South Africa’s NUMSA Joins Calls To Free Jailed Wikileaks Veteran Julian Assange

“We are in a continent that has withstood 500 years of humiliation through colonialism, apartheid, and neo-colonialism" By The Bulrushes The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) on Thursday said it has joined “all progressive voices across the globe in demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Julian Assange from Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom”. “Assange is a journalist who is a friend to all peace-loving people in the world,” said Irvin Jim, NUMSA general secretary. The Australian editor and self-confessed computer hacker faces possible extradition from The United Kingdom to the United States, where he is wanted on 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act by publishing classified military information. On Christmas Eve, lawyers asked Britain’s Supreme Court for permission to appeal the high court’s ruling that Assange can be extradited to the US. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); Assange shot to fame in April 2010 after his WikiLeaks website released a 39-minute video of a US military Apache helicopter firing over and killing more than a dozen Iraqis, including two Reuters journalists. Last week on Friday lawyers argued that the US government’s pledge that the founder of the whistleblowing website