“Publishing Is Not a Crime” — The five media outlets that collaborated with WikiLeaks in 2010 sent a letter on Monday calling on the Biden administration to drop all charges against the imprisoned publisher.
Assange supporters carry ribbon around DOJ in Washington in October. (Joe Lauria)
The five major media outlets that collaborated with WikiLeaks in 2010 to publish explosive stories based on confidential diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department sent a letter Monday calling on the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange, who has been languishing in a high-security London prison for more than three years in connection with his publication of classified documents.
“Twelve years after the publication of ‘Cablegate,’ it is time for the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets,” reads the letter signed by the editors and publishers of The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País. “Publishing is not a crime.”
The letter comes as Assange, the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, is fighting the U.S. government’s attempt to extradite him to face charges of violating the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. If found guilty on all counts, Assange would face a prison sentence of up to 175 years for publishing classified information — a common journalistic practice.
Press freedom organizations have vocally warned that Assange’s prosecution would pose a threat to journalists the world over, a message that the five newspapers echoed in their letter Monday.
“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” the letter reads.
“Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.”
Julian Assange at the Stop the War Coalition rally at Trafalgar Square, London, Oct. 8, 2011. (Haydn, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The “Cablegate” leak consisted of more than 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that offered what the Times characterized as “an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world.”
Among other revelations, the documents confirmed that the U.S. carried out a 2009 airstrike in Yemen that killed dozens of civilians. Cables released by WikiLeaks showed that then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh assured U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus that the Yemeni government would “continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.”
The media outlets’ letter notes that “the Obama-Biden administration, in office during the WikiLeaks publication in 2010, refrained from indicting Assange, explaining that they would have had to indict journalists from major news outlets too.”
"It is time for the US government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets. Publishing is not a crime" | Editors and publishers of @guardian@nytimes @el_pais @derspiegel @lemondefr #Cablegate #FreeAssangeNOW https://t.co/gpqoRSQNgz pic.twitter.com/saV5nuPMwk
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 28, 2022
“Their position placed a premium on press freedom, despite its uncomfortable consequences,” the letter continues. “Under Donald Trump, however, the position changed. The [Department of Justice] relied on an old law, the Espionage Act of 1917 (designed to prosecute potential spies during World War One), which has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster.”
[Related: How America’s Official Secrets Act Ensnared Julian Assange]
Despite dire warnings from rights groups, the Biden administration has decided to continue pursuing Assange’s extradition and prosecution.
In June, the United Kingdom formally approved the U.S. extradition request even after a judge warned extradition would threaten Assange’s life.
Assange’s legal team filed an appeal in August, alleging that the WikiLeaks founder is “being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions.”
Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
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“Your letters, they all say that you’re beside me, now. Then, why do I feel, alone? I’m standing on a ledge and your fine spider web, is fastening my ankle to a stone”.
So, now, please, don’t f*c* w/us. Please, understand, “Trust” is GONE! We’re tapped out! And, NOW, you offer up your hidden “love.” We’re skeptical. Underphknstandably!!!
BUT, IF, the Papers’ Powers That Be, CAN effect the END of the Persecution, STOP the Extradition, STOP the Disappearance of Julian Assange, Bring It!!! The Universe has been waiting for f/YEARS, for you to “Raise Your Voice;” &, mean it!
Everybody, knows, “Julian Assange did NOTHING wrong!” TIMES UP! END the Persecution. STOP the Extradition. SAVE, JULIAN ASSANGE!!! Onward & Upwards. “Keep it Lit.”
What I fear most for Assange if he is released, is assassination. US has asked the Brits to do the shooting.
To the big 5.
Ok so all is forgiven now is it. The big 5 want to change their war of lies. Oh it must be true because ABC Australia just covered right? Wrong! These outlets don’t know right from wrong. Another form misdirection. How dare they? This is a war on truth, and will continue to be so!. Lest we forget. According to Julian . I’m paraphrasing of course. The corrupt guardian secretly gave all of Wikileaks secret files to the corrupt New York Times without notifying Julian or Wikileaks. They also set up a secret programme to publish the files without telling Wikileaks as well.The New York Times went on attacking Wikileaks and Julian for their own strategic purposes. The war machine must keep turning right! I still have this information on my hard drive. And yes I’m paraphrasing not directly quoting.
Most people mention Luke Harding and rightly so, however I think it’s equally important to mention his co-author David Leigh. What about the Guardians editor Alan Rushbridger. These obvious agents must also share responsibility for the war raised against Julian Assange! Well, What about Domsceit berg , it sounds very plausible that he was the rat behind the leak to the Guardian in the first place.
How could they publish the key 58 passcode of informants identity. That is a death sentence for the informants.
They in turn created Cable -gate, but this okay now is it?
And yes there are many many more examples I’m sure.
Lest we forget right? Or is it just business as usual. The WHOLE Truth gets covered up?
Most of the stories written throughout the controlled media mafia where just plain hit pieces. How about the 2 girls Sofia Wilen Anna Ardin . Anna who claimed Julian violently pinned her down and ignored her requests to use a condom. Assange denied ever doing so.. Was it all true? IS THIS OKAY NOW?
Yet she still continued on with him in a courtyard crayfish party until the wee hours of the morning. Then let him stay with her again and again nights afterwards ..These 2 women went to the police most likely out of spite or fear and the next thing you read is that he Julian had been accused of double rape. As I remember Jennifer Robinson once putting it.
So, Now that Julian has been cleared of these charges was there any action taken against papers the people who made the false claims, the Swedish police? Defamatory remarks made by the media?These allegations along with Seedy U.S intel led to Sweden putting out a warrant for his arrest red notice. A RED notice. Lest we forget..
I saw the blue banner saying that Wikileaks and and Stella Assange support this new Twist by the big 5. I can totally understand that they just want him free. For all that he has been through. I might feel the same way if it was me.
Still I believe that protecting truth is a hill worth dying on.
Sure it’s a-lot easier to remain philosophical when you are not the guy being tortured in a prison cell …
The way I see it is The truth is what they have been and will continue to try and murder. They have been using Julian and many others to do so with great success. But I do not welcome any news coming from these 5 outlets. Only news that he will be set free! To me it’s almost all lies, and they will change the narrative as they see fit. What are they going to say next? Who are they going to attack next? Who’s life are they going to destroy next?
Are they going to Apologise and make everything seem ok when it’s clearly not? Pay reparations for Julian’s stolen years. It’s all just their game. And they will change the rules as they see fit. These 5 papers and the master’s behind them deserve the treatment that Julian Assange has received over the past 11 years. And then some… But that’s just a fairy tale isn’t it.
This won’t be the end of the affair. Washington can’t simply dismiss such a thing would be an admission of malfeasance by the whole tribe, and in London and Madrid as well. He will be forced to accept a pardon which implicitly admits guilt.
Anything that will get Julian out is welcome by me, but it is hard not to conclude that something is going on here. I am sure the sudden 180 was directed by the very state actors who pressed these same newspapers into trashing him in article after article (after winning pulitzers with material they got from him btw). If i had to speculate, I would say the western govts, whose objective was to make an example of him, feel that goal is effectively achieved, and only the downside is left i.e. being called out on hypocrisy when they scream at other states over some incarcerated party. Assanges mental amd physical health are maybe permanently impaired, and only the most die hard person will look at his experience and not think twice about the potential price of exposing misdeeds. So, now, they recruit their media agents to set in motion the process of a resolution, and will all pat themselves on the back – the media, for being “champions of freedom”, (even after years of justifying or ignoring his incarceration) and the western govts as “benevolent and humane”. The world is a deeply, deeply wicked place
How cynical. But oh how so true.
I just emailed Dick Durbin I suggest everyone else do the same.
It has been used before. Those of us with gray hair might remember.
Another famous leaker, Daniel Ellsberg, employed by the RAND Corporation and working with very high level access to the Pentagon, decided that the American people needed to see the internal history of the Vietnam War that he had been tasked with compiling for the War Machine. They apparently had been telling so many lies that they needed their own internal book to keep them straight.
The leak was known as The Pentagon Papers, and it exposed the lies about Vietnam. Including the lies that led America into that quagmire which were the lies concerning the Gulf of Tonkin. There were fights in the courts, with Nixon, who compared to Biden was a great liberal, trying to block the publication before it occurred. Prior restraint on the press, was something new in America then, but quite commonplace today when ‘the press’ asks permission first. Eventually, a US Senator, Mike Gravel (AK) read the entire Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record using his Constitutional immunity to make sure the American people saw this important information.
Tricky Dick then tried to charge Ellsberg with the Espionage Act. America was at that time it is now familiar ‘not-really-at-war/but-we-are-at-war’ stage. The Vietnam War had not been congressionally declared, so the nation was not at war according to the Constitution. But of course the War was used to justify many abuses. The prosecution later floundered, because Tricky Dick was using his Black Bag Team, aka The Plumbers (Tricky Dick hated leaks), to raid Ellsberg’s psychiatrist office and steal the notes from the sessions. Back then, there was actually still at least some justice in America, as the courts ruled that the charges under the Espionage Act had to be thrown out because the prosecutors would have access to these confidential doctor-patient notes.
America was a different place back then. I can’t imagine the case against Assange being dropped, even though similar offenses have been committed. Back then, Republicans would vote to impeach a Republican President when the wave of evidence finally reached tidal wave proportions. And, back then, the American people could stop a war.
If you go to http://www.ellsberg.net, you can find his book on the Pentagon Papers and what it was like to be charged under the Espionage Act. And also the book he considers more important on the looming Doomsday Machine. It is an interesting website to review, with info from his insider days in the Pentagon and the multiple crisis he saw with that front row seat.
Fascinating how these ‘major newspapers’ waited until they had less leverage. Consider, if they had done this, or talked to the DNC about doing this, say in late Sept/ early Oct. In other words, back during the campaign, when the Democrats were sweating and would have been much more concerned about blowing off major elements of the Democrat Noise Machine in a dispute over ‘press freedom’. These ‘major newspapers’ would have had much more leverage with that then.
Today, Biden is likely to say “who cares?” The only question with Biden is when he does his LBJ and announces that he really isn’t running after all. Everyone knows it is coming, the only question is the date. But Joe does not care a bit about coverage leading to the next election. He’s only worried about the reports from Hunter as to the $balance of the family hedge fund.
The “Dems” overall might care a bit more, but I’d guess they’d calculate that this is so far out from 2024 that everyone will have forgotten all about the dead publisher by then. “Press Freedom”, like “Human Rights” in general, is fully optional in the Democrat Sphere of Influence. It is a club, to be wielded when needed, but to be put away into the closet and out of sight most of the time. The sight of ‘press freedom’ tends to disturb the oligarchs, so it stays in the closet during the cocktail parties.
Seems to me as if these ‘major newspapers’ picked the time when the have the least possible amount of influence to decide to show they ‘have principles’. The only surprise to me is that this is not “Take Out The Trash Day” … Aka, a Friday, when they try to release the stuff they don’t really want to cause any waves so it can die over the weekend.
I know, I know, I keep going on about this book, but it really is a must read. (Along with Nils Meltzers book: The Trial of Julian Assange).
Apparently, as far as this lay commenter is able to ascertain, there are no terms in global law which apply to government operatives who act treasonously, or commit espionage, against the public interests of their own populace.
Any censorship of ‘regime malfeasance’ is therefore, unlawful, and must be prosecuted “in (an) open court”.
It is literal treason, as well as espionage, against the people whose best interests government is supposed to be serving.
“… drop all charges against the (wrongly) imprisoned journalist and publisher”, Julian Assange.
“The Crime Is Not Publishing” what the people in any so-called democracy have a legitimate right to know, about the functioning, especially be it covert, of ‘their’ so-called government!
How, with your help, we can free Julian Assange
hxxps://candobetter.net/james-sinnamon/blog/6512/how-your-help-we-can-free-julian-assange
There are two critical facts which, to me, don’t seem to have been taken into account by many of those who are fighting for Julian Assange’s freedom, both here and overseas. Had they been understood and then acted upon, I believe that Julian Assange would be free today or, at worst, our prospects of freeing him in the near future would be much greater than what is now the case.
The facts are (1) that should it choose to, the Australian government could, today, make the British government end its illegal imprisonment and torture of Julian Assange; and (2) supporters of Julian Assange have been gagged by the Australian Parliament.
The latter I consider the most outrageous. Whilst I have come to expect governments to often act contrary to the interests of their citizenry, when this occurs I have come to expect, of a substantial number of MPs and senators, that they speak up to hold the government to account for this.
In circumstances, where the government has failed to use the powers vested in it to prevent another country behaving so monstrously towards a citizen of this country as the British government has towards Julian Assange, then there should be outrage expressed by at least a sizeable proportion of that Parliament at least until such time as the government begins to act as it should.
But this has not been the case. An examination of Hansard shows that very little has been said of Julian Assange in the last 12 months, Julian Assange has only been mentioned on only 8 occasions very briefly. There has been no further attempt to move any motion in support of Julian Assange.
….
“Sorry but, from a parsing of the NYT letter, it’s in relation to one charge only, they don’t call for his release & they rehash the BS pretexts like ‘unredacted cables released’ & ‘allegations of computer intrusion’: i.e. this is a disgusting minimalist CYA exercise to point at when outraged people rightly say ‘After feeding off his immense journalistic work, you establishment vultures have done nothing but continually stab Assange in the back & help your régime buddies stitch him up.’
“This is the Mockingbird Media in action, literally extruding a press release that could have been scripted by the CIA.”
Comment of a reader of the World Socialist Web Site, with which I agree. I couldn’t say it better. Consortium News should smell the stink off this suspiciously timed “change of heart” by the MSM.
WikiLeaks and Stella Assange have welcomed this letter.
Grateful to the NYT, not sure what took them so long !
After 10 years of lies and distortions, after 10 years of actively calling for the detention and essentially the torture of Julian to the point of putting his life in danger ….. why on earth should we believe anything the NYT (and their ‘partners’) says today? What is their scheme this time? You know for certain that it does not concern ‘press freedom’, and you know for certain that they have zero personal concern for their former ‘partner’ Julian.
You know several things. The NYT is the voice of Wall Street and the oligarchs. That is one of the things you should know by now. The only question is what is the purpose behind this scheme? Do they think they have successfully neutered WikiLeaks to the point where it is no longer a threat? Does this mean they think they can relax, only slightly, the chokehold? Do they think they can throw the people a bone on this issue, in order to make it easier to crush workers and strikes and force everyone into paycuts and starvation and a cold freezing winter? They know they need to in order to keep Wall Street up as $billions disappear in Democrat-backed crypto cons.
The one thing you know is that the NYT does not give a hoot about Press Freedom or Julian. We know that for certain after watching the actions of the last ten years.
Good to know there are still realists around, SQ. This is just a PR stunt. I am guessing that Musk has been stung by public cynicism directed at him and is countering this with show-pony gestures of supporting “freedom of speech” while re-popularising Twitter. This won’t last long, but the timing is good for Assange. Now is the time to ramp up support for his release before the momentum is lost, which it most assuredly will be when Musk tires of this activity.
Better late than never I suppose, but if major media
(WaPo missing in action), are serious; the CIA has to
be daily threatened with revelations as to their secrets
and Pompeo better get ready to don the orange jumpsuit.
The podcast of today’s 09:00am (MSK) bulletin of RT News of 29/11/22 (hxxps://www.rt.com/shows/news/567306-rtnews-november-29-09msk/) is worth a look. This contrasts the tepid call by The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País for Biden to drop his charges against Julian Assange. (Of course, few people here would need to be reminded that the US ‘case’ against Julian Assange has little basis, even in US law, and could only hope to succeed in a kangaroo court like that in the eastern district of Virginia which issued the indictment against Assange).
I have a lot more to say about this. Please visit hxxps://candobetter.net soon to see my next article on Julian Assange or articles I have previously written about him.
The NY Times has been doing this type of thing for years – trying to look good no matter how cowardly or evil they have been. First they promote wars and then when the tide turns decisively they jump out in front with their opposition. Perhaps, this is why Dante is supposed to have said that the hottest part in Hell is reserved for those who sit on the fence in a moral crisis. They can only think of themselves and never anyone else, especially good people, because they hate being shown for what they truly are – crucial facilitators of evil. They are like the gang rapist who, when the police arrive, denounces the other perpetrators and claims he was against what happened.
So we should applaud the NY Times for 2 seconds and boo them for an eternity.
I agree. It’s just another three-card-monte exercise.
Ok so all is forgiven now is it. The big 5 want to change their war of lies. A new form misdirection. How dare they? This is a war and will continue to be so!. Lest we forget. According to Julian . I’m paraphrasing of course. The corrupt guardian secretly gave all of Wikileaks secret files to the corrupt New York Times without notifying Julian or Wikileaks. They also set up a secret programme to publish the files without telling Wikileaks as well.
The New York Times went on attacking Wikileaks and Julian for their own strategic purposes. The war machine must keep turning right!
Most people mention Luke Harding and rightly so, however I think it’s equally important to mention his co-author David Leigh. What about the Guardians editor Alan Rushbridger. These obvious agents must also share responsibility for for the war raised against Julian Assange!
What about Dumb shite berg , it sounds very plausible that he was the rat behind the leak to the Guardian in the first place.
How could they publish the key 58 passcode of informants identity. That is a death sentence for the informants.
They in turn created Cable -gate,
And yes there are many many more examples I’m sure.
Lest we forget right? Or is it just business as usual.
Most of the stories written throughout the controlled media mafia where just plain hit pieces. How about the 2 girls Sofia Wilen Anna Ardin . Anna who claimed Julian violently pinned her down and ignored her requests to use a condom. Assange denied ever doing so.. Was it all true?
Yet she still continued on with him in a courtyard crayfish party until the wee hours of the morning. Then let him stay with her again and again nights afterwards ..These 2 women went to the police most likely out of spite or fear and the next thing you read is that he Julian had been accused of double rape. As I remember Jennifer Robinson once putting it.
So, Now that Julian has been cleared of these charges was there any action taken against papers the people who made the false claims, the Swedish police? Defamatory remarks made by the media?These allegations along with Seedy U.S intel led to Sweden putting out a warrant for his arrest red notice. A RED notice. Lest we forget..
I saw the blue banner saying that Wikileaks and and Stella Assange support this new Twist by the big 5. I can totally understand that they just want him free. For all that he has been through. I might feel the same way if it was me.
Still I believe that protecting truth is a hill worth dying on.
Sure it’s a-lot easier to remain philosophical when you are not the guy being tortured in a prison cell …
The way I see it is The truth is what they have been and will continue to try and murder. They have been using Julian and many others to do so with great success. But I do not welcome any news coming from these 5 outlets. Only news that he will be set free! To me it’s almost all lies, and they will change the narrative as they see fit. What are they going to say next? Who are they going to attack next? Who’s life are they going to destroy next?
Are they going to Apologise and make everything seem ok when it’s clearly not? Pay reparations for Julian’s stolen years. It’s all just their game. And they will change the rules as they see fit. These 5 papers and the master’s behind them deserve the treatment that Julian Assange has received over the past 11 years. And then some… But that’s just a fairy tale isn’t
He was not cleared of rape charges. He was never charged.
This letter is a major development in the campaign to free Assange.
It has now given political cover to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to change course and say he has told the Americans he should be freed.
The newspapers of course should also have called for the bogus computer intrusion charge to be dropped as well.
Does the Espionage Act apply during peace time?
The US is not at war officially.
The Espionage Act was written to prosecute (imagined) spies for Germany in the United States during WWI. It is so badly worded that almost anyone can be threatened with or accused of espionage whenever it suits the government of the United States. In Julian Assange’s case, he is not even an American citizen, so he cannot be accused of a treasonous act against the U.S. Neither is Wikileaks an American company. It is based in Iceland. The entire attack on Assange was a frame-up from the very beginning. Read especially Stefania Maurizi’s new book on the case, which just came out in English.
First victory for the new Twitter . The MS Media is now facing an information platform whose attentive readers are probably larger than the combined MS global media and who promises uncensored challenges to MS Media narratives. This “U-turn” is an attempt to get out in front of the Twitter storm that now threatens to sink them. Thanks Elon
“First victory for the new Twitter”
You appear to be naive in matters of “intelligence”.
The efforts may have been requested by those associated with the “target audience” in present context, to ameliorate a present “problem” within a growing maelstrom of problems with the minimum of blowback, in hope of we the people don’t hold these truths to be self-evident guided by Mr. Rove’s observation that you can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you should concentrate on.
It’s a sad state of affairs when we have to say thanks to an oligarch and financial pervert. No matter if it is Musk, Bezos, Gates or whoever, we have serious financial and economic injustice and perversion. Twitter is part of the Media Oligopoly. The larger issue here is that we need to get rid of monopolies, and concentrated power of oligarchy.
If Twitter has more pro-Assange pro-free speech, that’s great, but we should not need think that the benevolence of the neo-aristocracy will serve the interests of the 99%
We need to democratize the electromagnetic spectrum and make it accountable to us, not to megalomaniac sociopaths. The oligarchy can go to hell.
How can you believe that these newspapers really want Julian released? They have had almost a decade to come to his defense and they have remained silent and have basically ignored his presecution.
Now they are coming forward I suspect to cover their ass. Now they can say that this case is not justified. Did they just wake up. Any serious newspaper would have sent this letter years ago but not these tools of the military. No this is just saying the obvious and they know it will have no effect.
Thanks but …
What I came here to say.
I’m w/you on the CYA thought. The situation is getting inevitably close to a more broadly exposed legal confrontation. The medias who profited off Assange (especially NYT) are so toxic & gross. It’s hard not to suspect they’ve hoped he’d just conveniently die or be assassinated. They’re like maggots.
About bloody time.
They profited handsomely from Wikileaks.
One even leaked the passwords to the Wikileaks treasure trove – and then blamed Julian for not redacting names.
Then they turned on him personally, all based on lies and fabrications.
Some editors of these very rags belittled him in public (a narcissistic, a brat, blah blah) in order to cover their own arses from their own incompetence.
The very least they could do is to write a public letter calling for Julian’s freedom.
Considering the damage they inflicted on Julian, this letter should only be the start of their lobbying, time to put a little muscle behind their welcome letter.
The rat who leaked the passwords was a man named Luke Harding, who still works as a journalist at the Guardian and is still a toad, a rat and a fink. Harding is the one who should be in prison, not Assange. But Harding of course is one of “theirs” and Wikileaks is independent.
“working as a journalist” Luke Harding. HAHA He has been reporting from Kiev of course, lying as usual.
Carolyn & Rosemary – exactly.
Mark Davis is a well respected Australian video-journalist has done a number of pieces on Julian.
Three years ago at a pub in Sydney he spoke about the Guardian and its then editor & scribes, and how he perceived that they were milking Julian for all they could, and would ultimately leave him to hang out and dry.
Mark Davis had shared an apartment with Julian and he followed him around Europe and London – including filming in the Guardian ‘bunker’ – as Wikileaks & The Guardian etc were preparing to publish the leaked info.
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Phons4ZrDA – 21 minutes.
Early in the piece Davis refers to ‘The United States vs Julian Assange,’ broadcast by ABC-TV program Four Corners.
(Do not confuse Australian Broadcasting Corporation with US ABC).
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFOhfwvkhLY – 46 mins.
““Twelve years after the publication of ‘Cablegate,’ it is time for the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets,” reads the letter signed by the editors and publishers of The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País. “Publishing is not a crime.”
No, it’s long past time. Even though the mainstream media finally got around to defending Assange, there’s been no rush to publish this “scoop” that “Publishing is not a crime.”
This is (potentially) incredibly good news, although one must wonder why now?
A WSWS article this morning articulates the ulterior motive for this criminally slow response:
“If the Guardian, the New York Times, et. al., in a major about-face, now explicitly oppose the persecution of Assange, it is out of concern that a show trial of a journalist who exposed US war crimes will spark a major political crisis for the Biden administration.
Any trial of Assange would confront massive popular opposition and would shed further light on the crimes committed by US imperialism, including under the Democratic administration of Barack Obama, in which Biden served as vice president.
This exposure of US war crimes would come at a time when the United States is expanding is proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, sold to the public on the grounds that US intervention is necessary to prevent Russian atrocities.
Moreover, any trial would shed light on the reprehensible role of the New York Times and Guardian in facilitating the persecution of Assange.”
Thank you
Well, it’s nice that the [expletive] that profited by his revelations might finally after years of persecution come to his side. What the US and its vassals have done to Julian Assange is disgusting and criminal. Not, mind you, that I expect them to do any rectification of their behavior. The US has been badly embarrassed and we can’t allow that.
So the same evil swine who first took advantage of his work, then laboured hammer and tongs to smear, destroy and send him to hell – now switch horses, call for his release and ‘press freedom’? While I fervently hope this helps to free him, I will never trust any of them as far as I can spit.
If the five papers were serious, they would be publishing daily articles exposing the crimes that have been committed against Assange
Exactly. Any one of those egregious crimes by itself would have sunk the court proceedings in their tracks had this not been a blatant political show trial. The british justice system has been exposed in all its ugliness as a sham.
“Twelve years after the publication of ‘Cablegate,’ it is time for the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets,” reads the letter signed by the editors and publishers of The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País. “Publishing is not a crime.”
*
Millions of supporters of Julian Assange might conduct a global public pressure campaign, with the goal being total freedom for Mr. Assange, by demanding a sincere answer from U.S. President Joe Biden, his administration, and new U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, to the following pertinent question: “Is Julian Assange a far-too-rare, morality-motivated, genuine peacemaker who wishes to help end unnecessary, unwise, always-tragic war on Earth, forever – or not?”
Good question: “Is Julian Assange a far-too-rare, morality-motivated, genuine peacemaker who wishes to help end unnecessary, unwise, always-tragic war on Earth, forever – or not?”
I want to add to it.
Since 2004 we have been aware of the quotation below coming from “a senior aide” of the George W. Bush administration.* The attitude expressed indicates why we direly need journalism, specifically journalists of the courage and perspicacity of Julian Assange, to wage battle against psychopathic tendencies to engineer empire toward “full spectrum dominance.”
[i]The aide said that guys like me [reporters] were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ […] ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.[/i]
*Reported by Ron Suskind in 2004 and assumed to be Karl Rove, although Rove has denied saying it and Suskind has declined to identify the speaker other than as “a senior aide in the Bush administration.”