MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Assange says he was free not because the system worked

Journalism is not a crime, Assange insisted

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday in his first public appearance after his release from the Belmarsh maximum security prison in the United Kingdom in late June that he was “free because I pled guilty to journalism.”

In his message before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, France, the Australian national also urged lawmakers to rise against the growing “transnational repression” of reporting.

Assange spent years in jail as he fought extradition to the US, where he was accused of unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified national defense information. After a plea bargain with the US Justice Department, he admitted some guilt in exchange for waiving the right to any further appeals and was granted parole given the time served.

”I want to be totally clear. I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today, after years of incarceration, because I pled guilty to journalism,” Assange stressed when speaking about what he called a “campaign of retribution” by the CIA under Director Mike Pompeo during the Donald Trump years. The agency reportedly contemplated kidnapping or killing Assange while he was under political asylum at Ecuador's Embassy in London.

“I pleaded guilty to seeking information from a source and to informing the public of the nature of that information. I did not plead guilty to any other charge,” he also explained. “Journalism is not a crime, it is the pillar of a free and informed society,” he stressed.

In addition, Assange noted that other people in plights similar to his did not enjoy the same publicity and subsequent international support. ”I see more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth, and more self-censorship,” he said.

“It is hard not to draw a line from the US government’s prosecution of me – its crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism – to the chilled climate for freedom of expression that exists now,” Assange also pointed out. In his view, the US abused European legal proceedings and has been emboldened to use the same playbook again.

”When powerful nations feel entitled to target individuals beyond their borders, those individuals do not stand a chance unless there are strong safeguards in place and a state willing to enforce them. Without them, no individual has a hope of defending themselves against the vast resources that a state aggressor can deploy,” Assange warned.

In this scenario, it is up to European governments to guarantee that “the freedom to speak and the freedom to publish the truth are not privileges enjoyed by a few but rights guaranteed to all,” he added.

After his release, he returned to Australia, where he has kept a low profile until Tuesday's appearance, “given the exceptional nature of the invitation.”

The PACE is to debate a report drafted by Icelandic MEP Thorhildur Sunna Aevarsdottir regarding the “disproportionate prosecutions and convictions” against Assange, whom she describes as a “political prisoner.”

US President Joseph Biden has dubbed the Australian a “high-tech terrorist” and his detractors argue that the publication of sensitive documents put the lives of numerous people and the country at risk.