Through a letter, AMLO interceded in favor of Assange during his visit to the US

Emir Olivares and Alonso Urrutia

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, July 19, 2022, p. 8

In a letter, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador detailed to his American counterpart, Joe Biden, his position on the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and the reasons why he should be released.

This was announced yesterday by the federal president in the morning when he was questioned about whether he spoke about the cyberactivist’s issue in his bilateral meeting last week with Biden at the White House.

Yes, I left President Biden a letter about Julian Assangereplied López Obrador, in which he also recalled that his government has offered him political asylum.

Speaking of the content of that letter, he said that in it he explains to his US counterpart that Assange did not commit any crime. “He did not cause the death of anyone, he did not violate any human right (…) Detaining him was going to mean a permanent affront to freedom of expression and freedom.”

The Australian – who is detained in a prison in the United Kingdom, awaiting his extradition to the United States, where he is being tried for alleged espionage crimes – released thousands of classified cables that left evidence of both human rights violations and crimes committed by Washington during its military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as other actions of interference in various nations of the world.

The president indicated that he has not received a response to his statement and will not demand it, since I have to be respectful, I have to wait for them to analyze it and give their time.

Regarding his visit to the US capital, he indicated that both Biden and the vice president of that country, Kamala Harris, received and treated the Mexican delegation with affection and with great respect for Mexico.

In the middle of the Oval Office, López Obrador asked his American counterpart to have daring to promote the transformation of that country. Yesterday he was asked about it: How did I see President Biden? Interested in taking care of things. They are political systems that have been applying a certain strategy economically, politically, for a long time..

Although he stressed that if that country does not accept that it needs a workforce and dares to regularize it, it will not come out of the crisis. If there is no courage, there is no future.

On the issue of migration, he exemplified, while his government considers that it is necessary to carry out social programs with the delivery of direct support to people in Central America, the United States proposes to motivate companies to invest in those nations to generate jobs, which takes a long time. more time.

Sowing Life, which is direct to the producer, could be applied in Central America in three months, there would already be 50,000, 100,000 peasants cultivating their land without problem, but that scheme is not easy for them to accept..