Following a vote this week by the city’s local assembly, former mayor Virginia Raggi announced on Thursday( Oct 19 ) that Julian Assange, the founder of Jailed WikiLeaks, will become an honorary citizen of Rome by early next year.
Assange, 52, has been incarcerated in London’s high-security Belmarsh jail since 2019 and is wanted in the US in connection with the 2010 transfer of sensitive US defense information and political wires.
According to his supporters, his trial is a politically motivated attack on free speech and news.
According to Washington, the disclosure of sensitive information endangers life.
Raggi, a member of the left-leaning Five Star Movement, spearheaded the effort to have him become an Eternal City member, and it received cross-party help.
Raggi, who oversaw Rome’s town hall from 2016 to 2021, said that Assange is a representation of free speech that is crucial for any true politics.
For doing his job as a journalist, she claimed,” He has been deprived of his own rights for centuries, in appalling problems.”
The action was approved on Tuesday, kicking off a procedure that Raggi said she hoped might be finished by Christmas but might require some additional time.
Related actions have been taken in other European cities. Assange received citizen from the northern area of Reggio Emilia last month, and Naples is expected to follow soon.
Assange faces a maximum-security jail word of 175 years if extradited to the US.