Julian Assange is an Australian publisher who founded WikiLeaks, a website that published over 10 million classified documents between 2010 and 2011, including reports of torture at Guantanamo Bay and American military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Notably, WikiLeaks published the Collateral Murder, footage of America’s 2007 Baghdad airstrike in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, New Baghdad which killed multiple civilians and Iraqi reporters. Assange claims that the documents released through his website benefit the public and are protected under the First Amendment’s guarantee of Freedom of Speech. American officials say that these releases have put American civilians and soldiers in great danger, making the documents no longer protected under the Constitution.
Because of this, Assange has been held in a high-security prison in London since 2019 with the potential of being extradited to the United States, where he faces one charge of computer misuse and seventeen charges of espionage: the act of spying to obtain information about the actions of an opposing group. His maximum sentence would be 175 years in a high-security prison. Many of Assange’s supporters fear that he will die if he is held in prison for any longer and are petitioning for him to be returned to Australia, where his charges will be dropped.
One particularly vocal advocate for Assange’s release is Andrei Molodkin, a Russian conceptual artist. Molodkin owns 16 famous pieces of art by notable artists including Picasso, Rembrandt, Warhol, Sarah Lucas, and Andres Serrano valued at over 45 million dollars. As part of his new exhibit “Dead Man’s Switch,” Molodkin announced that he had put his art collection into a vault attached to two barrels of acid powder and an accelerator. Molodkin threatens that if Assange dies in prison he will pump the barrels into the vault, causing a chemical reaction that will destroy the paintings. It is unclear as to why Molodkin is doing this or if he has any personal connection to Assange or his cause. In an interview with Sky News, Molodkin justified his threats by saying, “In our catastrophic time – when we have so many wars – to destroy art is much more taboo than to destroy the life of a person.”
GRAYCE MCCORMICK, The National Desk. “What Happens to WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange?” WBMA, 16 Feb. 2024, Source.
Jones, Jonathan. “Threatening to Dissolve Masterpieces in Acid Is a Pathetically Banal Stunt for Our Shallow Times.” The Guardian, 13 Feb. 2024, Source.
WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Charged in 18-Count Superseding Indictment. 23 May 2019, Source.
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