It is his first public appearance in freedom: Julian Assange speaks to the Council of Europe about his imprisonment, freedom of the press and the US authorities – and finds bitter words.
At his first public appearance after his release, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange criticized the judiciary and the lack of protection for journalists. “I am not free today because the system works. I am free today because I pleaded guilty to journalism,” he said in a hearing before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. “My naivety was that I believed in the law. When push comes to shove, laws are just a piece of paper and can be reinterpreted for political expediency.”
The Wikileaks founder was surprisingly released at the end of June after 14 years of legal tug-of-war and returned to Australia. He has not appeared in public since. After years in prison, Assange joked, he still has to get used to a lot of things – such as the “scary” noise of electric cars or how best to deal with a mother-in-law.
From 2010 onwards, Wikileaks published secret material from whistleblower Chelsea Manning about US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US accused Assange of endangering the lives of US informants. Assange’s supporters, however, see him as a courageous journalist who brought war crimes to light.
Assange thanks his supporters
Assange holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years. He was arrested there in 2019 and was then held in the high-security Belmarsh prison, where he legally defended himself against extradition to the USA. According to Wikileaks, Assange was in solitary confinement in a tiny cell there for 23 hours a day. The Council of Europe, which includes 46 states and is independent of the EU, has repeatedly dealt with Assange’s human rights situation in the past.
The Australian thanked his supporters and appealed: “We should all commit to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never goes out, that the search for truth continues and that the voices of the many are not overshadowed by the interests of the few to be silenced.”
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.
