Since the end of June, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been a free man and back in his native Australia. Next week he will travel to Europe – and wants to speak publicly for the first time.
Three months after the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the Australian plans to make his first public statement next week. The 53-year-old will travel to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and testify before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights on Tuesday, Wikileaks announced. The following day, October 2, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will consider a new report on Assange’s case.
“The report confirms that Assange can be classified as a political prisoner and calls on the UK to launch an independent investigation into whether he was subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment,” Wikileaks wrote.
Concern about health
The Wikileaks founder was surprisingly released at the end of June after 14 years of legal wrangling and returned to Australia. A US court on the Mariana island of Saipan – a US territory in the western Pacific – had previously approved a deal between the Australian and the American judiciary in connection with espionage allegations.
He has not appeared in public since then. His wife Stella Assange expressed concern about her husband’s health after his return home from years of imprisonment in a tiny cell. She asked that the family be given time and that their privacy be respected. Wikileaks has now announced that Assange is still recovering from his long imprisonment. “He is attending this meeting in person due to the exceptional nature of the invitation,” it said, looking ahead to next week.
From 2010 onwards, Wikileaks published secret material from whistleblower Chelsea Manning about US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US also accuses Assange of putting the lives of US informants in danger. Assange’s supporters, on the other hand, see him as a courageous journalist who brought war crimes to light.
Solitary confinement in a maximum security prison
Assange had been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years. He was arrested there in 2019 and subsequently held in the high-security Belmarsh prison, where he fought legally against extradition to the USA. According to Wikileaks, Assange was held in solitary confinement in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
