Marjorie Cohn reports on the Parliamentary Assembly’s “political prisoner” resolution, including its alarm that the C.I.A. “was allegedly planning to poison or even assassinate” the WikiLeaks publisher.
Contrary to U.S. government claims, WikiLeaks’ revelations actually saved lives — and drove demand for accountability from Washington, writes Marjorie Cohn.
The WikiLeaks founder consistently displayed strength and endurance as the machinery of two sovereign states attempted to destroy him.
Press-freedom advocates this week flagged the damage done by the U.S. government’s pursuit of a journalist who helped expose state secrets and evidence of war crimes.
The ruling by the High Court in London permitting the WikiLeaks publisher to appeal his extradition order leaves him languishing in precarious health in a high-security prison. That is the point.
British courts for five years have denied due process to Julian Assange as his physical and mental health deteriorates. That is the point of his show trial.
Lawyers for the WikiLeaks publisher — in a final bid on Tuesday to stop his extradition — fought valiantly to poke holes in the case of the prosecution to obtain an appeal.
Lawyers for the WikiLeaks publisher charge that while British courts looked the other way, the U. S. has been distorting and withholding evidence to engineer his extradition, Cathy Vogan reports.
The WikiLeaks publisher will make his final appeal this week to the British courts. If he is extradited it is the death of investigations into the inner workings of power by the press.
“The prosecution and incarceration of the Australian citizen Julian Assange must end,” states a letter signed by 64 Australian politicians and published in The Washington Post. Six MPs are in Washington today lobbying for Assange’s freedom.