A heroic campaigner for transparency, fearless in the face of authority or a dangerous criminal, willfully undermining Western security. Few world figures are as polarizing as Julian Assange. Appearing before a British court this week, the 48-year-old is fighting US extradition attempts — the latest twist in a saga of leaks, diplomatic loopholes, and running from the law. 

Assange: Speaking Truth-to-Power or Undermining National Security?

It’s been almost a decade since Assange first stormed world headlines, releasing rafts of classified US government material on his WikiLeaks website. The content was chilling: alleged evidence of torture, civilian deaths, and clandestine military operations in the Middle East.   

For many, it was a groundbreaking piece of truth-to-power journalism, exposing the barbarism of US foreign policy. But Washington took a different opinion. In cahoots with former army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, Assange had violated hacking and espionage laws, the White House said.  

Assange’s Escape to Ecuadorian Embassy in London

It was, however, allegations of rape in Sweden that saw the net close around him. Convinced of a cynical ploy to silence him, Assange swerved arrest and holed himself up in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.   

There he remained for seven years, before his unceremonious ejection in early 2019. Now, despite the Swedish charges being dropped, he faces extradition to the US. Assange’s personal liberty is at stake, but the case has wider implications, challenging both the principle of press freedom and US-UK relations.

America’s Argument: Assange ‘Put Lives at Risk’

Assange had “put lives at risk” with his leaks, American lawyers told the court on Monday. Specifically, informants feeding intelligence to the US military had been compromised by WikiLeaks’s exposé, marking them out for retribution.    

Carrying a 175-year prison term, the charges couldn’t be more serious. But Assange’s defense will be robust. To find him guilty would risk criminalizing investigative reporting, his lawyer argued on Monday. Hacking may not be standard journalistic procedure — but shedding light on alleged American war crimes requires drastic measures.   

Journalist Watchdog: Assange Extradition Would Be ‘Body Blow’ to Press Freedom

Unsurprisingly, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) agrees. “The extradition of Julian Assange to the United States to stand trial for his groundbreaking work with WikiLeaks would deal a body blow to First Amendment rights and press freedom,” said CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney.

His argument is clear: the US’s First Amendment — as it applies to the media — restrains the government from punishing the press for what it publishes, a safeguard to protect journalistic freedom.

Crucially, however, it offers no protection to journalists who acquire their information illegally. This is what the US government alleges, that Assange conspired explicitly with Manning to steal the classified documents. With Manning currently behind bars for WikiLeaks-related offences, Assange has good reason to fear extradition to the US. 

Assange’s Legal Team Accuses Trump of Quid Pro Quo

Pre-empting this eventuality, his legal team has sought to link their client to Donald Trump, telling the court that the president had — via an intermediary — offered to pardon Assange. The price? Testimony from the WikiLeaks man that Russia had played no part in the 2016 election. 

It would’ve been a bold move by Trump, but one not without logic. He has long been plagued by allegations of complicity in a Russian campaign to undermine his presidential rival Hillary Clinton. With WikiLeaks named among the outlets used to disseminate the compromising information, Assange’s denial would go far to quash any notion that such a campaign existed. 

Still, the president has little love for press freedom, and his staff were quick to deny the claim. 

Sore Spot: US-UK Relations and Extradition

Trump will have a harder time ignoring the case’s implications for UK-US relations. Last year, a young British man named Harry Dunn was killed by a car allegedly driven by Anne Sacoolas, an American claiming diplomatic immunity. 

Despite complaints from the UK government, the White House has been clear: Sacoolas will not be extradited. That Washington is now demanding Assange be handed over, a glaring hypocrisy has emerged — one that has Brits furious and threatens already tense transatlantic relations. 

How great a bearing this tension will have on the case, it’s hard to say. It’ll be months before a decision is reached, and appeals are likely to follow.

L'articolo Julian Assange Fights Extradition to the US proviene da InsideOver.

Julian Assange mirrored a broken figure as he faced his destiny in court on Monday. Clean-shaven and wearing a blue suit, he clutched a handful of papers as he made his way into court. Upon entering, his supporters – which included former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone and journalist, John Pilger ­- jammed into the public gallery. Some raised their fists above their heads in an act of solidarity and Assange, in turn, returned the gesture to the crowd.

In May, he was charged by the US with colluding with US Army whistleblower, Chelsea Manning, to hack into the Pentagon computers and share secret information under the Espionage Act. Assange faces up to 175 years in prison if he is extradited to the US.

Assange mentally drained

Yet, the toll of his six-month-long detention at London’s notorious Belmarsh Prison was soon evident. His father, John Shipton, had claimed last month that Assange was kept in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours every day in conditions he called “sordid and hysterical”. Shipton said that when he visited his son, he was “a bit shaky, and “suffering from anxiety” and that “the intensity of his treatment has increased over the past year”.

Back in May, Assange was not well enough to appear via video link in court, and it is believed that he was placed in the prison hospital after a “dramatic” weight loss.

On Monday, the previously vivacious WikiLeaks founder stammered to say his name and date of birth in his latest extradition hearing. Fighting back tears, the 48-year-old complained that he was denied access to his computer whilst imprisoned, therefore he was not fully prepared.

Assange’s legal team asked for a delay in the proceedings to collect more evidence, stating that the extradition was “politically motivated” and a “war on whistleblowers”. But District Judge, Vanessa Baraitser denied their request and stated that his extradition case would commence on 25 February 2020. When she questioned Assange about whether he understood what was happening, he responded, “Not really. I can’t think properly.

“I don’t understand how this is equitable. This superpower had ten years to prepare for this case and I can’t access my writings. It’s very difficult where I am to do anything but these people have unlimited resources.

“They are saying journalists and whistleblowers are enemies of the people. They have unfair advantages dealing with documents. They [know] the interior of my life with my psychologist. They steal my children’s DNA. This is not equitable what is happening here.”

What could extradition mean?

Assange – who is originally from Australia – was forcibly removed and arrested in April at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had been living for almost seven years. Following sexual abuse allegations in Sweden, he had claimed asylum at the embassy, but the arrangement began to sore after shifting politics in Ecuador.

The US authorities had been trying to extradite Assange at around the same time in connection with computer hacking involving Chelsea Manning and later allegations that Assange had conspired with Russia in the 2016 election. Furthermore, WikiLeaks had published a myriad of controversial leaks over the years which implicated the US in various atrocities, including war crimes.

Assange’s staunch supporters have regarded him as a hero who sacrificed his well-being to deliver the truth to the public. Many of them argue that to punish him threatens the freedom of the press, and question what a conviction under the Espionage Act could mean for journalists who publish similar stories in the future.

The Guardian, who had worked with Assange and featured pieces around many WikiLeaks documents, argued that despite him not being innocent, his extradition could have serious implications and supported a softer alternative. The paper stated, “From first to last, the Assange case is a morally tangled web. He believes in publishing things that should not always be published – this has long been a difficult divide between the Guardian and him.

“But he has also shone a light on things that should never have been hidden. When he first entered the Ecuadorian embassy he was trying to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape and molestation. That was wrong. But those cases have now been closed. He still faces the English courts for skipping bail. If he leaves the embassy, and is arrested, he should answer for that, perhaps in ways that might result in deportation to his own country, Australia. Nothing about this is easy, least of all Mr. Assange himself. But when the call comes from Washington, it requires a firm and principled no. It would neither be safe nor right for the UK to extradite Mr. Assange to Mr. Trump’s America.”

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