Assange Saga Exposes Hypocrisy

After fourteen years of torment—five of them in jail—WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange is finally free. In an apparent understanding behind the curtains, the Australia-born journalist, 52, last week pleaded guilty to violating the US espionage law in exchange for getting credit for the years already served in high security prison. He faced 18 criminal charges in the United States, whose government sought his extradition from the United Kingdom. A section of the global society doggedly supported the living martyr of active free speech in an exposure of the dark side of an extremely questionable legal approach to the case. One has no hesitation in saying he is to free speech champions today what Socrates was in ancient Athens, when  he preferred to take the hamlock rather than to wilt to an intolerant ruling class’s pressures. 

Had someone done on Russia or China what Wikileaks did on the US, there is little doubt that Washington and its allies would have chorused in praise of the monumental news scoop. They would have showered him with plaudits and awards in addition to swamping the free speech champion with invitations to lucrative lecture series that paid six-figure fees. Well-funded media forums would have never stopped condemning the mental torture and harassment of a professional journalist who drove hard to deliver the devastatingly detailed information on how a state snooped on its own people and others, including leaders of supposedly close allies. The duplicity in state affairs thus disclosed was nerve wracking for the victim and back breaking for the culprit in terms of credibility lost.

Handy tool

Assange may now be free through the plea bargain route but the fact remains: free speech has been redefined and its scope shrunk. It will have implications elsewhere too. Espionage law’s scope, interpretations and resultant court verdict risk being overstretched for limited expediency. In 2010, WikiLeaks released a staggering pile of 700,000 classified US military documents, including those pertaining to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The documents disclosed how helicopter firing killed unarmed and unprotected civilians. Embarrassed and furious over the highly damaging revelations, Washington sought to book Assange for putting him on trial in US court. Assange was first arrested in Britain when Swedish authorities issued a warrant against him over sex-crime allegations that were later dropped. 

He fled to Ecuador’s embassy, where he holed up for seven years, to avoid Washington’s accelerated extradition move. In 2019, he was dragged out of the embassy and marched to jail for jumping bail. Meanwhile, he fought extradition to the US, arguing that he feared for his life. To raise funds for his legal defence, supporters started an online auction of digital art. Harrowing suspense for Assange and dogged desire of the US government to punish him marked the case that attracted global attention. He faced 28 charges. If convicted, he would have met with a sentence of 175 years. As he battled the extradition effort, speculation was rife that the American intelligence agency, CIA, was mulling the idea of having him assassinated.The Assange legal saga sets a disconcerting precedent. The scope of dubious, dark side of the practice could have a dominoe effect, as successor goverments in the US and other countries might invoke the example or emulate it in an expansive form. 

The logic would be: if it is okay for a “great democracy” to spawn the harsh side of the law, why not for others? The US and some of its cousins on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean insist on an unspoken but explicitly exhibited “exceptionalism” in such matters. But it won’t work long in a changing world, ready to embrace a new order. Borrowing a leaf from a dubious playbook is fraught with spiral effects, heralding unsettling developments and impacting the fourth estate. In the name of “vital security interests”, it would leave the field open for the weaponisation of laws designed to discourage and, if necessary, destroy truth-seekers. This could happen in a democracy or a dictatorship. 

Technically, Assange compromised by pleading guilty in exchange for a speedy judicial verdict that allowed him freedom. He was confronted by a highly powerful state that was determined to make an example of him, defying an outrage expressed in different forms in many countries, including the US itself.  In this case, the world’s richest and militarily the mightiest state bent a bit. It was prepared to drop all its intentions of making the WikiLeaks founder an example to other potentially “dangerous” information disseminators. Assange was advised a bit of pragmatism by curtly pleading wrong and quickly getting the relief he and his supporters had awaited since so long.   

Ill boding 

Assange is not an exception to facing forces that turn against someone doing the job the public expects to uphold. His investuigative journalism was treated as if a guilty pursuit. This is dangerous for the public’s right to know. Many people spoke in Assange’s defence. But many more millions should have done so clearly and loudly. Death stalks media persons in battle fields, frequently claiming lives. The Committee to Protect Journalists has just reported that among the more than 38,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza war since October 2023, at least 108 journalists and media workers were killed; two went  missing; and 49 others were arrested. This accounts for the highest number journalists killed since the CPJ began collecting relevant  data in 1992.

There was this case of an aircraft carrying Bolivia’s President Evo Morales being grounded in July 2013. Morales was returning home after attending a conference of oil-exporting countries in Russia. After he hinted of granting asylum to Edward Snowden, a whistleblower the US wanted for treason, the aircraft carrying him back to Bolivia got detained in Vienna. Well, the search team did not find the whistleblower aboard. The incident outraged the Bolivian president in particular and those upholding specific diplomatic norms in general. Its recurrence emboldens more governments to flout the letter and spirit of free speech that also embraces the profession of journalism. 

Whatever the advances made in information and communication technologies together with the availability of an impressive range of information disseminating outlets, a free, fair and independently functioning journalism is not without its load of challenges.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)