‘Wikileaks gave us COLOUR to the black and white understanding of the US empire’s war crimes abroad. Julian Assange is the best example of how you DON’T STOP.’ —Matthew Hoh, former State Department & Defense Department official, ahead of the 20th Anniversary of the founding of Wikileaks. ‘The first time we met, I was in London on a visit to visit Julian when he was in the Ecuadorian embassy. In these years we’ve seen this great shift in our technology, this ability to access information to see things from a firsthand perspective, of course, the genocide in Gaza, the best example of that. We’ve seen the success of what Julian Assange built with WikiLeaks in the sense of bringing some accountability. Maybe we understood things in Iraq, but WikiLeaks gave us color to that black and white understanding that we had in Iraq and in so many other places where the American Empire was carrying out its war crimes, and this idea of an accountability that was able to surface from that. And we have seen the backlash to that, whether it’s been the surveillance, whether it’s been the government censorship. Afshin, I mean, there’s no one better to talk to about government censorship than you and your folks on this program here, right? But then also too, we saw the culmination of that backlash against information, against letting people know what their governments were doing in these last three years, as we’ve seen the Israelis and the Americans murder over 250 journalists in Gaza. So I think what it means to me is we don’t ever stop, right? That no matter what success we have, we don’t stop. Whatever setback we have, we don’t stop. And I think Julian, of course, with what he’s done, his work, but also too his personal trials, the prosecution and the persecution he endured for years by the British state, by the American state, I think he is the best example of how you don’t ever stop.’ Watch the full interview in the quoted post below 👇 @MatthewPHoh @wikileaks @JulianAssange