Governments That Fail Journalism
THIS historic week showed us that after ~14 years of institutionalised harassment/torture in the UK (as per the UN) an Aussie called Julian Assange has a chance of going back to Australia rather than be sent to die in the US.
This is of course good news. What's tragic here is that the UK taxpayers wasted a lot of money trying to besiege someone who isn't British and didn't do anything wrong. Who's gonna be held accountable for this misuse of money?
The Government of Australia should be ashamed of itself for failing to defend not only journalism but also its own citizens. Only in recent months (barely years) it changed its tune on Assange.
At one point, according to Assange, Australia would not even renew his passport. He ended up applying for Ecuadorian citizenship (which he was later granted).
The press freedom rankings are subjective because those who do the rankings are typically tenants of countries like Australia (or ally nations).
If Assange makes it back to Australia, and assuming he can publicly appear and speak, he will hopefully put this whole conundrum in words. Australia does not value journalism. Australia is known for giving us pure garbage like Rupert Murdoch, whom the system now shields only because of his wealth. █
Image credit: Karte / NordNordWest, Lizenz: Creative Commons by-sa-3.0 de, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131478278