https://socialistaction.org/2019/08/05/free-julian-assange-defend-freedom-of-the-press/
Free Julian Assange! Defend freedom of the press!
/ 2 days ago
Aug. 2019 Julian AssangeBy BRUCE LESNICK
On April 11, the Ecuadorian government revoked asylum protection for
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Within minutes, British gendarmes
entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, arrested Assange, and seized
his computers, documents, and other materials.
He is now being held in London???s Belmarsh prison for bail violation.
That spurious charge stems from a withdrawn Swedish extradition request
that arose from a now defunct investigation into sexual misconduct. No
charges were ever filed against the WikiLeaks founder in the Swedish case.
Assange sought asylum in 2012 due to a well-founded fear of rendition to
the U.S. for activities related to WikiLeaks??? publishing. At the time,
rumors were circulating of a sealed indictment against him. On April 13,
2017, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo raised the stakes by describing
WikiLeaks as a ???non-state hostile intelligence service.???
Then, on Nov. 16, 2018, the mask was torn off as The New York Times
reported, ???The Justice Department has secretly filed criminal charges
against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, a person familiar with
the case said, a drastic escalation of the government???s years-long
battle with him and his anti-secrecy group.
???Top Justice Department officials told prosecutors over the summer that
they could start drafting a complaint against Mr. Assange, current and
former law enforcement officials said. The charges came to light late
Thursday through an unrelated court filing in which prosecutors
inadvertently mentioned them.???
On April 11, 2019, the first actual U.S. indictment against Assange was
unsealed, charging him with ???working with Chelsea Manning, then a US
army intelligence analyst, to break into the defense department network
in March 2010 to obtain classified documents.???
A month later, a superseding indictment was issued accusing Assange of
18 counts of violating the 1917 Espionage Act for publishing the Iraq
and Afghan War Logs and related information leaked by Manning
documenting U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In other words, Assange, an Australian citizen, is currently being held
in a British prison, facing extradition to the U.S. and a possible
lengthy prison sentence for the ???crime??? of journalism.
Espionage is a capital crime. Thus, the Trump administration, which has
recently reinstated federal capital punishment, could, in principle,
seek the death penalty in Assange???s case. However, the UK Human Rights
Act of 1998 protects anyone within UK jurisdiction from:
??? Torture (mental or physical)
??? Inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
??? Deportation or extradition (being sent to another country to face
criminal charges) if there is a real risk you will face torture or
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in the country concerned.
In 2012, the U.N Special Rapporteur on torture accused the U.S. of cruel
and inhuman treatment in its imprisonment and solitary confinement of
Chelsea Manning. So, Assange has a well-founded fear of ill treatment at
the hands of U.S. authorities. On this basis, extradition from the UK
should not be possible. That???s where Sweden comes in.
Sweden is not bound by the UK Human Rights Act. If Assange had been
extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges, there would have
been nothing to stop Swedish officials from turning around and handing
him over to U.S. authorities. Indeed, before the Swedish investigation
was dropped, Assange offered on multiple occasions to cooperate with the
Swedish investigators and even to return to Sweden for that purpose if
Swedish officials would guarantee he would not be turned over to U.S.
authorities. Though such a guarantee was within the power of Swedish
authorities to grant, they flatly refused.
Of course, if Assange or anyone else were to be found guilty of rape,
they should face the legal consequences. But aside from the fact that
everyone is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty, the evidence in
the Swedish case is chock full of holes. As columnist Caitlin Johnstone
put it, ???[Y]ou???d have to be out of your mind to believe a completely
unproven allegation about a known target of US intelligence agencies.
It???s just as stupid as believing unproven claims about governments
targeted for US regime change, like believing Saddam had WMD.???
WikiLeaks??? outstanding record
All of the documents provided by Manning and published by WikiLeaks???the
documents that form the basis for the indictment against Assange???have
been confirmed as genuine.In fact, not a single thing published by
Wikileaks since its inception in 2006 has been shown to be false or
fraudulent. The same cannot be said for The New York Times, CNN or the
Washington Post. In its 13-year life, WikiLeaks has published multiple
blockbuster revelations, including:
??? The Iraq and Afghan war logs (2010). A collection of Army field
reports that exposed true civilian casualty rates. One of the key items
in this release was the ???Collateral Murder??? video which showed a U.S.
helicopter gunship targeting civilians and journalists, actions that
many have said amount to war crimes.
??? U.S. diplomatic cables (2010). These reveal candid comments and
attempts at manipulation carried out by imperial diplomats.
??? Guantanamo prison files (2011). Assessments, interview,s and internal
memos about various prisoners. As reported by Democracy Now! and others
and summarized by Wikopedia, ???[M]ore than 150 innocent Afghans and
Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs, and drivers, were held for years
without charges.???
??? The Stratfor files (2012). An intelligence company with ties to the
Pentagon, this cache of emails exposed U.S. and other government
machinations around the world.
??? Assistance provided to Edward Snowden (2013). WikiLeaks assisted
Snowden in traveling from Hong Kong to Russia to escape capture.
??? The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Intellectual Property Rights
chapter (2015). This showed one way the TPP was designed to prioritize
profits over people.
??? The John Podesta and Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails
(2016). Showed cheating and subterfuge carried out by the Hillary
Clinton Campaign and the Democratic Party behind the scenes.
??? Vault 7: The CIA???s secret hacking tools (2017). Exposed an arsenal of
tools used by the CIA to spy on individuals, organizations. and
governments the world over.
Each of these disclosures chipped away at the lies promoted by the U.S.
empire and its allies.
Mainstream media fails miserably
As Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald has emphasized, the
materials released by WikiLeaks were distributed ???in partnership with
some of the largest media outlets in the world, including The New York
Times, the Guardinan, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais, outlets that
published many of the same secret documents that form the basis of the
criminal case against Assange.???
If WikiLeaks or Assange are guilty of any crime, so too must be numerous
mainstream outlets and journalists. Yet remarkably, a wide-range of
mainstream media personalities have bought into the imperialist smear
that Assange is not a journalist and that WikiLeaks is not a media
organization.
(See, for example, AP News, the Washington Post, The New York Times,
Bloomberg News, and David Corn of Mother Jones.)
But as Greenwald explains, ???Press freedoms belong to everyone, not to a
select, privileged group of citizens called ???journalists.??? Empowering
prosecutors to decide who does or doesn???t deserve press protections
would restrict ???freedom of the press??? to a small, cloistered priesthood
of privileged citizens designated by the government as ???journalists.???
The First Amendment was written to avoid precisely that danger.???
In the spirit of generations of labor and anti-imperialist struggles, we
would add, ???An injury to one is an injury to all!??? Freedom of speech and
freedom of the press are essential conquests of working-class and
popular struggles against corporate oppression. Any attack on these
rights hurts workers and the oppressed most of all.
The current dictatorship of capital relies heavily on messaging and
propaganda to maintain the inequality of wealth and power on which it is
balanced.
The minority at the top would like nothing more than to chip away at our
ability to organize, speak, write, and expose the injustices of the
current system that worships profits at the expense of human needs.
In response, we must steadfastly fight to defend and extend the rights
of the majority. To that end we must demand: Free Julian Assange! Drop
all the Charges against Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning! Defend
Freedom of the press!
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August 5, 2019 in Anti-War, Civil Liberties. Tags: Assange, Wikileaks
Related posts
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