by the El Reportero’s wire services
London, Sept. 7 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is back to the dock on Monday at the London Criminal Court as the trial to determine whether he will be extradited to the United States was resumed.
As happened before, during the first part of the trial in February, Assange is in a glass cubicle at a side of the courtroom, protected by two security guards and apart from the defense team.
The Australian journalist, whom the United States wants to try for leaking thousands of secret files from US diplomacy and the military on WikiLeaks, only spoke when Judge Vanessa Baraitser, in charge of ruling on his extradition, asked him to confirm his identity.
At the beginning of the trial, one of Assange’s defense attorneys, Edward Fitzgerald, told the judge that it was the first time he had seen his client over the last six months.
The extradition hearing must last at least three weeks, and the losing party can appeal the sentence.
If Assange is handed over to US justice, he might be sentenced to 175 years in prison.
Brazilians defend life on Independence Day
BRASILIA, Sept. 7 – Popular, social and union movements will hold rallies throughout Brazil as part of the so-called Cry of the Excluded, following the Independence Day celebrations on Monday, under the slogan ‘Life in first place.’
According to a note published by the Brazilian Labor Union (CUT), the request for ‘work, land, shelter and participation’ also accompanies that phrase.
The protests will also raise flags against the project of wage and social austerity by the government of Jair Bolsonaro and the lack of a national command to fight Covid-19 that has so far claimed about 127,000 deaths and more than four million cases in the country.
The event, organized by the Popular Movement Organization and supported by CUT Sao Paulo, will now be held at Plaza Oswaldo Cruz.
Since 1995, the Cry of the Excluded has been mobilizing citizens across Brazil on September 7 as a counterpoint to that of Independence.
Brazil proclaimed its emancipation from Portugal on September 7, 1822. Prince of Portugal, Pedro I of Brazil, liberator and father of the Brazilian nation, announced the Cry of Independence on the banks of the Ipiranga River, in Sao Paulo.
