3 weeks ago, Cedric Villani, a French mathematician gave some news about Assange. He went to visit him in jail. I don't like a lot Cedric Villani (he was working with the French government and not in a good way IMO), but I respect a lot his fight for Assange freedom. He is doing a lot of conferences/events through Europe to educate people about this sad situation.
I did a translation of this video's content:
I am a French mathematician and a former Member of Parliament. I've just come out of Belmarsh prison and I'm still overwhelmed. The atmosphere, the administrative and physical barriers, the slow pace...
And also the emotion of having, for the first time in my life, been able to visit someone I care about in jail. I'm talking about Julian Assange, and I care a lot about him because he's a political prisoner. When I was young, there were famous political prisoners, like Nelson Mandela and I never imagined that one day I would go and visit one in this context of Western democracies (of which we are so proud..)
Julian Assange suffers a lot from being incarcerated: the hell of isolation, of being locked up 23 hours a day in this 3 square meters cell. Yet I still found him very intellectually agile, and we were able to discuss all sorts of things, even technical things related to maths and encryption. As well we discussed about political and scientific subjects... Julian is an intellectual, he also has a scientific background, he needs intellectual exchanges.
We also talked about his vision, because if he's jailed now, it's not because of all the wild accusations that are circulating against him, but because he has this vision of a world where some people stand up against the system's tendency to spy more and more, and to keep secrets for the benefit of the powerful ones.
Julian is committed to defend what is really precious for us: our freedom of speech and our privacy; and he is paying a high price for doing it today. If Julian is extradited, if he is convicted, it will be a terrible sign that the USA can convict a journalist or whistleblower anywhere in the world, simply for telling the truth.
We must all get involved to support him, just as he got involved to defend our rights.
Free Julian Assange.