Assange, Manning, Snowden At The Door Of The UN In Geneva

The Place des Nations, home to the United Nations in Geneva, is adorned with a temporary exhibition this week. The work of Italian artist Davide Dormino representing Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden was inaugurated this morning.

The bronze statue weighing over a ton, which is a “testimony in favour of freedom of expression and information,” according to the initiative, includes four chairs, one for each of the men and one for anyone to stand on. This empty chair has attracted a number of candidates since the inauguration.

According to a press release by the Press Emblem Campaign, the empty chair is a call for the public to answer the question: are Assange, Manning and Snowden traitors or heroes of our time? By climbing on the empty chair, the public can express support for the three men and their action.

The coordinator of the project in Switzerland, Pilar Ackermann, said that the arrival of the exhibition in the country is timely in the context of the Swiss project law “For better protection of whistleblowers,” according to the release.

Julian Assange is co-founder of the site WikiLeaks and is currently under house arrest in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. Chelsea Manning contributed to WikiLeaks on the United States’ operations during the war in Iraq and was sentenced to 35 years in prison in the US. Edward Snowden revealed classified documents from the US National Security Agency to the public. He has obtained political asylum in Russia.

The exhibition “Anything to Say?” was first launched in Berlin on the Alexanderplatz in May and will be leaving Geneva on Friday to go to Paris at the Beaubourg Center from 23 to 29 September.

Image Credits: Catherine Saez