UK HIGH COURT HOLDS CRUCIAL HEARING ON JULIAN ASSANGE’S EXTRADITION TO US

Mon 20 May 2024:

London’s High Court is expected to rule on whether it accepts the US assurances that Assange will be given a fair trial and will not face the death penalty.

The judges could rule that the assurances provided by the US are satisfactory and agree to the request for extradition, paving the way for Assange to be transferred across the Atlantic to face 18 charges over the release of thousands of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks

Alternatively, the court could deem the US assurances not satisfactory and grant Assange permission to launch an appeal against extradition.

Stella Assange outlines state of case ahead of Monday’s decisive UK court decision: “The US has been given opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to change its case in order to get Julian Assange extradited” #FreeAssangeNOW pic.twitter.com/6FKH59nBD8

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 18, 2024

Assange’s supporters see the legal saga as a battle for media freedom, while major news organisations and press freedom advocates have condemned the prosecution under the Espionage Act, which has never been used over the publishing of classified information.

Jordan Higgins, press and policy officer at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, says a decision to extradite Assange “would undoubtedly have a chilling effect on press freedom” in the US, the UK and beyond.

“Seeing the US Espionage Act used against a publisher in this way, and for an Australian to be potentially extradited to the US from the UK, is extremely worrying and sets a dangerous precedent,” Higgins told Al Jazeera.

“It is vital that journalists and whistleblowers are able to participate in critical reporting in the public interest without fear of persecution.”

Brazil’s president expresses hope for end of Assange’s ‘persecution’

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has expressed his hope that “the persecution against Assange ends and he returns to the freedom he deserves as soon as possible”.

He said on X that “Julian Assange, the journalist who should have won the Pulitzer Prize for revealing secrets of the powerful, has instead been imprisoned for 5 years in England, condemned to the silence of the entire press that should be defending his freedom as part of the fight for freedom of expression”.

What is WikiLeaks?

Assange created the website in 2006 as a “dead letter drop” for would-be leakers.

WikiLeaks rose to prominence in April 2010 when it published a classified video showing a 2007 US helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad.

It also released more than 90,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan, and about 400,000 secret US files on the Iraq war.

The two leaks represented the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history.

It followed these up with the release of 250,000 secret diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world, with some of the information published by newspapers such as The New York Times and Britain’s The Guardian.

The leaks angered and embarrassed US politicians and military officials, who said the unauthorised dissemination put lives at risk.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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