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Press Freedom

Julian Assange Is Finally Free; Let’s Not Forget The War Crimes He Exposed

June 29, 2024 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , ,
After a 14-year struggle, including five years spent in Belmarsh, a maximum-security prison in London, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is finally free. Under the terms of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain documents, writings and notes connected with the national defense under the Espionage Act. Assange was facing 175 years in prison for 18 charges in the indictment filed by the Trump administration and pursued by the Biden administration. The Justice Department agreed to the plea bargain a little over a month after the High Court of England and Wales ruled that Assange would be allowed to appeal an extradition order.

Assange: I Broke The Law But The Law Is Wrong

June 27, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
Before Federal Judge Ramona Manglona on Wednesday at the court in Saipan, capital of the Northern Marianas, Assange pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to obtain defense information, a violation of the U.S. Espionage Act. “With this pronouncement, it appears that you will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man,” the judge said. According to an account by Dow Jones news service in The Australian, Mangola asked Assange what he had done to violate the law. “Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified,” Assange replied. “I believed the First Amendment protected that activity, but I accept that it was a violation of the espionage statute.”

You Saved Julian Assange

June 26, 2024 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , , ,
The dark machinery of empire, whose mendacity and savagery Julian Assange exposed to the world, spent 14 years trying to destroy him. They cut him off from his funding, canceling his bank accounts and credit cards. They invented bogus allegations of sexual assault to get him extradited to Sweden, where he would then be shipped to the U.S. They trapped him in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for seven years after he was given political asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship by refusing him safe passage to Heathrow Airport. They orchestrated a change of government in Ecuador that saw him stripped of his asylum, harassed and humiliated by a pliant embassy staff.

Julian Assange Is Finally Free

June 25, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , ,
Julian Assange has agreed to a plea deal with the United States. He left Belmarsh on Monday and is headed to Australia, WikiLeaks said. “He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK,” WikiLeaks said in a tweet early Tuesday morning London time. Stella Assange, tweeted: “Julian is free!!!! Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU- yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.” Assange was released as a result of a plea deal with the United States, the BBC reported.

Julian Assange Is Free, But Government Still Abused The Espionage Act

June 24, 2024 Defending Rights and Dissent. , , ,
Defending Rights & Dissent welcomes the news that Julian Assange will go free for the first time in over a decade. For over five years, Assange has been confined to Belmarsh Prison in London, as he contested his extradition to the US. Prior to that, Assange spent seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy under what a United Nations Work Group deemed to be arbitrary detention.  On Monday, it was announced that Assange had filed a guilty plea in the US District of Northern Mariana Islands. Assange, who faced 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, pled guilty to single count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense Information in violation of the Espionage Act.

Arresting Reporters Is A Crude Form Of Censorship

June 22, 2024 Jen St. Denis, The Tyee. , , ,
Press freedom advocates in Canada are calling on Quebec prosecutors to drop mischief charges against Savanna Craig, saying her arrest and charges are part of a larger trend across Canada. Craig was arrested in April while covering a pro-Palestinian protest at a Scotiabank branch in Montreal for CUTV, a university television station at Concordia University. Although she identified herself as a journalist to police and showed them her press card, she was detained along with 44 protesters. Police have now recommended mischief charges against her. “We’re very concerned about the behaviour of Montreal police towards Savanna Craig on April 15, and local law enforcement’s decision to recommend charges against her despite the evidence that she was not in violation of Canadian law at the time of her arrest,” said Katherine Jacobsen.

Why Is A Stanford Student Reporter Still Facing Felony Charges?

June 22, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , ,
A coalition of press freedom and First Amendment organizations have demanded that the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office abandon felony charges against a Stanford University student reporter.  Dilan Gohill, a freshman, covers student protests for the university’s newspaper known as The Daily. He was arrested on June 5, along with 12 demonstrators, after they engaged in an act of civil disobedience against the Stanford’s investments in companies “that provide material and logistical support to Israel’s current military campaign” in Gaza.  The letter [PDF] from the coalition to the local prosecutor indicates that police jailed Gohill for 15 hours. He could be charged with “felony burglary, vandalism, and conspiracy, according to his lawyers and the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.”

Judges Named For Assange Appeal

June 14, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , , ,
The judges in Julian Assange’s two-day appeal hearing on July 9-10 are the same who granted Assange a rare victory last month:  his right to appeal the Home Office’s extradition order to the United States. Justices Jeremy Johnson and Victoria Sharp granted Assange the right to appeal on only two of nine requested grounds, but they are significant: 1) his extradition was incompatible with his free speech rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights; and 2) that he might be prejudiced because of his nationality (not being given 1st Amendment protection as a non-American).

Kansas Newspaper That Faced Illegal Police Raid Backs Reporter’s Shield Law

June 2, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , ,
A newspaper in Kansas that was targeted in an illegal police raid endorsed legislation in the United States Senate that would establish a national reporter’s shield law.  Eric Meyer, associate dean of the College of Media at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and publisher of the Marion County Record, declared, “As last summer’s raid on the Marion County Record proved, freedom of expression faces unprecedented challenges from unscrupulous people willing to weaponize the justice system to bully and retaliate against those attempting to report truth.” “Existing remedies might be fine for huge media organizations, but community journalists and people like the students I used to teach at the University of Illinois shouldn’t have their rights be dependent on whether they can afford to hire massive legal teams.”

Victory For Assange, First Amendment, UK Court Grants Right To Appeal

May 30, 2024 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , ,
On May 20, a two-judge panel of the High Court of England and Wales handed WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange a significant victory. Justice Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp granted him leave to appeal the U.K.’s extradition order on two grounds. The High Court will now schedule a hearing at which Assange will be allowed to argue that his rights to freedom of expression and to be free from discrimination based on his nationality would not be protected if he were extradited to the United States. In the U.K., the right to appeal is not automatic. While they didn’t rule on the merits of Assange’s claims, Johnson and Sharp determined that the two issues have sufficient legal merit to be reviewed by the High Court.

Something Changed In The Assange Case

May 23, 2024 Craig Murray, Consortium News. , , , ,
In the normal run of things, if a very senior judge instructs you to give an assurance to their Court, it would probably not be wise to avoid giving the assurance, to devote a huge amount of text to trying to obscure the fact you have not given the assurance, and then to lecture the judge on why they were wrong to ask for the assurance in the first place. Most lawyers would probably advise against that course of conduct. But this did not deter the fearless James Lewis KC, back to lead for the United States prosecution against Julian Assange, eyes twinkling and his neat nautical facial hair having grown rather wilder, as though he had decided to assume a piratical air to match his reckless conduct of the case.

The Slow-Motion Execution Of Julian Assange Continues

May 21, 2024 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , ,
The decision by the High Court in London to grant Julian Assange the right to appeal the order to extradite him to the United States may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. It does not mean Julian will elude extradition. It does not mean the court has ruled, as it should, that he is a journalist whose only “crime” was providing evidence of war crimes and lies by the U.S. government to the public. It does not mean he will be released from the high-security HMS Belmarsh prison where, as Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, after visiting Julian there, said he was undergoing a “slow-motion execution.”

Assange Wins Right To Appeal On First Amendment Issue

May 20, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , ,
The High Court in London on Monday granted Julian Assange the right to appeal the order to extradite him to the United States on the grounds that the U.S. did not satisfy the court that it would allow Assange a First Amendment defense in a U.S. court. “We spent a lot of time listening to the United States putting lipstick on a pig, but the judges didn’t buy it,” Stella Assange told reporters outside the court building. “As a family we are relieved but how long can this go on? The United States should read the situation and drop the case now.” Assange has been imprisoned in London’s notorious Belmarsh Prison for more than five years on remand pending the outcome of his extradition. 

What To Expect At Julian Assange’s Appeal Hearing On May 20

May 19, 2024 Assange Defense. , , , ,
On Monday, May 20th, the UK High Court will decide whether Julian Assange will be allowed to appeal the decision allowing his extradition before the UK Courts. The High Court will first hear arguments from the defense and the prosecution regarding the “assurances” provided by the U.S. Julian Assange’s final appeal hearing was held on February 20th​ and 21st​ this year, upon which the judges made a ruling on March 26th​, provisionally allowing Julian Assange to appeal the decision to extradite him to the U.S., but only if the U.S. doesn’t provide sufficient assurances that he will not be sentenced to death and that he will be allowed to rely on the First Amendment that is, his right to free speech.

Lawsuit Succeeds In Lifting Gag Rules At Pittsburgh Jail

May 14, 2024 Yale Law School. , , , , ,
In a win for government accountability in Pennsylvania, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have succeeded in lifting Allegheny County Jail rules that forbid employees from talking to the press or posting information on social media. As part of a settlement reached in the federal First Amendment lawsuit on April 23, the Pittsburgh jail has adopted new policies that affirm employees’ right to speak and to disclose wrongdoing at the jail. The policies also empower jail employees to speak out to the press on matters of public concern.
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