Assange, people climb onto a chair in Bologna to ask for his release

The sculpture “Anything to say?” of the artist Davide Dormino will remain in Piazza Nettuno in Bologna for two days. The founder of Wikileaks is still detained in Belmarsh prison in England

BOLOGNA – Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning standing on three chairs, plus a fourth to invite the public to get on it and join the fight for freedom of information. It is the sculpture “Anything to say?” by the artist Davide Dormino, which will remain in Piazza Nettuno in Bologna for two days, for a marathon with artists such as Alessandro Bergonzoni and Moni Ovadia dedicated to the founder of Wikileaks, still detained in Belmarsh prison in England. The initiative started this morning, promoted by the local “Free Assange” committee, also to celebrate the awarding of honorary citizenship by the city council to the investigative journalist on February 19th. Assange is a “symbol of courage and fight for freedom of information”, introduces Fulvia Panza, spokesperson of the committee, standing on the empty chair of the work, which represents the “missing piece – explains Dormino – and is completed when the spectator then climbs up, both to empathize with these gentlemen and to say what he wants.” The Wikileaks affair, continues the artist, “has profoundly changed the way of doing investigative journalism, and I wanted in some way to pay homage to this incredible story, behind which the powerful people of the world then hid who did what they wanted behind our backs. So let’s say it’s a sort of wake-up call that reminds us how important it is to know in order to develop our critical sense.”

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At this moment, Assange “is in a maximum security prison known as the English Guantanamo, and he has been there for five years – recalls Panza – without having committed any crime, other than that of having published the truth to do so that every citizen and every citizen would be aware of the war crimes committed by governments and strong powers.” For this reason “we ask the municipal administration to take a position, as it did with the granting of honorary citizenship, but we also want to reach the national government to reach the heart of Europe, and push for Biden to grant the thanks to Julian Assange”.
Students, artists and activists will participate in the two-day event promoted by the committee, which will end tomorrow evening with a flash-mob at 7.30pm, with a rich program of speeches. Today among others there are the cartoonist Gianluca Costantini, known for his portrait of Patrick Zaki, Sara Chessa author of the book “Destroy Assange”, Alessandro Bergonzoni and the students of the Copernico high school, while tomorrow Moni Ovadia, the M5s deputy Stefania will speak Ascari, actors, singers and