During the bilateral meeting at Palazzo Chigi last night (9/1/2025) between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a few pacifists in Rome hoisted, next to the Colosseum, a gigantic banner bearing Julian Assange’s famous quote, “If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth.”
“People are fed up with the war in Ukraine and also with the lies told to start it and then to sustain it — it’s time to tell the truth,” said one of the activists, Davide Dormino, the sculptor who made the famous bronze group depicting Assange with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, Anything to Say. “This is because if you don’t admit the truth – which is that the NATO presence in Ukraine can appear to be a threat to Russia’s security – then you will never agree to a deal to dispel that threat and no peace will ever be made.”
On this count, Meloni told Zelensky in their encounter last night that a just peace deal is simply “the one Ukraine agrees to” – and thus it would be enough for Ukraine to agree not to join NATO and to dismantle NATO installations already in the country, to end the conflict immediately. Bilateral agreements would then suffice to protect Ukraine from any future Russian incursion. “No more weapons! Now what is needed is the truth,” concluded Dormino.
“While Meloni was conferring with Zelenski, we activists wanted to recall the words of Julian Assange also for a second reason,” added another of the activists, Salvatore Barbera , campaigner and founder di Latte Creative, a social impact agency. “His case did not end with his release last June. To be completely free, Julian needs a presidential pardon from Joe Biden – a gesture that would also help dismantle the anachronistic Espionage Act under which Assange was wrongly indicted. The U.S. president was unable to come to Rome this evening, as had been planned, but, by hoisting up our banner, we nonetheless want to ask the Italian authorities to signal, in their communications with Washington, the desirability of a presidential pardon for Assange – and also for Snowden and Manning. This would serve to protect all investigative journalists in the future.”
