Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Sep 01, 2025

0:00
0:00

Mexican president vows ‘to tear down the Statue of Liberty’

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says the symbol of America’s freedom could lose its meaning if Washington refuses to drop charges against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who faces the prospect of 175 years in prison for reporting real news and exposing war crimes and mass murder of journalists and innocent civilians.
“If they take him to the United States and he is sentenced to the maximum penalty and to die in prison, we must start a campaign to tear down the Statue of Liberty,” Lopez Obrador said at a news conference on Monday. For Washington to convict Assange would confirm that the world-famous monument in New York Harbor “is no longer a symbol of freedom,” he continued.

His statements came in the wake of criticism published over the weekend by the Washington Post and NGO Reporters Without Borders excoriating the Mexican government for its supposed failure to protect journalists. The reporters’ advocacy group has called on the Mexican government to “overhaul mechanisms for protecting media personnel,” insisting the majority of the 12 journalists who have been killed so far this year in Mexico were murdered because of their work.

However, the president, who is widely known by his initials AMLO, dismissed the report as “a smear campaign against the government of Mexico.”

The Mexican leader skewered what he framed as hypocrisy by the media organizations that eagerly published information on US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq obtained and released by Wikileaks before turning against the organization’s founder.

“When this information was released, various media participated [in its publication]. They agreed to release all the information because they considered that it was a contribution to the defense of human rights, to freedom of expression, not to continue with the double talk, with the lies, with saying one thing and doing another,” he said.

Lopez Obrador had told reporters last month that he would broach the subject of dropping the charges against Assange during his next meeting with US President Joe Biden. He was invited to speak with the US president after he declined an invitation to Biden’s Summit of the Americas, refusing to attend in protest of the event’s exclusion of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

The Wikileaks publisher’s lawyers filed two new appeals last week to contest his extradition to the US. He faces 18 counts of conspiracy to obtain and release classified material and Espionage Act violations stemming from receiving top-secret military documents from military analyst Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning in 2010. That’s despite one of the key witnesses in the case against Assange admitting that he fabricated important parts of his testimony against the Wikileaks co-founder.

Assange has been effectively confined since 2012, when he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faced dubious sexual assault charges that have since been dismissed. Quito revoked his asylum in 2019, and the British police transferred him from the embassy to the maximum-security Belmarsh prison, where he has remained ever since, his health and mental state reportedly deteriorating rapidly.

While Lopez Obrador has floated the idea of offering Assange political asylum several times, he has not made an explicit offer so far.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Chinese and Indian Leaders Pursue Amity Amid Global Shifts
European Union Plans for Ukraine Deployment
ECB Warns Against Inflation Complacency
Concerns Over North Cyprus Casino Development
Shipping Companies Look Beyond Chinese Finance
Rural Exodus Fueling European Wildfires
China Hosts Major Security Meeting
Chinese Police Successfully Recover Family's Savings from Livestream Purchases
Germany Marks a Decade Since Migrant Wave with Divisions, Success Stories, and Political Shifts
Liverpool Defeat Arsenal 1–0 with Szoboszlai Free-Kick to Stay Top of Premier League
Prince Harry and King Charles to Meet in First Reunion After 20 Months
Chinese Stock Market Rally Fueled by Domestic Investors
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
Ukrainian Nationalist Politician Andriy Parubiy Assassinated in Lviv
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
French and Korean Nuclear Majors Clash As EU Launches Foreign Subsidy Probe
EU Stands Firm on Digital Rules as Trump Warns of Retaliation
Getting Ready for the 3rd Time in Its History, Germany Approves Voluntary Military Service for Teenagers
Argentine President Javier Milei Evacuated After Stones Thrown During Campaign Event
Denmark Confronts U.S. Diplomat Over Covert Trump-Linked Influence in Greenland
Starmer Should Back Away from ECHR, Says Jack Straw
Trump Demands RICO Charges Against George Soros and Son for Funding Violent Protests
Taylor Swift Announces Engagement to NFL Star Travis Kelce
France May Need IMF Bailout, Warns Finance Minister
Chinese AI Chipmaker Cambricon Posts Record Profit as Beijing Pushes Pivot from Nvidia
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
Ukraine Finally Allows Young Men Aged Eighteen to Twenty-Two to Leave the Country
The Porn Remains, Privacy Disappears: How Britain Broke the Internet in Ten Days
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Welcome to The Definition of Insanity: Germany Edition
Just a reminder, this is Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris.
Spotify’s Strange Move: The Feature Nobody Asked For – Returns
Manhunt in Australia: Armed Anti-Government Suspect Kills Police Officers Sent to Arrest Him
China Launches World’s Most Powerful Neutrino Detector
How Beijing-Linked Networks Shape Elections in New York City
Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska Fled War To US, Stabbed To Death
Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Monopoly
2 Australian Police Shot Dead In Encounter In Rural Victoria State
Vietnam Evacuates Hundreds of Thousands as Typhoon Kajiki Strikes; China’s Sanya Shuts Down
UK Government Delays Decision on China’s Proposed London Embassy Amid Concerns Over Redacted Plans
A 150-Year Tradition to Be Abolished? Uproar Over the Popular Central Park Attraction
×