Wikileaks founder Julian Assange extradition to the United States is closer than ever. There, Assange, who made scandalous revelations about US military operations, is threatened with up to 175 years in prison.
Today, Tuesday and tomorrow, Wednesday, the British Supreme Court will hear Assange’s request to appeal to the court once more in order to cancel the extradition decision.
Two judges will decide whether Assange can appeal against extradition. The decision may come immediately after the hearing or later. If the judges reject the request, it is possible that Assange will be sent to the United States immediately.
If the judges side with Assange, his imprisonment will continue and the court will start dealing with the petition. According to his supporters, Assange plans to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
The United States wants Assange on trial for one of the biggest data leaks in the country’s history. Wikileaks, the disclosure website led by Assange, published hundreds of thousands of US secret documents at the beginning of the last decade. They revealed, among other things, the miserable situation of the US mission in Afghanistan.
One of the biggest scandals involved a video that showed laughing US soldiers shooting civilians from a helicopter in the Iraq war in 2007. Two Reuters news agency reporters were also killed in the attack. Before the video was released, US soldiers claimed to have returned fire.
Wikileaks got the information from a US Army soldier From Chelsea Manning. Assange has been charged 18 charges For assisting Manning in stealing information from government computers. Assange is also accused of publishing information and putting information sources at risk.
Assange justifies his actions as journalism exposing abuses. According to the United States, Assange was guilty of the crime of espionage that endangered national security.
The spouse appeals for release
Spouse of Julian Assange Stella Assange appealed for her husband’s release at a press conference in London.
– This is a race against time, he says.
The struggle of years can be seen in Stella Assange. He apologizes as the thought breaks. He says he’s been sick. When she is asked at a press conference about the well-being of the couple’s children, she bursts into tears. Still, he answers questions with the strength of steel.
– Julian has been in prison for five years, although he has not been convicted of a crime. He is imprisoned because the United States has falsely indicted him. He is in tough conditions, Stella Assange tells in an interview after the press conference in London.
Seven years in the mission, five in prison
Assange has been avoiding the judiciary for 14 years now. First, Sweden wanted Assange on trial accused of rape and sexual harassment. Sweden later dropped the charges. The United States announced its own charges in 2019.
Assange was afraid that Sweden or Britain would hand him over to the United States, so he applied for political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012. Assange spent seven years at the embassy.
In 2019, Ecuador’s new government revoked asylum. Assange was booked into the high-security Belmarsh prison by British police. The reason for the imprisonment was that Assange had violated his parole by applying for asylum.
Prison time has been tough for 53-year-old Julian Assange. According to Stella Assange, his mental and physical health are tough and he looks much older than he is nowadays.
– Julian has been sitting in a six-square-meter cell in isolation around the clock for five years. He won’t be let out, says Stella Assange.
He fears that in the United States Assange will be put in conditions that will push him to the brink of suicide. He does not believe in US assurances of human rights treatment.
– His life is in danger every day in prison. If he is extradited to the United States, he will die, Stella Assange fears.
Also the campaign director of the Reporters Without Borders organization Rebecca Vincent characterizes Julian Assange’s health as miserable. Vincent met Assange four times at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year.
– When I last saw him in January, he was in pain. He had a broken rib because he coughed too hard because of a respiratory illness, says Vincent.
Also UN special rapporteur investigating torture Alice Jill Edwards demands that Britain reject Assange’s extradition plans because of the risk of suicide.
– Assange will possibly end up in prison for tens of years in a system known for abuses, such as isolation and poor health care, says a criminal law expert from the human rights organization Amnesty. Julie Hall.
A threat to journalism and press freedom
The Reporters Without Borders organization considers Assange’s indictment a danger to press freedom. According to the system, Assange acted like a journalist and published important information to the public about the actions of the United States in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
– This case has alarming consequences for journalism and press freedom around the world. Not least because he would become the first publisher to be sued under the US Espionage Act, says Vincent.
According to Vincent, the United States does not accuse Assange of espionage, but of journalism. The indictment does not claim that Assange acted on behalf of another state or an enemy, he reflects.
In the United States, in lawsuits based on the Espionage Act, national security overrides the public interest. It creates a risk for journalists who investigate abuses related to national security.
– This can be applied to anyone who publishes stories based on leaked secret documents. Any journalist in any media in the world could find himself in the same situation, says Vincent.
Media researcher Alan Rusbridger was responsible for publishing the first Wikileaks revelations in the mainstream media as editor-in-chief of The Guardian. Assange’s actions were for him the core work of journalism, because he published information obtained from a whistleblower, where the facts are correct.
– This is part of a trend that aims to make journalism that follows national security into a criminal activity. It’s too important to leave unexplored, says Rusbridger.
The Australian parliament demands that the United States and Britain allow Assange to return home.
Support is also provided by the WikiLeaks disclosure website, whose representatives have arrived in London to follow the legal proceedings.