On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels in support of Julian Assange, Belga News Agency reports.
The demonstrators called on the United Kingdom to come back on its decision to extradite Assange to the United States, where he could face a 175-year prison term.
“What is happening to Julian Assange is an attack against freedom of the press,” Marie-France Deprez of the Comité Free Assange Belgium said.
Assange is wanted in the United States for leaking secret documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. US authorities also consider him responsible for the deaths of informers for the US Armed Forces.
“We wish to press the European Union and European countries into taking action in support of Julian Assange,” Deprez said. She argued that if US President Joe Biden is sincere when he says he wants to defend press freedom, he needs to stop the case against Assange.
“If journalists like Julian Assange highlight abuses, it’s the abuses that should be on trial, not the journalists,” she stressed.
