An ironic occurrence

It is bitterly ironic that the British appeals court granted the US the right to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face trial for breaching US wartime security. This capitulation to US pressure by Britain is ironic as it took place on Human Rights Day and as two prominent journalists were presented with the Nobel Prize for Peace. If he is convicted on all 18 charges of hacking and espionage, Assange could face 175 years in prison.

Meanwhile in Oslo, Filipina Maria Ressa, co-founder and chief executive of online news platform Rappler, was honoured for exposing abuses of power and growing authoritarianism in her country. She faces court cases which could land her in prison for 100 years.

Russian Dimitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of The Independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, is regarded as one of the foremost defenders of free speech in Russia as it publishes articles on corruption and human rights abuses. His star reporter who focused on the Chechen war, Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006 in Moscow. Five other colleagues have also been killed.

The London’s court’s verdict also coincided with the second day of US President Joe Biden’s Democracy Summit during which freedom of speech was discussed as an essential component of democracy. Ahead of the summit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinkin spoke of the media’s “indispensible role” in informing the public and ensuring governments are held accountable for their policies and actions. He stated, “The US will continue to support the courageous and necessary work of journalists around the world.” He meant: everywhere other than at home.

London’s High Court overturned a January lower court ruling that Assange could not be extradited because of converns over how he would be treated in the US and fears over his fragile mental health. The case will return to the Westminister Magistrates’ Court for a final appeal which will decide whether to empower British Home Minister Priti Patel to execute the extradition order. Hard-liner Patel is likely to relish this opportunity.

Assange’s fiancee Stella Moris called the High Court decision “dangerous and misguided” and a “grave miscarriage of justice” and said his defence will lodge a fresh appeal “at the earliest possible moment.” She pointed out that he must not be sent to the very country which conspired to assassinate him. The US charges Assange with spying as WikiLeaks published online thousands of pages of secret documents about the US wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and released damning video of a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad that slew a dozen civilians, among whom were two Reuters’ staff correspondents.

Assange was imprisoned in 2019 after being ejected from the Ecuadorian embassy where he had taken refuge in 2012 for skipping bail over an application for extradition to Sweden after being charged with sexual misconduct.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said that his case is “about the right of a free press to publish without being threatened by a bullying superpower.”

     Amnesty international’s Europe director Nils Muiznieks said the ruling “poses a grave threat to press freedom both in the United States and abroad.”

Global press freedom advocates are seriously alarmed over the 18 charges for espionage and hacking leveled against Assange, fearing that his prosecution in the US will deal a sharp blow to freedom of speech guaranteed in the first article of the US constitution and to freedom of the press around the world. In an editorial the Guardian — which along with the New York Times and Der Spiegel published WikiLeaks’ material — warned that the US government “is endangering the ability of the media to bring to light uncomfortable truths and expose official crimes and cover-ups.”

A coalition of civil and human rights groups — notably Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Freedom of the Press Association — have called on the US Justice Department to withdraw the call for extradition. The American Civil Liberties Union’s Ben Wizner said the “indictment [of Assange] criminalises investigative journalism.”

Amnesty International cited an investigation by Yahoo News that revealed US intelligence operatives considered kidnapping or poisoning Assange while he was still living in the Ecuadorian embassy. Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said the report has cast “doubt on the reliability of US promises and further exposes the political motivation behind this case.”

There are no doubts about Washington’s political motivation. Cases have not been raised against the editors of the newspapers which published the WikiLeaks documents or television channels which broadcast the Baghdad shootings. Bradley (later Chelsea) Manning, the US soldier who hacked into Defence Department computers and provided the material to WikiLeaks served seven years in prison before being pardoned by ex-President Barack Obama.

Calamard stated, “It is a damning indictment that nearly 20 years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail.”

Indeed, ex-President George W. Bush and his advisers have not paid any price for offenses committed duriong the Afghan conflict or for the crime of unprovoked aggression against Iraq. The US could legitimately claim justification for driving the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2001 because it harboured al-Qaeda which attacked New York and Washington, but there was absolutely no legality or justification for the 2003 war on Iraq. During and following this war, Iraq Body Count estimates 175,000-208,000 Iraqis died violently through 2020. This is an underestimate and far more have been killed by US-imposed sanctions from malnourishment, preventable diseases and lack of medicines to treat chronic conditions. After Iraqi professionals, doctors, and businessmen were attacked or threatened, several million fled their country, shrinking the middle class which had emerged since independence. Furthermore, the US imposed on Iraq a sectarian form of governance which propelled pro-Iranian Shia fundamenta-

lists into power. Their mismanagement and corruption have created communal divisions and prompted protests against the government and its external allies, Iran and the US.

If Bush and his entourage had been citizens of a small country — like, for example, the former Yugoslavia — which had no international clout — they would have been tried, sentenced and imprisoned for the Iraq war and all the crimes committed during and after the US conquest of that country.