Press releases

27. 07. 2018.

???source???: JAS

JAS: UK to Grant Assange Free Passage to a Country That Will Take Him In

The Journalists' Association of Serbia (JAS) pleads with the Serbian and international public to stand in solidarity with the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, whose asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London is under threat, who has had his internet access revoked and who has been banned from receiving guests in the Embassy's premises.

JAS would like to remind the public that two years ago the UN working group stated Assange was "arbitrarily detained", for which the United Kingdom and Sweden are considered responsible, and that the said detainment should cease, while allowing the Wikileaks founder to seek damages for his predicament. 

JAS asks the United Kingdom to provide guarantees that it will not extradite Assange to the United States of America, as well as that it will grant him free and safe passage to a country that agrees to take him in. 

JAS would like to remind the public that in 2011 it presented Assange with the "Zora" (in English, Dawn) award on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day. Assange was the very first foreign national to whom one of the oldest journalists' associations in the world founded in 1881 - the Journalists' Association of Serbia, presented an award. 

In its rationale behind this award, JAS stated that Assange and his Wikileaks colleagues "have given a historic contribution to the right of citizens to know. Countries have a right to protect their secrets, but Julian Assange, by example, has shown why journalists cannot help them in exercising this right".