Following a 12-year legal battle and 1901 days in jail, Julian Assange landed in Australia a free man on 25 June, 2024, after a plea deal allowed him to leave Belmarsh prison in London.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomes the release of the Wikileaks founder on 24 June as a significant victory for media freedom and human decency. The dropping of 17 of the 18 charges that Assange faced avoids the criminalisation of the normal journalistic practices of encouraging sources to confidentially share evidence of wrongdoing and criminality.
The IFJ and its affiliates across the world have campaigned for the release of Assange since the publication of US charges against him in 2019. An IFJ observer attended every day of his extradition hearings, providing reporting and commentary on proceedings. The IFJ President Dominique Pradalié visited him twice in HMP Belmarsh in the UK, where Assange was held. And on 18 June the IFJ’s Executive Committee mounted a protest outside HMP Belmarsh – probably the last ever prison-gate protest for the Wikileaks founder.
The energy unleashed by the Assange campaign, which demonstrates that campaigning works and it matters, must now be directed to the hundreds of other journalists who languish in jail.
