BRAZILIAN President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s call for freedom for Julian Assange shows a rising “international clamour” for Britain to release the jailed journalist, campaigners say.

The socialist president spoke out in London during a trip to attend the coronation.

“It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him. It’s a crazy thing,” Lula told reporters after the ceremony.

“We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced wrongdoing. And the press doesn’t do anything in defence of this journalist.”

Mr Assange continues to languish in Belmarsh prison, where he has now been held for four years, awaiting possible extradition to the United States — and a potential 175-year jail sentence for publishing details of US war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Every day the UK detains Julian Assange at the behest of the US, it undermines its claim to be a defender of media freedom,” Tim Dawson of the National Union of Journalists told the Morning Star.

“Government statements on behalf of [journalists imprisoned in Russia] Evan Gershkovich and Vladimir Kara-Murza are rendered hollow. As the world wakes up, the shame on our country grows.”

John Rees of Don’t Extradite Assange said: “Lula’s support for Assange is part of a growing international clamour for his release. Seven South American heads of state have demanded he be freed. So has the Australian prime minister, MPs the length and breadth of Europe and lawmakers in the US. 

“It’s time the government woke up to the fact they have made a serious error. Release Assange now.”