Joy, resignation and criticism after the release of whistleblower Julian Assange

This article was last updated on June 25, 2024

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Joy, resignation and criticism after the release of whistleblower Assange

Stella Assange, the wife of whistleblower Julian Assange, can’t quite believe it yet. Her husband arrives after years of uncertainty and confinement free. Yesterday, Julian Assange was released from his cell in the United Kingdom to board a plane and make a deal with the United States.

“It’s unbelievable. We weren’t sure in the last 24 hours if it was really happening,” Stella Assange told the BBC this morning. “He will be a free man again once the judge signs the deal and that will happen sometime tomorrow.”

Assange is expected to appear before a judge on American soil in the Pacific Ocean this evening at 1 a.m. (Dutch time). If the deal goes through and Assange pleads guilty to one of the eighteen charges against him, he will be released due to his previously served prison sentence and can fly to his home country Australia.

“Regardless of people’s opinions about Mr Assange’s activities, the matter has dragged on for too long,” Australia’s Prime Minister Albanese said. He recently raised Assange’s case personally with US President Biden. “There is nothing to be gained from his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia.”

This morning WikiLeaks published this photo of Assange on his way to Bangkok:

There are also positive voices about the deal from the United States. “It will come as a surprise, but I think this will turn out well,” James Clapper, who served as director of intelligence from 2010 to 2017, told CNN. “It is important that he pleads guilty to espionage. Without that, the intelligence service and the Justice Department would never have agreed to this.”

According to Clapper, Assange has received his punishment. “He spent seven years in the embassy, ​​62 months in a British prison. He has more or less paid his price. But we must not forget that there are huge concerns about the revelations he has made. At that time, people could or compromise intelligence sources.”

Who is Julian Assange?

As the founder of the website WikiLeaks, Assange (52) published a video in 2010 showing American helicopter pilots shooting unarmed civilians in Iraq. He also published hundreds of thousands of secret messages between US embassies around the world.

This put him high on the wanted lists of the United States, where he faced a prison sentence of 175 years for violating espionage laws. Assange hid for years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He spent the last five years in a maximum security prison in the same city.

But there is also criticism of the deal. Organizations that fight for press freedom say they are happy with the release, but are dissatisfied with the possible conviction after his guilty plea. It would make similar revelations by journalists more difficult in the future.

“For the first time in the 100-year history of the Espionage Act, the United States has used the law to convict basic journalistic acts,” David Green, director of EFF, an international nonprofit that focuses on online civil rights, told The New York Times .

The American Committee to Protect Journalists is also critical. “While we welcome the end of his captivity, the US prosecution of Assange has set a damaging precedent by paving the way for journalists to be convicted under espionage laws if they obtain confidential information from whistleblowers. This should never have happened “, Jodie Ginsberg of the committee told Reuters news agency.

Request for pardon

Assange’s wife Stella, who is part of his legal team, agrees. Although she can’t wait to hold him in her arms again, she told Reuters she will apply for clemency in the hope that the conviction will be overturned. “A finding of guilt under the Espionage Act for obtaining and disclosing national security information is clearly deeply troubling for journalists.”

President Biden has not yet commented on the deal. There has also been no response from former presidents Trump and Obama.