This resolution was unanimously adopted by the Fifth National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party in the US, which was held July 22–27, 2018. The WSWS will be publishing a report on the Congress and the main resolution and report in the coming days.

The Fifth Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US) sends greetings to WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange and resolves to develop the widest possible political campaign against the threat by the US government to seek his extradition to the United States to face manufactured charges of espionage.

This Congress denounces the plans of the Ecuadorian government to repudiate the asylum it granted Assange in 2012. We denounce the collaboration of the British, Australian and other capitalist governments in the relentless persecution of this courageous fighter for truth.

The publication by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange of leaked US military, diplomatic and intelligence files is not a crime. It is critical and independent journalism that has exposed imperialist war crimes, corporate abuses and anti-democratic intrigues.

WikiLeaks has provided an immense service to the American and international working class. Since its founding in 2006, the media organization has contributed to educating and alerting millions of workers and young people as to the real relations within capitalist society in the US and around the world.

The vendetta against Assange is an acute expression of the broader assault on all the democratic rights of the working class. As it condemns the mass of the population to poverty and social misery, and as it conspires to wage devastating wars against its economic and strategic rivals in Russia, China and elsewhere, the American ruling class is moving toward dictatorial forms of rule. A conscious attempt is underway to suppress opposition, including by censoring and silencing alternate sources of information such as WikiLeaks and sources of political perspective such as the World Socialist Web Site.

The persecution of Assange and Internet censorship has been directly facilitated by the self-styled “liberal” parties and media, the trade unions and the pseudo-left organizations around the world. The representatives of the privileged upper middle class, these tendencies have aligned with the ruling class and the descent toward dictatorship and war. In the process, they have repudiated any defense of fundamental democratic rights. They have either joined the vilification of Assange or maintain a complicit silence.

The great social force that the SEP (US) will fight to mobilize in defense of freedom of speech and democratic rights, and against Internet censorship, is the American and international working class.

The SEP (US) demands the immediate and unconditional end to Assange’s involuntary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought political asylum in 2012. The US, British and Australian governments must guarantee that he and other WikiLeaks staff will not be prosecuted and that the operations of WikiLeaks can continue unhindered.

The struggle for socialism requires democracy. The survival of democracy requires socialism.