The decision could come at any moment from the two-day hearing in the UK High Court for Australian journalist Julian Assange’s final chance for appeal on February 20 and 21, 2024. If rejected, he could be put on a plane headed for the Eastern District of Virginia Federal Court in the United States. There is a possibility of applying to the European Court of Human Rights to ask for an emergency injunction preventing the UK from extraditing him. But it is up to the ECHR to intervene.
In a recent interview with Amèle Debey of l’Impertinent (Switzerland), Assange’s wife, Stella says the goal is Assange’s permanent release. She says she is noticing progress in public attention, awareness and understanding. “This case, brought by the United States, makes it a criminal offence to receive information, possess it and communicate it to the public, including information of the utmost public importance. In this case, involving war crimes and the murder of tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also torture and complicity in torture.” she says. That has strong implications for journalism, free speech and press freedoms. If Julian Assange is extradited to the United States and successfully convicted, then the Espionage Act, could then be used to arrest any journalist, reporter, author, blogger, or social media user anywhere in the world.
The debate whether Assange is a journalist or not is becoming meaningless. What was different about Assange’s approach to journalism was to publish source documentation alongside the articles so information could be verified by the public. This was driven by the public’s right to know and their need to know. Stella explains “I think the debates between those who think Julian is a journalist and those who think he isn’t are out of date. It’s irrelevant now that the U.S. has decided to criminalise journalism through Julian. By describing traditional journalistic activities as criminal and rendering the public interest obsolete. What they are saying is that the information revealed by Wikileaks belongs to them and has no place in the public domain, even if it exposes war crimes and the criminal activities of the state.”
Stella remarked about the unproven allegation that people were harmed by what WikiLeaks published,
“That’s why mentioning this argument shows a poor knowledge of the case. Because it was mentioned at Chelsea Manning’s court martial hearing in 2013 and again at Julian’s hearing recently. The only evidence of harm that emerges from these revelations is the one of the US attacks, which killed tens of thousands of people and for which no one has been held accountable. Everything else is an attempt to distract from the real harm that was caused by the US and which it is trying to cover up.” Accusations that Assange did not redact names are also not true. Several witnesses were present when Assange redacted thousands of names. Redactions were not made in the diplomatic cables, because they were already out in the public venue published in their entirety on Cryptome.org.
Assange was made an honorary citizen of Rome last month. The term Civis Romanus Sum (I am a Roman citizen) historically constitutes a plea for the legal human rights of a Roman Citizen. In 1850 Lord Palmerston thought that the rights of CIVIS ROMANUS extended to British subjects, which includes citizens of commonwealth countries like Australia. A court in the UK may well have precedent to set Julian Assange free. Lord Palmerston said in his famous speech “Civis Romanus Sum so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England, will protect him against injustice and wrong.”
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Link to Stella’s interview: https://www.limpertinentmedia.com/post/the-cia-has-a-major-influence-on-shaping-public-opinion