On the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of the 1998 Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) President Joe Biden is visiting Ireland. DiEM25 members will be in Derry to have one of our ongoing on-street community conversations while he is here in our country. The main theme will be to call on the US President to drop the legal proceedings to persecute DiEM25 Advisory Panel member Julian Assange. 

 

After the 'Collateral Murder' video exposing war crimes was released for public consumption by WikiLeaks, Biden infamously declared that 'Assange is a high-tech terrorist'. But knowing this to be a false deflection the administration of President Barrack Obama, with Biden as Vice President, did not dare to prosecute Julian, because they believed and admitted that to do so would mean prosecuting established media outlets, such as the New York Times, who regularly publish 'classified' material from 'whistle blower' sources. This changed with the Trump Presidency when that administration started processes through the British Courts to get Assange extradited from the UK. This resulted in Julian's confinement in a British high security prison in London where he still languishes. 

 

US Presidents have always claimed to be in favour of ending the conflict in Ireland. Bill Clinton as President got centrally involved in the political processes in Ireland leading to the signing of the Belfast Agreement, and the endorsement of it by the majority of the people in Ireland. This enabled him to try don the mantle of 'peace-broker' worldwide. Yet about a year afterwards he contradicted this by arranging for the bombing of Yugoslavia by US / NATO warplanes.  

 

Today with Biden at the helm of the US State, NATO is continuing to be similarly immersed in brokering war and interventions in various parts of the world. The unjust victimisation of journalists and publishers who are genuinely working for peace, such as Julian Assange, exposes the real war-fuelled intentions of the US-European military apparatus. As an easily achievable first step on any path to peace, the extradition proceedings against Julian should be dropped. It is in the power of President Biden to get this done, and he must act now.