{"id":224824,"date":"2022-12-05T12:01:09","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T12:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=224824"},"modified":"2022-12-02T04:25:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T04:25:11","slug":"international-media-groups-urge-us-to-drop-julian-assange-charges-in-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/12\/international-media-groups-urge-us-to-drop-julian-assange-charges-in-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"International Media Groups Urge US to Drop Julian Assange Charges in Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Five major international media outlets sign letter supporting the end of the US government’s prosecution of Julian Assange.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Julian Assange, from WikiLeaks, at the SKUP conference for investigative journalism, Norway, March 2010.\u00a0 Espen Moe, CC BY 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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29 Nov 2022 – <\/em>Read the letter below:<\/p>\n

Publishing is not a crime: The US\u00a0government should end its prosecution of\u00a0Julian Assange<\/a>\u00a0for publishing secrets.<\/p>\n

Twelve years ago, on November\u00a028th 2010, our five international media outlets \u2013\u00a0the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pa\u00eds and Der Spiegel \u2013 published a series of revelations in cooperation with WikiLeaks that made the headlines around the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cCablegate\u201d, a set of 251,000 confidential cables from the US\u00a0state\u00a0department, disclosed corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale.<\/p>\n

In the words of\u00a0the New York Times, the documents told \u201cthe unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money\u201d. Even now in 2022, journalists and historians continue to publish new revelations, using the unique trove of documents.<\/p>\n

For Julian Assange, publisher of WikLeaks, the publication of \u201cCablegate\u201d and several other related leaks had the most severe consequences. On April\u00a012th 2019, Assange was arrested in London on a US arrest warrant, and has now been held for three and a half years in a\u00a0high-security British prison usually used for terrorists and members of organised crime groups. He faces extradition to the US and a sentence of up to 175 years in an American\u00a0maximum-security prison.<\/p>\n

This group of editors and publishers, all of whom had worked with Assange, felt the need to publicly criticise his conduct in 2011 when unredacted copies of the cables were released, and some of us are concerned about the allegations in the indictment that he attempted to aid in computer intrusion of a classified database. But we come together now to express our grave concerns about the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for obtaining and publishing classified materials.<\/p>\n

The Obama-Biden\u00a0administration, 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. Their position placed a premium on press freedom, despite its uncomfortable consequences. Under Donald Trump however, the position changed. The DoJ relied on an old law, the Espionage Act of 1917 (designed to prosecute potential spies during\u00a0world\u00a0war\u00a0one), which has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster.<\/p>\n

This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America\u2019s\u00a0first\u00a0amendment and the freedom of the press.<\/p>\n

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 criminalised, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.<\/p>\n

Twelve years after the publication of \u201cCablegate\u201d, it is time for the US\u00a0government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets.<\/p>\n

Publishing is not a crime.<\/p>\n

The editors and publishers of:<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em>
\nThe Guardian<\/em>
\nLe Monde<\/em>
\nDer Spiegel<\/em>
\nEl Pa\u00eds<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – scheerpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twelve years ago, on 28 Nov 2010, our five international media outlets–the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pa\u00eds and Der Spiegel–published a series of revelations in cooperation with WikiLeaks that made the headlines around the globe. Our statement supporting the end of the US government’s prosecution of Julian Assange.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":224825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[229,918,2732,2709,910,942,487,378,651,234,911,454,572,639,292,70,126,921,113],"class_list":["post-224824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance","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\/224824","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=224824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}