Press Freedom

More Than 60 Australian MPs Urge US To Let Julian Assange Walk Free

September 17, 2023 Daniel Hurst, The Guardian. Resist! Australia, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

More than 60 Australian federal politicians have explicitly called on the US to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange, warning of “a sharp and sustained outcry in Australia” if the WikiLeaks founder is extradited. With a small cross-party delegation due to fly to Washington next week, the Guardian can reveal the lobbying trip has won the open support of 63 members of Australia’s House of Representatives and Senate. In a letter, the 63 MPs and senators said they stood in support of the trip to the US and were “resolutely of the view that the prosecution and incarceration of the Australian citizen Julian Assange must end”.

Julian Assange And The End Of American Democracy

September 14, 2023 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Criminal Justice and Prisons, Democracy, Julian Assange, Media, Press Freedom, Wikileaks

The US government has hounded Julian Assange since WikiLeaks first revealed the extent of US war crimes in 2010. In the process of persecuting Assange, the federal government has used every tool at its disposal and even pushed beyond the boundaries that supposedly restrict state power in defense of civil liberties. One of the most insidious tactics is the use of the Espionage Act, which had not been used for against whistleblowers and journalists for almost a century before Assange’s case. In the first part of a two-part conversation, lawyer and human rights defender Stella Assange, spouse of Julian Assange, joins Chris Hedges for a look at the vast and vicious campaign by the US to silence Julian Assange, and what it all portends for our democracy.

Australian Parliamentarians Head To Washington To Lobby For Assange

September 5, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Resist! Australia, Congress, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

Six members of the Australian parliament will land in Washington D.C. on Sept. 20 armed with a bi-partisan agenda and the backing of an entire nation as they try to convince Congressmen and State and Justice Department officials that the American pursuit of Australian publisher Julian Assange is wrong and must be stopped. The cross-party delegation will spend two days in the U.S. capital arguing Assange’s case ahead of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s state visit to the White House at the end of October, where it is expected that Assange will be brought up (as well as Australia being used to test U.S. hypersonic missiles).

What’s Behind Talk Of A Possible Plea Deal For Assange?

September 4, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Australia, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom, Wikileaks

Australia has too often behaved as a doormat to the United States, to the point where Australia is threatening its own security by going along with an aggressive U.S. policy towards China, which poses no threat to Australia. But this time, Blinken got an earful. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reiterated that he wanted the Assange case to be dropped. Certain members of Parliament brusquely gave it back to Blinken. Assange was “not the villain … and if the US wasn’t obsessed with revenge it would drop the extradition charge as soon as possible,” Independent MP Andrew Wilkie told The Guardian‘s Australian edition. “Antony Blinken’s allegation that Julian Assange risked very serious harm to US national security is patent nonsense,” said Wilkie said.

On September 2, Worldwide Rallies For Julian Assange At Australian Embassies

August 27, 2023 Redazione Roma, Pressenza. Resist! Australia, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

Recently (29 July 2023), US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, on a visit to Australia, rejected the call by his Australian counterpart to put an end to the U.S.’s judicial persecution of Julian Assange. Blinken justified his refusal by saying that Assange, with his revelations of US/UK war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, had “risked causing very serious harm to [US] national security.” But notice his choice of words. Blinken did not state that Assange had actually caused harm (as was claimed at the time of the revelations); he is simply alleged to have risked – hypothetically – causing harm, which is a different story.

Assange Be Wary: The Dangers Of A US Plea Deal

August 18, 2023 Binoy Kampmark, Counter Punch. Educate! Australia, Extradition, Julian Assange, Legal System, Press Freedom

At every stage of its proceedings against Julian Assange, the US Imperium has shown little by way of tempering its vengeful impulses. The WikiLeaks publisher, in uncovering the sordid, operational details of a global military power, would always have to pay. Given the 18 charges he faces, 17 fashioned from that most repressive of instruments, the US Espionage Act of 1917, any sentence is bound to be hefty. Were he to be extradited from the United Kingdom to the US, Assange will disappear into a carceral, life-ending dystopia. In this saga of relentless mugging and persecution, the country that has featured regularly in commentary, yet done the least, is Australia. Assange may well be an Australian national, but this has generally counted for naught.

Randy Credico Leads Blockade Of DOJ Entrance For Julian Assange

August 17, 2023 Ford Fischer, News2Share. Resistance Report Department of Justice, Direct Action, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

Randy Credico attempted a civil disobedience rally/blockade Wednesday of the Department of Justice in Washington DC along along with Kathy Boylan of Dorothy Day Catholic Worker demanding a meeting to request the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Kathy Boylan, protesting in front of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in DC, was wearing a Kennedy 2024 shirt. She tells News2Share that "when he is elected, Robert Kennedy Jr has promised to free Julian Assange, truth-tellers, and whistleblowers." Ultimately, Credico allowed people past his blockade, and police didn't arrest him, instead waiting it out.

Caroline Kennedy Says United States Is Open To Assange Plea Deal

August 14, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Department of Justice, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

The U.S. ambassador to Australia believes a plea bargain could free imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, allowing him to serve a shortened sentence for a lesser crime in his home country. Caroline Kennedy told The Sydney Morning Herald in a front-page interview published Monday that the decision on a plea deal was up to the U.S. Justice Department. “So it’s not really a diplomatic issue, but I think that there absolutely could be a resolution,” she told the newspaper. Kennedy noted the firm comments by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on July 31 in Brisbane.

Blinken Slams Door On Australian Bid For Julian Assange’s Freedom

July 30, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Antony Blinken, Australia, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has publicly rebuffed efforts by the Australian government to free WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Speaking at a press conference with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Brisbane on Saturday, Blinken said he understood Australians’ concerns about their imprisoned citizen, but took a hard line against any move to end his persecution. Blinken said: “I really do understand and can certainly confirm what Penny said about the fact that this matter was raised with us, as it has been in the past. And I understand the sensitivities. I understand the concerns and views of Australians. I think it’s very important that our friends here understand our concerns about this matter."

Journalists Abandoned Julian Assange And Slit Their Own Throats

July 10, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Journalists, Julian Assange, Media, Press Freedom

London - The persecution of Julian Assange, along with the climate of fear, wholesale government surveillance and use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers, has emasculated investigative journalism. The press has not only failed to mount a sustained campaign to support Julian, whose extradition appears imminent, but no longer attempts to shine a light into the inner workings of power. This failure is not only inexcusable, but ominous. The U.S. government, especially the military and agencies such as the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and Homeland Security, have no intention of stopping with Julian, who faces 170 years in prison if found guilty of violating 17 counts of the Espionage Act.

Australian Prime Minister Should Keep Up The Pressure On Washington

July 10, 2023 John Kiriakou, CovertAction Magazine. Educate! Australia, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

When I was at the CIA, I was taught that David Hicks was a very bad man. As a teenager in Australia, I was told, his school principal once called him “one of the most troublesome kids.” He was expelled from school at the age of 14 and began using alcohol, and drugs. He was particularly fond of stealing cars, according to a former partner. He was later accused of beating his girlfriend, although no charges were ever filed. In 1999, Hicks converted to Islam and began studying the faith’s fundamentalist Wahhabi strain at a Saudi-funded mosque in Adelaide, Australia.

Biden Would Need His Pound Of Flesh From Assange

June 23, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! CIA, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Democrats, Extradition, Joe Biden, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

Following the decision by High Court Judge Sir Jonathan Swift this month to reject Assange’s application to appeal his ordered extradition to the United States to stand trial on espionage charges, Assange’s legal team filed a new application to the High Court last week. The decision on this application could come any day. If it is refused, Assange will have run out of legal options in Britain, and could only be saved by the intervention of the European court. There is also still a chance of a plea deal in which President Joe Biden would need to exact punishment of Assange to cover his political posterior.

The Imminent Extradition Of Julian Assange And The Death Of Journalism

June 20, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

High Court Judge Jonathan Swift — who previously worked for a variety of British government agencies as a barrister and said his favorite clients are “security and intelligence agencies” — rejected two applications by Julian Assange’s lawyers to appeal his extradition last week. The extradition order was signed last June by Home Secretary Priti Patel. Julian’s legal team have filed a final application for appeal, the last option available in the British courts. If accepted, the case could proceed to a public hearing in front of two new High Court judges. If rejected, Julian could be immediately extradited to the United States where he will stand trial for 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act, charges that could see him receive a 175-year sentence, as early as this week.

Jonathan Swift’s Lilliputian Reasoning

June 12, 2023 Tareq Haddad, Consortium News. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

Four years into Julian Assange’s imprisonment at H.M.P. Belmarsh and four years since plain-clothed officers from London’s Metropolitan Police Service dragged the WikiLeaks journalist and publisher out of Ecuador’s London embassy, taking him from Kensington to a maximum-security prison, a British judge last week rejected two separate applications made by Assange’s lawyers to appeal his extradition to the United States — striking down all submitted grounds. In making his judgements, Justice Jonathan Swift, formerly a lawyer for the British government [whose favourite clients he says were the intelligence services], also struck down the call from Assange’s lawyers to discuss new facts that have arisen in the case — concluding pithily: “The application to rely on fresh evidence is refused.”

High Court Denies Assange Right To Appeal

June 9, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Appeal, Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

The single judge on the court, Sir Jonathan Swift, issued the 3-page decision on Tuesday. It is not yet publicly available on the High Court’s website. In December, Assange appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. The court could issue an emergency injunction to stop Assange’s extradition until it examines the case. Assange initially won the case against extradition in the lower court based on his health and conditions of U.S. prisons. This was overturned by the High Court after the court accepted U.S. written assurances that Assange would not be mistreated in U.S. prisons.

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