-censorship are ghosts that haunt the realities of autocratic, fascist, and permissive countries with superstructures of corruption and rapid accumulation of financial liquidity correlated to narco-states. They serve to silence society. This makes it easier for minorities to control the masses or for countries with technology to control countries at their service and orders. In Brazil’s recent experience, we had the dishonor of living with lawfare raised to the category of geopolitics and weapon of war to conquer state power. After the disgraceful process of impeachment of President Dilma Roussef, with Operation Lava-Jato, Brazil lost the pre-salt oil and gas reserves and Brazilian people lost the opportunity to vote for their great leader Lula, removed from running to president by forceps, in spite of the Federal Constitution and being closely followed by threats from representatives of the armed forces trained by American primers of psychological operations of information warfare.

The editor of WikiLeaks says that there should be an examination of conscience among journalists about their role in the democratic world and whom they are serving so that the world does not become an increasingly worse place to live for most nations. This is an important piece of advice that he should extend to all professional categories. After all, it is the freedom of expression of thought that is at stake, not just the freedom of the press. The latter is already well compromised by citizens’ lack of access to the media, which are dominated by tycoons looking for profitability and to feed back their ambitions and maintain their own dangerous liaisons.

This advice can extend to all professional categories. After all, it is the freedom of expression of thought that is at stake, not just the freedom of the press. The latter is already well compromised by citizens’ lack of access to the media, which are dominated by tycoons looking for profitability and to feed back their ambitions and maintain their dangerous connections.

In any case, in order to fight injustices, one of the ways is to know how lawfare practices work. These are practices that involve sabotage, persecution, misinformation, corruption, manipulation, torture, and much injustice. The power of lawfare is such that it transforms the Rule of Law into a State of Exception, a Policialesque State. For those who are Brazilian, it is easy to see this in the last six years at least, since the coup of 2016, although it is something that had been orchestrated for decades. It’s not a conspiracy theory. It is real practice. To know more about it, just read on and if you are in Brasilia, attend this November 28th the first meeting of the Lawfare Nunca Mais debaters network. There will be dozens of authorities, academics, specialists, students, and, above all, lawfare targets, alive, because many have already died from the torture imposed on them. Several books will be launched, telling stories and promoting the theoretical and historical development of the subject of lawfare. One of them is LAWFARE – AN ELITE WEAPON FOR DEMOCRACY DESTRUCTION (415 pages. Editora Egressos. Goiânia-GO). The meeting will be held at the University of Brasília, at the Darcy Ribeiro Memorial, starting at 7:00pm (Brasília time). You can see the event online here.