Index on Censorship weekly round-up

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Friday, 28 June 2024
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Support for Julian Assange outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012. Photo: Marshall24 ([link removed]) , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Index on Censorship has had a close relationship with Julian Assange since he picked up our new media award in 2008 for his work with Wikileaks ([link removed]) due to our shared concern for freedom of expression. We were therefore pleased to hear the news this week that he was finally able to be reunited with his family in Australia ([link removed]) after five years in London’s Belmarsh Prison and seven years in hiding at the Ecuadorian embassy (pictured above). At a court in the US Pacific island territory of Saipan, Assange pleaded guilty to a single charge of violating the US Espionage Act. He admitted conspiring to obtain and disclose classified defence documents. Time will tell what chilling effect the deal struck between Assange’s lawyers and the American government will have on journalists attempting to expose future wrongdoing by the US military and intelligence services.

The British courts may have played a decisive role ([link removed]) by insisting that Assange’s free expression rights be taken into account during the extradition hearings. But there was a sense that by the end of the proceedings that both sides were exhausted. As Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona said as she announced the agreement ([link removed]) : “I hope there will be some peace restored.” For free expression organisations such as Index, the dominant emotion is relief that this saga is finally over.

The unstinting support of our colleagues at Reporters Without Borders ([link removed]) has been instrumental in keeping the case in the public eye. But the wider Free Assange campaign ([link removed]) has, at times, been a huge distraction. The campaign allowed a whole range of wider questions to arise which were nothing to do with free speech. Was the Wikileaks founder a journalist, an activist or a publisher, for example?

Julian Assange has established his place in history as one of the most significant figures in 21^st century journalism. The sheer scale of the leak of US diplomatic cables he helped facilitate forced rival journalists to work together. But it also made governments determined to stop it happening again. New measures in the UK’s new National Security Act, for example, were specifically designed to “modernise” official secrecy legislation in response to Wikileaks-style data dumps. At the same time, authoritarian regimes could always hold up Assange as an example of western hypocrisy when challenged on their human rights records.

The reality is that although the Assange campaign has redefined the way the free speech world works, it has also sucked lots of the air out of it. Julian and Stella Assange have asked for the space to build a life for themselves and their children in Australia. This is their victory. But let us hope that for those of us who care about free expression, the focus can now switch fully to other egregious cases around the world.

In a terrible coincidence, the release of Assange coincided with the beginning of the espionage trial of Evan Gershkovich ([link removed]) , the Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in March 2023 shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It also coincided with the case of Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai reaching the highest court of appeal ([link removed]) . Lai stands accused of joining an illegal protest in 2019. Next month his trial resumes under separate national security charges.

While we’ve poured energy into campaigning for the release of Assange, there has been a race to the bottom elsewhere in the world. Reporters accused of subversion are held without trial in China’s “black jails” ([link removed]) , while hundreds of Uyghur journalists have been imprisoned in the re-education camps of Xinjiang ([link removed]) . Russia’s independent media has been eviscerated and President Lukashenka has rounded up any opposition voices in Belarus ([link removed]) . The use of anti-terrorist or national security legislation to control journalists has become commonplace in Turkey, in Egypt, in India and across the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

It would be good to think that the energy of the Free Assange campaign could now be harnessed in support of Gershkovich, Lai and the many brave journalists around the world held as spies or subversives whose names we don’t even know.
Martin Bright, editor-at-large
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** Has Russian disinformation caused Europe’s lurch to the right?
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At the end of 2023, researchers uncovered a network of websites peddling pro-Russian disinformation. In the months that followed the sites unleashed a tsunami of half-truths and downright lies into every country in Europe as part of a concerted campaign to undermine the European Parliament elections. As the results have trickled in, they reveal a lurch to the right, write Ella Edwards and Mark Stimpson ([link removed]) .


** Iran’s supreme court overturns death sentence given to Toomaj Salehi
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Iran’s Supreme Court last weekend overturned the death sentence ([link removed]) handed down in the case of rapper Toomaj Salehi on the basis that it was contrary to Iranian law and excessive. Salehi had been sentenced to death for alleged crimes including “corruption on earth,” but his conviction and sentence arose from him using his music and his voice to stand in support of Iranian women and to speak out about his treatment in prison. The news follows a campaign led by Index on Censorship.


** Our manifesto: the next UK government’s necessary actions to restore freedom of expression
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Political parties in the UK are now in the final stages of campaigning as they approach the general election on 4 July 2024. During the circus of the campaigning season, important issues can and have slipped through the cracks. We have joined together with Article 19 and Humanists UK to put together a wishlist of the issues we would like to see addressed ([link removed]) by the party which forms the next government.


** Dublin conference | Say no to SLAPPs
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Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) are abusive legal threats and actions brought by powerful and wealthy people against public watchdogs with the aim of silencing them. Due to the high cost of defending a case, public watchdogs can effectively be silenced even when what they have said is accurate and in the public interest. When SLAPPs successfully drive information out of the public domain, it is much more difficult to hold power to account. SLAPPs have proliferated globally in recent years and Ireland has previously been identified ([link removed]) as a jurisdiction of concern.

Index and its partners are holding a free day-long conference on 24 October at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin where delegates will hear from a wide-range of stakeholders, including campaigners, academics, journalists, lawyers and politicians from across the island, as we discuss how SLAPPs have manifested themselves in an Irish context. The full line-up of speakers will be announced in due course. Click here to book a free place ([link removed]) .


** From the Index archives
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** Assessing Correa’s free speech heritage
by Irene Caselli
Winter 2016
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[link removed] plea deal reached this week between the US Government and Julian Assange has again focused attention on the role of Ecuador in the saga. Back in 2017, we reflected on the time in office of Ecuador's President Rafael Correa ([link removed]) , who sheltered the WikiLeaks founder in the country's embassy in London.
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Index on Censorship defends people's freedom to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution. We publish censored writers and artists, monitor and campaign against censorship, and encourage debate.

We rely on donations from readers and supporters. By donating ([link removed]) to Index you help us to protect freedom of expression and to support those who are denied that right.
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