{"id":202711,"date":"2022-01-10T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=202711"},"modified":"2022-01-07T03:51:24","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T03:51:24","slug":"stop-prosecuting-the-press-bidens-persecution-of-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/01\/stop-prosecuting-the-press-bidens-persecution-of-julian-assange\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Prosecuting the Press: Biden\u2019s Persecution of Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 Jan 2022 – <\/em>Gathering threats to democracy are front and center as the United States marks the first anniversary of the January 6th Capitol insurrection, when President Donald Trump incited thousands of supporters to violently storm Congress, attempting to overturn the 2020 election. While the Republican Party descends into the cult of Trump, progressive activists across the country are fighting to expand voting rights and protect free and fair elections. One of democracy\u2019s principle bulwarks is a free press. Sadly, with its ongoing prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the Biden administration is leading the attack on journalism, strengthening the hand of would-be autocrats everywhere.<\/p>\n

Julian Assange is the founding editor and publisher of WikiLeaks, the pioneering transparency website. WikiLeaks exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture at Guantanamo and other abuses of power, releasing thousands of secret U.S. government and military documents that major news organizations worldwide, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian then used as the basis for award-winning reporting. Assange is currently locked up in England\u2019s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, which has been described as the \u201cBritish version of Guantanamo Bay,\u201d as he fights the U.S. government\u2019s attempt to extradite him on espionage and hacking charges. If extradited, he faces up to 175 years in prison if found guilty.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, activists marked Assange\u2019s 1,000th day of incarceration at Belmarsh with a rally demanding his release. Prior to Belmarsh, he spent almost seven years inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, under political asylum.<\/p>\n

Among those protesting was Stella Moris, Assange\u2019s financ\u00e9e and the mother of his two youngest children. \u201cIt\u2019s really taking a toll on him,\u201d Stella Moris said on the Democracy Now! news hour in November, speaking from outside the UN climate summit in Glasgow. \u201cThere\u2019s no end in sight. This can go on for years, potentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stella Moris announced the 1000th-day vigil in a tweet that included an audio recording reportedly made inside Assange\u2019s Belmarsh cell. Men screaming, guard dogs barking, and the incessant clang of metal doors slamming open and closed echo through the recording, painting a stark picture of the harsh conditions inside Belmarsh.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.N. special rapporteur on torture has said that he is being psychologically tortured,\u201d Moris continued. \u201cHis physical health has seriously deteriorated. They are killing him. If he dies, it\u2019s because they are killing him. They are torturing him to death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moris recently revealed that Assange had suffered a mini-stroke in prison on October 27th, the first day of his High Court appeal hearing. That court ultimately sided with the U.S. government, ordering that his extradition could proceed. Assange is currently seeking permission from that same High Court to appeal the ruling to the UK\u2019s Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Threats to journalists and media workers worldwide have been on the rise. The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that, as of December 8th, 24 journalists had been killed in the line of duty in 2021, with eight more whose deaths may have been linked to their work. A record-breaking 293 journalists were imprisoned last year.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden opened his \u201cSummit for Democracy\u201d on December 9th, saying, \u201cFree and independent media. It\u2019s the bedrock of democracy. It\u2019s how the public stay informed and how governments are held accountable. Around the world, press freedom is under threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s words are true, but ring hollow as his Justice Department seeks to imprison Julian Assange for life, simply for performing those very functions of a free press that Biden praised.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the same day the Nobel Peace Prize honors journalists, a UK court ruled that the United States can extradite Julian Assange, a move that seriously damages journalism,\u201d CPJ<\/span> Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said on December 10th, referring to Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia for their courageous reporting while under threat from their governments. \u201cThe U.S. Justice Department\u2019s dogged pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder has set a harmful legal precedent for prosecuting reporters\u2026The Biden administration pledged at its Summit for Democracy this week to support journalism. It could start by removing the threat of prosecution under the Espionage Act now hanging over the heads of investigative journalists everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

A coalition of 24 groups, including Human Rights Watch, the ACLU<\/span>, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, PEN<\/span> America and Reporters Without Borders called on the Biden administration to halt its Assange prosecution, saying it \u201cthreatens press freedom because much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists engage in routinely\u2014and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democracy is under assault. President Biden must live up to his promise to support a free press, needed now more than ever, and drop the prosecution of Julian Assange.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em>Amy Goodman is the host of \u201c<\/em>Democracy Now!\u201d a daily international TV\/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of <\/em>Breaking the Sound Barrier, released in paperback and now a <\/em>New York Times best-seller.<\/em><\/p>\n

Denis Moynihan is the co-founder of <\/em>Democracy Now! Since 2002, he has participated in the organization\u2019s worldwide distribution, infrastructure development, and the coordination of complex live broadcasts from many continents. He lives in Denver where he is developing a new noncommercial community radio station.<\/em><\/p>\n

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 democracynow.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Jan 2022 – Sadly, with its ongoing prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder, the Biden administration is leading the attack on journalism and strengthening the hand of would-be autocrats everywhere. Democracy is under assault. Biden must live up to his promise to support a free press and drop the prosecution of Julian Assange.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[229,918,2732,2709,910,942,487,378,651,234,911,454,572,639,292,70,126,921,113],"class_list":["post-202711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-activism","tag-assange","tag-belmarsh-prison","tag-belmarsh-tribunal","tag-big-brother","tag-ecuador","tag-human-rights","tag-journalism","tag-justice","tag-media","tag-surveillance","tag-sweden","tag-torture","tag-uk","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-whistleblowing","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}