A monument to the courage of Assange, Manning, Snowden

The exhibition Anything to Say?, a monument to the freedom of information and the courage of Assange, Manning and Snowden, is halting in Geneva

Geneva (14 September 2015) The exhibition “Anything to Say? ” was inaugurated on Monday in Geneva on the Place des Nations in front of the UN headquarters. The bronze figures of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, standing on chairs and created by the artist Davide Dormino, will be exhibited on the square until Friday.

“It is a monument to the courage of three people who said no to the establishment of a comprehensive monitoring and lies and have chosen to tell the truth,” said the Italian artist Davide Dormino.

The imposing work, which weighs more than a ton, is a testimony in favour of freedom of expression and information, without any political controversy. “People are free to express themselves for or against,” said Marco Benagli, representative of a group of citizens who contributed to the project.

“The PEC is fighting for the freedom of information and all those who keep us informed. There is no justification to the fact that Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are not free of their movements. Sweden must drop all charges against Assange. Snowden worked many years in Geneva. Switzerland must offer him the political asylum” said PEC Secretary General Blaise Lempen at the inauguration.

Assange, Manning and Snowden, “traitors” or heroes of our time? The public can respond by mounting a fourth chair intentionally left empty by the artist.

“Art has the power to make things happen. The chair has a double meaning. It may be comfortable, but it can also be a pedestal to grow, to have a better perspective, to learn. All three of them mounted on a chair with courage at their own risk and peril “, said Davide Dormino.

Coordinator of the project in Switzerland, Pilar Ackermann stressed that “the arrival in Switzerland of the work of art ” Anything to say? ” is timely in the context of the law “For better protection of Whistle blowers” recently returned to the Federal Council, by a parliamentary committee, to improve it. The Swiss participatory democracy represents the model “par excellence” for citizens’ interventions in the rule of law. ”

The Swiss Committee of support to the exhibition is composed of the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the International Centre for Peace and Human Rights (CIPADH), Pilar Ackermann, Fabio Lo Verso, Charly Pache and Marco Benagli.

The monument has already been exposed in Berlin in May and Dresden in June and will be exhibited in Paris in late September. The designers of the project have intended to ask the Swiss authorities for a definitive installation of the work in Geneva once it has been around the world.

Davide Dormino, born in 1973, is an Italian sculptor. In 2011, at the request of the United Nations, he notably created the monument to the tens of thousands of earthquake victims in Port-au-Prince (Haiti).

Julian Assange, born in 1971, is the co-founder of the site WikiLeaks founded in 2006. He has been living for four years under house arrest in the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

Chelsea Manning, born in 1987, was the author of leaks on the site WikiLeaks in 2010, notably on US operations during the war in Iraq. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison in the United States.

Edward Snowden, born in 1983, is an American computer scientist who in 2013, revealed classified documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) to the public. He has obtained political asylum in Russia two years ago.

More info on : www.anythingtosay.com, www.pressemblem.ch, www.cipadh.org

 Source: PEC