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The case is a huge scandal and represents the failure of Western rule of law. If Julian Assange is convicted, it will be a death sentence for freedom of the press. Nils Meltzer, author The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution, inteview Republik January 2020
The Siege of Knightsbridge is both an emblem of gross injustice and a gruelling farce. For three years, a police cordon around the Ecuadorean embassy in London has served no purpose other than to flaunt the power of the state. It has cost £12 million. The quarry is an Australian charged with no crime, a refugee whose only security is the room given him by a brave South American country. His ‘crime’ is to have initiated a wave of truth-telling in an era of lies, cynicism and war.
The persecution of Julian Assange is about to flare again as it enters a dangerous stage. From August 20, three-quarters of the Swedish prosecutor’s case against Assange regarding sexual misconduct in 2010 will disappear as the statute of limitations expires. At the same time Washington’s obsession with Assange and WikiLeaks has intensified. Indeed, it is vindictive American power that offers the greatest threat – as Chelsea Manning and those still held in Guantanamo can attest.
The Americans are pursuing Assange because WikiLeaks exposed their epic crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq: the wholesale killing of tens of thousands of civilians, which they covered up, and their contempt for sovereignty and international law, as demonstrated vividly in their leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks continues to expose criminal activity by the US, having just published top secret US intercepts – US spies’ reports detailing private phone calls of the presidents of France and Germany, and other senior officials, relating to internal European political and economic affairs. John Pilger, article ‘Assange: The Untold Story of an Epic Struggle for Justice’
He [Julian Assange] can’t see his defence documents … It belonged in a show trial in the 1950s: Moscow, Prague, you name it … Do they know what has happened to justice here? John Pilger, interview RT channel 2019
16 of the 17 at least charges against Assange in the United States are unlawful, are political. ibid.
It’s [Julian Assange] a warning from history … that can happen to anybody … It’s an assault on citizenship … John Pilger, interview Going Underground, ‘Julian Assange Exposed US ‘Kill Them All’ Mentality’
For years the fate of Julian Assange has been left to speculation. What would a Trump presidency name for his freedom? Abby Martin, The Empire Files: Randy Credico 44.10, 2018
‘Can’t we just drone this guy [Assange]?’ ibid. Hillary Clinton, cited Wikileaks
In 2006, WikiLeaks creates an online submission system that allows sources to leak documents anonymously. Four years later, they receive over 700,000 US military and State Department documents. Julian Assange: Risk, caption, BBC 2019
After months of making global headlines, WikiLeaks learns that their password to 250,000 US State Department documents has been exposed. ibid.
Assange and WikiLeaks staff are under secret US grand jury investigation for espionage and conspiracy. Several large institutions have blocked online donations, cutting off cash flow to the organisation. ibid.
As the Arab Spring spread across the Middle East, the Egyptian government cut off access to the internet. In the aftermath of the revolution, regional telecoms gather in Cairo. ibid.
In 2010, WikiLeaks published this leaked video showing the US military killing Iraqis, including two Reuters journalists. The source, 22-year-old intelligence analyst Private Manning is arrested after a hacker informs the FBI. ibid.
As a teenager, Assange formed the International Subversives, a group that hacked into computer networks around the world. In 1996, he plead guilty to hacking a telecom and was ordered to pay damages. ibid.
Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden over sexual assault allegations made by two women. He is under house arrest at a supporter’s home, and has a 10 p.m. curfew. Sweden has requested Assange’s extradition for questioning over the allegations. The possible counts include unlawful coercion and rape. Assange denies all allegations. No charges have been filed. ibid.
Assange’s final option for appeal is the UK Supreme Court. His lawyers believe if he is sent to Sweden, he will then be extradited to the US as part of the grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks. ibid.
Ecuador grants Assange political asylum. ibid.
Julian Assange was born for stardom and his creation Wikileaks made for Hollywood. But when Hollywood embraces history most issues come out black and white … For most people, judging the real Julian Assange is irresistible. The Fifth Estate: The Strange World of Julian Assange, CBC 2013
In his teens he was a gifted hacker. ibid.
The US was the biggest target and the most dangerous. ibid.
Some of the strongest dissent was coming from inside Wikileaks: endangering real and probably innocent people to possible reprisals was too much for some. ibid.
A shocking shift in media attention … ‘He is accused of rape and molestation.’ ibid. television news
Assange was once feted and courted by some of the largest media organizations in the world, including The New York Times and The Guardian, for the information he possessed. But once his trove of material documenting US war crimes, much of it provided by Chelsea Manning, was published by these media outlets he was pushed aside and demonized. A leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch dated March 8, 2008, exposed a black propaganda campaign to discredit WikiLeaks and Assange … to destroy the ‘feeling of trust’ that is WikiLeaks’ ‘center of gravity’ and blacken Assange’s reputation. It largely has worked. Chris Hedges, Crucifying Julian Assange, 2018
The Democratic Party — seeking to blame its election defeat on Russian ‘interference’ rather than the grotesque income inequality, the betrayal of the working class, the loss of civil liberties, the deindustrialization and the corporate coup d’état that the party helped orchestrate — attacks Assange as a traitor, although he is not a US citizen. Nor is he a spy. He is not bound by any law I am aware of to keep US government secrets. He has not committed a crime. ibid.
WikiLeaks and Assange have done more to expose the dark machinations and crimes of the American Empire than any other news organization. Assange, in addition to exposing atrocities and crimes committed by the United States military in our endless wars and revealing the inner workings of the Clinton campaign, made public the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency, their surveillance programs and their interference in foreign elections … And WikiLeaks worked swiftly to save Edward Snowden, who exposed the wholesale surveillance of the American public by the government, from extradition to the United States by helping him flee from Hong Kong to Moscow. ibid.
What is happening to Assange should terrify the press … The silence about the treatment of Assange is not only a betrayal of him but a betrayal of the freedom of the press itself. We will pay dearly for this complicity … Assange is on his own. Each day is more difficult for him. This is by design. It is up to us to protest. We are his last hope, and the last hope, I fear, for a free press. ibid.
Julian Assange, Bradley Manning: over half a million leaked documents. Tonight the whole story: Wikisecrets. Frontline: Wikisecrets, PBS 2011
Video of massacre: Assange edited the material into a short presentation with a provocative title: Collateral Murder Baghdad 12th of July 2007. ibid.
Manning had become an analyst at a time of increased intelligence sharing. ibid.
Was Assange a passive recipient or was he more involved? ibid.
In the weeks before Manning was arrested, Julian Assange was on the road promoting Wikileaks. ibid.
The release exposed candid, often embarrassing assessments. ibid.
Julian Assange refused permission to appeal against US extradition by UK’s top court: Assange is wanted in America following Wikileaks’ publication of classified files:
Britain’s top court has refused Wikipeaks’ founder Julian Assange permission to appeal against a decision to extradite him to the US to face spying charges.
A Supreme Court spokesperson said that senior judges had refused Assange’s bid to challenge the decision as his case did not raise ‘an arguable point of law’. Independent online article 14 March 2022
Julian is in the harshest prison in the UK; he’s not serving a sentence. And the US want to put him in prison for 175 years, about publishing to the truth about the Iraq and Afghan wars The Imprisonment of Julian Assange, wife, Al Jazeera 25.00, 2023
These publications were a game-changer. This really opened the eyes of the public to what was going on. ibid.
In 2019 the US charged him with publishing classified materials and has been fighting to extradite him. ibid. commentary
Assange was dragged out of the embassy and arrested by British police on a US extradition request in 2019. ibid.
Julian Assange has become one of the most influential and divisive figures of our time. A martyr for free speech and freedom of information to some, a reckless anarchist to others. Four Corners: The US v Julian Assange, Youtube 45.57, ABC
In the 2016 campaign … the publication of thousands of emails stolen from senior figures in the Democratic National Committee was enthusiastically embraced by candidate Donald Trump. Now as president Trump has flipped. ibid.