London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Roger Waters: Assange movement growing, but mainstream media ‘cowed by the ruling class’

Roger Waters: Assange movement growing, but mainstream media ‘cowed by the ruling class’

As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange turned 50 in prison, his longtime friend and supporter, Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, hammered the “despicable” mainstream media for ignoring the growing movement to free him.

Assange turned 50 on Friday, sitting in London’s Belmarsh Prison. The US government is seeking to extradite Assange and try him on espionage charges, relating to his publication of documents alleging US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, although a British judge ruled in January that he could not be extradited to the United States due to concerns over US prison conditions, he has not been granted bail.

“I’ve sort of run out of expletives for these a**holes who have imprisoned Julian Assange,” Waters told RT on Tuesday. Waters has been a vocal advocate for Assange’s release since the WikiLeaks founder first took refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, but admitted that the protests he’s led and spoken at haven’t moved politicians on either side of the Atlantic to release Assange.

“Julian Assange is a publisher who has committed no crime,” Waters said, remarking that “the powers that be have deaf ears to his predicament,” and seem happy to keep him “under lock and key until he dies, which they seem intent on doing.”

As Assange marked his birthday, protesters in the UK and US took to the streets demanding his release. Demonstrators in London sailed a boat past the Houses of Parliament, while a group in Washington, DC gathered outside the Department of Justice, which has charged Assange with a litany of espionage offences that could see him spend 175 years behind bars if convicted.

Waters told RT that, even though the pro-Assange movement has gained more and more public support in recent years, politicians and the mainstream media are continuing to look the other way. The Pink Floyd frontman recalled a protest in London last year in which “we marched from the Australian embassy to Parliament Square and we made our fine speeches and we made all the points that we’ve all made again and again… and the government took absolutely no notice.”

“Where are all the journalists who should be in the streets demonstrating?” he asked, after recounting a number of baseless stories published about Assange that portrayed him as a misogynist, a rapist, and a vandal. “Nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, the mainstream media is cowed by the ruling class and the powers that be.”

“All those of us who care about human rights and who actually care about freedom… find it very difficult in the face of a mainstream media that’s bought and paid for by the ruling class, and keeps its effing mouth shut.”

That same media mostly ignored news last week that a key witness in the US case against Assange recently admitted to lying. The witness, an Icelandic WikiLeaks volunteer turned FBI informant, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, told an Icelandic newspaper that Assange never instructed him to carry out any computer hacking, despite earlier testimony to the contrary.

Waters is undeterred by resistance from the government and media. “We are strong and we are not going away,” he declared.

“I think I’ll start a campaign now,” Waters said in closing. “I want a statue of Julian Assange in Parliament Square, waggling his finger at the Houses of Parliament, because that’s where he belongs. He is a great hero of our times.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
×