WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen, Julian Assange, will soon face possibly his final court hearing in the UK High Court of Justice over whether he should be extradited to the US to face spying charges.
For those new to the world of whistleblowing, it’s proven to instigate positive change.
It’s protection from tyranny.
Assange published US military secrets in 2010, provided by US army whistleblower, Chelsea Manning. The leaks revealed war crimes, torture, assassinations, and the list of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
There is no evidence that this published information led to any deaths or compromised the US.
It was just embarrassing for the US government and horrifying for everyone else.
As the most powerful war/death machine on the planet – by far – US govcorp are not used to being exposed, or their hypocrisy pointed out. For his sins, Assange spent seven years in self-exile inside Ecuador’s UK embassy, and now it’s coming up to five years in Belmarsh maximum security prison, all without charge.
So far, the federal Labor government have shown a lack of negotiation skills to free this poor tortured soul. Perhaps they are just too scared of the US? There have been plenty of bargaining chips of late, like the dreadful AUKUS deal.
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (CCL) say, ‘If extradited to the US, Assange faces a staggering possible prison sentence of 175 years. This is the first time in US history that a publisher has been prosecuted for obtaining or publishing (as opposed to leaking) US state secrets’.
CCL president Lydia Shelly said, ‘Chelsea Manning was pardoned by Obama and released after seven years in prison’.
‘The Obama administration decided not to proceed with charges against Assange, but they were revived under President Trump’.
The CCL adds, ‘Assange would go on trial in the Eastern District of Virginia court where the jury pool relies heavily on employees or family members of employees of the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon and other national security institutions’.
And this legal case is of enormous significance for free speech and journalism across the globe.
CCL say: ‘The US government is attempting to use its 1917 Espionage Act against a journalist and publisher for the very first time. Assange is not a US citizen, and his publications occurred in the UK’.
Extending judicial reach
‘If the US is successful, it will have redefined investigative journalism as “espionage”. It will have extended its judicial reach internationally, and applied it to a non-US citizen without a corresponding extension of First Amendment rights, which prosecutors maintain does not apply to Mr Assange as a non-US citizen publishing from the UK.
‘This will pose an existential threat to the free press as other countries will be able to argue that they too should be allowed to extradite journalists and publishers from the UK for breaking their censorship or secrecy laws’.
Unfortunately in an increasingly globalised world, persecuting whistleblowers, by those committing the crimes, is being normalised. Russia and China regularly kill their dissidents and opposition leaders.
It was always assumed western countries treated their critics better and valued free speech. Do they?
Hans Lovejoy, editor
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