Ben Cohen, a liberal activist and co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, burned a copy of the Bill of Rights outside the Department of Justice on Thursday to protest the treatment and incarceration of Julian Assange..Assange, the 52-year-old Australian Wikileaks founder, is in a maximum-security prison in London awaiting extradition to the United States..He faces an 18-count federal indictment for publishing thousands of classified documents and diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011 related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq..The Obama administration declined to prosecute Assange because it said his actions were no different than a journalist who publishes such information. But Assange was indicted under the Trump administration in 2019.."Anything he ever published was the truth," Cohen said, according to the Washington Examiner. "And the truth revealed war crimes and government lies to the US Congress and to the people."."Trump, in his war on journalism, shattered precedent and indicted a publisher for publishing the truth.".However, the Biden administration has stayed the course and continued Assange’s prosecution, much to Cohen’s regret..“It’s outrageous. Julian Assange is nonviolent. He is presumed innocent. And yet somehow or other, he has been imprisoned in solitary confinement for four years."."That is torture. He revealed the truth, and for that, he is suffering, and that’s why we need to do whatever we can to help him and to help preserve democracy, which is based on freedom of the press,” Cohen said during the demonstration, according to feminist organization CODEPINK. .“It seems to me that, right now, unless things change, and unless we change them, freedom of the press is going up in smoke.”.Cohen, who resigned as CEO of Ben & Jerry's in 1996, and Jodie Evans, co-founder of CODEPINK, were arrested by Homeland Security police after blocking an entrance to the DOJ building, according to WJLA-TV..CODEPINK calls itself a feminist grassroots organization that works to support peace and human rights and end US wars and militarism. Cohen appeared in a video on the organization’s Twitter account.."Here's the thing, there's no democracy without freedom of the press because the press is the only thing that can hold government accountable,” Cohen said, while burning the copy of the Bill of Rights."."There's no freedom of the press as long as Assange is being prosecuted.".Ben & Jerry's caused a stink over Canada Day and the Fourth of July holidays with political messages on their ice cream condemning the white man for stealing indigenous land. That created a boycott and has cost the parent company billions of dollars in stock value.
