M.I.A. Pens Impassioned Julian Assange Defense: “You Should Thank Him”
By Jazz Monroe and Amy Phillips.
This morning, the Swedish government announced that it would drop its investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who was accused of raping two women in 2010. Since 2012, Assange has taken refuge inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Despite the dropping of the investigation, a warrant is still out for his arrest for failing to appear in court, The New York Times reports, and thus, he cannot leave the embassy without being arrested by the Metropolitan Police. Following this morning's news, M.I.A., a longtime friend and supporter of Assange, has writtena lengthy defense of the controversial figure and announced that he will speak at this year’s Meltdown festival in London, which she is curating. (Pitchfork has contacted representatives for M.I.A. and Meltdown to confirm the details of Assange's involvement in the festival.)
In the note, posted to Instagram, M.I.A. lists a number of grievances with our current “modern society system that perpetuates over sexualisation of women in the name of freedom wants to bomb countries where women cover up and killed how many women and children.”
She continues, “Let's not ask questions about that because that’s normal but dismiss everything this guy did because it hasn't occurred to you that we are not in the 60s and 70s where they just kill you like Malcom x or JFK , they just ‘slander’ or ‘frame’ you mostly use sex or drugs or money to do it.”
She concludes, “Grab that pussy is a symptom of your broken system that was allowed to grow without question. He helped You to see hypocrisy you should thank him and fast fix your system not hide him or the cracks he exposed.” Read it in full below.
M.I.A. and Assange have a long history together. In 2012, her music featured in his TV show “The World Tomorrow.” (She had previously released a mixtape titled Vicki Leekx.) In 2013, Assange Skyped in to open an M.I.A. concert in New York.
Read “M.I.A. vs. the System: A Complete Timeline of Her Controversies” and “The Survivor: A Conversation With M.I.A.”
This story originally appeared on Pitchfork.
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