WATCH: Assange’s Testimony in Strasbourg

The liberated WikiLeaks publisher testified on Tuesday in his first public appearance since his plea deal hearing in June. Watch it on replay here.

Please scroll to 12:45 for the start.

Julian Assange appeared before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, France on Tuesday morning.

He testified to PACE members, passed a resolution last month dealing with Assange’s treatment by both the U.S. and British governments; the need for “urgent” reform of the U.S. Espionage Act; and for the U.S. to cooperate in the Spanish legal case about the U.S. surveillance of Assange.

These are highlights of the resolution:

“The Assembly considers that the disproportionately severe charges brought against Julian Assange by the United States of America, as well as heavy penalties foreseen under the Espionage Act for engaging in acts of journalism fall within the criteria set out in Resolution 1900 (2012) “The definition of political prisoner”.
19. The Assembly also regrets that the authorities of the United Kingdom failed to effectively protect Mr Assange’s freedom of expression and right to liberty, exposing him to lengthy detention in a high-security prison despite the political nature of the most severe charges against him. His detention with a view to extradition far exceeded the reasonable length acceptable for that purpose. The Assembly regrets that the Extradition Act of 2003 removed the political offence exemption from United Kingdom extradition law, exposing dissidents and opposition members to the risk of being extradited to States prosecuting them on political grounds.
20. The Assembly considers that the misuse of the 1917 Espionage Act by the United States to prosecute Julian Assange has caused a dangerous chilling effect, dissuading publishers, journalists and whistle-blowers from reporting on governmental misconduct, thus severely undermining freedom of expression and opening room for further abuse by State authorities. To this end, the Assembly calls on the United States of America – a State having the observer status with the Council of Europe – to:
20.1 urgently reform the 1917 Espionage Act and make its application conditional on the presence of a malicious intent to harm the national security of the United States or to aid a foreign power;
20.2 exclude the application of the Espionage Act to publishers, journalists and whistle-blowers who disclose classified information with the intent to raise public awareness and inform on serious crimes, such as murder, torture, corruption, or illegal surveillance.
21. The Assembly further calls on the United States of America to:
21.1 conduct thorough, impartial, and transparent investigations into alleged war crimes and human rights violations disclosed by WikiLeaks and Mr Assange, holding those responsible to account and tackling a culture of impunity towards State agents or those acting at their behest;
21.2 co-operate in good faith with the Spanish judicial authorities to clarify all facts of the alleged unlawful surveillance of Mr Assange and his interlocutors in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
22. The Assembly calls on the United Kingdom to:
22.1 urgently review its extradition laws in order to prevent the possibility of extraditing individuals wanted for offences of political nature;
22.2 conduct an independent review of the treatment of Julian Assange by the relevant authorities with a view to establishing whether he has been exposed to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, pursuant to their international obligations.

23. The Assembly calls on the Council of Europe member and observer States to:

23.1 provide adequate protection, including asylum, to whistle-blowers who expose unlawful activities of their governments and, for those reasons, are threatened with retaliation in their home States, provided their disclosures qualify for protection under the principles advocated by the Assembly, in particular, the defence of the public interest;
23.2 refrain from extraditing individuals for charges related to journalistic activities, in particular when these charges appear grossly disproportionate to the alleged offence;
23.3 continue to improve the protection of whistle-blowers and effectiveness of whistle-blowing procedures;
23.4 review their shield laws and ensure that journalists are effectively protected from being forced to reveal their sources;
23.5 increase government transparency by reducing the scope of information that can be classified as secret and encourage the spontaneous release of information not critical to national security;
23.6 implement strict guidelines and relevant oversight mechanisms to prevent the overclassification of government documents as secret, where their contents do not warrant this.
24. The Assembly also urges media organisations to establish robust protocols for handling and verifying classified information to ensure responsible reporting, thus avoiding any risk for national security and the safety of informers and sources.”

7 comments for “WATCH: Assange’s Testimony in Strasbourg

  1. julia eden
    October 2, 2024 at 02:15

    i am full of admiration for julian assange’s strength
    and his unwavering commitment to truth, justice,
    freedom of speech and peace for billions of people.
    keep your own recovery in mind as well, will you!

    julian assange is not alone in being struck by the fact
    that the world is now further from global peace than
    it was when he was imprisoned. and it looks quite as
    though things will be getting worse before they get
    a bit better – provided planet earth will exist by then.

    plenty of silent majorities seem to want peace.
    now would be time for them to give up their silence!

  2. John Z
    October 1, 2024 at 22:54

    The thin veneer of civilized societies is thin, indeed, and subject to being swept aside by jack-booted thugs and their sycophants, with impunity. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. No one is safe so long as these cold blooded apex predators are allowed to run roughshod over whomsoever they choose to persecute, even on a whim. When great nations stoop to using the tactics of those spreading evil in the world, they cease being great, becoming precisely what they have despised in others. As the TV character, JR Ewing of the Dallas series infamously quipped, “Once you dispense with integrity, everything else is a piece of cake.” Julian Assange has shown the world the price of great integrity, and the importance of keeping the light of freedom of expression and independent journalism alive for the sake of us all. May his tribe increase, and may those who strive to extinguish such precious people themselves be consigned to the outer darkness where they exercise no power or influence.

  3. Vera Gottlieb
    October 1, 2024 at 12:18

    WHAT??? on Earth is our so-called ‘civilized’ world coming to??? Disdaining honesty, sincerity, truth, compassion, stealing, killing, denigrating, insulting, injustice, racism, raping, assaulting…and with impunity.

  4. Larry McGovern
    October 1, 2024 at 11:54

    Thank you, CN and Joe Lauria, for continuing the keep Julian Assange, his case and the it’s universally important implications front and center. Though it’s clear he still has much recovering, much “adjusting” as he said, to do, it’s also clear that intellectually, he has not lost a step. So impressive in the comprehensiveness of his responses to the questions!

    I’d like to send a copy of this to Mike Pompeo, Merrick Garland, and Gordon Kromberg (the pretty despicable Justice Dept lawyer in charge of the case), and say, “Hey you guys, look and see how abjectly you lost. Not only did you lose the case, but, but despite your atrocious efforts to ‘do him in’, Assange is obviously ‘alive and well’ and getting better. SHAME on you for the persecution you have put this man and his family through.”

    And, speaking of shame, I add that that Garland, Kromberg should be charged with violating any number of ethical legal canons, among them, continuing to prosecute a case, when prosecutorial misconduct (i.e. the illegal surveillance of Assange, especially of his meetings with his attorneys, in the Ecuadorian Embassy) requires that the case be dropped.

  5. hetro
    October 1, 2024 at 08:41

    At least the following recommendations (as above) from the September 13 resolution of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, France, are particularly relevant to Julian’s case and his innocence:

    20.1 urgently reform the 1917 Espionage Act and make its application conditional on the presence of a malicious intent to harm the national security of the United States or to aid a foreign power;

    20.2 exclude the application of the Espionage Act to publishers, journalists and whistle-blowers who disclose classified information with the intent to raise public awareness and inform on serious crimes, such as murder, torture, corruption, or illegal surveillance.

    23.5 increase government transparency by reducing the scope of information that can be classified as secret and encourage the spontaneous release of information not critical to national security;  

    With these in place, as they should be, the inane justifications of an “indispensable nation” that persecuted him all those years could not have happened. Let these resonate and take hold.

  6. Valerie
    October 1, 2024 at 04:22

    Thankyou for that meeting. It was very emotional and i was happy to see Mr. Assange free.
    His initial testament was quite chilling. But we supposed these revelations were true all along. One thing he said which struck me was, the change in society he has noticed since his release, and that impunity from crimes committed seems to mount. This is something which must have shocked Mr. Assange after his years in prison, whilst we have been watching this abomination unfold in real time.

    I thought some of the questions posed were somewhat naïve. But i was glad to see Mr. Keen step in and curtail the second question of Mr. Leigh regarding Belmarsh prison. But not before Mr. Assange had revealed the extraordinary deference UK judges showed to the USA.

    • WillD
      October 2, 2024 at 02:07

      Yes, Leigh, whoever he is, was clearly quite hostile – fortunately the only one.

      Asking for evidence of the ‘alleged’ torture in Belmarsh, when that torture had been declared by a UN special rapporteur, and over 60 medical doctors was disingenuous to say the least.

      How could anyone in that setting provide ‘evidence’?

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