“I Pled Guilty to Journalism”: WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange

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Julian Assange Is Free: WikiLeaks Founder’s Brother Gabriel Shipton on End of Decadelong Legal Saga
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
June 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/25/ ... ge_freedom

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been freed from Belmarsh Prison in London, where he has been incarcerated for the past five years, after accepting a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors. After a decade-plus of legal challenges, Assange will plead guilty to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material for publishing classified documents detailing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan on WikiLeaks. The Australian publisher is expected to be sentenced to time served and allowed to return home, where he reportedly will seek a pardon. Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton describes learning of his release as “an amazing moment.” He speaks to Democracy Now! about Assange’s case and what led up to the latest developments, as well as what he expects will happen next.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is free. Assange has been freed from prison in the U.K. after accepting a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors. He’s now flying to the Pacific island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, where he’ll appear before a U.S. federal judge Wednesday morning. As part of the plea deal, Assange will plead guilty to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material. He’s expected to be sentenced to time served. Julian Assange will then be allowed to fly home to Australia.

The shocking developments cap a more than decadelong legal ordeal for Julian Assange after he published classified documents detailing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, including video that showed a U.S. military Apache helicopter in Baghdad killing 12 civilians, including two Reuters journalists. WikiLeaks titled the video “Collateral Murder.”

Press freedom groups have denounced successive U.S. administrations for targeting Assange, who had been facing 175 years in U.S. prison if he had been extradited and convicted.

Twelve years ago this month, Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was given political asylum. He spent seven years there. He has spent the last five years locked up in the harsh Belmarsh Prison in London. His wife Stella Assange said earlier today Julian will now seek a pardon after the plea deal.

STELLA ASSANGE: Of course, I mean, I think that the correct course of action from the U.S. government should have been to drop the case entirely. We will be seeking a pardon, obviously. But the fact that there is a guilty plea under the Espionage Act in relation to obtaining and disclosing national defense information is obviously a very serious concern for journalists and national security journalists in general.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier today, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he wanted Julian Assange brought back home to Australia as soon as possible.

PRIME MINISTER ANTHONY ALBANESE: I’ve been very clear, as both the Labor leader in opposition but also as prime minister, that regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long. There is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration, and we want him brought home to Australia. And we have engaged and advocated Australia’s interests using all appropriate channels to support a positive outcome, and I’ve done that since very early on in my prime ministership. I will have more to say when these legal proceedings have concluded, which I hope will be very soon, and I will report as appropriate at that time.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now! co-host Juan González in Chicago. Hi, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Hi, Amy. And welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, these are certainly stunning developments. And we’re joined right now by three guests. In Washington, D.C., Trevor Timm is with us, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a group that’s long advocated for Assange’s release. In Sydney, Australia, Antony Loewenstein is with us, independent journalist, longtime supporter of WikiLeaks and author of the best-selling book The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. And we’re joined by Julian Assange’s half-brother, the filmmaker Gabriel Shipton, joining us from La Rochelle, France.

Gabriel, can you talk about these latest developments that have shocked many around the world? As we speak, Julian Assange has already landed in Bangkok, has left the maximum-security prison Belmarsh, headed to Saipan, where he’ll enter a U.S. district court, and then freed to go home to Australia. How did this all take place?

GABRIEL SHIPTON: Well, this has been years, many, many years of advocacy, at many, many levels across government, in Congress, through the media, through nongovernment organizations, advocacy organizations like Trevor Timm’s Freedom of the Press Foundation. This has been a huge campaign that has been a global campaign, a grassroots campaign. And this is the culmination of that campaign.

The Australian government has — as you heard from the prime minister now, the Australian government has been really at the edge of the coalface now at the last moments, making sure that Julian can get home. They’re the only government that can represent him diplomatically. But it’s the real pressure from the Australian people that led them to be able to advocate so strongly for Julian Assange.

So, I’ve been speaking to Julian over the past week. He’s been getting ready to get on this flight. It all seems very surreal and overwhelming. I mean, we’re overjoyed as Julian’s family. He still, though, has a couple of hurdles to get through, as you described, before he is completely safe and sound on Australian soil. But Stella and my dad are looking forward to meeting him on the tarmac once he arrives in Australia. And this is just such a happy moment for us all, Amy and Juan.

And thank you, as well, to your reporting on this case. Without media organizations like yours, people wouldn’t know what’s going on. And many of your viewers out there who I know have advocated for Julian, I want to thank them, as well, from the bottom of our hearts. And yeah, it’s an amazing moment.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Gabriel, there have been now for several weeks some reports that there was an impending potential plea deal that would gain Julian’s release. But could you talk about, in your discussions with your brother, what finally put it over, and also why he is flying to the Northern Mariana Islands to appear in a federal court there? What’s your understanding of that?

GABRIEL SHIPTON: Well, there is a High Court — there was a High Court appeal hearing coming up on the 9th and 10th of July in the United Kingdom. And that appeal hearing was — Julian’s appeal was approved, and it was expressly on the freedom of expression parts of this case, that Julian would not enjoy freedom of expression rights if he was extradited to the United States. So, there was a bit of a ticking clock for the DOJ to push this through. I doubt they would have wanted to have a very high-profile freedom of expression case in the U.K. courts running up to this election season. So I think there was a bit of pressure to get this resolved. The U.K. election is also coming up. But I have to give credit to everybody out there who’s been advocating for this for so long, because this wouldn’t have been possible without them.

The stopover in the islands, that is the closest U.S. jurisdiction to Australia, so Julian can stop off there on the way back to Australia, and the judge can, hopefully, accept the plea deal. So, that’s the idea in thinking around stopping there. It’s only six hours away from Australia, and it is on the way back from the United Kingdom.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in your conversations with Julian in recent weeks, what’s your sense of his health? Because there have been many concerns over the years of his imprisonment and restrictions in terms of his health.

GABRIEL SHIPTON: Yeah, well, his physical health, his mental well-being has been worn down through his time in prison. So, now he has — well, not quite yet, but hopefully in the next day or so, he will be able to get some serious rest and recuperation, spend time with his two small children and his wife Stella. Yeah, it’s just a very happy, happy moment for us. The doctors I’ve spoken to who have seen Julian said he can recover. So, we’re hoping that he gets some time now to do that, where — just some quiet time, you know, to listen to the birds sing and maybe take a swim in the ocean.

I spoke to Julian, and he said that he was looking forward to maybe going to some of the places or seeing some of the places that he used to roam around in Melbourne. But I think life is going to be a bit different for Julian now. The last time he was in Melbourne or in Australia was many, many years ago, before he had such fame or notoriety. So, it’s going to be a different life for him, but a free life, which we’re all, yeah, very pumped about.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Gabriel Shipton, congratulations, Assange’s brother, speaking to us from La Rochelle, France, where he’s at a film festival. He’s also the producer of a film about Julian Assange and his father called Ithaka. We’re going to break and then come back to Trevor Timm in Washington, D.C., at the Freedom of Press Foundation, and Antony Loewenstein, who lives where Julian Assange is headed, Australia. Stay with us.

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Press Freedom Advocates Celebrate Julian Assange’s Release, But Warn of Impact of Plea Deal
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
June 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/25/ ... prison_pt2

We discuss the plea deal and release of Julian Assange with press freedom advocate Trevor Timm. “Thankfully, Julian Assange is finally going free today, but the press freedom implications remain to be seen,” says Timm, who explains the U.S. espionage case against Assange, which was opened under the Trump administration and continued under Biden. Timm expresses disappointment that Biden chose to continue prosecuting Assange rather than demonstrating his stated support of press freedom. If convicted, Assange could have been sentenced to 175 years in U.S. prison, which Timm calls a “ticking time bomb for press freedom rights.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

“Julian Assange is free.” That’s what his wife tweeted after he left the Belmarsh Prison in London Monday, having reached a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors that will allow him to soon head home to Australia, ending a more than decadelong legal ordeal. Julian is now flying to the U.S. territory island of Saipan in the North Marianas, where he will appear before a U.S. district judge. He will plead guilty to one felony. He faced 175 years in a United States prison.

As we continue our coverage, we’re joined in Sydney, Australia, by Antony Loewenstein, independent journalist, longtime supporter of WikiLeaks. And we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a group that’s long advocated for Julian’s release.

We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! We have spoken to you both about the issue of Julian for many years. Trevor, if you can talk about the significance of this moment, the fact that, I mean, in the last week, it looks like, this deal was negotiated?

TREVOR TIMM: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Amy.

You know, I think the first word that comes to mind is “relief.” This case was a ticking time bomb for press freedom rights in the United States. You know, the case wasn’t getting a ton of coverage in the mainstream media, so I think there was a misconception that Julian Assange, because he was charged under the Espionage Act, was charged with spying. But what the Espionage Act essentially says is that you can’t receive and obtain and publish government secrets. And, of course, that’s what journalists do in this country all the time when they’re covering national security, whenever they’re covering policy. And so, thankfully, we’ve avoided the worst-case scenario, which would have been a court precedent, in a conviction in court, which then would have bound other judges potentially in future cases against other journalists.

But I am still worried about this guilty plea, because the one charge that Julian Assange was — is, essentially, pleading guilty to is a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act. And so, while there won’t be a legal precedent, there might be a practical precedent in the sense of future federal prosecutors might feel emboldened, now that they know that they’ve secured a guilty plea against a publisher, to go after others. You know, it’s possible, even though judges won’t to be able to cite this case or won’t be bound by this case, that they will know that it has occurred. And so, you know, I still think that the press freedom implications are potentially worrying and that we’re going to need to keep an eye on them.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Trevor, why do you think the Biden administration didn’t just drop this case? Why did they continue to pursue it so persistently?

TREVOR TIMM: I mean, it’s really shameful that the Biden administration has kept up this case for so many years. You know, at Freedom of the Press Foundation, we organized a huge coalition of every major civil liberties organization, press freedom organization and human rights organization in the country. And, you know, in the first few weeks of the attorney general being in office, we denounced the case and implored them to drop it. And that coalition repeated its call pretty much every six months for the last three years.

You know, President Biden has gone out of his way to talk about how journalism is not a crime and that he respects press freedom, yet this case has essentially been hanging over journalists for the entire time they’ve been in office. They absolutely should have dropped it when they came into office. And you know what? They could have dropped it yesterday, and Julian Assange could have served the same amount of time in prison.

They seem to have wanted a symbolic victory, which, again, you know, could potentially hang over the heads of national security journalists for years. And, you know, don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame Julian Assange for taking this deal at all. He’s been through an incredibly harsh ordeal himself. But I do blame the Obama — or, sorry, the Biden administration. And, you know, I hope this doesn’t come back to haunt them and haunt us.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk some also about the conditions of Julian’s confinement in Belmarsh?

TREVOR TIMM: You know, I think I just know from media reports that Julian has suffered from, you know, a series of serious medical conditions and has been isolated for long periods of time when he’s been there.

You know, we have to remember that this case started during the Trump administration, and the Obama administration actually refused to prosecute Julian Assange, for the exact reason that we’re talking about now. Eric Holder in the Attorney General’s Office during the Obama administration, you know, was reported to talk about the fact that there was this, quote-unquote, ”New York Times problem,” that it would be impossible to prosecute Julian Assange without then affecting newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post, who, of course, also have reporters who talk to sources within the government, who ask them for documents, who receive documents and then publish documents that the government considers classified. So the Obama administration actually rejected this case, despite not liking Julian Assange at all. The Trump administration revived it. And unfortunately, the Biden administration has continued it on for three years. And, you know, again, thankfully, Julian Assange is finally going free today. But the press freedom implications, I think, remain to be seen.

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Journalist Antony Loewenstein on Assange’s Release, WikiLeaks & Israeli Drones Killing Gaza Reporters
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
June 25, 2024

We discuss the plea deal and release of Julian Assange with Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein, and the reaction in Assange’s home country of Australia to his release and WikiLeaks’s legacy, which he says helped open the door to whistleblowers and leakers in the era of digital journalism. Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory, also discusses the state of press freedom in Israel’s war on Gaza. The Israeli military doesn’t view Palestinian journalists as journalists, he argues. Instead, it views them as “akin to terrorists” to justify its targeting of them, an issue that Loewenstein argues should be of more concern to Western media outlets.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Antony Loewenstein into this conversation, independent journalist based in Sydney. It’s where Julian Assange is expected to fly into to meet with his family on the tarmac. His wife Stella talked about she has not known him, since she met him when he was under house arrest — you know, Democracy Now! also has interviewed him over the years, from when he wore an ankle bracelet to when he got political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy. If you can talk about being an Australian and from Australia, your prime minister and the Parliament of Australia coming behind Julian Assange and then weighing in with President Biden each time he met with him, Antony, and what Julian Assange means in Australia?

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Amy and Juan.

Look, the release of Julian is a big story here, for obvious reasons. I think a lot of Australians, for years, have felt incredibly angry with the fact that an Australian citizen, Julian Assange, is being prosecuted in the U.S. under the Espionage Act. He’s not an American citizen. He’s barely spent any time in America. And I think it goes to the heart of how many Australians feel about the relationship between the U.S. and Australia. Often Australians feel like we’re — and I agree with this — a client state of the U.S. This is because of joining every single war in the Middle East, wars in Vietnam. We have a massive U.S. intelligence base, Pine Gap, in the center of Australia. Australia really is not an independent nation. And the idea of the U.S. prosecuting Julian for journalism, which was, as Trevor rightly says, what so many decent journalists do every day, speaking to sources inside government and elsewhere, was an outrage. And I think for many years a lot of Australians, the majority, in fact, of Australians, wanted him to come home.

I’m obviously glad that the current government has done that, mostly behind the scenes. I mean, for many, many years, the former government, much more conservative one, had no interest in trying to get Julian Assange home. And I think that this goes to the heart also, because I’ve been knowing WikiLeaks since 2006, when they first launched, started to get to know Julian then, from the beginning, when he launched it in Melbourne, Australia. And, really, from the beginning, his whole idea was that so much of mainstream journalism was too close to those in power. And as anyone who is a journalist or a citizen or anyone interested in accountability, there’s really no media organization, in my adult life, that has released more vital documents about the state of global power than WikiLeaks, from Guantánamo to Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, the drug war — so many documents, which you can access free on their website.

And I think that goes to the heart why many Australians in fact felt very proud, because in some ways in the last decades there are two major global figures of media interest from Australia: Rupert Murdoch, who’s obviously very, very right-wing, and Julian Assange, who obviously is a very, very different person. So, there’s elation in Australia today, and rightly so.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you about that, Antony, the impact of Julian and WikiLeaks on the practice of modern journalism. It seems to me that it has not been the same since WikiLeaks first came on the scene. And if you could, to speculate about the impact that he has had on the practice of reporting?

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Well, it’s been profound. And obviously WikiLeaks started, really, before social media took off. I mean, 2006, there was Facebook, but it was in its infancy. And really, now every major media organization has a so-called dropbox, where people can — sources can deliver information. I think there is a much greater awareness, in at least some aspects of the mainstream press, that there needs to be more accountability and transparency around their actions. I think that’s not as much as there should be, to be clear.

And I think also what it’s done, it really ties into a larger picture of how many people in the world, really, in the Global South or the North, increasingly do not trust those in the mainstream press for not reporting the reality of what’s going on, whether it’s the war in Palestine, whether it’s the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 20 years, the war on terror, Guantánamo, torture. And I think a lot of people in the public demand much more accountability from the mainstream press, but they’re not getting it.

And if you look at pretty much any public opinion poll of the mainstream press by the public, there is deep contempt for a lot of us in our profession. Not all, of course, not all, but many in the mainstream press are not treated with respect. And I think WikiLeaks, in some ways, the documents that they have released over years, now close to 20 years, I think, often has shown up the mainstream press. I think it’s why so many journalists still to this day — there have obviously been many reporters who have supported Julian over the years, to be sure, but I think a lot of journalists have been jealous. I think there’s a lot of professional jealousy around what WikiLeaks has achieved in its life.

But, obviously, what happens now is up to Julian and WikiLeaks as an organization. Who knows where it will go? But I think the legacy is very clear in the documents that they have released. Even if they release nothing else beyond this date, their legacy is set, because of the vital documents that they have put into the public domain.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to, Antony, go to the “Collateral Murder” video, shot in July 2007, leaked by Chelsea Manning to WikiLeaks. The now-infamous video showed U.S. forces killing 12 people, including two Reuters employees: Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen, an up-and-coming videographer in Iraq. They were killed when they opened fire on by an Apache helicopter.

U.S. SOLDIER 1: Let me know when you’ve got them.

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Let’s shoot. Light ’em all up.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: Come on, fire!

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Keep shootin’. Keep shootin’. Keep shootin’. Keep shootin’.

U.S. SOLDIER 4: Hotel, Bushmaster two-six, Bushmaster two-six, we need to move, time now!

U.S. SOLDIER 2: All right, we just engaged all eight individuals.

AMY GOODMAN: Reuters driver, 40-year-old Saeed Chmagh, father of four, survived the initial attack. He’s seen trying to crawl away as the helicopter flies overhead. And this is footage, by the way, taken by the Apache helicopter. U.S. forces open fire again when they notice a van pulling up to evacuate the wounded Saeed Chmagh.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: Where’s that van at?

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Right down there by the bodies.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: OK, yeah.

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse. We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly picking up bodies and weapons.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: Let me engage. Can I shoot?

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Roger. Break. Crazy Horse one-eight, request permission to engage.

U.S. SOLDIER 5: Picking up the wounded?

U.S. SOLDIER 3: Yeah, we’re trying to get permission to engage. Come on, let us shoot!

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse one-eight.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: They’re taking him.

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse one-eight.

U.S. SOLDIER 6: This is Bushmaster seven, go ahead.

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Roger. We have a black SUV — or Bongo truck picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage.

U.S. SOLDIER 6: Bushmaster seven, roger. This is Bushmaster seven, roger. Engage.

U.S. SOLDIER 2: One-eight, engage. Clear.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: Come on!

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Clear. Clear.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: We’re engaging.

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Coming around. Clear.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: Roger. Trying to —

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Clear.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: I hear ’em — I lost ’em in the dust.

U.S. SOLDIER 5: I got ’em.

U.S. SOLDIER 2: Should have a van in the middle of the road with about 12 to 15 bodies.

U.S. SOLDIER 3: Oh, yeah, look at that. Right through the windshield! Ha ha!

AMY GOODMAN: That last “ha!” In the van, it was a father who was driving his two children to school, and he had stopped to help the Reuters employee. Reuters had applied for years to try to get a hold of the video that showed the killing of their two workers, the videographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. They couldn’t get it. It was only when WikiLeaks released it that the world saw. It’s called by WikiLeaks the “Collateral Murder” video, again, shot in July 2007, leaked by Chelsea Manning to WikiLeaks.

And I want to go from this video, Antony, and the significance of this, that video shot in 2007, coming as a new report by +972 Magazine in Israel is just out. It’s headlined “How Israeli drone strikes are killing journalists in Gaza.” It reports survivor testimonies and audiovisual analysis reveal a pattern of strikes by Israeli UAVs on Palestinian journalists in recent months, even when they’re clearly identifiable as press. So, you’ve covered WikiLeaks. You’ve talked about their work in Iraq and Afghanistan. And you have written extensively about Gaza. Can you talk about this latest report?

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Well, what’s shocking, really, since October 7 is that there’s more journalists killed by Israel in Gaza than any conflict in decades — in fact, I think pretty much any time in recorded history in the last 30 years. And that really, I think, goes to the heart of how Israel views Palestinian journalists. They actually don’t view them as journalists. They don’t view them as people who deserve protection, regardless of the vests, regardless of what work they’re doing. They see them as akin to terrorists. And that’s clear, based on that recent reporting you just mentioned, Amy, but also various other reports, including journalists that I’ve spoken to in Gaza in the last months and journalists I’ve spent time with in Gaza in the last 15 years, that Israel regards, really, so many Palestinians as legitimate targets. You don’t kill, as Israel has, 40,000 to 50,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are civilians, if you don’t regard mass slaughter as the point. That is the point. The point is to kill not every single Palestinian in Gaza, but to kill huge amounts of Palestinians, including journalists, reporters.

And it’s interesting how, since October 7, as we know, not one foreign journalist has entered Gaza — in fact, one has been there very briefly, from CNN, but aside from her, no one has. And Palestinian journalists have been our eyes and ears, even though the death toll is unprecedented. And yet, despite that, there is still a sense of many in the Western elite — and, frankly, Western press — still not regarding Israel akin to, say, Russia. Russia is easily regarded as a rogue state because of its actions in, say, Ukraine. And yet somehow when we talk about Israel, who, by the way, has killed more journalists in Gaza than Russia has ever killed in Ukraine, somehow we treat Israel differently in some circles. The U.S. certainly does. Much of Europe certainly does. My country, Australia, does.

So, I think that kind of complete unaccountability within Israel is something that is going to haunt it for many years to come. There will be court cases, and many Israeli leaders are going to find that they will not be able to go to certain countries because of possible prosecution or worse. And that’s welcome. And WikiLeaks, I think, has shown in some ways a model of how there needs to be accountability and protection of journalists, because we are at a period in history now where journalists are under more threat than really ever before. Obviously, Gaza is the obvious example, but elsewhere — Ukraine, Sudan, Congo and elsewhere.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Antony, along that vein, I wanted to ask you about the hypocrisy of the press in the United States and in the West in general, that many of these media outlets are using footage from Gaza that these Palestinian journalists are largely almost totally producing, and yet they’re remaining silent about the killing of journalists by the Israelis.

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: And that really goes to the heart of so much of the American press. I mean, I was thinking in the last month, this White House Correspondents’ Dinner, this kind of joke of journalists getting together, palling around with Joe Biden. They talk about the importance of press freedom. What they did not talk about at that dinner a few months ago were two key things: WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, who obviously was still in Belmarsh then in London, and journalists in Gaza, who are being slaughtered on massive scale by Israel.

I mean, the idea that an American media outlet would not give the same kind of credit or presence of Gazan journalists, Palestinian journalists, to others in other countries really speaks, I think, to the heart of — I think there is still this real contempt, and, frankly, racism, at the heart of many in the American press that — not all, of course, obviously, but in many circles, there is still this unwillingness to actually recognize not just Palestinians as human beings, Palestinians as deserving protection, but Palestinian journalists, demanding accountability. I mean, where is The New York Times or The Washington Post or all these other outlets? As you say, Juan, without these Palestinian journalists, we would not have any vision in Gaza? There are no Western journalists in Gaza. And yet we rely on Palestinian journalists, who have been beyond heroic in the last eight-plus months.

And I think it really goes to the heart of how so many people, particularly younger Americans and younger people generally, regard so many people in the mainstream press with contempt. That’s why they’re getting their information often not from The New York Times, The Washington Post. They’re getting them from social media or elsewhere, which is why I think so many young people view what’s happening in Gaza and the genocide going on there as generationally defining. This is not something Israel can come back from.

AMY GOODMAN: Antony Loewenstein, we want to thank you for being with us, from Sydney, Australia, independent journalist, longtime supporter of WikiLeaks, and author of a critical book on Palestine. The book is called The Palestine Laboratory. We were also joined by Trevor Timm. Thank you, Trevor, for being with us, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

But we’re going to end with the words of Julian Assange. A decade ago, 2014, I went inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Julian Assange had taken political asylum, to interview him. He had been holed up there for more than two years at that point, having received political asylum from the government of Ecuador, but could not make it to Ecuador without being arrested. Toward the end of our interview, I asked Julian Assange, “What gives you hope? And what do you see is the greatest legacy of WikiLeaks?” This was Julian’s response.

JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, hopefully the greatest legacy is still to come. But WikiLeaks started in 2007, but it was really this very public confrontation that we had in 2010, 2011, which people saw watching. So it was not — a new generation saw history unfolding in real time, before their eyes, a history that they were part of. Young people see the internet as their place, where they exchange ideas and culture and so on. And previously, they had been politically apathetic, because they didn’t feel that they could be a part of the power process. But seeing Hillary Clinton’s personal cables and equivalents for many different countries, and the fight that we were in, and being part of that in some way, by spreading this information or talking about it with others, educated a new generation. And the internet went from being a politically apathetic space to being a political space. And that then spread into many different things. And so, I think this is actually the most significant thing that we have done.

We have also, in terms of the publishing industry, widened the envelope of what is acceptable to publish and so on. That’s been quite important and set off a cascade of examples, which — going through allegedly Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden and Jeremy Hammond and many others, to come forward and reveal abuses in government.

AMY GOODMAN: Is there another Edward Snowden in the pipeline?

JULIAN ASSANGE: I’m sure — I’m sure there will be. In fact, I’m sure there already is.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Julian Assange a decade ago in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He would then be taken by the British police to Belmarsh Prison. He has just been released from there after five years. Soon we will be broadcasting Julian Assange speaking for himself in his own words, either in Saipan, where he’ll go to a U.S. district court and plead guilty to one felony, and then head home to Sydney, Australia, to rejoin his family.

When we come back, low-income advocates are joining climate activists here in New York to demand Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul reverse her shocking decision to cancel the city’s congestion pricing program that was just set to start. We’ll be back in 20 seconds.

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“I Pled Guilty to Journalism”: WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Speaks Publicly for First Time Since Prison Release
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 01, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/1/ ... transcript

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke publicly today for the first time since he was released in June from a London prison. Assange addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in France about his 14-year legal saga after publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange was freed after pleading guilty to a U.S. charge of obtaining and disclosing national security material. Democracy Now! broadcasts the first time the world has heard Julian Assange’s voice since he was arrested in 2019. “I eventually chose freedom over unrealizable justice after being detained for years and facing a 175-year sentence with no effective remedy,” says Assange. “I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today, after years of incarceration, because I pled guilty to journalism.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke publicly today for the first time since he was released from the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison in London in June. He addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in France about his 14-year legal saga after publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange was freed from the prison in London after pleading guilty to a U.S. charge of obtaining and disclosing national security material. Assange’s legal odyssey included house arrest for a year, seven years taking refuge in the cramped Ecuadorian Embassy in London under political asylum, and then the Belmarsh Prison. At the time he pled guilty, Assange was fighting extradition to the United States, where he faced up to 175 years in prison.

Today marked the first time the world has heard Julian Assange’s voice since British police raided the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2019 and took him out. This is Julian Assange.

JULIAN ASSANGE: The transition from years of confinement in a maximum-security prison to being here before the representatives of 46 nations and 700 million people is a profound and a surreal shift. The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey. It strips away one’s sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence. I am yet not fully equipped to speak about what I have endured, the relentless struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally, nor can I speak yet about the deaths by hanging, murder and medical neglect of my fellow prisoners. I apologize in advance if my words falter or if my presentation lacks the polish you might expect from such a distinguished forum. Isolation has taken its toll, which I am trying to unwind, and expressing myself in this setting is a challenge. However, the gravity of this occasion and the weight of the issues at hand compel me to set aside my reservations and speak to you directly.

I have traveled a long way, literally and figuratively, to be before you today. Before our discussion or answering any questions you might have, I wish to thank PACE for its 2020 resolution, which stated that my imprisonment set a dangerous precedent for journalists, and noted that the U.N. special rapporteur on torture called for my release. I’m also grateful for PACE’s 2021 statement expressing concern over credible reports that U.S. officials discussed my assassination, again, calling for my prompt release. And I commend the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee for commissioning a renowned rapporteur, Sunna Ævarsdóttir, to investigate the circumstances surrounding my detention and conviction and the consequent implications for human rights.

However, like so many of the efforts made in my case, whether they were from parliamentarians, presidents, prime ministers, the pope, U.N. officials and diplomats, unions, legal and medical professionals, academics, activists or citizens, none of them should have been necessary. None of the statements, resolutions, reports, films, articles, events, fundraisers, protests and letters over the last 14 years should have been necessary. But all of them were necessary, because without them, I never would have seen the light of day. This unprecedented global effort was needed, because the legal protections — of the legal protections that did exist, many existed only on paper, were not effective in any remotely reasonable time.

I eventually chose freedom over unrealizable justice after being detained for years and facing a 175-year sentence with no effective remedy. Justice for me is now precluded, as the U.S. government insisted in writing into its plea agreement that I cannot file a case at the European Court of Human Rights or even a Freedom of Information Act request over what it did to me as a result of its extradition request.

I want to be totally clear: I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today, after years of incarceration, because I pled guilty to journalism, I pled guilty to seeking information from a source, I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source, and I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was. I did not plead guilty to anything else.

I hope my testimony today can serve to highlight the weakness — the weaknesses of the existing safeguards and to help those whose cases are less visible but who are equally vulnerable. As I emerge from the dungeon of Belmarsh, the truth now seems less discernible. And I regret how much ground has been lost during that time period, how expressing the truth has been undermined, attacked, weakened and diminished. I see more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth and more self-censorship. It is hard not to draw a line from the U.S. government’s prosecution of me, its crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism, to the chilled climate for freedom of expression that exists now.

AMY GOODMAN: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaking publicly for the first time since he was released from the Belmarsh Prison in London in June. Assange addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, about his 14-year legal saga after publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was sitting next to his wife, the attorney Stella Assange.