
Julian and Stella Assange at PACE Oct 1.2024
October 1, 2024 marked Julian Assange’s first public remarks about the United States Justice Department’s prosecution since his release from the Belmarsh high-security prison in London.
The rights of journalists and publishers within Europe are “seriously threatened” by “transnational repression,” declared WikiLeaks founder Assange. “The criminalization of news-gathering activities is a threat to investigative journalism everywhere.”
Assange further stated, “I was formally convicted by a foreign power for asking for, receiving, and publishing truthful information about that power while I was in Europe. The fundamental issue is simple: Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime; it is a pillar of a free and informed society.”
He urged the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to act now to protect journalists, publishers, and others from the attacks on freedom of expression that have fueled a climate of censorship.
It was Assange’s first public remarks about the United States Justice Department’s prosecution since his release from the Belmarsh high-security prison in London, where he was detained for a little more than five years. The world had not heard him speak in this manner for at least six or seven years, and certainly not as a free man.
Assange was invited to speak to the PACE committee as part of its inquiry into his detention and conviction and the chilling effect that it has had broadly on human rights. The next day the committee planned to vote on whether to designate Assange as a political prisoner.
The WikiLeaks founder defied the justifiable paranoia or reservations that may have discouraged him from leaving his home country of Australia. As Assange said in his statement,“The gravity of this occasion and the weight of the issues at hand” compelled him to speak to parliamentarians directly.
On his left sat WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, and on his right sat his wife Stella Assange. Their presence helped guide him and put him at ease as he dealt with nervousness compounded by more than a decade of trauma and harassment from lawfare (in addition to constant demonization in the Western press).
Assange wore spectacles that accentuated the fragility of a former prisoner still in recovery. “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 physically and mentally, nor can I speak about the deaths by hanging, murder, and medical neglect of my fellow prisoners.”
“I am not free today because the system worked,” Assange proclaimed. “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.”
“As I emerge from the dungeon at 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.”
The full article is available at: TheDissenter.org/assange-implores-european-parliamentarians-to-oppose-us-governments-transnational-repression/.
Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof, host of the Dissenter Weekly, co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, and member of Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).