On Friday, Dec. 10, the U.S. won its appeal in London’s High Court that brings WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange closer to being extradited to America to stand trial on espionage charges. Judge Timothy Holroyde said Washington had given assurances to the U.K. about Assange’s treatment in the U.S. prison system and if he’s convicted, permitting Assange to serve any prison sentence in his home nation of Australia. Holroyde ordered the case be sent back to a lower court and to Home Secretary Priti Patel for a final decision on whether Assange will be extradited to the U.S. Assange’s lawyers announced they would appeal the ruling.
Assange is wanted by U.S. authorities for WikiLeak’s publication of hundreds of thousands of classified Pentagon documents and diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011 that exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as embarrassing diplomatic abuses. Assange faces a sentence of up to 175 years in prison.
In June 2012, Assange took refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy and remained there for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault charges that were later dropped. Assange was evicted from Ecuador’s embassy in April 2019 and then arrested by British authorities. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Kevin Gosztola, managing editor of the news website Shadowproof, who examines what options Assange has to appeal London’s High Court’s ruling, and how the U.S. prosecution of Assange endangers journalism and freedom of the press.
KEVIN GOSZTOLA: Right now, we’re at a stage where Julian Assange’s legal team has appealed to or plans to appeal, and they have a deadline of Dec. 23 to appeal to the British Supreme Court, and they’ll be challenging this decision. The High Court of Justice basically ruled that the diplomatic assurances or the pledges to make some commitments in order to prevent certain abuse of Julian Assange were to be taken in good faith and that they were good enough and that in fact it was wrong for the lower court, which blocked the extradition to have blocked this extradition request without going to the U.S. government and giving them an opportunity to make these diplomatic assurances.
Essentially, I think a really crucial component of this that has flown under the radar is that the High Court of Justice prioritized the relationship — a close ally relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States — and put that ahead of the interests of Julian Assange and whether or not it would be unjust and oppressive for him to be sent to the United States to face trial and be in jail or prison.
And so yesterday, they said there’s no reason to doubt what the U.S. has said about how they would treat him if he was in U.S. custody. There is talk of a potential route to the European Court of Human Rights. I believe that’s still available. But then there’s also the fact that, politically speaking, the secretary of state in Britain in time can quash this extradition. So part of our conversation can focus on the legal system. But I also think it’s really abundantly clear after what the High Court did that the legal system may not be what stops this.
We’re going to need to see pushback from people in either the British Parliament, who are going to have to stop this if they’re able to recognize what will happen should Julian Assange be extradited — the precedent. We’re seeing some new pockets of opposition in leadership positions in Australia among parliamentarians. And of course, Julian Assange is an Australian.
And we don’t have any political opposition to Julian Assange’s extradition in Congress, but we’re seeing more people mobilized through media outlets, like recently The Guardian and The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian’s in the UK, The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. They put out very strong editorials condemning this decision. We’re seeing that there’s a potential the uproar and this backlash is going to intensify to a point where President Joe Biden’s administration may have to deal with it.
So I raise all that to say that I’m going to continue to follow this legal case, but there also is a political story here to follow because that could end up playing a role in what happens next.
SCOTT HARRIS: At bottom line, Kevin, what is at stake here? This case, although it involves Julian Assange at center stage, ultimately it’s not about him. It’s about press freedom, right?
KEVIN GOSZTOLA: Yeah. Now what is at stake here is that we have the U.S. government making an example of somebody who is a deeply unpopular and reviled figure by a lot of political elites in countries — western countries primarily, and now not well-liked in Australia. But we have all these groups who are saying it doesn’t really matter what he is and who he is as a person. It doesn’t matter what you think you know about Julian Assange.
The institution of freedom of the press will be permanently damaged if this case goes forward and he is prosecuted for these alleged offenses under the Espionage Act. And I think we’re going to start to see the noise get louder and louder, the calls get louder and louder, the demands are probably going to increase. Ayman Malhadeen has a show at MSNBC — I think it’s on Peacock, and then Medhi Hasan — has a show, I believe it’s also on Peacock as well, unless he has a weekend program. But you know, they were talking to their liberal and democratic audiences trying to communicate to them why they need to care. And I do believe slowly but surely, more people are going to begin to wake up to this.
The High Court decision really made this an imminent kind of a case that it’s going to be sooner than later that Julian Assange may arrive in the United States. And there’s a short amount of time to stop that from happening. And I think that it’s in the interests of press freedom and the larger values of democracy to stop it from happening.
For more information, visit the Shadow Proof news website at ShadowProof.com.
