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JULIAN ASSANGE’S MOMENT OF TRUTH HAS ARRIVED – AND THE STAKES ARE
HIGH  
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Duncan Campbell
February 18, 2024
The Guardian
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_ If his appeal fails this week, the WikiLeaks founder could soon be
on a plane towards a potential jail term of 175 years _

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pauses as he makes a statement to
the media gathered outside the High Court in London, Dec. 5, 2011., AP
Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth

 

Walk past the Royal Courts of Justice in London on a week day and you
will often spot small gatherings of people holding placards and
handing out leaflets about a case being held inside. On Tuesday, there
will be many such souls on the pavement, making no secret of their
views on a case that has ramifications for journalism around the
world.

Inside, in a packed court, two high court judges will hear arguments
in an application for leave to appeal that Julian Assange
[[link removed]], the founder of
WikiLeaks, should not be taken from the high-security Belmarsh prison
to face a trial and a potential 175-year jail sentence in the US,
where he faces 18 criminal counts for his alleged role in obtaining
and disclosing classified documents.

These revealed details of US activities in Iraq and Afghanistan,
including attacks on civilians. They also revealed details of the US
treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay and links to clandestine
activities in the Middle East.

Earlier this month, in an unconnected case, former CIA officer Joshua
Schulte was sentenced in New York to 40 years
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for leaking classified information to WikiLeaks.

A key aspect of the prosecution of Assange that has emerged is the
attempt by US authorities to persuade journalists who have been
critical of Assange, an often controversial figure, to give evidence
against him.

At least four well-known journalists have been approached by the
Metropolitan police on behalf of the FBI: James Ball
[[link removed]], his ex-WikiLeaks
colleague, who is now with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism;
David Leigh [[link removed]], the
former _Guardian_ and _Observer_ journalist; Heather Brooke
[[link removed]], a freedom of
information campaigner; and Andrew O’Hagan, who had been
commissioned to ghost Assange’s autobiography.

All of them have declined to cooperate with the FBI. In an article for
_Rolling Stone
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last year, Ball said that he had first been approached in 2021 and
subjected to pressure, including the threat of being prosecuted
himself.

O’Hagan said that although he had his differences with Assange, he
would happily go to jail rather than assist the FBI. “I would only
add that the attempt to punish Assange for exposing the truth is an
attack on journalism itself. I notice that none of those mainstream
collaborators who published his material – the _New York Times_, the
_Guardian_, and _Der Spiegel_ – are being pursued, which
demonstrates that a generational bias against internet-based
journalism is at the heart of the case ... If Julian goes to the US,
Britain will have failed to protect one of the first principles of
democracy.”

 
In a _British Journalism Review [[link removed]]_ article last
year, Leigh wrote: “Unlike the US military, he [Assange] does not
have blood on his hands.” He added last week: “It’s unbelievably
cruel and unnecessary to punish Assange in this way.”

One journalist who was not contacted and who says he would also have
dismissed any approach is Nick Davies
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with Assange while at the _Guardian_. “When we were publishing this
material, we had two reasons for reckoning that the US would not
prosecute Julian,” Davies said.

“One was that in good conscience they could not twist their
espionage act into a weapon to attack journalism. The other was that
no decent administration could prosecute Julian while ignoring the
catalogue of disgusting crime by US forces and their allies which we
were exposing.

 
“All through the [Barack] Obama years, those assumptions held good.
It took [Donald] Trump – immoral and indecent – to overturn them.
It’s just shameful that [Joe] Biden’s people are using Trump as
their guide.”

The National Union of Journalists, like Reporters Without Borders, is
a firm supporter of Assange, as are many organisations, including
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

The UN special rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, has now
urged the government to halt the extradition, based on fears that he
would be at risk of treatment amounting to torture.

The last such extradition battle, involving the computer hacker Gary
McKinnon [[link removed]], was only
halted in 2012 by the then home secretary, Theresa May
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Labour home secretaries had previously declined to intervene.

Janis Sharp, McKinnon’s mother, who led the fight to halt the
extradition, said last week: “The human rights of Julian Assange,
his wife [Stella] and his two children are not just being ignored,
they are being trampled on. To prevent children from having a life
with their father because, through his job as a journalist, he exposed
shocking information that was in the public interest is cruel and
unusual punishment indeed.”

[Janis Sharp]
Janis Sharp, who led the fight against the US extradition of her
computer hacker son Gary McKinnon, says Assange’s rights have been
‘trampled on’. Photograph: David Levene/The Observer

Apart from his fallouts with fellow journalists, Assange was also
accused of sexual offences in Sweden in 2010
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He declined to return there to face charges, claiming that this could
have led to his extradition to the US, but agreed to be interviewed by
Swedish authorities in London, an offer that was not taken up. The
case led to many criticisms of Assange.

Journalistically, support has come from across the spectrum. Alan
Rusbridger [[link removed]], the
_Guardian’s_ editor during the long WikiLeaks saga, wrote this month
in _Prospect
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which he now edits: “I know they won’t stop with Assange. The
world of near-total surveillance, merely sketched by [George] Orwell
in _Nineteen Eighty-Four_, is now rather frighteningly real.”

 
Peter Hitchens, no fan of Assange, wrote on the MailOnline website:
“Even a self-respecting poodle would object to the way we are
currently behaving towards the US. We are on the brink of allowing the
American government to reach into this country and seize a man who has
broken no British law.”

Australia’s parliament has just passed a motion by 86 votes to 42
calling for the release of Assange
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Support from British politicians has not been so widespread. Only 35
parliamentarians wrote to the US attorney general last year to demand
Washington drop the case. Leeds East MP Richard Burgon, who organised
the letter, said: “Any extradition would, in effect, be putting
press freedom on trial.”

He was joined by 13 fellow Labour MPs, two Scottish National party
MPs, Conservative MP David Davis, Caroline Lucas of the Greens and
members of the House of Lords.

All of those, not to mention the many people who will gather outside
the court on Tuesday, must now wait for the high court’s ruling and
what it may mean for Assange – and journalism.

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* Julian Assange; Wikileaks; Press Freedom;
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