 World Press Freedom Day used to be an opportunity to highlight the dastardly acts of repressive authoritarian regimes in countries whose populations were controlled by dictators. The dichotomy between us and them has fallen away as what were liberal Western democracies increasingly prosecute whistleblowers and journalists. It's really a war on truth and it's couched in terms of necessary to preserve national security. This battle to tightly control the public narrative is counted at the very notion of a democracy where power belongs to the people. By subjugating the media at the means to hold them to account, governments strip away our capacity to properly exercise our democratic right at the ballot box. We're disempowered as lies, corruption, war crimes remain secret. Secrecy allows them to prosecute their agenda whatever that may be in whatever way unimpeded and they do this of course by legislating draconian laws but also by ensuring that there's a cultural change in media organisations and through the media the people to gradually change what we view as acceptable on their part. All we need to do is look at who appoints the boards of media organisations, who in turn appoint the CEO, who appoint senior managers and so on. It's governments or big business and as journalists we need to pause and ask ourselves if I were to die today, how have I contributed to empowering people with the truth? How have I fought against this trend to become a mouthpiece of those who would strip away that power or stood by and watched it happen and said nothing. We've all got limited time on the planet to do good or to allow evil to prevail. The foremost press freedom case this century globally is Julian Assange, a journalist editor and publisher whom the world's greatest democracies have colluded to persecute and the outcome of his prosecution will have repercussions for journalists and publishers all over the world. We've watched his right to a fair trial abused, the principle of open justice transgressed and despite being unwell for a period of 10 years of being deprived of his liberty, he's forced to remain in a high security prison where there have been prisoner deaths related to coronavirus. What's a publisher doing in a maximum security prison at all? Why is the UK even contemplating extraditing a publisher who's wanted for political reasons? The charges are for acts of journalism, reframed as espionage, even though as former secretary of defence, Robert Gates admitted following the releases that no significant damage was done. They're wielding their biggest stick at the person who's concurrently the strongest and the most vulnerable among us. Strongest because he had the courage and ingenuity to develop a way for whistleblowers to transfer information anonymously and has developed an invaluable public archive that will forever challenge the official narrative of his time and vulnerable because he's been so successfully marginalised they can abuse his human rights and in the process curtail press freedom forever. It's unconscionable that we hold right to no protests and events in Australia where his case is not at the fore let alone not raised at all. We've benefited from his work. We journalists, media organisations and members of the public. Today we need to stop and consider this. If our government persists in failing to intervene a year from now he may be dead or in a US supermax prison for as long as he can bear it before taking his own life. Is this the world we want to live in?