There may be hope at the European Court of Human Rights – but a day in that court is never guaranteed. A Council of Europe resolution could yet call for the charges to be dropped. Just as likely, there will be a little-heralded court hearing in Westminster and moments later, Assange will be bundled on to a plane destined, in all probability, for a lifetime in US solitary confinement.
So, as this grotesque cat and mouse game has apparently reached a decisive moment, I am impelled to issue a clarion call. If you think that you have a right to know about actions carried out in your name, then make your voice heard now!
The impact of Assange being jailed in the US would would stifle the press at every latitude and all points of the compass. His persecution has already made nervous those journalists who rely on classified material. Should his cell door clang shut for 175 years, what reporter would dare antagonise the US Government – whatever evidence of wrong doing landed in their lap?
This is a case full of misleading complications, contradictory accounts, and prejudice masquerading as common sense. Opinions are skewed by attitudes to the Iraq war; worries about Assange’s disputed conduct in Sweden; and misunderstanding of neurodiversity.
Against a backdrop of such conjecture, sticking to what hard facts there are is critical.
Foremost among these are the various incitements for which the US seeks to prosecute Assange. All relate to the publications of the Iraqi and Afghanistan ‘war logs’ – vast information dumps of generally low-grade operational detail from those conflicts. The resulting charges mostly arise from the vaguely worded Espionage Act (ironically, the same legislation under which Donald Trump currently faces prosecution).
The case against Assange amounts to this. He sought out a confidential source who had significant evidence of what he considered to be criminal actions by the US military – including shooting down civilians and journalists from a helicopter gunship. Assange is alleged to have coached this individual in discreetly removing this material and then passing it, via Wikileaks, to publishers who would reveal serious criminal actions to the world.
To me, it is obvious that those are actions routinely undertaken by investigative reporters. Much landmark journalism has relied on just this process: Thalidomide, MPs expenses, the Panama Papers, and much else besides. Society relies on the reporters behind these stories to shine light on corruption and wrong-doing, and it is them who would be feel the greatest impact from Assange’s prosecution.
If an Australian journalist, who has published in Europe, were to be prosecuted by a US domestic court under a US domestic law, who in this world would dare to displease the US administration?
Viewing this process from the other side of the English Channel I am struck by the steady change in opinion towards Assange, however.
He enjoyed a brief period as a poster boy, when major news organisations queued up to make use of his material. After the 2010 publication of the unreacted war logs – by a third party outside Assange’s control, incidentally – he suffered a complete reverse. Former media partners deserted him, Sweden sought his prosecution, and by 2012 he was holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy.
His fortunes fell further when his hosts of seven years abandoned him in 2019 and he was bundled off to Belmarsh prison where he languishes still.
Since then, however, and the publication of the US charges, support has gradually returned. His former newspaper partners have revised their views. Most have now published editorials calling for his release. And many opinion formers who might not seem like natural Wikileaks supporters have joined the chorus highlighting the dangers of this case – among them Andrew Neil, Peter Osborn and Peter Hitchens. When I spoke with people on the streets of London last year, I struggled to find anyone with an adverse opinion of Assange.
A series of disturbing pieces of evidence of the campaign against the Australian have come to light, however. His meetings with his lawyers were bugged, DNA samples were stolen from babies' diapers and plans were drawn up for a secret service 'stunt' on the streets of Kensington.
Australian authorities, government and opposition, reinforced by a public opinion, extremely favorable to Julian Assange, are calling for the journalist's release.
A raft of disturbing evidence of the campaign against the Australian has also come to light, however. His meetings with his lawyers were bugged, DNA samples were stolen from babies’ nappies, and plans were hatched for a secret service ‘hit job’ on the streets of Kensington.
Australian authorities, government and opposition, reinforced by a public opinion, extremely favorable to Julian Assange, are calling for the journalist's release.
But still the UK Government sits tight, the willing stooge of a seemingly unbending US Department of Justice.
The case increasingly reminds me of a famous French injustice, that of the Alfred Dreyfus. He was a French army officer wrongly convicted in an anti-semitic conspiracy, and imprisoned between 1894 and 1906. Today, no one doubts that Dreyfus was appallingly wronged by a reactionary establishment. At the turn of the nineteenth century, however, there was no more divisive issue in Europe. Scores of French institutions divided themselves into new organisations, split between the Drefusards and their opponents.
Like many other victims of injustice, I’m certain that a time will come when the persecution of Assange will seem every bit as absurd as the case against Dreyfus – or Mandela, or the Birmingham Six.
But that needn’t happen – and I hope that it won’t. But without a clamour that brings the British Government to its senses we risk spending the next few decades wondering why we did not speak up? Unless we find our voices to resist, and raise our voices wherever we can, a monstrous injustice to an individual is in prospect, as is a grievous blow to press freedom. On behalf of the 600,000 journalists around the world who I have the honour represent, please do not let that happen.
Dominique Pradalié is President of the International Federation of Journalists, representing nore than 600,000 journalists around the world.