Breaking Silence: Assange Warns of a Dark Crossroad for Journalism
In a room thick with tension and unspoken truths, Julian Assange – that thorn in the side of the powerful – finally broke his silence. After years of confinement, caught up in a ‘Kafkaesque’ nightmare, the WikiLeaks founder addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. His words, though softened by years of isolation, cut through the air like a scythe through wheat.
“I eventually chose freedom over unrealisable justice,” Assange declared, his voice carrying the weariness of a man who has fought a Sisyphean battle against the might of empires.
It’s a statement that should send a chill down the spine of every journalist, every truth-seeker, every citizen who values the right to know, who values truth.
Think about it… “freedom over unrealisable justice”. That is a choice no one should have had to make, least of all a journalist whose only crime was to shine a light on the dark corners of power. Assange stated: “I was formally convicted by a foreign power for asking, for receiving and publishing truthful information about that power. While I was in Europe,” Assange declared, his voice tinged with a bitterness that only years of collective state persecution could create.
The founder of WikiLeaks, once hailed as a champion of transparency, now stands as a living testament to the perils of challenging the status quo. He dared to publish truths that powerful states would rather keep hidden. In a world where “fake news” is bandied about as a weapon to discredit inconvenient truths, Assange’s prosecution serves as a chilling reminder that real news – the kind that exposes war crimes and government malfeasance – is what truly terrifies those in power.
“The fundamental issue is simple: Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime; it is a pillar of a free and informed society”
– Julian Assange, Council of Europe
On First Amendment and Article 10
Assange says: “We performed a legal analysis to try to understand what the abilities and limitations were within Europe for publishing documents from a number of different countries, including the United States.”
“We understood that in theory, article ten, should protect journalists in Europe. Similarly, looking at the U.S. First Amendment to its constitution, that no publisher had ever been prosecuted for publishing classified information from the United States, either domestically or internationally.”
“I expected some kind of harassment legal process. I was prepared to fight for that. I believe the value of these publications was such, it is okay to have that fight and that we would prevail because we had understood, what was legally possible. My naivete was believing in the law. When push comes to shove, laws are just pieces of paper, and they can be reinterpreted for political expediency.”
“They are the rules made by the ruling class more broadly. And if those rules don’t suit what it wants to do, it reinterprets them or hopefully, changes them, which is clearer? In the case of the United States, we angered one of the constituent powers of the United States, the intelligence sector, the security state, the secrecy state.”
“It was powerful enough to push for a reinterpretation. The U.S. Constitution, the U.S. First Amendment seems pretty black and white to me. It’s very short. It says the Congress shall make no law, restricting speech or the press.”
“However, that was, that, the U.S. Constitution, those precedents relating to it. We’re just, reinterpreting to the way and yes, perhaps ultimately if it got to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I was still alive in that system, I might have won, depending on what the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court. But in the meantime, I had lost 14 years, on under house arrest, embassy siege and in a maximum security prison.”
“So I think this is an important lesson that when a major power faction wants to reinterpret the law, it can push to have the element of the state, in this case, the U.S. Department of Justice do that. And it doesn’t care too much about what is legal. That’s something for a much later day. In the meantime, the deterrent effect that it seeks, the retributive actions that it seeks, have had their effect.”
Assange expressed concerns that the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty is one sided. “Nine times more people are excited to the United States from the U.K. than the other way around. What about the protections for U.S. citizens being exiled to the U.K.?”
“There is no, need to show a prima facie case or reasonable suspicion. Even when the United States seeks to extradite from the U.K.. It’s an allegation extradition system. The allegation is alleged. You do not even have a chance to argue that is not true. All the arguments are based simply upon. Is that the right person? Does it breach human rights?”
“That’s it. That said, I do not think in any way that U.K. judges are compelled to extradite most people, and particularly journalists, to the United States. Some judges in the U.K. found in my favour at different stages in that process. Other judges did not.”
“But all judges, whether they were finding in my favour or not in the United Kingdom, showed extraordinary deference to the United States. Engaged in astonishing intellectual backflips, to allow the United States to have its way, on my extradition and in relation to setting precedents that occurred in my case, more broadly, that’s to my mind, a function of.”
“The selection of U.K. judges, the narrow section of British society from which they come. They’re. Deep engagement with the U.K. establishment and the U.K. establishment’s deep engagement with the United States. Whether that’s in the intelligence sector which is now the largest, largest manufacturer in the United Kingdom, a weapons company, BP, shell, and some of the major banks.”
“The United Kingdom’s establishment is made up of people who have benefited from that system for a long period of time. And almost all judges are from it. They don’t need to be told explicitly what to do. They understand what is good for that cohort, and what is good for that cohort is keeping a good relationship with the United States government.“
Assange’s testimony before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) was a masterclass in understatement, each measured word carrying the weight of years of persecution. He spoke of “lawfare” – the weaponisation of legal systems to silence dissent – and of a world where legal protections for whistleblowers and journalists “only existed on paper” or “were not effective in any remotely reasonable time”.
“Whenever we make a law,” Assange warns, “we create a tool that self-interested bureaucrats, companies, and the worst elements of the security state will use and will expand the interpretation, in order to achieve control over others.” It’s a chilling reminder that in the wrong hands, the law can be twisted from a shield for the innocent into a cudgel for the powerful.
Lawfare is the use of the law to achieve ends, that would normally be achieved in some other form of conflict. We’re not talking about simply litigating to protect your rights. But rather. Picking laws, to get your man or to get the organization you want to get. Not justice seeking its resolution in law.
We’ve seen a lot of cases like that and obviously experienced ourselves, in many different domains.
As we digest these revelations, we’re left with a queasy sense that the very foundations of our legal systems – supposedly the bedrock of our democracies – are shot through with cracks and fissures. Assange’s testimony serves not just as a personal defence, but as a clarion call for vigilance.
For if the law can be so easily bent to serve the interests of the powerful, if treaties can be reduced to mere formalities, if judges can engage in “astonishing intellectual backflips” to reach predetermined conclusions – then what hope is there for justice?
The answer, Assange suggests, lies in “constant vigilance, but also great care in making laws in the first place.” It’s a tall order, to be sure.
For make no mistake, dear reader, what we witnessed was not merely a man pleading his case, but a canary in the darkness of fading democracies, singing out a warning for all to hear. Assange’s plea deal with the US authorities was not a victory for justice, but a stark admission that the game is rigged, the dice loaded, the house always wins.
When it came to the struggle against secrecy and censorship, the situation had gotten worse, not better since his indictment.
He described freedom of expression as being at a “dark crossroad.” Impunity for abuses of power, secrecy, and retaliation for truth-telling, as well as a prevalence of self-censorship, were all, in Assange’s estimation, at an all-time high.
Assange repeatedly invoked the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. WikiLeaks needed a whistleblower to obtain and publish the “Collateral Murder” video; in today’s wars, horrors are being live streamed every day in real time.
The wars in Gaza and Ukraine have seen hundreds of journalists killed. Unfortunately, as Assange noted, those wars have seen a severe breach of journalistic solidarity. Instead of journalists standing with any colleague censored or killed anywhere, “the political and geopolitical alignment of media organizations causes them to . . . cover only certain victims.” It was a trend Assange noted that was visible in his own case.
“Now that one foreign government has formally asserted that Europeans have no free speech rights, a dangerous precedent has been set. Other powerful states will inevitably follow suit. The war in Ukraine has already seen the criminalization of journalists in Russia. But based on the precedent set in my expedition, there is nothing to stop Russia or indeed any other state from targeting European journalists, publishers or even social media users by claiming that their domestic secrecy laws have been violated.”
“The rights of journalists and publishers within the European space are seriously threatened.”
“Transnational repression cannot become the norm here. As one of the world’s two great norms, setting institutions, PACE must act.”
“The criminalization of news-gathering activities is a threat to investigative journalism everywhere. I was formally convicted by a foreign power for asking, for receiving and publishing truthful information about that power. While I was in Europe.”
“The fundamental issue is simple journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime. It is a pillar of a free and informed society.”
“Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroad. I fear that unless institutions like PACE wake up to the gravity of the situation, it will be too late. Let us all commit to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never demands that the pursuit of truth will live on, and that the voices of the many are not silenced by the interests of the few.”
“Let us all commit to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never dims, that the pursuit of truth will live on, and that the voices of the many are not silenced by the interests of the few”
– Julian Assange, Council of Europe
“Mr Chairman, distinguished delegates, if Europe is to have a future where the freedom to speak and the freedom to publish the truth are not privileges enjoyed by a few but rights guaranteed to all, then it must act so that what has happened in my case never happens to anyone else. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to this assembly, to the conservatives, social democrats, liberals, leftists, greens, and independents who have supported me throughout this ordeal, and to the countless individuals who have advocated tirelessly for my release.”
“It is heartening to know that, in a world often divided by ideology and interests, there remains a shared commitment to the protection of essential human liberties. Freedom of expression, and all that flows from it, is at a dark crossroad.”
The irony wasn’t lost on anyone in that hallowed chamber. Here was a man, punished for revealing the very war crimes and human rights abuses that bodies like PACE are meant to prevent. It’s as if we’ve entered a looking-glass world where the whistleblower is the criminal, and the war criminal walks free.
But perhaps most alarming was Assange’s warning about the precedent his case sets. “Now that one foreign government has formally asserted that Europeans have no free speech rights, a dangerous precedent has been set,” he cautioned. It’s a stark reminder that in the global village of the 21st century, the long arm of state power knows no borders.
Assange’s plea to the assembled parliamentarians was clear: act now, or watch as the light of press freedom is snuffed out. “The rights of journalists and publishers within the European space are seriously threatened,” he warned. It’s a chilling thought, one that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who values the truth.
But let’s not mince words. This isn’t just about Assange. It’s about all of us. It’s about whether we want to live in a world where the powerful can commit atrocities with impunity, while those who dare to speak truth to power are silenced, imprisoned, or worse.
Assange stated: “In 2010, I was living in Paris, and I went to, to the United Kingdom and never came back. Until now. It’s. Good to be back. And it’s good to be amongst people who, as we say in Australia, who give a damn.”
“It’s good to be amongst friends. And I would just like to thank all the people who have fought for my liberation. And who have understood, importantly, that my liberation was coupled to their own liberation. “
“The basic fundamental liberties which sustain us all have to be fought for. “
“And that when one of us falls through the cracks. Soon enough, those cracks will widen and take the rest of us down. So thank you for your courage in this and other settings and, keep up the fight. Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime; it is a pillar of a free and informed society.”
“I wish to express my deepest gratitude to this assembly, to the conservatives, Social Democrats, liberals, leftists, Greens and independents who have supported me throughout this ordeal and to the countless individuals who have advocated tirelessly, tirelessly for my release. Is heartening to know that in a world often divided by ideology and interests, there remains a shared commitment to the protection of essential human liberties.”
PACE’s resolution declaring Assange a political prisoner and calling for reform of the US Espionage Act is a step in the right direction. But it is a small step on a long and treacherous road. For as Assange himself noted, “When push comes to shove, laws are just pieces of paper, and they can be reinterpreted for political expediency.”
Assange’s testimony serves as both a warning and a call to action. The warning cannot be more pronounced – “Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroad,” It falls to us – journalists, activists, and citizens – to ensure that the light of truth is not extinguished. For if we fail in this task, if we allow the Assanges of this world to be silenced, then we consign ourselves to a future of shadows and whispers, where power operates unchecked and unaccountable. And that, dear reader, is a future none of us can afford.
In the end, Assange’s words ring out like a clarion call: “Journalists must be activists for the ability to convey the truth.” And in this age of social media, We are all journalists…
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