{"id":225004,"date":"2022-12-05T12:01:44","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T12:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=225004"},"modified":"2026-04-30T14:25:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T13:25:31","slug":"australian-pm-tells-usa-to-drop-charges-against-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/12\/australian-pm-tells-usa-to-drop-charges-against-julian-assange\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian PM Tells USA to Drop Charges against Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em><span class=\"pagesub\">Anthony Albanese&#8217;s comments came after five major news organizations finally spoke out for Assange.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>30 Nov 2022 &#8211; <\/em>Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2022\/nov\/30\/australian-prime-minister-anthony-albanese-us-government-julian-assange-wikileaks?utm_term=Autofeed&amp;CMP=edit_2221&amp;utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1669787127\" >said that he has personally asked the US government<\/a> to drop its case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is an Australian citizen.<\/p>\n<p>Albanese, who <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2022\/06\/20\/australian-pm-rejects-calls-to-intervene-in-assange-case\/\" >previously rejected public pressure<\/a> to push for Assange\u2019s release, said that he raised the issue with US officials in recent meetings. \u201cThe government will continue to act in a diplomatic way, but can I assure the member \u2026 that I have raised this personally with representatives of the United States government,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy position is clear and has been made clear to the US administration \u2013 that it is time that this matter be brought to a close,\u201d the Australian leader added.<\/p>\n<p>Assange has been held in London\u2019s Belmarsh Prison since April 2019 as the US is trying to extradite him for exposing government secrets and war crimes. The US Department of Justice has indicted Assange using the Espionage Act for receiving and publishing leaks from whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a standard journalistic practice.<\/p>\n<p>If extradited to the US, Assange could face a sentence of up to 175 years in a maximum security prison for his journalism. Albanese\u2019s comments came after <em>The New York Times<\/em> and four major European news outlets <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2022\/11\/28\/major-news-organizations-finally-urge-us-to-drop-charges-against-julian-assange\/\" >finally spoke out for Assange in a letter to the US government.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the letter, the five news organizations said that \u201cpublishing is not a crime\u201d and that it was time for the US \u201cto end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets.\u201d The letter acknowledged that Assange\u2019s work \u201cin the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The DOJ declined to comment when asked by Antiwar.com if dropping the charges against Assange was being considered.<\/p>\n<p>___________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Dave DeCamp is the news editor of<\/em> Antiwar.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2022\/11\/30\/australian-pm-tells-us-to-drop-charges-against-julian-assange\/\" >Go to Original &#8211; antiwar.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>30 Nov 2022 &#8211; Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today said that he has personally asked the US government to drop its case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is an Australian citizen. His comments came after five major news organizations finally spoke out for Assange.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":269081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[229,918,1686,2732,2709,910,2963,942,487,2964,378,651,234,911,454,572,639,292,70,126,921,113],"class_list":["post-225004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance","tag-activism","tag-assange","tag-australia","tag-belmarsh-prison","tag-belmarsh-tribunal","tag-big-brother","tag-cryptome","tag-ecuador","tag-human-rights","tag-john-young","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\/225004","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=225004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315656,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225004\/revisions\/315656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}