Julian Assange: I Am Free Because I Pleaded Guilty to Journalism
Stella Assange (L) and Julian Assange (R), Oct. 1, 2024. X/ @Tr724
October 1, 2024 Hour: 6:49 am
The Council of Europe Assembly is scheduled to vote on a resolution whose draft considers him a political prisoner.
On Tuesday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stated that if he is free now, it is because he “pled guilty to doing journalism.”
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“I want to be absolutely clear: I am not free because the system worked. I am free, after years of imprisonment, because I pled guilty to doing journalism,” said Assange, who broke his silence today after being released in June from the United Kingdom’s Belmarsh maximum-security prison.
“I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source, and I pled guilty to informing the public about what that information was. I have not pled guilty to anything else,” continued Assange, who was deprived of freedom from 2012 to 2024, first at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and then in prison.
Assange’s release was made possible after an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, in which he pled guilty to violating the Espionage Act, which carried a 62-month prison sentence that was annulled due to the time he had already served in Belmarsh.
Assange, who considered himself a political prisoner because the U.S. charged him with 18 counts of espionage and computer intrusion, said, “The transition from years of imprisonment in a maximum-security prison to appearing before representatives of 46 countries has been a truly profound change.”
The WikiLeaks founder also said that his agreement with U.S. justice prevents him from suing the country over its extradition request and seeking information on what happened, and he claimed that the CIA has remained “unpunished” before his country’s judges.
Assange, who became famous in 2010 after leaking hundreds of thousands of secret or sensitive documents that revealed the United States’ secrets from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said that “journalists must be activists for the truth.”
“My readjustment to the world includes some positive things but also complicated ones, like going back to being a father to a child who has grown up without me. Going back to being a husband,” Assange said during a nearly hour-and-a-half speech at the Council of Europe.
“He is still suffering the effects… of the harsh conditions he has been subjected to,” said his wife Stella Assange, who accompanied him on this occasion, and avoided answering whether the Australian plans to publish new reports.
On Wednesday, the Council of Europe Assembly is scheduled to vote on a resolution whose draft considers Assange a political prisoner. This is precisely one of the reasons that led him to accept the “exceptional invitation” from the Council of Europe.
The text, written by Icelandic lawmaker Thorhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir, also warns of the “chilling effect” that his detention may have had on the journalistic profession.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
