Lula expresses ‘solidarity’ with WikiLeaks

Looks like WikiLeaks finally has a world leader interested in defending it, as Agence France-Presse reports: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday expressed “solidarity” with jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, criticising the Australian activist’s arrest as a blow against “freedom of expression.” At a public event in the Brazilian capital, Lula blasted ...

YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images
YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images
YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Looks like WikiLeaks finally has a world leader interested in defending it, as Agence France-Presse reports:

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday expressed “solidarity” with jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, criticising the Australian activist’s arrest as a blow against “freedom of expression.”

At a public event in the Brazilian capital, Lula blasted Assange’s arrest and expressed “solidarity with exposing documents” which WikiLeaks has claimed as its mandate.

Assange has “exposed a diplomacy that had appeared unreachable,” said Lula, who criticised of a failure of other governments to challenge Assange’s detention.

“They have arrested him and I don’t hear so much as a single protest for freedom of expression,” he said.

(H/T Glenn Greenwald)

Charles Homans is a special correspondent for the New Republic and the former features editor of Foreign Policy.

More from Foreign Policy

Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.
Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.
Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.
A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine

The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.