The art-duo Captain Borderline’s motif of a crucified Julian Assange, near Berlin’s SPD headquarters and a papal message, represented a small portion of Wikileaks’ immense impact of Christianity.
One of the Julian Assange Town Hall Gathering spokespeople, Tony, put this Christian aspect of Mr Assange’s work into words.
There was strong support in all religious communities for what Julian did, because Julian revealed criminal behaviour, by those in power, Tony suggested.
Citizens and especially Christians, almost universally wanted to avoid unnecessary wars and the war crimes, which inevitably went with them, Tony and a co-Julian Assange Town Hall Gathering spokesperson Adriana said. Right there lies the universal truth. Most people want world peace and not war.
They used the 2010 Wikileaks Collateral Murder video as a case in point, in terms of the criminality Mr Assange exposed. It essentially showed how the US assassinated people in Iraq. This included children and Reuters journalists.
There have indeed been all sorts of Christian conventions against violence. One of these was the Catholic non-violence initiative, from Pax Christi, as part of a non-violence and peace conference in Rome in 2016. It very clearly affirmed one of the Church’s mission statements, which related to non-violence at the heart of the Catholic Church.
Tony thanked those of faith who stood behind Julian. This clearly included Pope Francis, whose recent message to Mr Assange, would have let him know he was not alone, Tony noted.
The world’s Christians have noted Mr Assange put his own life on the line for the greater good, to expose the criminality of the world’s leaders. The US and UK’s payback for this was to hurl the chronic lung condition sufferer, who had Ecuadorian-Embassy-detention-induced mental health issues, into a torturous hell-hole. This refers to his current 23-hour-a-day, two-year solitary confinement in Britain’s Coronavirus infested “Guantanamo Bay,” Belmarsh Prison. There he remains, without sunlight.
There have indeed been Christian conventions on the manner in which prisoners should be held. Over the last few years, the Christian organisation, the Prison Fellowship, in the US, has affirmed the long-held Christian belief that incarceration should not have denied the prisoner of basic worth and dignity.
“Poor conditions [could have created or exacerbated] safety issues among [prisoners],” the Christian group, in conjunction with its research partner, Barna Group stated.
Eighty two per cent per of the Americans they surveyed believed prison conditions should be humane, this research found.
Seventy five per cent of respondents agreed the prison system needs to properly care for prisoners.
The British prison system has held Mr Assange, on behalf of the American tax payers, who responded to this survey, in conditions much less than humane. Police would have arrested anyone who treated a dog in that way.
The US wants to silence a man, who speaks for all its tax-paying citizens – someone who tries to keep the warmongering US government accountable.
History will recognise Mr Assange’s efforts as those of a man of peace. Christians recognised this and understood the necessity to have gotten on the right side of history and supported Mr Assange, while there was still time. This should happen before this great man enters the archives of history and, in the Christian tradition, receives his reward of eternal life, closer to God, in return for his contribution to society. Mr Assange, himself, is apparently not any stranger to Christianity. His extradition hearing heard that a Catholic Priest gave him “absolution, in preparation for his death,” Consortium News, reported recently.
Christians all over the world have absolute respect for Mr Assange’s selfless attitude, which has meant he potentially sacrificed himself or some portion of his life-span, due to the precarious nature of his incarceration. The Australian truth teller was a non-violent remand prisoner without a history of harm to the community. He was not convicted of any crime and was entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Captain Borderline’s depiction of Julian Assange crucified in the same manner in which Jesus was put to death, more than likely attempted to speak to God-loving-people with the universal Christian language of archetypal icons or motifs.
Anti-war sentiments and peace slogans did not speak the universal language of the Christian community, given that throughout history and in modern times, religious wars have happened. Captain Borderline’s work, however, went a long way towards application of that universal Christian language. That was if one was to consider Mr Assange’s plight and the fine work he has carried out. The government of the day wants to put good man to death. The same thing happened to Jesus. Many Christians, therefore, support Julian Assange.
A large part Tony’s synopsis of the Wikileaks founder’s work came from the Christian ethos of truth and to attack those who spoke the truth went against humanity.
People needed to have known the truth. Society needed journalists who told the truth and all people should have worked to have spread the truth. They should have built a culture of truth. Citizens should have tried to have had greater awareness of the words they used when they mimicked the words of others, or they may have unwittingly increased the power of the tyrants. One should have tried not to have been manipulated. People should have found out the truth and spoken from their hearts. They needed to have been in-touch with the truth. Citizens needed sincere human speech, which facilitated knowledge of the truth, justice and moral decency, Tony said.
Christians would have understood Phillip Adams did not have any choice, other than to have sent his 600,000 signature Change.org petition to the International Criminal Court, in Mr Assange’s defence. The petition now sits in the Hague.
Tony and Adriana encouraged everyone to sign this Phillip Adams petition on Change.org and all Catholics and all Christians to write to their priests and Christian ministers in their local churches and Christian organisations and take active participation in those organisations, to demand Mr Assange’s freedom ̶ The Julian Assange Sydney Town Hall Gathering.
Readers can donate to the defence fund, set up by Julian Assange’s partner Stella Moris via the following link: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/julianassange/